Olympic Trials: Day 1

Well, after driving 11 hours in 100+ degree heat, unpacking my car, repacking my stuff for the trials, waiting at the airport for 6 hours and taking two flights up to Eugene, I finally made it to the Olympic Trials at around 11am. I checked into the dorms and settled in a little.

The dorms set up is pretty sweet. For $49 a night, I have a place to sleep, a place to keep all my stuff, I'm about 200 feet from the track, about 50 feet from the cafeteria (3 meals a day included), and less than half a mile from the trails. I debated taking a nap when I got there, but instead I went down to the Brooks house/Flotrack HQ, which is just down the street. I hung out with them for most of the afternoon and met some really cool people. There were athletes coming in and out all day and we just spent most of our time laying out in the sun, grilling food, and helping out with the flotrack coverage.

It wasn't until around 5pm that we went into the stadium for the evening events. The weather was great and the races were awesome. We sold a few of our extra tickets to Chase, Fake Bob and Tristan that followed the White Pearl up from New Mexico. These guys were pretty cool and I ended up spending most of the day with them, as well as Brendan Carr, a current UMaine trackie. You can see a few of these guys in the picture below with Dathan Ritzenhein.

The races were phenomenal tonight as we saw the mens and womens 800 prelims, mens 5k prelims, and womens 10K final. Every event here is exciting to watch and the crowd gets so into it all, however, the womens 10k was by far the most exciting race of the night. The guys in our group were going nuts and I pretty much lost my voice yelling for Amy Yoder-Begley, who is my new hero! I have never been more involved with a womens 10k, but with so many studs to cheer for, there was never a moment when I wasn't cheering for someone or going nuts over something. Right after the race, we went down to the track to get a closer look at the Olympic team and in the process we saw Galen Rupp, and got a picture with him. It was a great conclusion of the meet and we were all filled with adrenaline for some after parties.

Just after that, I bumped into Mariko and Carrie who joined us in the festivities at McMenimans. We stayed out pretty late splitting quite a few pitchers of beer and having a grand ol' time. It was a very exciting first day and I am pumped to see what else is in store for us over the next week and a half.