Day 5 and Back Home

Sorry about the slow post but the last few days have been a little fast.  Day 5 was the best day we had as a team in the 6 races we won 4 medals and the team had great races.  This day needed to happen for team LP because the moral skyrocketed.  We split the medal count with 2 bronze and 2 silver.  We did not hit our goal of all golds, we didnt leave with any, but most of the team tried hard. I think we were easily in the top 3rd of total team medals.  The 110 hurdles didn’t go very well but that is to be expected.  We didnt have nearly enough time to train on actual hurdles. The 10k on the other hand was run really well and almost had a gold medal he just lost the foot race in the end and settled with silver.  The girls 5k we had 2 of the top 4 women and with 1 lap to go one girl dropped out and the other got beat out to take the bronze.  The 4x400m was up next and this as always was a really fun race to watch.  The guys team ran really strong and by the time the fourth leg came around he just had to sustain his pace for the silver which he did.  There was no chance to catch first.  The girls most of whom didn’t train with me doing handoffs ran good but the handoffs were terrible which did not help my mental state.  They did gut out a 3^rd place and that brought the tally up to 4 medals in 6 total races on the day.  After that we headed home for the last time from the stadium.   Later that night we went out to dinner with Sirivan and learned that we had a ride back with the team if we wanted.  All of the team who didnt win medals (which was a much smaller group after the last day of racing) headed back the next day.  Tom and I joined an over filled bus for the straight shot drive from 8 am till 4:30 am it was a long day with our longest break being 30 minutes.  Luckily no one got sick but the whole ride to LP I kept thinking I didnt really get a chance to say goodbye.  I really liked everyone on the team, although sometimes it might sound like I dont, and since most of them dont have email address I could never see them again.  This has never happened to me luckily due to things like facebook and email.  We made it home ok although groggy and the Lao new year celebration starts on wednesday.  More updates will come and hopefully some info on whether or not I will help coach the team for the national games.  Fingers Crossed.