Racing in Europe Part 4: the slow down

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Part Three here

Germany sounded boring. Germany was not boring.

Leuven was when things started to get boring. 

On my first day in Europe, I was lucky to run into another athlete, Canadian 1500m runner Malindi Elmore, who introduced me to the Bed & Breakfast St Jacob, which she found by emailing a bunch of B&Bs and only getting one response. The fact that this was the only place that responded was not a bad thing. It was a little slice of heaven in an ideal town, complete with a reasonably stocked kitchen. It was only slightly more expensive than the dorms, which many other athletes were staying in, but came with breakfast food and a full-sized bed. 

You can view another example of living accommodations on Shayla Houlihan's blog. 

Lisa stayed at the B&B after we returned from the UK, and then took off first thing in the morning on a train back to Kamen-Kaiserau. No car this time. Let's just say that Lisa shouldn't be driving a stick, and leave it at that. I would be staying in Leuven for the rest of my trip.

I met Kim and one of my other sometimes training partners, Marina Muncan, at their hotel and then finally learned where the track was. We met a huge group at the track, including Shayla and another fellow steeplechic, Erin Bedell. After an easy run and watching Kim finish up her workout, we walked back into town. And then I spent the rest of the day doing what I would be doing for the rest of the week: alternating between eating food and drinking coffee. This is also when I started to become addicted to Facebook (I am no longer, don't stage an intervention). 

The most annoying complication when traveling to Europe is dealing with communication. It's actually a bit infuriating that in our supposed global economy, the wireless providers see international travel as an opportunity to rape the consumer. A fee here and there makes sense, as wireless providers have to cooperate to make things happen, sort of like a bank transaction fee. I get that. But, wireless companies don't just pick your pockets and take your change. They bash you over the head, steal your purse, run up your credit cards and kidnap your children. 

Now that I have gotten that out of my system, the situation is basically like this: if you have a blackberry, you're a little ahead of the game. Last year you were way ahead, as there was an unlimited international data add-on for $30 (yes, this is on top of what you're already paying, including the domestic data that you're not using while abroad). This year they capped the international data, but blackberries are not very data heavy and they come with BBM, which is a fantastic low-data way to communicate between blackberries. 

Then there's the iPhone (which is what I have). My $59 add-on gave me enough data to periodically check my email and occasionally use Maps to find my way, but the entire trip was still a game of how little data could I use. Yes, internationally I am reduced to walking around with my phone in the air, searching for open WiFi signals. I am proud to announce that I used 48.35 of my 50MB of data. It was tough to get that close, and I left a buffer in case of late surprise charges. But it's not fun to be constantly counting the MBs, and it's also not fun to tack an extra $100 onto a trip between data and being on-hold with Scandinavian airlines after they screwed up my flight (more on that later). That's on top of what I'm already paying for domestic service that I'm not using. 

Those are the two phones I am well versed in. Somehow, a couple people completely failed to do something to their phones before they left that would make them work at all overseas. Those were the people I had to communicate with exclusively through Facebook. The other good option for communication is an app called Whatsapp, which is available on both iPhones and blackberries, and is similar to BBM. It still required me to use international data or seek our WiFi. 

By the end of the first day, I had my four WiFi spots that would become my WiFi jail for the next couple weeks: Kim's hotel (got the password from the front desk), Koffie Onan (got the password from Lisa), McDonalds (yes, I cracked and ate the food) and my B&B. 

This was my week before the one race that I secretly cared a lot about, and I had to treat it accordingly. I didn't take any day trips to Bruges or Antwerp. I got sleep. I read a little. Ran a little. I did not spend nearly as much time with other people as I thought I would, as everyone else found ways to save as much money as possible, which resulted in a lot less time at coffee shops and restaurants for them. 

On Tuesday, I paired up with Marina for a workout. She was getting ready for a 1500m on Saturday at the same meet I was running the 3000m steeplechase at. We did 3x800m together in about 2:28. She then did some faster stuff, while I did 4x300m over hurdles and a 200m over hurdles just because I was annoyed that my last 300m wasn't faster. During this workout, I knew things were different. Going into the US Champs, I felt awful running 800m at that same pace. It felt like a grind. This time, it felt like a tempo run. With the exception of one hurdle where people were watching and I developed stage fright, all hurdles were easy and relaxed. I tried not to think about the fact that I hadn't done a water jump in weeks and wasn't going to before my race. 

On Thursday I relocated to Gent. This turned out to be a mistake. Where I was a little bored in Leuven, I was bored beyond any sort of boredom I have ever experienced in Gent. The meet had given me a hotel room, which is why I had relocated. It turns out that I was expected to pay for the first night, and was only getting Friday and Saturday paid for. I started to pine for my B&B. The room was on the top floor, and had just one bed. In broken English, the woman explained to me that I'd be sharing a bed with someone I had never met, was that okay? What was I supposed to say? They made up the queen-sized bed into two separate settings and I waited. The room smelled like cigarettes and the train station was right outside the window, making me nervous about my tendencies to be the lightest sleeper in the world. I entertained myself by walking into town, walking around town, taking pictures and eating dinner. I got about two hours of walking in me and then spent the rest of the night thinking about how stupid that was just 48 hours out from a race. 

The next day, I found the track on my map and jogged to it (2.25 miles), did my normal shakeout, and ran back. This got me pretty excited for the race, as the giant blue brand new mondo track just had a good vibe about it. I'm a fan of hard tracks, and this one just felt right. 

