Track and Field Blogs - Scott Bauhs

The Chiba trip was an amazing experience and I learned quite a bit. I'm finally getting over the jet lag from the 10 hour flight back to the states last saterday. It was my first international trip for any reason, let alone running.

Landing in another world last tuesday and going through customs and immigration was very interesting, even though I was only half awake. Everyone in Japan was very eager to help and everyone has varying levels of broken English. I made it through customs and met up with the rest of the team and we were carted off to the Nihon Athletics Center up in the hills. Going to Japan isn't exactly like going into a completely different place: I felt pretty at home except that everyone was driving on the wrong side of the road and I could only read half of the signs. For the most part I hung out with the guys on the team the whole time and laughed about everything.

On Thursday we were carted off to a hotel in Chiba right next to Tokyo Bay. I had a great view of Tokyo from my window but there was an even better view from the computer center on the 48th floor. We went to the mall when we got there and being runners we all gravitated towards the Nike, Asics and Adidas stores. Most of the products in these stores were similar to what you would find in the US with some exceptions but I couldn't afford a new pair of 100 dollar shoes and everyone else I was with get their shoes for free anyways. There was another mall or section of the mall or something where there were cheaper goods so we went over there and I bought some candy to take home and stuff into stockings this christmas.

The race was really interesting. Ed went first and handed off to Desire, who handed off to me and so on. I didn't really get to see much of the race, I was bused over from the hotel about an hour after leg 1 left and was taken to the stadium where the finish was about a half hour after my leg finished. It took about a half hour to get from the finish of my leg to the finish of the race and by the time I got there the last legs were going and we could watch it on T.V. but they were only showing first (Japan) and second (Kenya) and they were really spread out, so there wasn't really a point. After the race we went back to the hotel and got ready for the banquet.

The banquet was very fun and we got to know runners from the UK, Sweden and Australia and we all went to Outback Steakhouse after the banquet was over. The trip was all over very fast but we were all ready to get back to the states and have some left over turkey. The best parts of the trip were how well we were treated, the view from the hotel and getting a new uniform. I am more inspired than ever to make more USA teams in the future and if I do I hope they are as fun as this trip was.