USA Junior Championships: Greetings from Des Moines after a smooth trip

We are here in Iowa for the USATF Championships, having arrived about an hour ago. We have three athletes who have qualified and who will compete here at Drake University later in the week on Friday: Kristen Traub in the 1,500-meter run; Johnny Lee in the 10,000-meter run; Ryan Colabella in the 10,000-meter run. The last time we were in Des Moines was three years ago. At that time, we also had a women’s 1,500-meter runner (Jackie Gamboli) and two men’s 10,000-meter runners (Arquimedes DelaCruz and Mike Nicoletti). Pretty odd coincidence, huh? Well … Quimes also ran the 3,000-meter steeplechase … but why let the facts get in the way of a good story.

The number of athletes and the events they are in are quite similar. But the similarities in our getting to Des Moines end there. Loyal blog followers will recall our travel odyssey from 2010, when our flight from Newark was canceled, we took an early morning flight to Minneapolis, and sped cannonball-run style from Minnesota to Iowa, barely in time for Quimes to run in the steeplechase. This year, we had no such travel woes. We arrived at LaGuardia with plenty of time to spare. No thunderstorms in sight. We even ran into our old friend Joe Lipari (Tommy’s dad), who ironically enough happened to be on the same flight as us – he is traveling out here to see Emily run in the Senior 1,500-meter race. Our direct flight from LGA to Des Moines departed on time and arrived in Iowa about a half hour early. Early! When does that ever happen? The rental car line was short, and our trip to the hotel was even shorter … about two minutes. The weather forecast out here calls for hot, hotter and hotter. So far, so good. We’ll keep you posted on the developments.