Yosemite Park

After visting a dozen or so Oregon state parks over the first 7 weeks of our stay in the states, today we finally got to see one of the big guns - a national park! A mere four hours (!!) away from San Francisco was Yosemite National Park (pronounced Yo-Sem-It-Ee) and we were determined to see as much of it as time would allow.

We were up at 5am so that Andrea could do a track session at a nearby high school before it opened at 8am. It went well and we then came back and rushed to get ready so we could hit the road as early as possible. It was a long drive and with only my rough drawn map we managed to get to the park perimeter with only one 20 minute detour.

Our primary destination was the Yosemite Valley, which is the main tourist center, mainly because of the incredible views of the many waterfalls and surrounding cliff faces. There are also many trails and walks that hikers may take up to the fall heads and in the valley itself there were many families on bikes and the odd jogger making the most of the miles of paths.

On driving into the park we were immediately struck by some of the magnificent views of the valley. There were some convenient stopping places, so rather than driving off the road trying to crane my neck to have a look, we were able to stop and get a proper peak.


Messing about


Looking across the valley

After 4-5 photo stops we eventually reached the valley basin and headed for the trail leading to Nevada Falls. The previous evening we had been advised to take a look at them by some of Doug’s friends. However, we found that a few of the trails were closed off, so what should have been a 5mile round trip, would have turned into a 10-12 mile trip. On our tired legs we decided to give it a miss, but still managed to get some more great views of Vernal Falls and the other side of the valley (to what we had seen on the way in) at the cliff top.


Yosemite Falls



On our way home we stopped by a Sequoia grove. A Sequoia tree being the most massive living entity on the planet. Andrea was really tired from having done two runs and already walking half-way up a mountain at altitude so I decided to go it alone. It was getting dark and it was meant to be a 3mile round trip, so inevitably I decided to run it. Having not run for a couple of months, running on 2feet of snow and at 5000ft altitude wasn’t the easiest. Especially on the way back which was all up hill!! After forty minutes I returned, very tired and hot. Luckily nobody saw me stripped to my underwear as I ran back up the hill towards the car. I did say I got hot didn’t I!!


Sequoia Tree

We eventually arrived back at our motel at 11pm. A very long day, but totally worth it. We’re looking forward to our next national parks now!!

Pier 39 and a traditional Japanese dinner

After only a couple of days out of Eugene we are well back on the tourist bandwagon and today continued our discovery of San Francisco.

After a long run around Alameda, just ten minutes drive from our Motel and a nicer area (ie looks like there may be less chance being shot), we headed into downtown San Francisco. We had a couple of items on our itinery for the day - firstly a trip to Pier 39 - home of the sea lions and hoards of fellow tourists and then onto Doug’s house (who we met on our Kiwi run tour) for a spot of dinner and socialising.

Pier 39 didn’t disappoint despite us feeling a little chilly in our shorts. The pier consisted of lots of typical souvenir shops and a number of delicious looking (and smelling) café’s. We marvelled at them for a while whilst sat outside eating our squashed homemade cheese sandwiches, planning what we would buy when we come back with nice fat juicy bank accounts. We didn’t stay too long as I was keen to see the sea lions. I have to admit to not really knowing what a sea lion was - I thought they were basically seals. I wouldn’t have been so far wrong except they are absolutely huge! Bigger even than me, and not something I’d like to have fall on top of me that’s for sure (not sure I‘ll ever be in a situation where that could happen though so it‘s all good). They had attracted quite a crowd, and were entertaining everyone by barking loudly and plopping off the pier into the water for a swim.


Pier 39 Sealions


Crazy backflipping breakdancers in town

After negotiating the street car back to Doug’s house, we spent the rest the afternoon and evening with Doug, Doug’s wife Kazumi, and Emi, Doug’s daughter, aswell as another couple of Doug’s friends. We had a really enjoyable evening and Kazumi cooked a traditional Japanese meal which was delicious and more than made up for our budget lunch. After dinner, I was challenged to some Wii fit by Emi and I was horrified to achieve a ‘Wii Fit age’ of 37!! I’m going to blame that on the couple of glasses of champagne consumed beforehand, either that or the machine malfunctioned just when I stepped on and then was fine for everyone else!

Our fantastic hosts

San Francisco

The great news about our rental car meant that we would be able to spend some time in the bay area and central California. We were both really excited that we would be able to see a bit more of the area than we had initially anticipated and today we made the most of it.

After renewing our car rental agreement in central San Francisco we had some lunch in Union Square, where there was some street dancing and filming going on for some tv program. We’ll never know which one, but our performance of ‘excited faces in crowd; number 100 and 101’ means that we are probably going to be in high demand as we venture south to Hollywood in a couple of weeks.

