Yeah I know how you feel. I panicked too when I woke up and
saw that. How am I supposed to get to breakfast if the only way is a trap?!
Turns out that’s just the word for stairway in Dutch. I just thought they were warning me of my immanent
death. Guess not! Luckily the
elevator worked(even if it wasn’t a trap, there’s no way I’m risking that to
miss breakfast) so I was able to make it down A-OK. Breakfast yet again ruled.
American Holiday Inn Express breakfast’s may have bomb cinnamon buns, but the
ones here totally top that with the various breads and mini Nutellas. Yeah
that’s right Nutellla. I love this continent. Also now that I’ve had milk in 3 different countries I’ll
make note that it tastes different everywhere I have been. Weird to think since I figured a cow is
a cow and a chocolate milk cow is a chocolate milk cow, but no. They all taste
different and the chocolate milk here is the best I’ve ever had. Sorry NYS Fair
but your chocolate milk cows produce inferior milk. Yours may be 25 cents and ice cold, but this shit rules!
After breakfast we went to go pick up the rental car which
included A.) Taking the train(and the hassle of getting train tickets, which ends
up being never-ending) back to the airport B.) trying to find the rental car
desk (which turns out doesn’t actually exist) C.) realizing we need to call to
get the shuttle D.) realizing said call won’t work because we can’t use our
phones here E.) having to use a payphone F.) spending way too much money on
said payphone because its like 30 sec per Euro G.) getting rental car H.)
realizing because the phones don’t work we won’t be able to get directions and I.)
renting a GPS to prevent any future unplanned adventures. Needless to say it was a fiasco but
finally we got the Lamborghini we rented. Worth it.
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| The new whip. |
The car was a stick shift which meant that I wouldn’t be
driving this adventure. Someday
I’ll learn. I mean I guess technically I know how now, but let me tell you.
Unless you’re looking for an adventure(or over 40 and want to risk heart
attack), you’ll probably be safer hitch hiking. The drive was like 3
hours. And aside from the weird
traffic patterns, and traffic jams, was pretty awesome. The Netherlands countryside is really
awesome. Lots of farms and
windmills. But also canals of water. Everywhere. Like square patches of farms completely surrounded by water
canals. Really cool. They for sure have to have flooding
problems. I’m cool with the snowstorms we get back home. They can have the floods. Its easier to shovel snow than it is
water. Though swimming around a
farm would be pretty cool. I’d also like to take this time to note how
extravagant the signs are when driving into a new country here. They aren’t. At all. We have bigger and more exciting signs
welcoming us to Phoenix, New York than they have signs welcoming you to
Belgium. They don’t even say
welcome! Its just a small blue sign that says “Belgium”. What am I not welcome?!
Do you not want me here?! I hope you do. Because I want to be here. Eventually we arrived in Oordegem. Oordegem is this little village in the
country, and the track was located in this athletic complex type place. The only thing to note about Oordegem
was they had a “club” in town. Actually it wasn’t even in town. I’m pretty sure
it was just this guys house. It
was called the Poco Loco Club.
Real sketchy. I fully regret not going. I bet that place is bumpin on
the weekends. Probably similar to the Woosah Lounge back home.
When we got to the complex we were pretty lost and had no idea
where to go. The place itself is
called Bolso. Its like a state run
athletic complex. I guess they have a few across the country. What was cool was they had places for
athletes to stay on premises and by staying you also got all your meals in a
cafeteria. Kind of like a summer camp except there’s no lights out or camp
songs. The dorm Martin and I
stayed in had 5 beds, but luckily we had the place to ourselves. Score! Plan
for the night. Poco Loco. Plan for when Poco Loco closes. Bring the party back
to the dorm! So anyways after searching a few different buildings, we found the
check in and picked up our room key.
We were pretty early so no one had really checked in yet. We decided that since we’d have a few
hours to kill we’d go check out the city of Gent before coming back to do
premeet and eat dinner.
Gent ended up being a lot cooler than I thought it’d be. I’ll go ahead and confess that I know
practically nothing about Europe(I’ve actually realized this a lot during my
time over here. Dear US schools. Teach us more about the world. That’d be
cool.). That being said I guess
Gent is one of Belgium’s larger cities.
We just spent about an hour and a half walking around and looking at
buildings, shopping, checking out chicks etc. Pretty cool stuff. All these European cities are super old
and it rules. They also seem to be
way cleaner than most US cities(for the most part) which blows my mind. I’ve
been in my room for like 10 years maybe and I can barely keep that thing clean.
