I'm up in Portland today for one last shot at the Olympic Trials A Standard. As has been the case for many other emerging elite runners, this past month has been about chasing qualifying standards. In what's been a crazy-fast year for distance running, the B Standard won't cut it, so tonight I'll give it one last go and try to run the 10k Trials A Standard of 32:45 to punch my ticket to the Olympic Trials.
My dream of running at the Olympic Trials began 4 years ago, when my brother and I road-tripped from Davis to Eugene to watch the 2008 Trials. As we sat in the stands at Hayward Field, cheering on our running idols and taking in the magic, the dream of one day competing there myself was planted.
Spectating at the 2008 Olympic Trials
I nourished that dream during my final two years at UC Davis, running more miles, getting stronger, getting faster. When I qualified for NCAA's in Cross-Country in 2008, I began to embrace bigger goals and think that post-collegiate running might be a possibility...
XC West Regional Meet, 2008
When I finished college with a lot of unfinished business on the track, I decided to fully embrace this dream and thus began my post-collegiate running adventure. The past 2 years have been quite the journey - both challenging and fulfilling, difficult but very gratifying. They've been about believing in myself and going after what I want.
They've been about the people I've gotten to spend time with...
the places I've traveled to...
the new city I've explored...
the many joyful miles I've run ...
I've been on a road to self-discovery where I've learned and grown and failed and triumphed but mostly just LIVED. I've never felt more alive than I have in the past 2 years!
...which leads me to today, the present, the here and now. 700+ days of working toward a goal, all culminating in one last chance to qualify, tonight.
I need to run 32:45 tonight, and you better believe I'm going after it with all I've got. I've thought about this Trials dream every day for the past 2 years, in every workout, on every run. Tonight I have a great opportunity, and I'm going to seize it. You can watch live at 8:15 pm here.
But what happens if I don't run the time? Will the past 2 years have been for naught? No way. If I've learned one thing on this journey, it's that success and failure shouldn't always be decided by a single factor. It's not black and white. If I don't run 32:45 tonight, I'm not viewing the past 2 years as a failure. Rather, the success is in the trails I've explored, the people I've met, and the lessons learned along the way. It's in the new dreams that I now have, the new goals I've set for myself, the future trails to run joyfully along.
So really, this isn't my last chance... in some ways, this is only the beginning...