After lunch we set out on our driving tour of San Francisco, which was a great way to see some of the cities most famous sights in 3-4 hours. Our first stop was Lombard Street, the wiggliest street in America, which was born out of a need to reduce the 27% gradient so that cars could still drive down it. It is also made famous by movies ‘Bullitt‘, ‘Vertigo’ and ‘Herbie the love bug’! The top of the street is also one of the highest points in downtown San Francisco and gave us some great views of the city and also of ‘Alcatraz Prison’!


Lombard Street, America's turniest street!


Alcatraz - home of some naughty naughty men

We then took a drive past Golden Gate Bridge, which is what most people think about when they think about San Francisco. We managed to find a free car park (of course) a hundred meters away from the really touristy pay one. It is an amazing sight and we were pleased we managed to get some good shots. We then drove along some of the headlands, through some of the posh areas of San Francisco and through Golden Gate Park, which is similar to New York’s Central Park, I.e. massive. It was very pretty and green and unsurprisingly very busy. Everyone likes to go to the nice parks on a sunny day!!


My face ruining the Golden gate photo


That's better!!

We had a great day and so far, as tourists, San Francisco is our favourite area of the US so far. Looking forward to another days sightseeing tomorrow…

Stanford Invitational

We made it to San Francisco in a mere eleven hours yesterday and were able to get a good night’s sleep despite our Motel being virtually on the Freeway itself. We were excited because today was the Stanford Invitational. The track season is officially underway when it comes round to Stanford and the start lists for the distance races looked great.

The day got off to a great start when the car rental company in San Francisco saw sense and agreed to let us renew our rental agreement in the city rather than making a special six hour one way trip to Los Angeles. It means that we can stay a bit longer and explore. The day got even better when we stumbled upon a Nike Store in the city centre and the long searched for snazzy racing vest was purchased. We had an hour or so wandering around down town San Francisco killing some time. The centre seems quite nice. There are some high rise buildings (Chris’s favourite) and we also went to the Union Square which is busy and has lots of trams, shops and café’s. We’re looking forward to exploring later in the week when I am not sick with nerves at the prospect of running 12.5 laps of the track.

We arrived at Stanford University mid afternoon and had quite a long wait until my race which was scheduled for 8:23pm. This would be my first 5000m in nearly two years and we were hoping to inflict some serious damage on my personal best time. Conditions were perfect and despite my training being a little up and down over the past month, we were fairly confident that we would be able to achieve our target time. The result? 10th place in 16:08.

It is strange how when the gun fires, everything you have learnt over the last few races can be instantaneously forgotten. The best way to run is by going off steady and picking it up as the race goes on. That is what we had planned. That is what has worked so well for me over the last few races. ‘Whatever you do, you shouldn’t lead it’ Chris had warned me before the race. Ahem, yes well, I wanted to run my target lap times, I wanted to run a consistent pace the whole way, I wanted to make my target happen rather than rely on other people to pace me, what other excuses can I think off? I was so focused on running my times, I forgot about working my way into it, picking it up as the race went on. It seems crazy that I lead the race for over a mile as a group of seriously fast people (much faster than me) all bunched up behind me. The pace I was running was only slightly quicker than what we were planning so it wasn’t a disastrous plan, however the effect of some interrupted training showed and I became really tired on the last few laps and my hopes of breaking 16 minutes were gone. A more conservative effort earlier on and it may have been different. I thought I had been teleported back two or three years when I used to do this sort of thing quite often. I haven’t done it for ages, and I hope it’s ages before I race that way again. I have never been so disappointed about running a 31 second personal best before (it‘s strange how after the race all sense of perspective is instantaneously forgotten too)!

We hung around for the next couple of races and watched the women’s NCAA 10,000m record being broken in an amazing solo run by Lisa Koll. It was great to watch but slightly sickening to know that I was running a slower pace in my 5K than she was for double the distance. I have a lot of work to do. Let’s get on with the training!

Watch the Stanford Invite live on Flotrack

Follow the link. Coverage starts at 12:30am GMT on Saturday morning and finishes at 6:30am. Andrea's race is at approximately 3:25am.

Flotrack LIVE coverage of Stanford Invitational

See you then...

Leaving Eugene

After just over seven weeks, we are finally leaving Eugene. We have grown quite attached to our one bedroom apartment and the running and cycling routes we do every day. But everything has to come to an end. This was always meant to be a recuperative section of our trip and now we feel ready to hit the road again and do some more traveling like we did in Australia but this time in California.

