Last year the IDS had four Little 500 riders blog on a weekly basis (well, we gave 'weekly' our best shot) to give readers a different perspective about the race at the center of the 'Greatest College Weekend'. We're trying it again this year, but for now it's my turn:
This is the true post of a Little 500 beat reporter picked by two sports editors to have her life and her fingers attached to her computer until America's Greatest College Weekend is over. To find out what happens when the IDS stops just reporting and starts getting real...check here for The Real Ride -- Little 500 style.
I never thought I would enjoy the floors of Ballantine so much. I mean, think about it. Since it was completed in 1959, every freshman that has gone to class in their favorite pair of sweatpants and worn Indiana t-shirt has had to have walked the floors of that building. That's a lot of foot traffic. While laying on the ground floor tonight in Ballantine Hall, I never thought I would hear myself say, especially out loud, that I enjoyed being on that filthy floor.
I mean, I'm the girl with a place for everything in my room. The one who offers to clean other people's rooms when they're messy. Really, I have before.
But there I was. Sweaty and in pain. Laying on my back. With hair that is 10 inches too long seemingly sweeping the floor the janitors were still waiting to go at. And I was loving every minute of the hour and a half I had witnessed and about the last 45 minutes I had physically gone through.
A Little 500 team had just completed their stairs and core workout. At a point in watching for 'sensory details' to help on a story I am going to write about this team, I realized running stairs would help me understand these bike riders better.
Yeah, I spent 30 minutes on my mom's bike that was set up on trainers in a back bedroom this Christmas. Yes, I had to stop after seven minutes and start again only to stop and start again three more times. But I've always wondered how Little 500 riders can run the stairs that most people schedule their classes around. I had to try it.
I joined in near the end of their exercise. The first drill was easy. Run from the ground floor to the second, cut across and down the opposite staircase.
Simple enough.
But then what the coach called a 3-4-3 which means run three floors up. Ten push-up break. Run back down. Run four floors up. Ten push-up break.... You get the idea.
Like before, the first burst up wasn't too bad -- although if you had asked me freshman year if I thought I would make it to the third floor with ease, I would have told you Purdue basketball would win a national basketball championship before I made it.
Then I started the second burst or the '4' part of the 3-4-3. That second burst my legs started to feel the burn. I'm not sure how far up I made it before it started. I cursed. Slowed down and immediately realized that while most people center their Little 500's around certain beveragea, there are people on campus who train endlessly with one goal in mind : to compete in a collegiate bicycle race.
And they're the people that lie on the floors of Ballantine Hall.