When I returned, my roommate, Fionnuala Britton, was in the room and had made up the couch into her bed. Fionnuala is an Irish steeplechaser with a PR of 9:37. This made it particularly uncomfortable for me when I had to confess that my last steeple was a 10:42. She also cleared up a language barrier issue that I had with the hotel reception - we were expecting a third roommate. Fortunately, I discovered by peering over the desk that our third was Malindi, who was maybe planning on staying another night in Leuven (the shared bed tipped the scales for her). 

Fionuala and I took the tram back into town for dinner, which I had learned how to use earlier in the day when I had to commute into the Apple store for a charger for my iPad and iPhone, which I had left securely in the B&B in Leuven. This is when I decided that I was done paying for trains. We bought a tram ticket for 1.20 Euros, but never validated it. I am really curious as to how they police the trams in Gent, because I never saw an actual human verifying anything. We had a mediocre dinner and then took the tram back, still not validating our same ticket. We were determined to make our one ticket last the rest of the weekend, even if it meant playing the "stupid American" line. 

On race day I felt awful. I was up at 6:30am thanks to the trains outside my window and some unexected anxiety. I forced myself to lay in bed until free hotel breakfast started, and then tried to revive myself with caffeine. No luck. I still felt off. After a shakeout in a nearby park, I had lunch with Fionuala and the Irish 4x400m team. I tried to revive myself with a nap, but couldn't relax. I devoted some time to having a conversation with myself about how I hadn't spent almost three full days bored out of my mind in Gent to run like crap. I resolved to not feel sorry for myself when the race started to hurt. I was not going to botch this with bad water jumps. It was non-negotiable. And I was going to constantly remind myself during the race that a few minutes of physical discomfort is nothing compared to the discomfort of the past week. This turned out to be just what I needed. 

We took the tram to the track (we cracked about halfway and validated our tickets), and were greeted by a track meet that was running 45 minutes behind. Oh joy. I was already concerned that I hadn't eaten enough throughout the day for an 8:30pm race, much less a 9:15pm race. A race that late should have been preceded with three real meals, not two. I dug through my suitcases and found nothing. My pre-packed supply of Chia Chargers had been finished off on the tram on the way over. The bar at the meet had chips, beer and coffee. I was finally rescued by Stephanie Garcia, who gave me a Cliff bar. I promised her in exchange that if she fell in front of me in the water pit, I would not step on her. In fact, I'd help her up.  

I had a cup of coffee at what I estimated to be just over an hour before the race. Nicole Bush and I started warming up together, but then discovered that there were 10 heats of the men's 1500m. More delays. We sat around for awhile. Then I decided I needed more coffee. This is when I started to feel good. 

We dragged our warmup out to the outer limits of time, and it was finally the moment had arrived. By this time, I had a second bit of motivation to not botch the situation: Lisa and her two training partners, Andrew Ellerton and Geoff Martinson, waited around for an extra three hours after their 800m races so that they could drop me and Lisa off in Brussels before their three hour drive back to Germany. This played on my guilt issues, and there was no way I was making them wait around for me to run another 10:40+ steeple. 

We lined up, I attempted a few jokes (which Nicole appreciates, but not really anyone else), and we were off. I felt pretty good for the first 75m, was settling into a position that I was okay with. And then we stopped. The race stopped. We still don't know why, but we were stopped and called back to the line. This race was increasingly turning into a sick joke. 

My legs felt like spaghetti now and I was seriously concerned about the effects of an adrenaline spike, followed by a sudden stop, would have on my body. I thought about how sprinters do it all the time, and that there wasn't anything I could do about it at this point, so I might as well relax. Shayla made a joke about me punching her, I told her to stop tripping me, and we lined back up. 

So, we started again. This time I settled a little more on the rail, and then got stuck behind a competitor that put on the breaks pretty quickly. After going around her, I found myself about five meters behind the lead pack, and decided to just stay there. This gave me an entire race of unobstructed hurdling. I just had to keep contact with the pack in front of me and not let fading runners trick me into thinking I was maintaining pace. 

I also didn't let myself look at the clock. Much. All I knew was that I crossed the finish line on the first lap in about 38-40, meaning my first 200m was close to 35 (the steeple starts back from the regular 3000m start). This is what I went out in in Huesden for the 1500m, but it felt so much better. The next time I looked at the clock, it was 4:31 and I had four laps to go. I only looked at this point because I had already lost track of my laps, and wanted to confirm that we were approaching the mile. The last time I looked at the clock was with one to go, because I just had to know. I came through in about 8:37 and knew that I just had to not fall in the water to get under 10 minutes, and perhaps a PR. 

Which brings me to the water jumps. I am the worst water jumper in the sport. Seriously, it's sad. I have been doing this for 10 years and each year has gotten a little worse. Except for this race. On my first water jump I tried to remind myself of a rock I had jumped on the Sunday before, which I did without any stuttering, and the visualization worked. Once my confidence was up, I replicated it pretty much throughout the entire race. Except the last one. Maybe I choked, or maybe I was tired, or perhaps I can blame the blurry vision that I get when I'm rigging, but my last water jump reverted to my awful jumps of the season. And there went my PR. I still got under 10:00, which will hopefully be the USA automatic qualifier for the Olympic Trials next year, but I missed my PR by less than half a second. And I would dream about it all night. 

But I was still on top of the world. A 43-second turn-around in three weeks was not what I expected. I dipped under my stated time goal, and was mostly proud of myself for digging it out in a race that went out a little faster than I would have liked. I did a one-lap cool down and jumped in the car (forgetting to pick up my 60€ time premium) and was safely in Brussels by 10:30pm, hungry and with no open restaurants in sight. 

Part Five is live

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