Bethanie Brown is a senior at Waterville HS. She ran under 5 minutes for the mile last winter becoming the first Maine HS girl to do so. Brown was an All-American in the 2 mile indoors, and capped off the outdoor season with a state all-time best for 1600m. follow Bethanie as she competes during the indoor season.
Uh-oh! The KVAC championship has been cancelled . . . what do you do?
Well, on Friday night I decided to go for a long run. But since the roads weren’t great, I had to do about a million laps around my neighborhood. I saw all my neighbors walking their dogs about five times each. Then I went to Wal-mart to buy plain black sweatpants from the little boys’ section – size XL. It felt kind of awkward to ask the Wal-mart guy where to find little boys’ sweatpants. Ah, well. No shame.
So what do you do on the day you were supposed to be running a mile, an 800, and a two-mile? Well, since I ran enough the night before for about 2 days, I covered the living room floor with fabric paint bottles and the sweatpants I bought and proceeded to cover both myself and the sweatpants with fabric paint. (I really didn’t mean to cover myself with fabric paint – that would be weird – but, you know, some things just happen!)
Sweatpants are kind of hard to decorate. There is a LOT more space to fill than there is on shirts. I think I’m a fan of shirt-decorating now. I have a really bad hand cramp, but the good news is, I have beautiful sweatpants!
Even though it is disappointing to not have KVACs, I have to admit I feel a little bit like I’m on vacation, because I actually don’t have anything serious to do today. It’s kind of nice to have a bit of rest after a busy weekend last weekend at the New Balance Grand Prix.
Which, by the way, is a really cool event. If you feel like hanging out in Boston for a weekend, you should buy tickets and go. I had a great experience watching Olympians run races. I watched Dibaba run a two-mile in 9:13. She actually lapped some of the other runners in the race, who, keep in mind, are professional runners.
One of the really cool things about actually being in the event though, was being able to be around all kinds of professional athletes. The gym used for warm-up at the Reggie Lewis center was filled with professional athletes. I saw Alberto Salazar and some of his athletes in the gym. Galen Rupp arrived later that night, and I casually had my picture taken with him warming up behind me. Clever, right? I’m sure he had no idea what was going on. Hey, I couldn’t help that he just happened to be the backdrop of my photo. After the photo op, I went out into the stands again and watched him run the 3,000.
We also rode the shuttle with the professional athletes to the Reggie Lewis center, and then back to our hotel that night. On the way back, the lady who won the women’s mile was sitting in the seat next to me. I had to talk to her through a translator/coach who was sitting next to her, though, because she only speaks French and Arabic, and I only know English and a little Spanish. When we got off the bus, I had my picture taken with her (and not just a sneaky background photo). They provided the athletes with a dinner after the meet at the host hotel, so I went upstairs and had dinner in the same room as all the other famished athletes. It was pretty cool to look around at the people who were eating dinner with me.
I’d never been to a meet like the Grand Prix before, and had never been able to see professional athletes competing in person. I think that the best thing about this meet was that it made me really excited to race in college. It’s always exciting to run with other fast runners, and I know in college I’ll get that chance all the time. I was really tempted to jump into another race that night!
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