So we are both excited and a little bit sad. We have some fantastic things to look forward to over the next month. On Friday this week Andrea is racing a 5000m in Palo Alto (just south of San Francisco), before doing some more races around Los Angeles and Carlsbad. These are races that we have wanted to do for some time, so to finally be going to them is very very exciting.

Inbetween the races we hope to do a load of sightseeing and see some of California’s National Parks and famous sights. We are still unsure of our overall plans as a lot depends on our rental car (we may have to drive 6 hours south to Los Angeles for no good reason this weekend and we won‘t know until Friday). After that we have organised staying with some runners in Flagstaff Arizona for just over a week before heading to Las Vegas for a few days of glitz and glamour before flying home. It certainly looks like it is going to be an action packed month and we can’t wait!!

When we first arrived in the US, Andrea wrote about some of the differences we noticed between the US and UK. I think it is now time to add to that list. So some more things that we have learnt whilst in Eugene:

1, Very very few people ever walk anywhere. The car reins supreme.

2, Customer service is great here. Capitalism reins supreme.

3, There are hundreds of homeless people in Eugene. A big downside of the version of free market capitalism that the US thrives on.

4, IHop pancakes are amazing.

5, Denny’s burgers are amazing.

6, The national anthem is played a lot. Before all sports events and even before we get to ride a mechanical bull in a cowboy bar.

7, National and local pride is woven into the fabric of American society. Everyone supports the ducks (the University of Oregon) and wears the gear. When I say everyone, I mean everyone!! (well maybe 50%).

8, Eugene lives up to the title of “Track Town USA”.

See you in San Francisco!!!

Oregon Preview

So today was the long awaited outdoor track season opener. We had both been looking forward to this meet for weeks. Having been to watch the Ducks compete in a range of sports, we would finally get the opportunity to see them compete at home in what is of course the best sport. We were interested to see how much interest this early season meeting evoked in the general public and if Eugene lives up to it’s name of ‘Track Town USA’ in terms of public interest, not just by the number and quality of athletes.

I was also making my 2010 outdoor season debut, and as preparation for future races in the season over longer distances, we had entered the I500m. This is an event that I have not competed over in many years and a near sprint for someone whose best prospects lies in distances more than 26 times longer. We were excited though for what might be my one and only chance to compete at the historic Hayward Field track – where Steve Prefontaine ran many of his legendary races.

A few laptop associated problems and $200 dollars aside, the day got off to a good start. It was probably the best day yet that we have experienced in Eugene with the sun shining and with it being pretty warm. Chris was also pretty pleased to get a ‘coaches pass’ which not only gave him free entry into the stadium, but also gave him access to the spectator restricted areas such as the warm up track and call up room. He wore that bright pink wristband with pride!!

Fortunately for me, the 1500m was one of the earlier events in the programme, and considering I was very nervous, it was good as we would be able to enjoy watching the later events in the programme stress-free. I was fortunate enough to be placed in the top seeded heat so we were hopeful for a personal best time. The race was not my best by any means – the first lap was swift and, probably having not raced over 1500m for such a long time, I was worried and backed off quite a bit over the next lap and a half. It was only when I got to 400m to go that I realised that I was actually feeling comfortable and had a lot more to give. I picked it up and managed to pull out my quickest ever last lap in any track race and finish in 4:23.49 – a personal best by 7 seconds. I’m happy, I’ve got to be. This time last year I was struggling to string together any training, let alone run PB’s, however I’m still frustrated that I ran a bit of wimpy race and I’m determined to do better next time!!

After a bit of a post race tempo run (always thinking of the bigger picture!) we spent the afternoon basking in the sun and watching the rest of the races. It was such a great atmosphere and the announcer reported an attendance of almost 6000 people. It reminded us a little of the UK National Championships in terms of atmosphere, as they had the big screen working, kit carriers and victory laps – all of which contributed to making it a bit of an occasion (and went down in Chris’s notebook as to how to host a good meeting!). We really enjoyed it, but went away feeling a little gutted that we will miss the big one – the NCAA outdoor Championships which are being held at Hayward Field in June. Now that would be really worth seeing!!


Footage of my race can be found here. Skip to 43 minutes to find my race!

Portland Part 2 and the Worlds Best Running Track

Amazingly another of my friends had a conference in Portland during the time that we are staying in Eugene. So we decided to go up and meet Daphne for the evening, hopefully give her some respite from all the Physics geeks. It is strange to see our friends from back home when we are over here. You almost feel like you are back in the UK again. Just for a few hours anyway!

