Premier RV Resort | Clarkston, Washington

Saturday - 18 May 2002: Clarkston, Washington - I heard rain on the roof last night, but we woke to a beautiful, warm and sunny day. Again, we went along the miles-long bike path for our morning exercise. Today is the "Walk America" day and hundreds of people were walking on the path for March of Dimes. All the ducks at the nearby park were replaced by geese. I guess the Ducks have the weekend off. The goslings are just HUGE compared to the little ducklings. All are adorable and severely protected by their parents from vicious exercisers walking along the path!

The view from Goldie this morning

We drove, about 40 minutes, north to Pullman, Washington (the route takes you through a bit of Idaho and nothing but wheat fields) to Washington State University for the Pac-10 Track & Field Championships. The best part of the Pac-10 Championships is of course, that it is actually the Pac-9 Championships - we don't have to look at Beavers all day, as their track program collapsed years ago. That said, we are here to cheer for Our Ducks and one Cardinal. Just one, and you must give us this one small infraction. Lisa went to  high school with Omer and he throws for Stanford. His specialty is discus, though at 6'5", 260, he looks more like a hammer thrower. Omer also puts the shot, but did not make it out of qualifying today. He was happy to see us and promises to do his best tomorrow. Tomorrow, I promise many photos.
 
It was just a beautiful, warm and sunny day in The Palouse. I donned sunscreen and my huge sun hat, but we both caught a bit too much of the sun. The meet was very poorly attended - I would guess less than 2,000 fans and it had the look and feel of a high school track meet. (The distance times were so slow, it may as well have been.)
 
DT SAYS:  In spite of that, the Ducks competed well with freshman Brett Holts (Bend, OR) getting 4th in the steeple and sophomore Jason Hartmann pulling off a nice 2nd in the 10,000 against a tag-team of six Stanford runners. The Ducks will have two of the eight finalists in the 800 and will load-up in the 1500 and 5000 accordingly. Even though the Duck field event guys have supplied most of the points so far, hopefully the Duck distance running tradition will pull through. GO DUCKS. (No social comments as I am still stunned over Muggins the Clown.)

Duck Samie Parker


Wazzup with Gabe’s hair?

We spoke with Duck coach Martin Smith. Martin is very excited about his new recruits. (So are we!) And, girls, I met Brett Holts - very adorable. Though most of the day's events were prelims, it was a nice meet. The Stanford team is very much a "team". When they are not competing, the Cardinal are enthusiastically cheering for their teammates. I enjoyed this very much. By the time the painfully long 10000s were over, the skies turned black, thunder rolled and rain started to fall. It was a very long day and tomorrow will be even longer, but luckily more exciting. Omer begins throwing at 11:30 a.m., and will be finished before the running events begin. 

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