A Good Day

I find it funny how one little thing can make your day. I don’t think this is something that happens often, but when it does it is usually something very simple, something just a little out of the ordinary. That happened for me today. And Will, you’ll have to excuse me for laughing at your expense.

In Bath, being in the school’s band wasn’t the stereotypical nerd-fest. Instead, it was a conglomeration of pretty much everyone; nerds, jocks, emos, Goths. Me, I played the trombone. I wasn’t too bad either, once even had a solo to Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire…well, I wasn’t very good actually, my father laughed through the entire solo.

BUT, my brother Will was also in the band. And yesterday as I was walking through Ghent, I was reminded of this very fact and could not stop laughing. For Will played the clarinet, and as I walked and saw a band with a trumpeter, an accordionist, a drummer and a clarinetist, I could not help but laugh out loud. I then slyly shot a picture and went on with the rest of my day, happy as could be.

Just a few more days of sitting around and then one last race over here. I’ll be at Braschaat on Sunday racing one more 15. I’m hoping to be a little more aggressive than I was in Ghent, and if I rig, I rig. I’m looking forward to giving one last go at the 15 for this year.

I have a mini-workout tomorrow and then Saturday will be used for relaxing and packing up. I leave Monday out of Brussels, and not going to lie, looking forward to getting back in the states.

50 Bones

There’s good news, and there’s bad news.

The good news is that I made 50 euros in the race today. First bit of prize money that I have ever made. It was pretty sweet.

Bad news, my watch broke. The band broke so I can’t wear it now. I am desperately in need of some sort of gear deal so that I don’t have to buy a new one.

So the race was better tonight, but still not great. I just didn’t feel exactly like myself. But ran 3:41 for the 8000th time all year (well actually 5th) and just feel like I need to dip under that barrier just to feel a little better about myself.

There was more of a group staying in Ghent tonight, so, drank some beers with them. I may or may not have had a few too many, but it was a really good time. Got to hang out with really fun people who are also very fast and just have a good time. Its funny to see that the faster people over here don’t really like to talk about running, they just like to have a good time. And this doesn’t mean that they aren’t serious about the running stuff, it just means that they like to go out and be happy rather than worry about how fast they ran or whether they are getting into the next race. It was Gent Fest, and it was just people moving from tent to tent and drinking beers.

I had a flotrack interview so check that out here…
http://www.flotrack.org/videos/coverage/view_video/235261-2009-gentse-feesten-meeting-gentghent-flanders-cup/195004-liam-boylan-pett-1500-gent

Tomorrow, a little bit on the European car system.

HP, Dud City

Not going to lie, yesterday was one of the most uneventful since I have been here. The only event that took place was a viewing of the new Harry Potter movie, and let me tell you, it was highly disappointing. It was a boring movie and in the grand scheme of things nothing really happened. And yes, this was a set-up book for the final movie, but since they are splitting that book into two movies, I don’t have that high of hopes for now. But it just goes to show that I shouldn’t have read the books, because I wouldn’t know what I was missing and I probably would have enjoyed it.

The only real bit of action in the movie came when about halfway through the movie the lights in the theatre turned on. I was pretty upset, and only calmed myself down once the screen showed that they were having a 10 minute intermission. This then made me more upset because I was hydrating for the race and really had to go to the bathroom but it costs 0.35euros to go to the bathroom, so I had to hold it in for an extremely long time.

Get to race a 15 at Ghent tomorrow. The women go off at 8:20 Belgium time, and we are after that, but there supposedly could be 5 heats of the women, so probably around 8:45 is pretty likely for my race time. The Ghent track is in the middle of this forest and is tree lined, its going to be pretty fun to run a race on. There are a few other Americans in the field, including my travel mate for the trip, Matt Debole. It will be nice to have someone to warm up with and everything. Hopefully I can put together a better showing than Heusden.

A lot more athletes are showing up for this one, and Ghent is a little more than just a small crew, so that has been a little exciting, but overall nothing to report.

And sorry for the lack of anything exciting in this entry, just a boring day, I’ll think up something to make tomorrow’s a little more entertaining. Wish me luck for the race…