Road to London - USA Olympic Trials

This year Houston hosted the USA Olympic Trails for the marathon and Stuart and I got prime seats to watch them.  The only downside was we had to be there for 0630 – before it was even light!

The trials were held in Downtown Houston the day before the Houston Marathon for regular runners, like me.  The company had sponsored the event so they had a few tickets to the Olympic breakfast and then viewing at the finish line.  We didn’t mix with any of the runners, as they were too busy running, but did meet some of the coaches and the Houston Mayor.

The morning was absolutely freezing and all the runners, first the men and then the women, stood at the start line in tiny little outfits.  They all looked freezing!  They took off from the start line and did a short 2 miles around downtown before coming back through the start/finish line and then set off to do three 8 mile laps.  Once the boys came through after the two miles, the girls started.  It meant you had runners going past all the time.  They literally sprinted the 26.2 miles it was amazing I couldn't even imagine running a few metres at that pace. 

The first of the boys finished just over two hours and the first of the girls was not far behind – amazing.  However, some didn’t look that great after they finished – a couple collapsed and one guy had made a mess of his sorts –eek!

It made me all nervous for the next day!