Hiatus Over, Hasty Hastings, Houston Comebacks and a Hilton

Today is a good day.

My 48 hours away from the garmin and kicks are officially over, my legs are feeling significantly less tired than they did two days ago, and my gear is ready for a nice runchtime jaunt around the monuments. This is the first time I’ve been excited to go out on a run all week, so I’m officially calling the 48 hour hiatus a win.

I taught spinning this morning for one more gasp of cross training before diving back into running (and because you know, they pay me to show up and would probably revoke my pedal privileges at the gym if I didn’t arrive, Ke$ha in hand, at 7am on the dot every Friday morning.) I didn’t have a playlist going into class (shhhh don’t tell) but sometimes my on-the-spot DJing sessions end up being my best and sweatiest classes, and today was no exception. I left drenched and definitely spent some quality time in and out of the saddle doing some serious huffing and puffing.

But return to running and sweaty spinning aside, today is a good day, scratch that,  GREAT day because it’s the official start of the track trials at Hayward Field (apparently yesterday’s HammerTime at Nike HQ was just a bonus Day 1 of the trials).

On the agenda for the day (by the way, if you don’t want to hear about track trials for the next 9 days, you should probs unfollow, it’s going to be all about #totallytrials (in addition to the regular sweatiness) until closing bell next Sunday):

(Stolen from the biggest track geeks I know)

As a distance runner, I have to confess, the shorter distance events are just not as exciting to me. 9.9 seconds of racing? I don’t usually even cross the start line of a marathon within 9.9 seconds of the gun going off, how can that be a race? I’ll get excited to watch the sprint events while they (briefly) happen, and I respect the athletes who can nail these events, because trust me, I’ll never ever ever ever ever be one of them, but it’s the 800-10,000 meter events that get me all worked up with running excitement. And since today’s only finals event is the 10,000, it’s a good day in track land.

Obviously topping the list of my favorite athletes today, is Amy Hastings.

Heart Hastings. (Source: two creepy cheerleaders stalking her from across the room at the Brooks party post-marathon trials)

Amy ran a killer marathon at the trials in Houston, but came in a disappointing fourth place, narrowly missing a spot on the team.

She’s already achieved an A standard for the 10k (one of four competing in the race, but Shalane is also in that group and intends to turn down the spot since she’ll be racing several more k in the marathon) and the only way Amy can be derailed in her quest to take the road to London, is if someone runs faster than a 31:45 (yeah, I can’t wrap my head around how effing fast that is either).

Amy is not the only competitor in today’s events who narrowly missed making the US Olympic Marathon team.

Dathan Ritzenhein also finished in the torturous fourth place in Houston.

This picture actually makes my heart hurt. Real live pain.

Rumor has it, that he’s looking fan-effing-tastic for the trials, but, unlike Amy, has yet to acheive the A standard of 27:45 for the boys and needs to do it tonight. Of Houston, he says on his blog “athough a miserable experience, the drive to make the Olympic team is even stronger now.” I’m a big believer that athletic drive and desire are the most powerful tools on race day, so I can say with great authority: You’ve got this, Ritz.

While not about an athlete in any finals today, perhaps one of the more interesting (and slightly nauseating, but hugely entertaining) stories emerging from one of today’s qualifying round competitors, is the tale of Nick Symmonds, star 800m runner and, from what I can tell, (based on things like proclaiming himself “"the most interesting man in the world”) is definitely President of the Nick Symmonds fan club.

A few weeks ago, Nick sent a letter to Paris Hilton’s father asking his permission to go out with Paris.

(Yes, this is for real.) 

Fast forward some tweets, and emails, and Paris actually emailed the track star. And they went out. Again, for real.

I’m sorry, but if you’re some hot track star, who would YOU ask out? Serious question. Gender preferences aside, Paris Hilton would not even make it out of prelims. 

Anyway, Nick has asked this exemplary role model of a human being to be his date at the trials and ACTUALLY said this:

“But I‘ve always had this huge crush on Paris and getting to know her was a dream come true. That memory ranks right up there with making my first Olympic team. It’s incredible.”

I can’t even.

If you want to tune in to some good (Hiltonless) 800m and 10k running Runner’s World is covering it live and NBC will be airing coverage from 9-11pm tonight.

Have a great, sweaty and track filled weekend!