My New Balance Indoor Nationals Experience
Austin Carter - St. Xavier High School, 2011
I wish I could say my trip went as seemingly uneventful as most of the others have reported, but that was not the case. It became VERY eventful and that was both good and bad.
Our trip got off to a smooth enough start. I was well rested, having slept in until 9:00 AM. My dad, Dave and I took off from Louisville on time at 12:55 PM, headed to a connecting flight in Baltimore. Upon safely landing at BWI about 2:30 PM, things went downhill fast. We got off the plane to find out our next flight had already been delayed until 7:35 PM, which was an additional 2 hours beyond what was already going to be a longer than average scheduled layover of almost 3 hours. On a positive note, we did find a decent Italian restaurant near the gate and I had my traditional pre-race spaghetti dinner.
Apparently, the weather was bad all along the east coast and our plane was coming from North Carolina. After several more delays, we finally took off at 10:30 PM for what was to be about a one-hour flight to LaGuardia. We ended up circling a totally overcast NYC for an extra 45 minutes and came in for what seemed only mildly short of a crash landing in a total downpour. No joke, the first word from the pilot over the intercom was a dramatic, “Whhheeeewww.”
My dad had built up just how excited I would be once I saw NYC at night. After an equally exciting cab ride, which involved almost hitting a pedestrian, we reached our hotel about 1:30 AM. The city was still totally socked-in and it continued pouring down rain the whole cab ride. My only view of NYC this day would be a commercial for Spiderman on Broadway, which played annoyingly over-and-over on the cab’s monitor. My dad’s only comment related to how many people had been hurt performing the Spiderman show. Hmm, good omen. Thanks dad. On another positive note, my race wasn’t until 4:15 PM the next day, so I would get to sleep in again.
I awoke the next day in what appeared to be a whole new world. As I stepped outside, it was now cool and sunny. I was quickly immersed in what appeared to be a never-ending forest of buildings and people. We fairly quickly found a local deli nearby and had a pretty standard breakfast. We then ventured out and eventually made our way to Times Square. Wow! Sensory overload. Ads for everything you can imagine on every square-foot of every building. Every storefront appeared small on the ground, but every business had multiple floors. Even the Walgreen’s had three floors and a huge three-floor store with nothing but M & M’s stuff? Only in America… We then headed back to the hotel for an hour nap before heading to the Armory.
Dad decided to fully “experience” NYC we needed to catch the A train from Columbus Circle to the Armory. The subway map was just a maze of information and I couldn’t help but wonder if we were really headed the right way. It was my first subway ride and I ended up sitting next to a little old lady. I think she thought I wanted to take her stuff because she had a death-grip on it. It was a fun ride and only took about 15 minutes.
My former teammate at North Oldham, Nathan Yates and his dad, Pat, having earlier in the week deciding to come to NYC for the Big East Tournament and to see me run, took a cab that got stuck in traffic for 45 minutes. Maybe Dad’s “experience” was the way to go, at least this time.
The Armory, while seemingly small, again multi-floored and very crowded with people, was just full of history. You could just feel it in the air as you entered the track area. I felt privileged to be competing on a track where all of my heroes growing up had at one time or another probably raced. Huge Olympic and American flags hung overhead, which just added to the overall feeling of the moment.
The meet moved along very quickly and although I had arrived two hours early, the time just flew by. My race was here in no time and I was ready. The race ended up being very tight, I got boxed and out of position too much throughout and besides having to work too hard in traffic, my energy level already just seemed a little down. I ended up running a 4:27 for the mile, which was about 8-10 seconds short of what I had hoped to run, but the experience was still tremendous.
Nate, Pat and my dad greeted me shortly afterward with tickets to the Big East games that night, so I had no time to dwell on the race. Just enough time to cool down, stretch, catch the A back to the hotel and get to Madison Square Garden. We saw two great overtime games with two friends at yet another historic NYC venue. Our team, Louisville even won the second game. We took the train back to the hotel after another long, eventful day and just crashed. What a great day!
We got up the next morning intent on seeing the sights. I started the day running about seven miles through Central Park, then we ate some famous NYC pizza, took another train to Ground Zero, walked through the Financial District and finally down to the water to see the Statue of Liberty. Another interesting subway experience had us riding to the Empire State Building with an older man shouting out to the entire train. He was selling a book about his once being a minister and how he had turned gangster. He was the first “gangster” I’d ever seen in a cashmere coat and a scarf selling anything, let alone a book. It looked like a pretty short book.
They wanted $36 to go to the top of the Empire State Building (but only $21 to go three-quarters of the way?), so we just passed on that one. After all that traveling around, we were all hungry again and Pat decided it was a good time to lose $5 betting me I wouldn’t eat a slice with Skittles on top. Easy money. We did end up finding some tickets to the Big East Finals and saw another great game, but Louisville came up a little short this time against UConn. We had an early flight home the next day, so we got to bed earlier than the night before.
We got up early the next day to be greeted by another white-knuckle cab ride to LaGuardia just to sit around and wait for another plane to Baltimore. At BWI (after 12 hours in this airport, those letters will be hard to ever forget), yet another 30-minute delay, on top of a two-hour layover, greeted us. We finally touched down in Louisville and back to reality on late Sunday afternoon.
I couldn’t help but think this is what it must be like to travel the world and run as a career. It would seem to be a truly non-stop eventful lifestyle with many challenging ups and downs. Well beyond just the normal challenges of running alone. It was a fantastic experience I will never forget.
Emily Bean – Assumption
It was really rainy the day of our flight to New York. We had a 3 hour layover plus a 4 and a half hour delay. We got to the airport at about midnight and didn't get to our hotel until 1 am. We were all worried because we were only going to get about 6 hours of sleep and we had to race the next day.
When we arrived at the meet it was overwhelming. The complex was huge and there were so many good runners. The track was the nicest track I have run on in my life. I have heard that it was a fast track and everyone PR's on it. When my team went to the starting line for the 4x800 we were very nervous. We knew these teams were national elites and we were scared to run against them.
Overall, the race went great. It went by fast and we placed somewhere in the middle. We beat the goal we wanted to achieve and left happily that day.
That night we went touring around the city to look around. We went to Ground Zero, got to explore the subways, and we went to Times Square. It was so crowded! We almost had to hold each others hands so we wouldn't get lost.
The nest day we were going to run the 4xmile and I was running the freshman mile. The 4xmile came first and we had 3 freshman on the team (one had never run track before and one had never run a relay). It must have been tough to go into one of the biggest meets in the nation without knowing what to expect at all. They both ran their personal best and ran perfect races! Caroline ran great as well. Our team did more than what we expected and everyone was happy with the outcome. My freshman mile was next and I was scared to death. Before the race everyone was talking about their best times and they were all extremely faster than mine. But I hung in there and happened to get my personal best. I am so proud of my team for all we did at this meet.
When the meet was over, we went back into Times square, went to a couple of candy stores, and called it a night. We were all exhausted.
The experience was something I will never forget. I am excited because we were told we qualified for next year. I absolutely cannot wait until then!
My New Balance Indoor Nationals Experience
Austin Carter - St. Xavier High School, 2011