On our last trip to Portland (when we visited Lui around a month ago) we missed out on going to the Nike Campus in Beaverton. We had heard good things about it, apparently it has a wood-chipped trail around the perimeter and also a running track we had heard was worth visiting. We weren’t disappointed, Andrea just had to do an easy run in the afternoon and made the most of the trails and then had some drills and strides to do, which we did on the track. The track was fantastic and totally worthy of the hype. It is set to the edge of the campus and is surrounded by tall redwood trees which cross over into the centre of the track so as you are running around it you are unable to see the other side. We both reckon it is now our favourite running track in the whole world!!


Michael Johnson statue overlooking track


Nike Campus running track

In the evening we met up with Daphne at the convention centre in Portland and walked back to where she was staying to grab some food. We ended up eating below where Daphne was staying, which turned out to be a British style pub with traditional pub food options. They had live music and St Patricks Day celebrations going on. It was a pity that none of us were drinking! We stayed until around 9:30pm before taking the now boring interstate number 5 south to Eugene. That will likely be the last we see of that section of the road on this trip!

Hendrick’s Park

It is always the way. You spend hours driving around the countryside seeing nice scenery and parks and wildlife, often going for long day trips to get as far a field as possible in the hope of seeing something really spectacular. You’re not often disappointed (although yesterday’s readers will know we came pretty close!).

But then, right near the end of your stay, or after you have been in a place for ages, you realise that there are some really nice places just on the doorstep. In fact, ten minutes drive away in this case (or rather twenty minutes if you allow time for my directionally challenged map reading).

Hendrick’s Park is right next to the University of Oregon but we just don’t seem to have found the time so far to go there. Despite the recommendations of a couple of people I suppose we weren’t so enthralled at the prospect of going to a small town centre park and time has just passed us by.

However, today was the day, and with the weather forecasters predicting a 20 degree high we set off in high spirits. The weather forecasters got it wrong but we weren’t complaining at the 15-16 degree temperature, and we also have to say that Hendrick’s Park lived up to the hype.

Set on top of a hill, there is forest and a whole load of trails - despite the relatively small area that the park covers, each trail was secluded from other trails by the high trees. We had quite a pleasant walk. Only one complaint though was that it was pretty hilly so perhaps I will avoid going on any running excursions there! Unfortunately I didn’t have control over the camera so no decent photos were taken!

Orienteering

We liked the look of Detroit Lake State Park, so thought that the two hour drive taking us 100 miles north east of Eugene would be worthwhile. After all the park had miles of walking trails, a wildlife viewing area, two play areas (for Andrea not me!) and even two giftshops. It looked great. We charged up our batteries with an Ihop lunch of omelette and pancakes (we didn’t finish it) and then hit the road. We didn’t think of checking whether it would be open or not and unfortunately when we got there it was closed for restoration works!! Gutting.

Determined not to waste a two hour drive and intent on getting out of the car for at least half an hour, so that we could loosen up, we set about finding another park to explore. We had a map of where some of the other state parks in the area were and headed for the nearest one only to find it was closed! We’ve not seen a park closed since being in the states and then we see two in the space of 30min! All was not lost though as we soon found a park that was open. It wasn’t as spectacular looking as Detroit lakes, but we still enjoyed a walk there. Andrea went snap happy with the camera again and took a lot of bad photos (as well as a few good ones of which I’ve posted a few below).


Perhaps Andrea's best shot of the day


North Santium State Park

Tomorrow is supposed to be a scorcher. Well not quite, but it is meant to hit 20C. Who said March was still pretty much winter!!

The Return of the Blog

This has to be a near record - over three days have past and no blogs have been written. The reason? After four and a half months of metronome like daily blogging we finally ran out of steam, we blogged ourselves out, ran out of things to say.

Well, not exactly.

It was more of a case of our fun being severely hindered by factors beyond our control. That is to say the weather. When one is on such a strict, low budget, most our activities have to take the form of the outdoor and free variety. These activities, as you can imagine, are less appealing when it is truly lashing it down with rain and your only item resembling a waterproof lets the rain in within about five minutes.

So as a result we’ve had to have a more indoorsy few days, and we didn’t want to loose any of our faithful readership by describing how many pages Chris read of his ‘Options, Futures and Derivatives’ book or how long I spent looking on the internet for potential hen do related activities.

The weather finally brightened up a little yesterday and so we headed down to Autzen Stadium to experience yet another new sport, women’s lacrosse. It was great to get out after a relatively dull couple of days and we enjoyed the game which was quite fast paced - despite not fully understanding the rules (again). Chris reckoned he might be quite a good lacrosse player due to his speed and fitness. However, people used to say that about me playing hockey, until they saw me play, so I’ll reserve judgement for the time being. It was a shame that my good friend, the Duck Mascot, had obviously gone on holiday for the weekend but I was still sufficiently amused by the women a few seats down from us with a Duck sounding whistle. Simple things eh!


