We arrived in Tuscaloosa Friday night about 15 minutes before packet pickup closed. After picking up our packets, eating our first dinner and checking into the hotel room we headed out to Olive Garden for a real dinner. The "we" I am referring too here is Travis Decker- IconOne teammate, friend, and bed-buddy from Germany, Shelly Campbell- my coach, IconOne founder and coach, Alexandra Weber- IconOne teammate who lives in my metroplex, Alex's parents, A kid from California, his mom and coach who also is the RADC for their region (as is Shelly), and of course me.
The next morning all of us slept in except Travis who got up around 6 am to go on a ridiculous T-shirt finding mission at the race site. I rolled out of bed a little after 8 and headed out for an easy 20' jog with a few pickups. 9:30 am Rudy (California kid), Alex, Travis and I rolled out to go ride the race course. Shelly was driving the SAG vehicle but we all stuck together pretty well. The bike course was a single loop with a few fairly decent climbs.
Back at the hotel we showered, grabbed some lunch, and headed back to the race site for the Olympic Trials. WOW! What a pair of exciting races they were. We got there about halfway through the womens bike and got to watch Julie Ertel run away from Sarah Haskins and Sarah Groff to claim the 2nd Olympic spot.
The Mens race was even better. Andy Potts led out of the water by a whopping 48 seconds but the trio of Hunter Kemper, Brian Fleischman and Matt Reed caught him halfway through the bike. On the last lap (there were 8) Reed broke away on a hill and came out of T2 with :25 lead on the others. We didn't think he would hold it as he traditionally hasn't been as fast a runner as Potts, and Kemper but after 2 laps (of 4) he had actually lengthened his lead. Coming down the finishing he had enough time to celebrate and slap hands with the crowd. Me and Travis were both standing right along the chute and got to feel the sweaty touch of victory graze our palms.
For full olympic trials results go to http://www.onlineraceresults.com/event/view_event.php?event_id=2469 and click on either elite men or elite women.
My own race report will follow in another post sometime in the near future.
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