Olympic Marathon Trials

My friend Nicole is pretty much a rock star!!  Nicole and I were at Northern Colorado together, she was working on her doctorate while I was working on my masters.  She is an elite distance runner and this weekend ran in her third (THIRD!!!) Olympic Trials for the marathon.  Oh, and did I mention that she has 2 kids??!

Dan and I drove up to Houston on Friday to watch Nicole run in the 2012 Olympic Marathon Trials.  We got in a little later than we had planned to, so we just saw her briefly on Friday evening.  Friday evening turned into a bundle of fun for us...Evelyn had a rough time both eating dinner and sleeping, and ended up vomiting all over the little blanket they put at the bottom of hotel beds and some of the sheets - sorry downtown Houston Hyatt.  Sure hope those documentaries about hotel rooms are wrong! (We left a note for the cleaning staff that they would probably want to wash it!)  I was the lucky one who got to sleep on that side of the bed! :-)  She was really restless all night and woke up quite a few times - which isn't normal - she usually sleeps really well in between us when we let her do that.  Dan took over around 5:00am, so I think I was running on about 2 hours of sleep all day Saturday.  Fortunately, being at the trials was a pretty amazing experience, so I was running on adrenaline most of the day!

Here is the pack of women coming around their first loop downtown...I didn't get many good shots because I was bawling.  I was so proud of Nicole!!

Three of these four will represent the US in London, Meb Keflezighi, Ryan Hall, and Abdi Abdirahman.

The leaders of the women...Desiree Davila and Kara Goucher are two of the three women who will represent the US in London.  I'm sure the third, Shalane Flanagan, is also in here, I just can't see her in the picture!

Yay - Nicole!!  This is at the 15K mark.

Nicole at about mile 25.9 - after she saw us! :-)

After the race, we met up with Nicole and her family for lunch.

Nicole and Evelyn

Nicole, Evelyn, and Nicole's oldest son, Tyler

The Gaines' and the Hagobians...

Dan, Stacey, Tyler, Nicole, Evelyn, Shay, and Todd

Nicole and I!

This was such a great experience for me.  It was awesome to go support Nicole and cheer her on in what may be the last race of her career.  But it was also pretty incredible to watch all of these amazing athletes compete.  I am kind of a nerd in that I really love the Olympics, and know a lot of useless facts about them.  Part of this is because in my Sport in Global Society class we cover the history of the Olympic Games from Ancient Greece to now, but part of this is because I just really enjoy the idea of something as simple as sport bringing countries together.

Nicole, we are so proud of you!!!  I'm so glad we got to spend time with you and your sweet family!