The ducks taking a hard fought victory over Iona

We’ve also taken the opportunity to see a couple of films these last few days, especially after discovering another cinema where it is a bargain price of $1.50 per person. We both preferred ’Invictus’ to ’Up in the Air’ although neither film scored major points with us and we still await the ’wow’ factor. This weekend was also the weekend of the World Indoor Athletics Championships and the NCAA Indoor Athletics Championships, both of which were being streamed live over the internet. These both had some pretty exciting races to watch and filled our evenings quite nicely…especially when washed down with a good old glass of root beer.

The weather forecast is meant to be better this week so hopefully we’ll be able to get out and enjoy our last week and half of Eugene without catching pneumonia.

Dexter Park

Another day, another state park. This time it was Dexter State Park, around a 30min drive from our apartment. The weather has turned quite a bit colder over the last day or so and neither of us have a massive amount of warm clothes, which meant that today’s walk had potential for being the shortest yet! We ended crawling down the side of the reservoir damn and found some nice paths through the forest. Andrea was on photo duty again and got some decent ones.


The reservoir at Dexter Park


What a nice rock. Definitely worth a photo Andrea ;)

Apart from that there isn’t so much to write about. After you have trained twice, done a core stability session and been shopping as well as talking to friends and family online there isn’t so much time to do much else. It is nice to be able to relax and not have any worries though. We’re still not missing our old lives of work just yet!

Rainbow Spikes

So as the altitude question rumbles on and on (and maybe looks more unlikely), other race preparations are now in full swing as the ‘Big Four’ races that comprise my track season approaches. Actually of the four there are really only two that I’m really bothered about but it is still pretty nerve wracking all the same. Preparations are beginning to near completion as today I purchased some rainbow coloured spikes from Downtown Eugene. I am sure the big crowds will now be uber-impressed with the colour of the undersides of my feet so surely I can’t fail??!

In the evening we again took advantage of four dollar Tuesday at the cinema and went to see ‘The Last Station’. Probably the best film we have seen so far on our trip, this film told the story of Leo Tolstoy, the Russian novelist and author of ‘War and Peace’. The story followed the last few months of Tolstoy’s life and his relationships with people around him. Definitely worth the four dollars anyway although we really need to be more disciplined on the sweet front - this time we excelled by even our own standards having polished off the whole lot before the film even started. Oops a daisy.

It has to be said that yesterday was a fairly low key day with no real excitement to report. We seem to have spent quite a while trying to work out what we are going to do in the next (and final) portion of our trip. There seems like so much we want to see and do around California that we just can’t decide what to do when! With only seven weeks now until we come home and back to reality, time suddenly seems really precious, funny really when you spend all day deciding what you are going to do with it!

To Altitude or not to Altitude

For the last few days we have been debating as to how we will spend the last 7 weeks of our trip. We have several things in concrete, i.e. the races that Andrea would like to do in California, but apart from those few days not much else has been planned.

As things stand we have another 16 days in Eugene before we head south to Palo Alto (just outside San Fransisco) where Andrea will do her first 5000m on the track of the season in the Stanford Invitational Track Meet. A couple of weeks later we want to be in Carlsbad, CA, a few hours south of Los Angeles, where Andrea wants to run in the Worlds Fastest 5km Road Race. We are hoping that Andrea can get into the elite race (just for the experience), but we will have to see how things go. Then a week later we will be heading back up to Walnut, CA where Andrea will likely do her second and last track 5000m of the season in the Mt Sac Relays. This is actually a four day festival of running, so we are intrigued about what goes on there. After Andrea’s second race we only have 12 days before we fly back, with the last three of those spent in Las Vegas. No doubt we’ll be partying and spending the remainder of our money. We’ll still be in bed by 9pm though so don’t worry! This means that we have around 3 weeks in California with few plans of where to stay and what to do and we also have a 7 or 8 day window after Andrea’s last race before we head to Vegas. It is in this window when we are thinking of driving to Flagstaff Arizona to do some altitude training before driving to Vegas for the end of our trip.

For those that don’t know, altitude training is a big thing in the world of distance running. The idea is that because of the reduced oxygen in the air at higher elevations the body is forced to work harder with the oxygen that is available. On returning to sea-level you are then able to utilise the higher levels of oxygen better and essentially run faster.

