Three Meets, Two Days, and One World Cup Final

Things are now officially a little hectic. In the past 48 hours, there have been three track meets that the team has gone to - one yesterday and two today. We also have another one coming up on Tuesday, but that one will be used more as warm-up to the Belgian National Championships that we are (most likely) competing in this coming weekend. 

Saturday's meet proved a little bit interesting to get to. We split the group in two so that the trackletes competing in the early part of the meet would have enough time to get there and check in while the rest of the team didn't have to sit at the track for three unnecessary hours. I went with the second (and also the majority of the) group. We had a 25 minute delay at the train station, but it ended up working out well for a couple of reasons; we were able to meet a guy named Morton from Denmark (who looks like Draco Malfoy); as well as meet a guy named Jeff who came up to us, introduced himself, said he goes to an Evangelical church in Ghent, and that he and his church are praying for Athletes in Action. That was one of the coolest things that I have ever experienced; completely out of nowhere and totally unexpected. The competition was definitely a lot tougher at this meet, and the 90+ degrees and high humidity didn't help. Notable finishes include one of our 400 meter guys running on the 4x400m USA relay team, our top female shot putter finishing 4th, and then a guy (not on our team) who ran the 800 meters in the second-fastest time ever. I think it was 1:41:52 and the fastest time is 1:41:11. I could be completely off on that, so don't quote me on it.

Sunday's meet proved to be a bit more tricky. We didn't realize that Europe shuts down on Sundays (rookie mistake, I know), so we weren't able to get real lunch foods for the athletes to have with them during the meet. Thankfully, we still have some peanut butter and Nutella to get us through the day. I went out to the early starting meet with our shot putter from Jamaica and one of our 400 meter runners while the other part of the team went to the later meet. Speaking of that group, as of now, they haven't made it back yet. That's one long day at the track. I will be completely honest - part of the appeal of going to the early meet was that the chances of getting back in time to watch the World Cup final were higher. And that's just what happened.

We made it back to Leuven about 645pm. We would have made it back sooner, but one of our new-found train friends (Ryan from Boston) was running and we wanted to give him a ride back to the train station and show him how to navigate Belgium's rail system. After throwing our gear in our rooms and changing clothes, we set off to try and score some tables at the part of town known as "Europe's longest pub" - 54 bars in a square. The place was packed. PACKED. We were finally able to find some seats at a restaurant that actually served food and not just beer. The game itself was kind of a let down, but I ended up being one for two in my game predictions (Spain beat The Netherlands 1-0. I said it would be Spain 2- 1 The Netherlands). I have gotten all three of the past games correct. If athletic training doesn't work out, I guess I can always go into the world of professional game predictions. 

Prayer requests!

• Prayers for safe travel and opportunities to talk to people at the meet this Tuesday.
• Prayers for all of those people whom we have come into contact with over the past few days.
• Prayers for the team - that we continue to grow and come together.

In Christ,

Rach