End of Season Mess Up...
Well, to be honest, I can’t remember the last time an athletic season ended this way for me. In fact, I’ll wager that it never has (though, I must add that I could very well have pushed such a situation in the depths of my mind to rot and be forgotten).
End of my season you ask? Yep, that’s correct; it’s over without a capping race. I was, as you all know, supposed to be in California for a race this weekend. The Treasure Island ITU Pan American Cup to be exact. Instead, I am still here in what is starting to shape up as a normal, freezing cold winter for Wisconsin.
The story goes like this. I had been promised a home-stay out in California by the Race Director back at the beginning of September (the 8th to be exact according to the e-mail records), or, over two months before race day. That never happened even though I continued to check in with the race director on this topic over and over. There is a string of over 23 e-mails on the topic. With two weeks to go, she just stopped communicating with me. I had no details as to where I was going to be staying. We began looking for hotels as a safety net at that point…they were all full or costing over 140 per night at the least. Long story short, I never got a home-stay and couldn’t justify spending 140 per night for five nights. The race wasn’t a qualifier for anything, and spending that much on a hotel alone (I needed to get a car, food, and plane tickets in addition to that) for one race. I could’ve spent a good chunk of time in Europe for a race at that price.
After talking to my coaches—Jude, Sean, and Keith—it was decided that the trip was not going to be worth the effort, or the cost. So, I pulled out. I tried calling and e-mailing the race director once more to inform her of this decision…apparently she never got it. At 3:50am on the day I was supposed to fly out to Cali, she e-mailed me telling me (who she called Adam) that a place had been found. That’s great…telling me this 2 hours before my plane is set to depart. It didn’t matter though; the tickets had been changed to another event I am going to in December. In short, Tri California has some pretty poor management, or just very poor communication skills.
Well, that’s pretty much the story. The season is done on my end (without a race, booo), and I now get a little relaxation time before starting back into it for next year. (And a VO2max test next week.)
But, stay in touch, and good luck to all my summer swimmers who made it to the WIAA meet this weekend (and my little sister!!!).