Some of the theories around training at altitude are that you need to be up there for longer than a week to start realising the benefits of the higher elevations, although some people are able to get great results from even just a few days. It seems to be a very individual thing. It also has the possibility of just tiring Andrea out a great deal (with the significant risk that it may even wreck the remainder of Andrea’s season - it should be noted though that the main races of Andrea‘s season are over here in the US, the ones in the UK won‘t be anywhere near the standard and will be more for fun really). It is something we need to weigh up. On one side we think going to altitude would be a good experience and if it is something we want to take advantage of in future then even going for a week would be a good experience. However, there is the real possibility that we may not get it right and Andrea may not race well when we get back to the UK. It is something we are considering and we will try to work out what our overall plans are in the next few days so that we may begin to sort out our accommodation.

So there you go. Those are our plans. We are unsure of whether to go to altitude in the middle of April and we are also not sure of how we should divide our time around California. If anyone has any ideas on either then let us know, we would be grateful for any input. Thanks…

Another sunny day in Eugene...

There was a slight change to normal proceedings this week as Session Saturday became session Sunday, which meant that there wasn’t a whole lot of time to get anywhere between the two big training sessions I had to do. However, all was not lost as a quick visit to the Ducks website told us that there was a new sport we could nip and watch down at MacArthur stadium - women’s stunts and gymnastics.

Although we were unable to stay for the whole competition due to the impending track session, it was pretty interesting to watch the team compete for points in a type of people-pyramid building competition. It looked pretty risky too as people were thrown up into the air and caught. Chris asked me if I would like to do something like that - I wasn’t so keen…it would probably resemble a plank of wood being thrown skywards and crashing down in an awkward heap. Either that or my legs would snap off or something equally painful.



Portland State's Stunts and Gymnastics team doing a pyramid routine

We were both worn out in the evening after all the training so we decided to have a quiet one and take the opportunity to watch the Oscars for the first time. This was probably the biggest waste of four hours since we have been on the trip, and we were glad when it finally finished. It’s something to tick off the list but we certainly won’t be tuning in for future ceremonies.

American Snake

After our early morning run we took a ride down to IHop to have breakfast. A few weeks ago we had pancakes there which were amazing. Today we went for breakfast again, but this time we had a breakfast combo which included a plate of delicious fluffy French toast and another plate of traditional cooked breakfast. All for the equivalent of £5 per person. Bargain!

After breakfast we drove to our second state park of the week - Jessie M. Honeyman State Park. The park is situated a few miles from the Oregon Coast and is characterised by its crystal clear lakes. In fact, when on our walk around part of the lake perimeter, we saw around 30 people taking diving lessons as it was possible to peer quite deep into the lake waters. As we wandered around Andrea took hold of the camera again and demonstrated how far her photography has come on the trip by taking lots of good photos. Unfortunately Andrea wasn’t holding the camera when she spotted her first American snake. By the time I got there it had already slithered deep into the bushes. We spent the remainder of the walk banging our feet along the ground to warn anything dangerous of our approach. No snake kisses for us please!


Looking across the lakes


Andrea taking a stroll


One of Andrea's arty shots

In the evening we watched Forest Gump and then spent the next half an hour wondering what the point of the movie was before we headed into Eugene for a late night hot chocolate. The topic of conversation recently has turned to planning Helen (Andrea’s sister) and Matthew’s joint hen and stag do. We can’t give anything away, but all I’m going to say is it’s going to be a good one guys ;).

More University Sport

Our quest to watch as much college sport as possible whilst here in Eugene continued today as we headed down to the University of Oregon campus to watch a spot of women’s tennis. This was a sport in which we were particularly interested. Many college sports stars go on to become professionals upon completion of University, however we weren’t sure if this would be the case with the tennis players - many of the players on the ATP tour have been so since they were 15 or 16 years old, and hence it is perhaps unlikely that 22 year old players from university go on to play professionally. We were interested to see the standard of the players and how the competition worked.

The ten strong women’s team were taking on the University of Southern California and the competition involved three 8 game doubles matches followed by six three- set singles matches. We missed the start of the matches after a bit of hunt around to find the tennis courts, and when we got there the matches were in full flow. We were amazed by just how good the players seemed. It was certainly a very high standard - fast paced with some great shots being played. Unfortunately our jinx of the Ducks continued as they lost every match. Chris was also disappointed to be out-shouted in a half time quiz to win a tube of tennis balls.

We stayed around a couple of hours but then had to leave before we froze to the spot. In my case it wasn’t helped by the fact I had been forced to put on a wet pair of tracksuit bottoms after mistakenly putting every single pair of my trousers in the wash that morning. Schoolgirl. We weren’t so cold though that we didn’t have time to stop by the campus track on the way back to the car to spy on some of the athletics team doing a reps session.

