Oregon Twilight Meet

(Start of the women's 3k steeple)

            This weekend I traveled down to Track Town USA to compete at the University of Oregon’s Twilight meet. This was the first track meet of the year where I did not have to go to the airport and fly to my destination. I could finally bring whatever liquids and number of bags I wanted! What freedom. Instead of getting on board a Boeing 737 I hopped aboard a Red Chrysler minivan with three other male pole vaulters and two pole bags strapped to the roof and made the journey down to Eugene, OR.                 

            Traveling with three male vaulters makes for a fun and very interesting trip. Their taste in music was excellent and the conversations very humorous. I listened quietly as they discussed ways to pick up other girl vaulters. Apparently if you forget to bring straps to fasten your pole bags to your vehicle, seat belts or pieces of clothing work just fine.  Pants work pretty well so if you have a pretty girl riding with you, you can conveniently forget your straps and then you both must take off your pants so the poles can stay on the car. Or you can go one step further and tell the female that bras are the sturdiest material for doing this.

                The ride down was uneventful and I was able to get a nice nap in since the van provided plenty of leg room. Traffic was terrible especially near Portland but traveling with friends makes it go by faster and not matter as much especially since I did not have to drive. Ryan did the bulk of the driving which was awesome. I did discover a couple of interesting facts on this trip, guys like to have dance parties in mini vans, if you are Italian you can easily roll your “r’s,” the only thing slowing food to the stomach is the esophagus, pushing down the driver’s knee is an effective way to go faster, Goodwill is where you go for great deals on used underwear and The Avengers is a bad ass movie.  Had I traveled by air or alone I would have missed out on all this new found knowledge.

(Traffic...)

                We arrived at our cheap hotel Friday evening and headed out to Red Robin for some burgers, endless fries, and bottomless root beer floats. Without even trying, this is becoming a pre-meet routine of ours. Levi loves Red Robin and being Red Robin “Royalty” we must continue to make an appearance lest a fry go to waste.

(While we waited for our table the guys tried their skills with the claw.)

      After dinner Scott treated us to a night at the movies and we headed out to watch The Avengers. It was a good thing we bought tickets before dinner or it would have been sold out. We arrived early so we could all sit together and strategize our plan of action for doing so. Once in the theater you don’t mess around looking for the perfect seat, go to the top and grab the first four you see. This plan worked out perfectly. The movie was very entertaining and I would definitely watch it again. Afterwards the guys were pumped and ready to grab and throw cars across the interstate. Back at the hotel I was able to fall right asleep but I don’t know if the guys were that lucky with visions of Hulk and Thor raging in their heads.

(Coming out of the water jump)

(Levi vaulting at the Oregon Twilight)

MEET DAY

                The morning of the meet I went out for an easy two mile shake out and found myself being cheered on by a group of small children as I ran past. People were saying hello and were very friendly. It was a little chilly, in comparison to the California weather I have been racing in, but good for running at roughly 50 degrees. There was a bit of a wind and I was hoping it would die down for my race then pick back up for the vaulters.

                I ate lunch around 2:30pm but for some reason my food was not digesting very well and I found myself on my warm up at 5:00pm with a very heavy stomach. When it came time to race I felt alright but still had a full stomach. As the gun went off I got out to a decent start and tried to stay relaxed. I was able to see all of the hurdles as this race strung out pretty early. I knew this going in and wanted this to happen so I could practice my hurdle technique but with the head wind I was finding myself wishing for a pack to run in.

                I came through 1800m around 6:01 which is perfect except I wasn’t feeling that great. Mentally I was having trouble pushing into that next gear and physically my legs did not want to jump. I think all of the travel and racing the past three weeks had caught up to me. When I crossed the line the clock read 10:07. I was a little bummed at first then realized this tied the second fastest time I had ever run and last year it would have been a PR for me. I am moving in the right direction and for this to be my “not so hot race” is encouraging.

                I originally was not planning on racing the Twilight meet but decided it would be a good opportunity to get some practice in and see what I could do when I could see the hurdles. I tried to be confident and focused the week of the race but to be honest, I could tell my body was a bit tired and probably not in prime condition to go for another PR. But this race made me very hungry for the next and this is what happened leading up to my PR at Stanford. This week I added in some cross training on the spin bike to give my legs a break from the pounding but while increasing my aerobic volume. I had two solid workouts and feel ready for my race next Friday night. I will be racing at the USATF Oxy High Performance Track Meet against a stacked women’s field in the steeple. As FloTrack stated, this meet is going to be like a mini Olympic Trials and I couldn’t be more excited to have the opportunity to race.

Race Video courtesy of RunnerSpace: