5 hours
before my flight was scheduled to depart from the Heathrow Airport, my travel
companions and I loaded up a bus and were on our way out of the Olympic Village
for good. The airport had generously set
up an entirely separate check-in and security building for the Olympic Games
and we were treated to short lines and a decorated waiting area. Set up in a
London-theme, the room had several photo opportunities while you waited to
proceed- a dressed up soldier, telephone booth and Buckingham Palace backdrop!
From there, we were bused directly to our terminal where we were greeted by the
applause of an enthusiastic group of volunteers sending us on our way to
reconnect with the rest of society and board our designated planes! Even
sitting in the busy airport waiting for the flight, I began to feel my mind and
body get lighter and lighter. This feeling became more and more evident when we
arrived in Toulouse and headed into the French countryside, through fields of
sunflowers and vineyards and past beautiful churches and castles. It became one of those deals where you don’t
realize just how tight and uptight you were until you actually begin to loosen
up. This pace of life was so much more my speed; I had a feeling that my recovery
time in this environment was going to be considerably quicker than the fast,
constant motion of the city.
The meet I was headed to was a fun
one! Usually held at the end of the season, it was early this year but a
perfect come down from the Games.
Despite the fact that there was a nice prize purse for the winning team,
the USA usually has a comfortable lead from start to finish and it is about the
least amount of individual pressure you could feel at a track meet. This year, the timing served to remind us all
that despite the hoopla and anxiety of earlier that month, we are ultimately
just a bunch of kids out playing around in a circle! The French Track
Federation puts on the meet in different locations throughout the country and
invites 8 other nations to compete across 10 selected events. For this reason it is excellent for
spectators, condensed into only a few short hours of nonstop action! We compete
for bragging rights and a nice paycheck but in addition, we are treated like
royalty, wined and dined and well taken care of! The USA meet organizers also
like to spoil us, taking us somewhere special for dinner two nights before and
encouraging us to relax and have a good time throughout. Last year they took us into Monaco for a
dinner that I will probably never in my life be able to match. This year, slightly less flashy but equally
as pleasant, we were hosted by a family winery for a tasting session and
homemade tapas dinner! Again, it was
exactly what I needed to detox from the London city living! Lulled by the sound
of moving water right outside our window, I slept wonderfully in our
accommodations- an old mill turned into a hotel, on the bank of a river-and
woke up feeling pretty good the morning of the race.
I had no idea what would be left in
my body and I lined up on the starting line with the mindset of running a
smooth and efficient race. This translated into taking the lead early to sight
the barriers and running from the front to the finish without challenge for my
very first European win (don’t tell anyone there were only 6 people in my race
and the time was not very fast!) I was happy with the results and glad to have
performed well for my parents who had followed me by train to see what a more
typical day-in-the-life of European summer track meets was for me. They were able to snag tickets to the dinner
afterward and I was glad to get to share the last bit of their vacation with
them before we again parted ways!
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