We may take a short break from College sport over the weekend now, before looking for some more competitions to go to next week. Hopefully our losing streak will not continue much longer!

Track Thursday

After the roaring success of the video I made last weekend (54 views so far and counting…), I was inspired to make another video today, but this time of one of Andrea’s track workouts. About 5 minutes before we left for the track in the morning I thought that I may as well take the camera along and give it a go. It isn’t an easy job trying to film and then also read times and give Andrea feedback while she is running around at some speed. I often have to get my skates on to run across the bog in the middle of the track to give splits which whilst filming can be a bit tricky. Taking on the role of coach and film crew is not an easy task! I’m reasonably happy with the outcome, although I could have done with more footage of Andrea running and the footage I did get being less jumpy. Next time I could do with an assistant. Any volunteers?

Anyway below is the video. I certainly enjoyed making it and I hope you enjoy watching it.





Apart from that we drove around 30min out of Eugene to another of Oregons state parks. This one was Alderwood state park, and again it was really quiet - something which we both like. It seems that a lot of the forests around Oregon are redwood and a lot of them get this moss covering virtually everything so that some parts are really pretty.


Spooky forest.


Andrea admiring the scenery.

In the evening we watched a couple of episodes of south park and the American office on TV, whilst I edited the video. We then headed out to a local bar to rekindle Thirsty Thursday, which has been on hold the last few weeks. Not any more though!!

A Game of Rounders

A trip to America would never be complete without watching a game of baseball. Baseball is one of those games that is not really appealing to us, but we did have some slight curiosity about what the fuss is all about, and if it is indeed any different or more challenging than a game of good old rounders.

We were also keen to take up the opportunity to visit the brand new PK Park, which has been springing up day by day since we have been here. Unfortunately the weather was ghastly - pretty cold and wet, but that didn’t stop us. After all how long can a game of baseball last? We would be home and able to warm up after an hour or two.


The impressive PK Park

Today ‘The Ducks’ were facing ’The Huskies’ (Aka the University of Washington) and quite a few older people and students (it is a weekday) had turned out to give their support. One of the first things we noticed about the game was that yes, it is basically rounders, however, it is actually a really tactical game with each team always trying to spring a surprise on the other, using different bizarre signals to converse with team mates over the game plan for each ball. It took us a while to understand the rules and scoring, not being able to work out when exactly the teams swapped over and how many throws the bowler got to send at each batsman and it was all a little confusing at first. I think we kind of grasped it after the first hour or so and we could then sit back and get into the game.

We quite enjoyed the closely matched game, however there were two main problems. Firstly, there was a lot (and I mean a lot) of faffing about. Before each throw the batsman and bowler seemed to have a bit of a pre-bowl routine - swinging the arms around or going through certain motions. Then the bowler changed quite often and on each occasion they had to do an on-pitch warm up..stopping the game for a few minutes. You could go to the toilet and come back and they would still be on the same batsman. It meant that the pace was just a bit too slow for us.

Secondly, the actual rate of scoring was so low. Obviously my knowledge of baseball isn’t good or even average so it may just have been that the teams were very closely matched, however the end score was something like 5-3 and that’s after a whopping four hours of play (and yes we got very cold and wet). It seemed almost impossible to score, when the ball was hit, it was either caught or the batsman was stumped out before reaching the first post.

So it maybe wasn’t a sport we would go and watch again, but it was definitely a good experience. It was really worth going anyway as we got to see our favourite duck mascot playing about in the rain, and I also enjoyed watching the ‘Duck Derby’ in one of the breaks (basically cardboard ducks on sticks racing along one side of the stadium wall). It has answered quite a few questions we had about baseball and we were happy we went.


The Oregon Ducks being introduced


The baseball in action


No day would be complete without seeing the duck

Tuesdays in Tracktown

The highlight of the day was going to “Tuesdays in Tracktown” in the evening. This was a public meeting where coaches from the University of Oregon and Oregon Track Club get to talk to members of the public about the latest news from the running scene within Eugene. The University of Oregon director of athletics - Vin Lananna - hosts the evening and invites some of the Oregon based athletes to give talks on their experiences. Tonight’s special guests were Oregon Track Club Elite athletes Sally Kipyego and Will Leer and the head coach of the elite section, Mark Rowland. They were all fresh back from a trip to altitude in new Mexico where some of the athletes had also run in the USA national championships. In fact Will Leer had just qualified for the World Indoors in Doha, Qatar next month in the 1500m. Both athletes gave talks of their recent experiences as full-time athletes and then took questions from the floor. We also heard from the mens and womens sprint coach at the University of Oregon - Robert Johnson. The sprints section of the team has been getting stronger and stronger over the last few years and that is down primarily to Robert’s hard work. It was interesting to hear about his experiences recruiting athletes to a north-western based college. Most sprinters like to go to the southern states where it is warmer, but he has been able to build a program over the last few years that is now moving towards the top-tier of collegiate sprinting programs. It is all part of Vin Lanana’s plan to make the University of Oregon a more rounded team, with a good sprints section to add to the incredibly strong middle and long distance section.