Let alone these cities which are like 8 million years old and somehow cleaner
than my room.
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| That’s a whole lot of drug deals. |
After our little excursion we returned to the track to do our
premeet workouts. During warmup there were a couple guys doing some drills and
one had a Georgia Track and Field shirt on. Naturally my longing for fellow Americans led me to question
him and his friend. Turns out they
were from America! He went to
Georgia and the other Texas Tech.
I guess there was a whole group of them who were part of this like
mission group called Athletes in Action.
They were in Belgium for a month and were just competing and doing
mission stuff. USA! USA! During premeet I did some 100s around the track and
while I was resting I saw a woman with a Big East Conference hoodie on. So
naturally I asked what school she went to. Never in a million years did I think
I’d hear the next word out of her mouth... Georgetown. I immediately put my guard up and was
ready to fight if it came down to it.
She asked where I was from so naturally I puffed out my chest and said
SYRACUSE! Shit got real tense. We
had some small talk a bit and then finally I asked what event she ran…400 hurdles. Tension broke. We then had a good long conversation
after and even joked about the Syracuse/Georgetown thing. She was really cool.
I still hate Georgetown. I’ll always hate Georgetown.
Dinner was in a cafeteria type place. Summer camp style. I felt like I was in
Middle School again. It was
actually really awesome. After
dinner I began the search for Wifi. It basically ceased to exist. There was one picnic table where people
seemed to get it, but it was spotty at best. So I just sat and hung out with the people at the table.
Foreshadowing note. The 1500 at this meet is absolutely stacked with American
1500 runners. More on that later. End foreshadowing note. They were all US 1500
runners sitting at the table. Specifically Garrett Heath, Jack Bolas and Craig
Miller. RAD! I sat there like a giddy school girl. Except not. In my mind I was
but on the outside I played it cool. Well kind of. I think at one point during
introductions I said something along the lines of “I know” when Garrett introduced
himself to me. Oops. Fan Boy central over here. After that I watched a bit of
Bridesmaids with Martin in our room and then went to bed.
Saturday was finally meet day. After having to recite everyone’s name and hometown back to
the counselor at breakfast, Martin and I went in search for an ATM. Which proved to be harder to find than
wifi in this country. After about
3 towns and 4 banks we finally found an ATM that would work in a nearby town of
which I don’t remember the name of.
All I know is that it took us over an hour to find an ATM and this place
had 8 of them. Guess they just
store them all in one place in Belgium. They should really just share the
wealth. After that Martin went to
go get his hair cut and I hung around the track until it was time for me to
run. While I was doing my
typically routine of pacing and then sitting, each for no more than a few
minutes at a time, I ended up talking to another American at the meet. He was from San Diego and was here with
a few other post collegiates. We
talked about him throwing at USA Championships and what it was like competing
after college. He was a Volunteer
Assistant this past year at UCSD and was able to still train while coaching and
attending Law School. Hell yeah! I
also met his coach(who is the coach at UCSD) and two other female sprinters who
were competing. They’d come over for 2 weeks just to compete. His coach(Mick) and I had some awesome
conversations throughout the day. Everything from training, to competing, to
what I should do as someone aspiring to get into the field of coaching. He was
super helpful. I’ve met a bunch of awesome people so far.
Eventually it was time for me to start warming up. I was in the preprogram again so I
raced early in the afternoon. I’ll
save all the small details and cut to the chase. Heres my race.
I ended up running a seasons best of 53.05. And I finished top
American in the race! Count it! To be honest, going into this race I had set my
goal pretty high. But after I
finished and found out what the result was(slower than my goal) I was
surprisingly happy. In fact I was
ecstatic. All season I struggled
to get down to times that were close to my PR. So after my second hurdle race here and where we are in the
training, to run 53.05, I was beyond pumped. It definitely was a huge confidence boost for me. And the race itself wasn’t all that
great! Which makes it even better! I blame it on the fact that my number had my
name on it. I’ve always wanted one of those.
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| That says my name! THAT SAYS MY NAME! |
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| The lean! No lean… |
So for the rest of the night I got to sit and enjoy the meet. This
is my kind of party. Actually.
This whole trip is my kind of party.
Martin ran real well again. 14.52 into a headwind! They also had wheelchair races. 100 and 200. In the main program! It was super awesome. The winner actually crashed into the
camera men at the finish and his wheelchair flipped. It was awkward to watch
because he couldn’t get back over himself and no one really seemed to be
helping him. I guess it’s a good
thing they wear helmets. Kids take
note. Safety First. Protection
Last. Always wear your seatbelt. Only you can prevent forest fires. PSA end. The other Americans I met ran pretty well. One of the girls
from San Diego even won the 200! Aside from them, I got to see a new Danish
record run in the 400 and the guy who won the 800 was from Senegal but wore a
super retro Santa Monica Track Club speedsuit. I didn’t even know that club still existed! This dude
probably just traveled through time.
