Sleepless in Seattle

Well I'm back home finally, and yes i'm very sleepless, every since I returned to the US I have gotten up around 5ish everyday. My thoughts on the worlds are a bit mixed, yet positive.

I'm very happy we won a medal, it was the greatest team accomplishment I have ever experienced, and on top of that Simon, the veteran of the team was able to cherish a well deserved medal after many years competing at the world trophy, so that was the icing on the cake for me. The trip was amazing as well, and the party for the race, also very fun. Kinda surprised it was so good and people were actually having a good time. I dont think I have ever seen a party for a race that was that much fun, the europeans know how to have a good time after races!

Coming into worlds I knew we had a shot at a medal and I had my eyes set on the gold, as any of the guys on the team can tell you I wanted that more than anything. All summer with Rickey running strong, Simon too running strong and dominating the world masters champs, and the rest of the guys back in the US running great I had no doubts that we were ready to do big things. I was really impressed with how strong the guys ran at worlds this year, and I gotta give a big THANK YOU to the guys, we got that Bronze and we wouldn't have been able to if guys had given up so I just wanted all of you to know I appreciate ya. Otherwise, we all would have went home with no hardware hahaha.

The bittersweet moment for me I guess was finding out we didn't win the gold. I know greedy me huh, but I know we were good and we could have won the gold. We had three rookies including Zac, Matt, and I so I know in the years to come we will give the Italians a run for their money, so look for it in two years.

As of now, I have enjoyed telling all my friends about the team and how we won Bronze this year, its good to have so much support from friends and family. I just got done racing up at the Northwest Mountain Champs and it was a good experience as well. Got a good win, a very slim one, came down to the last 200 meters really. Saw Richard out there showing some of the locals what mountain running is really about, good work Rich. The night before I made the mistake of camping out in an unmarked zone, needless to say it was windy, rainy, and cold as hell, so I shivered all night only to wake up in race conditions that were the same as the night. Next, looking forward to racing in Bend this weekend, again I will have to race Max King again, it came down to the wire this last weekend, and I pulled it off, but this next race could be even closer and more competitive now that we both know each others strengths! Should be great times nevertheless. Thank you to all of our sponsors for the USA mountain running team this year, we looked real pretty at worlds! Thanks to all the staff for being well organized and supportive, things really went smooth and thats important in big races. I wish the rest of the team good runnin this fall as we all are preparing for are different races, stay healthy, take care, adios, ha det, chao, come te vaya bien, until next time!