Holy crap that was awesome!!!!!
Last night, I skipped yoga and went to an event at Clif Bar Headquarters. It was a reception and talk with four professional triathletes: Tim O'Donnell, Terenzo Bozzone, Linsey Corbin, & Ben Hoffman. This is a star lineup and I was very excited to get inspired for my upcoming return to multisport after a year of consistently running and doing yoga to rebuild fitness.
Then I saw an older guy and I recognized him. I thought "No Way! If he was here they would have said so on the announcement. No Way!"
So I ate and drank and chatted and didn't have the courage to walk up to one of the athletes who was there to be talked to (sigh). We sat down for the program and they announced that Mark Allen was there to tell us about his new book! Mark Allen, The Grip, the man who won the IronWar, Six time Ironman Hawaii winner. Holy crap! He was cool and funny and down to earth. The dude is a legend.
The other athletes were super cool and gave a pretty good talk. The event was shamefully under-attended. There was capacity for 200 and their might have been 50 people there. There was a raffle and I won some stuff. After the talk they had copies of magazines that the athletes had been on the cover of for them to autograph. I was not shy! I grabbed one of each and got autographs from each of them. They were all really nice and down to earth and (surprise!) actually wanted to talk to me. I had a nice little chat with Tim O'Donnell and we made Zoolander jokes about his cover.
As I was saying goodbye and shaking hands, Mark Allen jumped on stage. I reached out to shake his hand and taught him a fun, Oakland style, handshake. He totally did it with me and then threw me a shaka and a smile. Fangirl Squeeeee!!!!
It was amazing and I am now totally a fan of all these athletes. I am so hyped to race again!