That’s the only explanation I have for that speedsuit existing. I want
one.
Finally it came to the event I had been waiting for the whole
day. The mens 1500. The field was stacked. Beyond stacked. A good majority from the US. Names
like: Will Leer(best stache since Prefontaine), Jordan McNamera, Andy Bayer,
Ryan Hill, Andrew Bumbalough, and Alan Webb. ALAN GOSH DANG WEBB! American
record holder in the mile. American
high school record holder in the mile. American’s golden boy! Granted. He
hasn’t run so well in the last 5 years. But its still ALAN WEBB! Rad. Though Webb had the fastest seed, he
was put in the B heat because his times of late have not been so good. He got crushed. Bad. Its ok Alan Webb. You still rule. Hill ended up winning the heat in a
decent time. Then came the A
heat. YESSS!! This race ended up
incredible. An American didn’t win
it, but almost every American ran incredibly. At that point I think only 1 USA runner had hit the World
Championship A standard. Well
after that race 4 had hit it as well as 13 running sub 3:40 and almost everyone
ran a PR. +1 for USA distance
running. Can’t believe I got to
witness that race. Someone made a
joke that Alan Webb had broken the American Record in the mile in a race in
Belgium and that he was going to run 3:46(That’s his American record time in
case you didn’t know) in this race.
He did run 3:46. Then I
realized that he tied his mile PR in a 1500. I immediately got sad. I still love you Alan Webb. Anyways the
race was unbelievable. In case you
wanted to know. Heres the results from it:
http://liveresults.be/2013/memorialbuyle/event029h02.html
 |
| That stache man! |
After the race, Martin and I went in search of some wifi. We settled for a classic Irish
restaurant. Slick Don’s. Better
known as McDonald’s. We first
walked in and attempted to get wifi.
It was a no go. So we went back
in the car and typed wifi into the GPS. In case you’re wondering. A GPS can’t take you to wifi. What are they good for anyways. As I sat in the car I pulled out my
laptop to upload some pictures and somehow I was getting real spotty wifi.
Success! Sort of. Martin still couldn’t get it. After a while I convinced him to ask some locals if Slick
Don’s actually had wifi. Turns out
they actually did and we just didn’t see it at first! I bought an ice cream and
settled in a bit. Getting the
plans for tomorrows race and checking my usual running websites. They were already talking about the
1500 I had just seen. I mean how
can you not?! It was probably the fastest and best overall 1500 ever run by
Americans. Too bad they all have
to come to Europe in the summer to do it. USATF. SERIOUSLY! After the wifi
extravaganza, we headed back to the track. Along the way there was a
windmill(they’re everywhere!) and a cool sunset and a hot air balloon. Sup artsy photo op! I’m not artsy. In
fact. I take pretty bad photos. I’m going to be the best Dad on Vacation when
I’m older.
 |
| That’s real. |
We got back and the after program was still going on. What’s super cool about all these meets
is they have a golf course like club house at them. Which has a bar in it.
So after the meets everyone just hangs out and socializes. Celebrating good races or forgetting
bad ones. USATF!!!! Dude that’s what we need. A way for your average Joe to get off his ass and come watch
some races after a football game on Sunday. Bars at meets.
That’ll do it. I hung out
with Garrett and Jack and Craig for a while chatting while they celebrated
their massive PRs. Yeah we’re on a first name basis. No were not. We just talked about life as a pro
runner, various stories about collegiate running and where they were going to
be the rest of the summer. It was
super awesome. I guess they might
be at a few of my meets coming up. RAD! By then my fan boyness will probably be
long gone. Who am I kidding. No it won’t.
Every sport needs fans right? That’s what I’ll keep telling myself
anyways. I had to race again the
following day so I turned in early. Gotta get those ZZZ’s yanno? I’ll leave this entry with two pictures. One is the trashcan in our dorm and the
second is a new gym I just bought a membership to. Belgium you rule.
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| Plastics of Mass Destruction. Belgium takes National Security real seriously. |
 |
| I wonder if they have Meat Heads similar to Gold’s Gym? |
Go Mitch, go!!!
ReplyDeletefunny story. I just had an interview for a position at UCSD!
ReplyDelete