Hello from Valencia, Spain everyone!
It was actually quite the surprise that I’m in Valencia right now, because going into the US Championships in Boston, we had no chance of going to the World Championships, not because we couldn’t possibly qualify, but because it wasn’t part of our schedule for the build-up toward Eugene and Beijing this summer. So when our group (Matt Tegenkamp, myself, and Jonathon Riley) finished the race 1-2-3, we were pretty pumped, but already had plans of getting back to the high mileage for a while to build the strength for this summer. In our view the races we ran this winter served only as a break from the monotony of our training regimen. So when Jerry Schumacher told Jonathon and I that we were going to Worlds, it was quite the surprise that helped to make a mediocre race look a little better.
The race itself was, as I said, mediocre. The time wasn’t fast, but it was a championship. I felt alright, but it was slow for 2200 meters and essentially turned into an 800. We closed fast as I was 1:54 for the last 800, which surprised me because prior to US nationals we did only two track workouts, so that was all off of strength, which was encouraging. Of course, it would have been nice to come out on top, but it was a good step in the season and a much better race then I had at Notre Dame.
Now we have three workouts in entering this race; otherwise, nothing has changed in our training leading up to this weekend. It was temping to focus on speed work and try to get that finishing gear sharpened, but we are 100% focused on this summer with the goal to get ourselves to the Olympic Games. With suddenly going to Worlds, the only thing that may be different is that our rebuild of mileage is delayed a couple of weeks. However, the workouts haven’t changed—we’re still doing our 10-mile tempo runs each week.
The last few days we quite busy for me, as the Big Ten Championships were held in Madison, so I was there both days cheering on my former teammates to victory. It was great to see so many people show up to support the Badgers, and I didn’t think that many people even knew where the Shell was, much less would go there for a meet. Also, it was fun watching my roommate Brandon Bethke continue his breakthrough season, as he learned a lot about racing and showed he is the next person to lead the Badgers’ distance crew.
After the meet this weekend, Jonathon and I began our trip from hell. This trip was the most aggravating trip of my life, and it started from the very beginning. In Madison, our flight from Madison to Chicago was cancelled, so we transferred airlines from United to American and they decided to use paper bag tags, not the electronic ones, which made me uncomfortable. We waited at the counter getting things straightened out until 20 minutes before our flight was scheduled to depart, had to go through security where both Jonathon and I were stopped and searched. Our flight from Madison to Chicago was delayed 30 minutes which left us 45 minutes to go from one end of the Chicago airport to the other to catch our flight barely to London. On this flight I couldn’t sleep because the person in front of me kept changing seats to sleep and kept reclining his chairs, which would hit my knees and add to my stellar mood. Once in London, we were met by nothing. Our bags never made the flight, and because they had paper tickets and not electronic ones, there was no way to trace the bags, which meant unless they turned up in London eventually, they would be lost forever. To top it off, we had to change airlines and our bags weren’t checked through to Valencia, so we were supposed to claim then and recheck them. After spending about an hour with a very friendly gentleman filling out paper work, we went to catch our flight to Valencia. Luckily Jonathon talked me into tying my running shoes to my backpack right before I checked my luggage in Madison, or I would have nothing to run in, and we had our spikes and uniform in the carry-on as well.
Once we arrived in Valencia we were met by USATF staff members and found out many others had luggage problems, so we didn’t feel as bad. One piece of good news came when I received a call stating that our bags had arrived in London and would be placed on three different flights to get to Valencia and delivered by the airline to our hotel. (Not too comfortable about this….) We were taken to athlete accreditation, where we got our passes for the weekend, then to the hotel, where we checked in and promptly went for a run with Rob Myers, who was on our shuttle to the hotel. As of right now (11:00 p.m. on Wednesday), we still have not received our bags and have been in the same clothes since 2:00 p.m. Central Time Monday. Needless to say, I feel kind of gross and not too happy about this situation, but I’m trying to be optimistic that our bags will show up tomorrow sometime, as I race in less than two days. I will not let this get me down as I’m here to race and gain much-needed experience for this summer.
Valencia is beautiful. We do most of our running on a river bed that they diverted the water from and now is an awesome park that goes on for miles. The architecture is incredible, and the city is great. It is awesome going from below-freezing temperatures to 60s and 70s, though it is deceiving because we are on the Mediterranean Sea, so the wind is very strong, making it feel quite cool, but I’ll take what I can get.
It’s been crazy being part of my first US team,. It’s something I’ve been trying for the last 5 years and been unsuccessful in obtaining. It was great to get the U.S. gear finally after trying all those times. Now the guys on my team can stop rubbing it in that I’ve never made a team and everyone else has U.S. gear. I never realized how organized everyone is and how much planning goes into everything. The USATF staff members do a great job taking care of the details so that the athlete has no worries.
Well this has gotten long, so I’ll cut it short and talk about the race logistics and goals tomorrow. Hopefully all is well back home. Until tomorrow……
