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Lead Stories: Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Nick Symmonds:
Off to Beijing!
(Elite Athlete Blog Entry 18)

Posted August 11th, 2008 at 10:29 AM by Nick Symmonds

Section: News & Results, Track & Field, Olympics, Elite Athlete Blogs, Nick Symmonds

Welcome to the official blog of middle-distance track star and 2008 U.S. Olympian Nick Symmonds. Be sure to check every other Monday at http://nicksymmonds.thefinalsprint.com for Nick’s latest entry! For more information about Nick, also please visit: nicksymmonds.com

Note: The following entry was written on August 6th, just prior to Nick’s flight to Beijing. His next entry will be written on Sunday, August 24th and published the following morning on Monday, August 25th.

I’m currently in a dorm at San Jose State getting ready for bed early because I’m waking up at 6 AM to catch a flight to Beijing, China to compete in my first Olympic Games. Its hard to believe myself. The last month has been amazing; Ive put in many miles and had a lot of good workouts including one of the best speed-endurance sessions of my life yesterday. I woke up at 6:30 this morning to sneak in one last run on American soil.

The dorm I’m staying in is apartment style and sharing the rooms with
me are Andrew Wheating, Christian Smith, Dathan Ritzenhein, Galen Rupp, and Matt Tegenkamp among others. Its literally a whose-who of track and field and I suppose you would expect nothing less from the USA Olympic Track and Field team. Watching all of us go through team processing today you would have guessed our average age to be about 8 as we ran around filling shopping carts with the amazing team gear issued to each Olympian. It was literally Christmas in August.
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Nick Symmonds:
Conventional Wisdom
(Elite Athlete Blog Entry 17)

Posted July 28th, 2008 at 11:44 AM by Nick Symmonds

Section: News & Results, Track & Field, Olympics, Elite Athlete Blogs, Nick Symmonds

Its July 15th as I sit on my couch in Springfield, Oregon and write this blog. To people who follow my race schedule closely that might seem a bit strange as I was on the start list for the meet in Luzern Switzerland tomorrow. I was actually scheduled to race again next week in Belgium and in London on the 25th as well. Unfortunately, I will not be running in any of these meets. I spent all spring looking forward to my trip to Europe and imagined running a 1:43 or two as I prepared to compete in China, but after the amazing experience of the trials I was left physically and emotionally drained. The combination of training, doing interviews, signing autographs and cheering on my teammates in the second session was simply too much. My usual perfect schedule that includes nine hours of sleep each night, regular meals, and naps in the afternoon was thrown for a total loop. By day 8 of the trials I was running on an average of about 5 hours of sleep and had lost 6 pounds. In training I felt worn out.
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Nick Symmonds: Olympian
(Elite Athlete Blog - Entry 16)

Posted July 8th, 2008 at 5:15 PM by Nick Symmonds

Section: Track & Field, Olympics, Elite Athlete Blogs, Nick Symmonds, College

I can hardly believe it myself. After dreaming about this for most of my life and specifically devoting two years towards this goal, I can finally call myself an Olympic athlete. The last 48 hours have been unreal and I would very much like to share with you what has been going on, but first I need to talk about how I arrived at this point in my career.

Growing up in Boise I was blessed with an amazing family that made me want for nothing. I had love from my sister and parents and they supported me in any goal I set for myself, but more importantly made me believe I could accomplish these goals. When I told them that I would one day like to be an Olympian they just smiled and said, “then do it.” When other people laughed or doubted they just kept smiling, almost as if they knew it was destined to be. They have made this possible and of the 20,000 people at Hayward Monday night I don’t think any were as happy and proud as they were. Mom, Dad, Lauren: I LOVE YOU!!!
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