I just bought my ticket to Korea for the 2010 Gangweon ASTC Long Distance Triathlon Asian Championships. I am so excited! This will be my first time in Korea and my first time doing an ITU long-course race (it’s not draft legal like Olympic distance ITU races, and the distances are 3k swim/80k bike/20k run). The course looks gorgeous, and hard, just what I like. What makes this race even cooler to me is that I get to overnight in Tokyo on my way to and from Korea! I have always wanted to visit Tokyo – my uncle Bill has lived in Tokyo for the past 35 years, and I can’t think of a better tour guide for one of the world’s most exciting cities.
In other news, I survived last week’s college visits to Johns Hopkins SAIS and Duke. Even though I went prepared to not like Duke, I really enjoyed myself and the program is excellent.
And now for other FUN news: guess who I shared a lane with at swimming this morning? Guess who I also ran on a treadmill next to on Saturday?? SARAH HASKINS!!! (I am in Colorado Springs visiting Ben at the Olympic Training Center this week. Lucky for me, the OTC is very nice to its full-time residents’ significant others.). On Saturday I was too awestruck and sheepish to say anything to her, but this morning I got up the nerve to talk (initially to ask if we could please split rather than circle since I am really honestly slow, then later to chat). I swam with the other triathletes in the program, with Andy Potts‘ coach Mike Doane on deck. The other athletes were Sarah, Ben, Brian Fleishman, Hunter Kemper, Matt Chrabot, Kate Ross, and Amanda Not Sure Of Last Name. I was a little embarrassed at first because obviously I am a terrible swimmer and being unaccustomed to the 6,035′ altitude wasn’t going to make this any prettier, but no one else seemed to even care or notice, and hey, how often do I get to swim in such a perfect 50m pool with so many world-class athletes? So I just did as much as I could of each part of the set and I wound up having a great workout! Also, Sarah was really sweet and either didn’t, or pretended not to, notice that I couldn’t do their whole sets. Twice I came into the wall and she told me what was up next.
So far the week is great, and it’s only Monday 
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This entry was posted on Monday, March 29th, 2010 at 6:41 pm and is filed under Grad School, cool stuff, i'm moving here, training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
You ARE ITU!
I want to go to Korea.
I want to go to the OTC.
That is sooo fun C! Wow! Excited for your race and for that amazing swim practice. Not an average day to be swimming with those cats. Hope you continue to have a rockin time there with Ben.
You visited Durham, NC and didn’t tell me you were here? Tsk. Oh…it’s because I’m not one of those fancy PRO triathletes, isn’t it?
Good luck in Korea!
Ha! Well. I was there for an open house event and let me tell you, every minute of my 36 hours there was activity-filled. Except the 45 minutes where I skipped the campus tour because it was raining and I was tired of talking to people.
I loved the program. I’m deciding between Duke and Hopkins. I will let you know if I decide on Duke!!
Korea? Good luck! Stopping through Hawaii on your way?