Afterwards we managed to speak to some of the coaches and athletes, who were all really nice. We really enjoyed the evening and wondered if something like this would work in the UK. We didn’t think so, partly because there are few places with such a strong contingent of athletes based in one place and secondly because the general public wouldn’t be interested. This is testament to Oregon’s drive to maintain athletics in the publics consciousness, from daily updates in the local press, to regularly updating websites with videos and interviews. It allows people to get to know the personalities behind the athlete results and also get to know the coaches that are a part of that. There is a massive athletics fan base in the area, as evidenced by last night, but it should be reminded that these things don’t happen on their own. It takes work and perseverance to build relationships with the community and to build a knowledgeable fanbase. This is certainly one thing I think that athletics clubs and centres in the UK could learn from and maybe something I would try myself to one day implement. Watch this space…


Our host for the evening - Vin Lananna

The big question

Throughout our time here in Eugene, there has been a tricky question bothering us. Everyday we go running on Pre’s trail and drive past the huge Autzen stadium which would rival a premiership football ground. Right next door, we see day by day developments to the building of a $20 million dollar baseball ground. Having seen all the other wonderful sport facilities for the Ducks across Eugene from running tracks to astro turf pitches, we’ve been asking ourselves the same question….where the hell does all the money come from?

My theory was that pretty much everyone within a 20 mile radius of Eugene owns a ‘Ducks’ sweatshirt. 75% of people own a Ducks Car sticker, and possibly 50% of people own either a Ducks baseball cap or some other accessory like a Ducks umbrella or Ducks pair of slippers. When you combine this with the ticket sales to Ducks events - you get yourself a Ducks athletics fund.

Well, today we found out that my theory was very wrong. At least I have the consolation of breaking the world record for the number of times a duck is mentioned in one paragraph. Anyway this is the story…

I have been feeling quite unwell over the last few weeks and as an unfortunate consequence I have felt the rather disturbing desire to race over 1500m at the ‘Oregon Preview’ meeting here in Eugene in three weeks time. Having not had a response to my pleading email to the organiser and having received some insider information that the organiser’s office was inside the Autzen Stadium we decided to head down there…before I come to my senses and change my mind.

Whilst waiting in the organisers office we took the opportunity to distract some poor guy working at another desk and ask him endless questions about the university. The opportunity to find out about how it is all funded was too big to miss.

It turns out that the millions of dollars that are spent every year on University of Oregon sports comes from…wait for it….donations!!! The university does not receive any government funding and the proceeds from sales of merchandise and tickets is minimal. University alumni and other members of the public give money to the university sports union which is then divvied up amongst the sports. We were both totally amazed. We’re talking about around $50million dollars per year here not $500.

Chris was immediately excited that maybe there is hope for British University sports after all….all you need to do is find enough people to donate enough money. Ahem. Perhaps I’ll leave the recruitment drive to him.

We didn’t actually get to see the meet organiser in the end but I’ve since been accepted into the meeting… and at least we now finally have the answer to our funding questions!!

Beavers and Turtles

Andrea was pretty sore from training yesterday and today was just doing an easy 90 minutes. It probably helped getting out as Andrea would have US rising athletic star Jordan Hasay for company. Meanwhile I would go for an easy bike ride along some of the extensive bike routes across Eugene.

In the afternoon we went for a walk around Elijah Bristow State Park. The park is part hiking routes, part nature reserve. We went for an hours walk and then ended up spending quite a bit of time around a wildlife lookout point. Amazingly the lake was home to river turtles as well as beavers and ducks. We managed to spot several turtles sunbathing on logs which were part submerged in the lake. However, whenever I tried to get close to take a photo, the turtles jumped into the water! They weren’t stupid. I did manage a few photos, but all were from a distance.


Sunbathing river turtle


Beaver!

In the evening we watched Twilight and Twister on tv whilst making plans for the rest of the week. Baseball season starts on Tuesday so we may get to see one of the games if tickets haven’t sold out.