I am not a track nerd....

Cathleen, however, truly is. It was so fun to live with her in college, where track was such a huge part of who she was (and still is!). She is best at high-jump, but was the Atlantic 10 heptathalon champion, which is so amazing! She works at an Oil and Gas Co. in Denver, but her true passion is Track and Field; she would love to qualify for the Olympic Trials, which I (and she) fully believe she can do. She volunteers as a coach at the Colorado School of Mines, a Mining/Engineering college in Golden. The school is having a track camp for high-schoolers this weekend, so we have been spending a fair amount of time here at the Field house.

Yesterday, she tried to teach me how to hurdle! This is a lot harder than it looks! She cracked up when I told her my motivation for learning (there was this one guy who didn't look that coordinated and I said [I know it's mean!] "If he can do it, I can probably too."). Ha ha. It's really hard to get the timing, lift off (not a formal track term, I know)... and arm motions right. I found that I have to take off with my right foot so that my left leg goes over first, lay-up style. Cathleen says I look like a train (not sure exactly what this means...) when I go over. I know I need to work on my forward motion (I am, I know, too vertical), but I feel this will come with time :)

It's funny because I met several of her track friends/coaches (Scott, Art, Todd) yesterday. Much like when non-medical people must feel when they hear us crazy students talk about medicine, I felt so lost hearing them go on and on about different runners' strengths, mental toughness, technique, physique, times, etc.. It's very educational though. And now I know there are more people like Cathleen in the world!

I'm not sure what we're doing later today, but I hope it's something fun:) I go to CO Springs tomorrow to visit with Mindy.