I think optimism is way overrated.  Too much optimism means you’re going to be disappointed.  But enough pessimism ensures that more often than not you’re going to be pleasantly surprised.  Take the other day for example; a whole bus load of us arrived at the track at Braschaatt, Belgium.  We were about four hours early for the meet, so we had the whole afternoon to kill, just hanging around at the track.  It was pretty nice out, but there were a few clouds brewing and I figured that in an hour or two it was probably going to rain on us.  Everyone else saw the blue sky and thought I was crazy.  Sure enough, an hour later dark clouds filled the sky and we felt a couple drops.  I was ok with it because I thought my prediction of rain was coming true and everyone else was disappointed because now they thought it would rain.  But within a few minutes the clouds started to blow away and the sun came back out and we all enjoyed the rest of a sunny afternoon.  So at the end of the day I was wrong.  But as consolation for being wrong I got to enjoy a beautiful day.  It was a win-win situation!  If it rained I would be right and if it didn’t I would enjoy the weather and be happy to have been wrong!

The highlight of the meet was of course Alan’s awesome run in the mile, but even without that it would have been great.  It wasn’t any sort of big time meet, in fact it was the opposite.  It reminded me a lot of the meets at Stanford.  Great conditions, lot’s of athletes supporting each other, and a few hard core fans.  All that and a trackside beer garden!

After the meet we all got back on the bus and rode an hour back home to Leuven, bringing back memories of high school and college road trips for everyone.  It was probably close to midnight when we got back, but Sara decided to fill up the ice bath anyway, and since it’s always tough to sleep after a race, a group of us sat around in our kitchen and took turns icing.  It must have been an odd sight because our ice bath is actually a rubber raft that our coach bought, which we fill with water and dump tupperware containers full of ice into.  I was a little skeptical at first, but it actually works great!  The two students who were trying to enjoy some wine together in the kitchen probably think Americans are pretty weird.

After Braschatt, my next meet was Heusden where I ended up running 13:18.  Next I’m running a 2mile in London on Friday night and then hopefully a 3k in Stockholm.  After finally getting in a good 5k I’m really excited to get in another one and take a bigger chance.