By Jay Jones, June 29, 2008

Now, when someone asks me, “Have you ever been to an Olympic Track & Field Trials?” (Happens all the time, right?), I can give them the answer I feel obliged to give them.

Yes. Yes, I have. And, honestly, I’m good for another four years. As long as I can get free tickets then, too (Thanks, Rick and Steve.).

To occupy my time in between the heat and heats, I conducted a mental decathlon in my head (Someone else won. Kind of sad.).

Here are the results from each event:

1. It was frakin’ Hot Hot Heat! My face got sunburned. And my back was facing the sun (No, I’m not possessed)! [Update: My wife wanted me to mention this, too; it was so flippin' hot out there that the paint on the bleachers melted on to her shorts.]

2. I think I had a heat stroke, and the associated delusions. I could have sworn I was having an ’80s flashback considering all of the OP/Magnum, P.I.-length shorts I saw today.

3. Deadspin has had a sophomoronic (look it up in the Urban dictionary) track & field day with some of the names in the competition. Hooker. Gay. You get the idea. The kind of laughs your friends had when your fifth grade class watched a sex education film. Real mature stuff. So, I’m going to help them out. Here’s a quick list of other names they will undoubtedly have fun with: Dix, Gaymon, Cox, Dixon, and Johnson. They should be able to get a few miles out of those. Dix. (Did I mention that one?)

4. Only in Eugene, Oregon (Track Town, U.S.A.) does the eight-year old kid sitting in the row behind you know more about the event rules than you do.

5. Those three men perched on top of the old Condon school must have been really, really hot. No shade. And they were wearing all black. Hmmm. I wonder what they do for a living?

6. The Hayward Field crowd was at its most electric when current Duck Ashton Eaton won the 400M in the decathlon.

Here’s an interview with Ashton from some friends of Duck Sports News.

(Thanks A.J. and Cameron.)

7. The most explosive event of the day was an errant discus blowing up part of the white picket fence and a chair.

8. The next throw was errant, as well. And almost deadly. As a group of officials were taking care of the fence and chair, that discus landed right in the middle of them. Folks, those are not frisbees flying in your general direction! Right before this incident, my wife wondered out-loud how the officials avoid getting hit by those things. I replied that they seemed to know what they were doing. I guess that only applies between the lines.

9. Up until #8, I was wondering why officials were using remote-controlled monster trucks to transport the disci (or discuses, if you like) between the officials in the field and the throwers. Now, I’ve got a pretty good idea as to that reason. Don’t need runners shuttling those things back and forth and…WHAM!…picket fence.

10. My bad-timing streak at track events continues. Left before Maria Mutola ran the 800M at the Prefontaine Classic. Left before Tyson Gay ran a 9.68 in the 100M. Thank you, Wind.

Now, when someone asks me, “Did you have a good time at the Olympic Track & Field Trials?”, I can give them the answer I want to give them.

Yes. Yes. I did.

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