Olympic Trials Countdown
Posted June 9th, 2008 at 9:00 AM by Jesse Squire
Section: News & Results, Track & Field, Olympics
Seventeen days and counting. I got my Olympic Trials tickets in the mail today.
They are bright, shiny, colorful and artistic. They are also literally irreplaceable because the meet has sold out. For a brief moment I thought about going to the bank and putting them in the safe deposit box. Then I decided that would be a bit too much … or would it?
The ticket package, among other things, told me what could and could not be brought in to Hayward Field. You wouldn’t think they’d have to say that prohibited items include illegal drugs, explosives and guns, but I guess we do live in a litigious society. Absent from both the “OK” and “Not OK” lists were computers. What’s an online journalist to do?
A map of downtown Eugene and the Hayward Field area was enclosed, and one feature caught my attention: a lot marked “valet bicycle parking”. I suppose this isn’t terribly unusual in the Golden State, and (according to Stephen Colbert) Oregon is California’s Canada, but I myself had never before seen “valet” and “bicycle” in the same phrase. Will the valets be wearing those tuxedo t-shirts on a spandex jersey?
Along with the tickets and map were some visitor information about the city of Eugene. I quickly figured out that finding places to run would not be difficult. Aside from the famous 10 kilometer Pre’s Trail, there are 33 miles of bike paths in Eugene plus nearly 90 miles of on-street bikeways. The Riverbank Trail goes for 13 miles along the Williamette and there’s tons more. In fact, you can read up on all that in this month’s Runner’s World, which also came in the mail today.
RW isn’t always the best publication for the serious track fan, but this month it most certainly is. The current issue has twenty pages on the Trials, led off by Kenny Moore’s great-as-usual writing about Eugene’s rightful place as America’s running capital.
In case I wasn’t excited enough already, Sports Illustrated also came in the mail; this week’s issue has a fabulous three-page article by Tim Layden on Usain Bolt’s world record run in New York last Sunday.
And finally, I made sure I had seat assignments on my flights to and from Eugene. I’ve been told that my trip on Horizon Air comes with free local wine, which is great but doesn’t begin to make up for the fact that I’d rather get another hole in my head than fly on an airplane. (And this is not just an expression, because I actually will be getting ear surgery in late July.)
All in all, I don’t think I’m going to be able to sleep. At all. Not just tonight, but for the next three weeks.
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Tags: Eugene, hayward field, kenny moore, Olympic Trials, olympic trials tickets, oregon, pres rock, Runners World, Sports Illustrated, tim layden, u.s. olympic track & field trials
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