Dispatch from the Olympic Trials

• Eleanor (center) and me with our coach, Dena (right). We’re among the minority of Trials qualifiers who are unsponsored. I raced at the Olympic Trials! Slightly longer-than-usual newsletter about my experience there below.

  The Trials were held in Eugene, OR. There is widespread disgruntlement in the track and field community about the fact that all the national meets and the Trials are held in Eugene (home of University of Oregon and nicknamed “Tracktown”). It’s a small place that is challenging and expensive for a lot of people to get to and stay in. Sponsored athletes generally don’t have to worry about the monetary expense, but there is still an energy expense that long travel trips exact.

  Despite Eugene’s various pitfalls, it puts on a hell of a track meet. Re-built in 2021, the stadium is huge, beautiful, and more electric than any other track and field venue in the country. In Eugene, track and field is the main event, which is rare in a country where football, basketball, and baseball reign supreme. The stadium was full every day of the Olympic Trials with track fans rattling off stats and predictions between events, roaring at close finishes, gasping at trips or pushes, going bananas at meet and world records. The weather in Eugene also seems to be consistently good this time of year.

  Notably good hotel breakfast, with gluten-free options Outside the stadium, Eugene is small and sparse in the summer when school is out, which means you often see “famous” athletes, coaches, and agents milling around in town. I walked by a well- known agent loudly negotiating a contract on the sidewalk, discussing the respective merits of Adidas and Under Armour. I love seeing my athletic idols doing the same stuff I’m doing - eating breakfast at the hotel, getting their credentials scanned entering the stadium, struggling with heavy bags, jogging along the river. Body types are so specialized at this level that you can usually guess what event people are competing in just by looking at them - the hammer throw, the high jump, the 10,000m. Sometimes when I see my 1500m competitors who I’ve never met, I snap into Terminator mode, pulling up their PRs, accolades, and recent performances behind my eyeballs, trying to detect any weaknesses by the way they drink coffee or tie their shoelaces.

• About the race itself: I was disappointed with my result. The top 7 in each heat qualified for the next round but I was only 10th. The heat ended up being In the top 7 with one lap to go. Hiltz, McGee, and Cranny would all run well under 4:00 in the final a few days later: a historically fast race. (Photo credit: USATF) tactical - starting out slow and ending in an all-out sprint (for me, at least). I moved into the top 7 with one lap to go but couldn’t keep up in the final 100 meters. It was by far the fastest I’ve ever finished, with a 60- second last lap and a 2:08 last 800m. Unfortunately, I needed to have run a sub-60 last lap to be in the top 7. I later wondered if I should have tried to take the lead from the start in order to avoid the slow early pace and to not be out-sprinted at the end. I likely would have had to run a PR that way in order to advance to the semi-final, and I’m not sure I could have done that from the front of the race. But I can’t help but wonder if it was worth a try. Here is a video of the race.

• I was pretty down afterwards. I was at my best and I don’t think I would have changed much but there was still a persistent emptiness. It may have had more to do with the end of the journey than the nature of the outcome.

• Drowning my post-race sorrows in a gluten-free stout It’s been said that this year’s women’s 1500m was the deepest and most competitive in American history, and that some comfort can be drawn from that fact. Considering the times run, that seems true, but a confounding factor is that track times improve as sports science and technology improves. Performance in running events experienced a particularly big jump in around 2020 with the invention of “super shoes” - shoes that contain a carbon fiber plate along with a special type of foam, both of which act as springs (all the shoes seen in the photo above are super shoes). Because of super shoes, I don’t think that it makes sense to compare times pre-2020 with times post-2020. A better comparison may be how people do compared to other people e.g. the top 3 finishers at the Trials are probably comparable to each other over the last few decades, as are Olympic champions over the years.

• Something I like about racing is the unique mental clarity it brings. During races, I find myself in an almost trance-like state; having a blank, focused mind in which thoughts come and go easily. When I cross the finish line, I often feel a burst of emotion (in addition to intense physical pain), the nature of which can be unpredictable. Upon crossing the finish line of my last collegiate race, I remember feeling overwhelmed with relief even though the race was not good. This relief surprised me at the time but made sense in retrospect. I did not have many races that I was pleased with in college and most of my racing experience was marred with frustration and disappointment.

  

  When I finished my last college race I felt free; I didn’t have to keep getting my hopes up and having them crushed over and over again. After crossing the finish line at the Trials I felt sad for not placing higher, satisfaction for the race I had run, and jealousy of the people ahead of me who made it to the next round. Racing distills my thoughts and can expose raw emotion, in a way that can be enlightening.

