Track and Field Blogs - Jacob Pauli

Hey Everybody,

I haven't written in a while but don't worry I am ok. I recently got 5th place at the olympic trials and have been writting letters to the usoc to get them to allow 5 athletes per event. They have not responded. OK, i am kidding. Getting 5th is almost as painful as getting 4th but I am slowly recovering. Lets go back to Eugene and see what happened shall we: In the qualifying round I felt a little weak and a pretty close to soiling my speedsuit (at least Nike Unies are not white this year). You see on Monday before the trials I took a pull off of a water bottle without looking at it first and it turned out to be a pre-workout drink that I had mixed up earlier...4 days earlier. 24 hours later, I was "scream-barfing" (copywrite B. Walker) in the steak and shake bathroom to the wonderment of a young employee named Hector. I appologized he walked out. Ok moving on the the qualifying round. I actually didn't have any problem advancing to the final as I cleared 5.50 18'1/2" on a first attempt. And for those of you dying to know, walked away with a clean uniform. On the day of the finals, I felt great had great warmup jumps and again made 5.50 first attempt. Then I caught a couple of tricky winds, blew through a pole, came down on a bar and it was over. This was my 3rd Olympic Trials and my closest bid for the team but I was healthy and confident and really competed to the best of my ability so like the heading of this blog- whats a guy to do.

Now let me give you good news. My beautiful wife Nikole is growing a child in her uterus. She is, was, a 400 hurdler who was looking forward to competing at the trials herself but couldn't get over any hurdles lately because of her lovely lady bump. We are so excited and we feel blessed to receive a cosolation prize like this. But, won't be naming the child Eugene, although that would be very funny.

Anyway, I am training and waiting for meets in Europe and I feel great. I hope everyone has a great summer. I lastly want to say that I am so happy for and proud of Nick Symmonds because he is a reckless manchild who cannot be stopped and also pumped for Trey Hardee who blew my mind at the trials. Great job.

peace.