Germany Update #3

Well yesterday was the race. I'm sure most of you have already checked results and stuff so I won't go into great detail. Let me suffice to say that Travis had an awesome race and mine was somewhere between so-so and very poor. I'm not quite sure of the reason but my bike was way slow. Good run split for me though so that is something to be encouraged about. Travis was ninth overall and 4th American so he did really good.

In between racing we got to watch the women's pro race on Saturday which was sooo cool. We didn't get as good a spot as for the Mens U23 race because the stands were already full but we got to see plenty of the action. USA was really well represented with Laura Bennet coming so close to a silver medal. Emma Snowsill chaced her down from a minute back to pass her in the last kilometer for silver. Still bronze is really good. Especially at a world championship. Vanessa Fernandey won and she and Snowsill both ran so fast.

After our race we went over to watch the pro men. INSANE. It was so awesome. This time we got a spot right on the barricade about 150m from the finish line so we got to see them every bike lap and every run loop. It was nuts. I've never seen so many people come to watch a triathlon. Ever. The entire course was lined with people 3, 4, 5 rows deep. We cheered and screamed as loud as we could. Especially being surrounded by Germans we had to. As the athletes whizzed by on their bikes we were nearly run over my Matt Reed (USA) because we were leaning so far out.

USA did pretty good and Andy Potts was the top American in 11th spot. He had a great race and ran a 30:54 10k, but what can youd do when Gomez and Under both ran sub 30? Coming around the last turn it was Gomez in front with Unger on his heels and we were screaming at gomez because we didn't want the German to win. But no use Unger sprinted by right in front of us and the crowd was going absolutely nuts. It was still pretty sweet and we had a great time.

Then we went back to the hotel to drop our bikes off and then over to where the big post-race party and awards ceremony was. The party was definitely intense. Let's just say that on our voucher we had one meal ticket and about 6 drink tickets. And I think many people used more then that. The Aussie's were especially crazy and the New Zealanders got up and did some tribal dance without their shirts on. I would say there were probably a good 3-4 thousand people there.

A bunch of us juniors just chilled at a table and it was kinda funny to look over and realize that Andy Potts was standing about 10 ft away from you with some of his buddies. They look so different when their not in Spandex with their name across their front and backside. A bunch of people had brought stuff to trade like team shirts, and jackets, and stuff like that. If I go I'm definitely going to bring extra USA stuff so I can trade with like Japan, and Australia and people like that.

Today we just chilled and went to the mall and walked around looking at shops. Back at the hotel I think were going to pack and maybe hit the sauna and pool. We may go back out tonight to eat dinner or something depending on when our flight leaves tomorrow. I need to check that.

We should land in DFW tomorrow along with our bikes if all goes well. Its been a fun trip and you can go check results at triathlon.org. Check some of those tricast videos. If you see some young looking guys holding video cameras and leaning way out over the barricade cheering as loud as the can for whatever American is going by... It's probably us.