• At national meets like this one, the major shoe companies (New Balance, Adidas, Nike, etc.) rent houses in neighborhoods near the track, which serve as luxurious headquarters for the athletes sponsored by them. The houses have massage therapists, private chefs, infinite snacks, shoes, and gear, and in general a more homey feel than a hotel room. Some of the best 1500m runners in It takes more than a stuffy hotel room and plastic utensils to prevent my private chef (sister) from preparing an elaborate cheese lunch. the country (and the world) are sponsored by New Balance. While I am not sponsored individually by New Balance, the club I’m part of - Battle Road Track Club - is. Therefore, I like to consider myself part of the New Balance “family”, whether that is justified or not. While I was in Eugene, I tried to finagle my way into the New Balance house and perhaps even rub shoulders with the top dogs. After days of texting the New Balance house manager, I was finally granted entrance to the inner sanctum on the last day of the Trials. I traipsed through the enormous house and garden where New Balance employees were lounging, watching the Tour de France. I grazed at the snacks and gazed at the neatly packaged home-cooked meals in Tupperware in the fridge. Sadly, I didn’t see any of the runners. The house manager seemed stressed, as she was in the middle of packing up the contents of the house to ship back to Boston. She gave me some free New Balance gear (socks, shoes, hats, duffel bag, etc.) which I was delighted to receive. On my way out I reflected that the bag was effective in both sending me on my way and reducing the volume of items she had to ship from the house back to Boston.¹

• While in Eugene, I met up with former college teammates. Some were spectating, others were, like me, competing unsponsored, others were full-time professionals and ended up qualifying for the Olympics, and still others were coaching those Olympics-bound professionals. It was fun to learn about what everyone’s lives are like years after graduating, whether they are still involved in the sport or not.

  

• My mom, sister, sister’s girlfriend, her sister, and my boyfriend all came for a few days, which was really great. Especially after my race when I needed some distraction and cheering up. We enjoyed the Eugene weather, which seems to be picture-perfect every time I’m there, and meals in my hotel room (and outside of it).

• What’s next? I’m still in pretty good shape so I’ll race a few more times over the summer in an effort to improve my times in the 1500m and 800m. This Friday, July 12th I’ll be racing the 1500m at the Ed Murphey Classic. A lot of professionals like to race in Europe during the summer, so I might try that as well. I’ve never felt the need to race outside of the US since we have some of the best competition in the world here. But, it might be fun, as long as I can stomach the prices of overseas flights.

• Now that my Olympic Trials journey is over, this might be my last newsletter. Thank you all for following along and for your kind words of support and encouragement. An amateur runner trying to succeed among professionals needs to cobble together a network, and I so appreciate you being an important part of mine. If you’d like to follow my race results, you can check my profile on World Athletics, which aggregates most of my results. I also post all my training on Strava, and I’m on LinkedIn (which I'll update soon, as I begin looking for a job...). Lastly, if you’re interested in trying my software (described in Newsletter 3) to figure out which foods cause your stomach issues, let me know and I’ll send you the prototype when it's ready.

• Thank you again for following along and feel free to keep in touch through any of the above links or via e-mail.

• Addendum A: Journey to the Trials, by the numbers

  Amount spent on race-related travel and lodging	$4,6412
  Amount earned from prize money and pacing	$4,676
  Miles run per day since January (avg.)	7
  Hours spent training per week (avg.)	9 hours, 41 minutes3
  States raced in	California (x2), Oregon (x2), Tennessee, Massachusetts (x5), New York (x2)

• Addendum B: Media interlude

  Some of the hits and misses from the media I consumed during my travels.
  • The book Townie by Andre Dubus III - very good
  • The book Sociopath by Patric Gagne - good
  • AI poems read by Werner Herzog (Act II) - excellent
  • The movie The Beekeeper - terrible

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  ¹ For the general public, the major shoe companies set up big booths in the neighborhood near the track 2 where they play music, sell shoes, distribute tchotchkes, record podcasts, take photos, and friendly representatives discuss their wares. I first learned the term for these brand events a few months ago, and have been equal parts amused and disturbed by it since. The events are called, “activations”. As in, “New Balance is doing an activation in partnership with Fleet Feet on 19th street this weekend.” Once again my mind goes to The Terminator.

  ² I’m grateful to Battle Road Track Club for helping with these expenses. (About half of this total was for the Olympic Trials alone.)

  ³ Primarily running, weightlifting, yoga, sauna, in that order. Does not include time spent massaging legs, sleeping, eating, etc. all of which could be considered part of training