I ate lunch today with Lebron, Kobe, and Jason Kidd. OK, so there were another 5,000 other athletes in the cafeteria eating at the same time, but it was cool to see the “big name” athletes eating the same mass-produced food the rest of us plebes were chowing down on.
The one major difference between the NBAers lunch and my lunch was that their table was roped off so they could actually sit down and eat their lunch in peace.
Barcelona, Stockholm, London, Amsterdam. Two weeks, three races, and some hard training thrown in just in case I wasn’t tired enough. As I sit in my hotel room in Amsterdam that sums up the last 14 days. Tomorrow I hit the road for Beijing for two days, after which I head to Singapore for 10 days in Athletics Canada’s pre-Olympics training camp.
Two weeks ago I hopped a flight for Barcelona for the start of what was supposed to be two final tune-up races before getting into my final preparations for Beijing. Racing after just arriving from North America can sometimes be a crap shoot. I have stepped off the plane running personal bests before, and have had other times where I was unable to get over the jet lag and posted mediocre performances.
Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.
-- William Jennings Bryan
This was the quote that was scrawled on the piece of paper I found in my track spike the day prior to the qualifying round of the Canadian Olympic Trials. I recognized the handwriting immediately as being that of my wife. She’s very big into motivational quotes. Every week when she e-mails the training to the girls she coaches at Florida State University there is usually some sort of motivational rah-rah, go-get-em type quote included.
I’ve never been much for motivational quotes myself. I prefer to get motivated from training and racing and never feel much need for motivation from anyone other than myself. But I found this time that this motivational quote gave me a sense of calm and focus, something I had been lacking in the two weeks leading up to the Olympic Trials.
Home buying is a stressful process. I hate haggling over prices. I find automobile purchasing to be one of the most distasteful practices I have ever been part of -- buyer and seller both trying to get the better deal. Home buying is not much better, especially when you have sellers trying to stick to a price in a buyers market.
One thing I am not stressed about is Olympic qualifying. Some people may find that strange after my last two race results, a 5th place finish in an 800m at the Victoria International Track Classic, and a 4th place finish in a 1500m at the Harry Jerome International two days later.
It’s not often that I would say I benefited much from races where I wasn’t challenging for the win down the homestretch, but these two meets had a different purpose. With only a day between races this is a situation similar to the first two rounds at the Olympics and it is the only time this season when I was able to get used to the feeling of running races on tired legs and recovering enough to come back and perform at a high level less that 48 hours later.
It is amazing how time flies when you get so focused on a goal that everything else around you becomes meaningless. A few weeks ago the stress of having a disaster at a home I am trying to sell couldn’t keep me from my goal of qualifying for a third Olympic Games (four if you count the 1996 Games that I missed because of Achilles tendon surgery).
We are now less than a month away from the Olympic Trials, and less than two months from Beijing and I am happy to say I am firing on all cylinders both physically and mentally.
I have only raced once since securing my Olympic qualifying time at the Adidas Track Classic. Right after the L.A. meet I hopped on a flight to Champaign, Ill., to check on my home. I have never been so thankful for insurance as there was close to $30,000 in damage that I was fully covered for. The worst part is that I now have to take my house off the market during prime selling season. My only hope is that the housing market will start to improve once the repairs are completed.
What started out as a terrible week ended with me getting one step closer to punching my ticket to the Olympic Games.
Sunday was the first major professional track meet of my 2008 outdoor season. After a relatively sparse indoor season, I started the outdoor season with a couple of low-key 1500m and 800m races before heading out to Stanford University two weeks ago for the Cardinal invitational.
What was supposed to be a legitimate shot at Canada’s Olympic qualifying standard in the 1500m (3:36.60) ended up being a somewhat disappointing 3:39 race. Things had been looking fantastic heading into Stanford as a great contingent of six-seven professional runners all looking to run fast were entered and ready to toe the line.
