DJ Olympic dreams

It has begun!
As I sat on the grassy hill at Pomona-Pitzer’s famed blue track, watching the athletes go by, I had the Blackberry humming with Texas Relay results. Thankfully, the Florida relays decided to do all their hot running Friday, so all I had to keep up with was the relays in Austin.
If you are a true track fan in the US, you have to appreciate this month of April. We call it the relay season, and it reminds us all of why we started running and why we stick with the sport. All the talk of money and contracts and teams is forgotten for four or five weeks, while we all go back to our childhood. Weekend invitational litter the American landscape of track and field and spawn the superstars of all professional sports. Whether it is an age group meet or an high school meet or a college invitational or a weekend carnival that involves all levels, we sit outside in the sun watching track.
After April you would not see a bunch of world class athletes standing around the track or infield watching someone run a 4+ minute mile, or 12 flat 100 meters. We definitely are not watching a 4x1600 relay. Yet, look at the April weekends and you will see these meets featuring the stars of today and the stars of yesterday being honored or just hanging out. I am not sure there is a better time than April for track purest.
Amateurism survives in these baton festivals. The old adage, “give a starving man a saltine cracker and he will proclaim it is the best cracker in the world.” Same applies for the track athlete in April. They have spent months sweating, crying, bleeding, and dying and their tolerance is over. They will agree to run anything, and coaches try anything. World Champion 100 sprinters running 4x400s, intermediate hurdlers running 800s, 400 runners running sprint relays, it is a veritable smorgasbord of talent in mixed up events.
I give the IAAF and IOC credit for deciding to have the countries qualify their relays. We are guaranteed to see high quality relay races from national teams throughout the relay season. For example, in Texas we had the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia field a team for the first time in history. The irony might be that no one noticed! LOL In a few weeks their will be the Penn Relays and we will have a track full of international stars trying to post qualifying marks for their national relay teams.
And thus begins the Olympic campaign. The excitement is at every meet, in every race. We will hear the word Olympics so many times it will become expected. “So, how did it feel to get back out there and shake off the training cobwebs?” “You know, I just want to make sure I am ready for the Olympics!” “I plan to double and bring home 2 medals.” “What events will you run this year?” “I will run the XXX and the XXX and try to bring home three gold medals.” Etc. There is nothing like the Olympic year.
Athletes spend their entire careers building to this moment, especially in the US, where Olympic spots are never handed out or faxed out. You will earn your Olympic berth, and coveted it just the same. So we see meticulous planning and strategies by coaches. A long run here and short run there, time to go back and train heavy in the midst of it all. All in the name of Olympic gold.