A week ago tomorrow, I left Davis for Erdek, Turkey to compete in the World University Championships. I took seventh after leading much of the bike and having a decent run. With the 6th place finish of Florida's Kevin Collington and recent Nebraska grad Barrett Brandon's 15th place finish, the men's team took second behind Switzerland to become the most successful USA team in the history of the World University Games. The women took third, led by Justine Whipple, of Navy, who won the women's race to be crowned world university champion. She had a great race, leading much of the bike and building a 35 second lead over the run.
I'm happy with my race. I would have liked to run better off the bike, but Ethan Brown (USA) and I did most of the work in the lead bike pack, so our legs were pretty fried. Everything went technically well. I exited the swim well, transitioned well, positioned myself well at each 180-degree turn and into transition and ran with good form for at least 3 of the 4 laps.
Travel to Turkey was ridiculous. It was a full 26 hours of travel that begin with United giving away my ticket for my Sacramento to Chicago flight. The customer service representative was working with me to resolve the fact that I had a boarding pass and reserved ticket on the flight and that I had arrived in the gate in time only to find United's gate agent had given my seat to someone else. But as she worked to fix the situation (and walked me down the jet way), the gate agent closed the flight and the door to the plane. My travel that day would consist of 3 flights (Sac to Chicago. Chicago to Frankfurt, Frankfurt to Istanbul, Istanbul bus to ferry, ferry to Erdek bus, bus to hotel). Missing that flight would cause me to miss all of those connections unless I could make a flight in Chicago that would board as I landed from Sac.
I made that flight and met up with most the rest of the USA team. The worst part of the trip was a 6-hour bus ride from Istanbul to Erdek. It was hot and longer than the three hours we were promised. When we got to Erdek, we found out that two members of the USA delegation that arrived in Istanbul later had arrived ahead of us because they took the comfortable fast ferry that took just 2-hours to cover the same gound as our bus ride. I was mad!
The hotel we stayed in was ok, but the staff were rude. We were advised to drink bottled water, but the hotel would not provide us enough water, even at meals. The food served at the hotel was not very good. Heavy on watermelon and white bread. Erdek was very hot and humid, but had nice 76-degree waters.
Sunday, following the Saturday race, I travelled with Ethan and Kevin to Sembach, Germany. We have stayed on a US Air Force base here for several days and will leave tomorrow to travel to a race in Hamburg. Yes, its a world cup. It has been great to be in Germany, with good pastry and food. And it is so nice to return to stay at a US base where you can pay in dollars, speak english, but sour patch kids and get cheap food at the commisary. Germany is really pretty and the weather has been nice.
After Hamburg, Ethan returns to the states. Kevin and I come back to Sembach before heading out to Budapest for the Tisjavarous WC the next weekend. I may come home after that!
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