We didn't get in, but it was still fun

Yesterday we tried to get tickets to the Olympic Track Trials, but got shut down. We went to the ticket booth and they had sold out. We feebly attempted to scalpe tix, but never found any. I'll say, scalping in NY always seemed pretty obvious. The big guys that often looked a bit (or a lot) shady ... those were the ones you wanted to talk to if you needed tickets. In a lily white town with almost the same types of visitors, it wasn't clear who might have tickets for sale. There was a few blocks set up around the track venue with festival events. We walked around there for a while hoping tickets would fall from the sky. Once that thought faded, we got some food to eat and our moods picked back up. Part of the festival area is the turf practice field right next to the main track area. There were 2 big screens set up there and they were airing the events that were taking place next door. A crowd had formed in front of the screens and we joined the crowd. Oddly, it was a lot like watch a huge TV in your front room. Except there where hundreds of people with you and everyone was really into it! You could hear the crowd in the main venue sometimes, but for the most part, we were having our own experience. People cheered as the high jumpers cleared a new height cleanly and groaned when they just missed it. People went wild for a high school junior that qualified for the 1500m finals. She looked so young compared to the other runners. In order to make the finals, she needed to finish in the top 6. As the race was getting close to the end, she made a move and started to pass runners. The crowd (in both venues) went wild! Each time she passed another runner, the cheering got louder. At the end of the race, she finished 5th, qualifying for the finals, and set a high school record in the process. The last race of the day was the mens 10,000m finals. The top three finishers would head to the Olympics. The crowd favorite was a UofO student, Galen Rupp. Just in case you don't know, 10,000m is 25 times around the track! Galen stayed up within the top 4 runners for the entire race. In the latter part of the race, he was in 2nd and, you guessed it, the crowds were going crazy! He and the runner in 1st place went into an even faster pace in the last 2 laps. As soon as the bell rang for the last lap, Galen went into a sprint and challenged the leader. In the end, the kick wasn't enough to win, but he is headed to Beijing as the 2nd place finisher. The winner, Abdirahman, was so excited that the won he flopped into the water of the steeple chase! It was actually a lot of fun. The trials will be back in 4 yrs. If we still live here then, we will get a Visa card and get actual tickets.