We can roll with the punches
A few weeks ago Lea gave our team a little talk abut being flexible at Trials and prepared for things to go wrong. She wanted us to be ready to roll with the punches. Well, the past few days have certainly been exciting but since we were prepared for things to go wrong we’ve come out of it pretty unscathed.
The whole team flew out on a bunch of different flights. For the most part those went well. I even got upgraded to first class so that was nice. Unfortunately, our coaches and one of our athletes got hugely delayed and then their flight into Omaha got canceled late last night. So I picked up a car when I got in and so did another girl when she got in later. I had a small adventure getting to the hotel but I made it by about midnight.
This morning, we still had no coaches because they were stuck in Houston and just trying to get within driving range of Omaha. So we made our way to the pool on our own. Dana had her coaching credentials handy and so she was able to sign us all in. We all got a good warm-up and I picked up my LZRs. Afterward we caravaned our way to Old Town Omaha to have lunch and wander a bit.
Not too bad so far, considering.
We planned to go back to the pool around 5 PM after the coaches had made it in. However, Mother Nature had different plans for us. I looked out the window as my roommate and I left our room and saw that the sky was black and it looked like night out. The wind was blowing like crazy too. Then I looked back across the street and I could see the rain pouring down, moving towards us. It was fast and as it hit we could hear hail striking everything and making a huge racket. The lights started flickering and all the fire doors closed. Then the hotel staff was pushing everyone into the basement. All of the swimmers found each other down there and we hunkered down to wait (see pic).
About ten minutes later they let us out and we headed out to the pool. It was still raining big fat drops but it wasn’t windy anymore. There were huge lakes and rivers in the streets but we didn’t have too much trouble getting to the pool. On the way we saw blown down trees and debris all over. But the worst was yet to come.
As we approached Qwest Center we saw that part of a high wall had been torn off and there was a hole and a ton of debris around. We went in but they had pulled everyone out of the pools. We waited around for a while but then they sent everyone outside because they had to check for structural damage. The pool was closed for the whole night so we just went to dinner. On the way the GPS nav system died, which made things even more interesting.
Intense! But I kind of feel like it is a big adventure. And I swam a lot this morning so it was ok that I didn’t get to swim tonight.