Nike Running Camps

Day 3 - Wednesday 7/27

The Loooooong Meeting, Crashed by Ninja Turtles!
         The meeting last night was long, and it covered both things crucial to a successful meet as well as a team-building activity. We started out by going through the kindergarten-style introductions where you stand up, say your name, event, PR, and favorite toy. The resounding favorites among childhood toys were definitely ninja turtles and Nintendo. After introductions were completed, the coaching staff talked to us about the doping test procedures and also about mental preparation (they have a sport psychologist here for us if we need her). The Athletes Advisory Committee came through and satisfied the athletes requests for sports drinks and activities. They announced there would be a trip to the mall or the family fun center tomorrow (which was today). The talent/fashion show took place today also, but I'll get more into that later.

 
At the team meeting, it became clear what was a most popular interest growing up.

Adding Calories, Burning Calories
         So this morning I woke up at 7am to go get breakfast before a 7 miler. I headed over to the cafeteria with all my teammates and ate french toast, danish, canadian bacon, and great potatoes. We collectively decided that instead of running at 8am we would run at 9am. I went back to my room and crashed for another half hour. I was still pretty tired even after that because the meeting ended late last night. So after the short nap, I went out for my run of about 50 minutes with Daniel Nunn, Neal Naughton, Paul Hefferon, Jacob Dubois and Kevin McDermott. After the run I did core and upper body work (Editor's note: Mark, what upper body?) . I went to lunch next and had a philly cheesesteak sandwich and potatoes. I then went to the pool along with the distance guys as well as Mel Lawrence and Lindsay Allen. We played Marco Polo for about 5 minutes, then just floated around to loosen up the legs. On the topic of lossening up, the medical staff here is more than accomodating. They have tables set up at the track virtually all day as well as in their suite.

Nevada's Marie Lawrence and Northern California's very own
Lindsay ("Linzy") Allen battled at Junior Nationals, but it
was the Stanford star Allen that emerged at Junior Nat'ls Champ!

Trust me, folks... Mark can put away food quite easily!

Window Shopping & More Calorie Loading
        After the pool I got dressed and followed the masses over to the bus stop to wait for transportation to the mall. If the treatment we have been receiving was great to begin with, the organizers upped the ante so that we could be transported to the mall. The city of Windsor was very generous as they took two busses off their routes so that they could transport the vast majority of the US team to and from the mall. We were at the mall for about 2 hours. I just window shopped and ate a Cinnabon and some Chinese food. The team left the mall at 4:30. I took a nap when I got back while some of the other distance guys played frisbee and watched Laguna Beach. Next was the first "official" dinner. The official day for arrivals was today. However,
USATF was kind enough to pick up the tab on 6 meals before the arrival of all the other competitors. Dinner was delicious. I had pasta and fruit. There were plenty of choices though: chicken, pizza, pasta, sandwiches, fruits--more variety than we had previously. After dinner I headed back to my suite and prepared for the talent show with the other 9 distance guys....

The Highly Anticipated Talent (No Talent) Show!
        We prepared a "striptease-esque" dance routine to "Under the Sea" from Little Mermaid. Our attire consisted of rain gear warmups which were later discarded to reveal full-on speed suits, which later were unzipped to reveal... (Editor's note: Mark didn't go on to tell us what it revealed, but it probably wasn't too much... heh, heh, heh). The throwers came out and modeled the different speed suits from the singlet-styled
speedsuit to the full body suit! One of the liasons to the athletes strutted her stuff down the runway. Our routine received by far the greatest amount of laughs. It was a lot of fun.

Did you really think we'd post something overly alluring?
We'll leave that to your imagination.  >:-D

Mark Is Voted A Team Captain!
        Next was another team meeting where we discussed pre-race procedures. We also voted for team captains. I was fortunate enough to have the honor of being voted captain for the men's track events. We met with Coach McNichols and discussed how we wanted to handle pre-race warmups. He has been very helpful with everything and told us that he will be standing guard over our bags while we are warming up and competing. I definitely appreciate that so I will be able to focus solely on the race. I received an IOU on my per diem since they ran out of bills (Editor's note: I see USATF remains cash-strapped!). That just about wrapped up the night, and here I am typing away. Today was by far the most fun day yet. Opening Ceremonies are tomorrow and I plan to watch the Miracle Mile in the evening.  -- Mark

Voted one of the captains for Team USA?  AWESOME!!!

Mark's Day 2 Diary       Mark's Day 1 Diary: The Arrival