Jane Ukandu

February 28, 2005

After about five months of training and hard work, the women's and men's track and field teams were ready for the most important meet of the indoor season: UAAs!!! Everyone was ready to go out there and show what they could really do because for many it was their last chance. I myself was especially excited because it was being held in New York City, which I had never been to before.

Unlike other UAA meets in the past, we got to wake up at a decent hour in order to go to the airport. Even with 50 athletes to feed and get on the buses, things went very efficiently and we were able to make it to the airport on time. I slept through the whole flight which was nice. As soon as we landed we made our way to the buses where we departed for the Armory which was in Harlem.

I found it pretty exciting to cross the state line from New Jersey to New York (which we did about 1,000 times during the trip) on the George Washington Bridge, which has a pretty amazing view of NYC. When we got to the Armory Emily Watts and I being the southerners that we are, were extremely giddy and excited to be walking in snow in NYC.

As soon as we were done training we headed back to the hotel to get ready for the banquet that night which turned out to be pretty nice. All of the UAA schools were staying in the same hotel so it was pretty neat. We had a former Olympian and NCAA champion as our speaker. We also enjoyed the dinner which everyone was expecting to be chicken parmesan and to our surprise actually ended up being chicken, pasta and rice.

At dinner I engaged in some interesting conversations during which a certain long-distance senior runner wondered whether she was eating chicken or fish. (Sorry Dorothy…it was just too funny.) The only bad thing that happened during dinner was I didn't get any cheesecake because everybody just swarmed it as soon as it was placed on the serving table.

Anyhow the big first day finally came when it was time for the preliminaries. I was happy 'cuz I was in a pretty good lane for the 200m dash and for the 55m dash. I was a little nervous before the race but was relieved when fellow sprinter Emily Watts and I both made the finals for both races.

This was actually pretty special for Emily being that it was the first time she made the finals ever for the 200 and that it was her fastest time for either indoor and outdoor which is pretty unusual. I would have to say that most people were satisfied with how they performed overall. We had several people advance to finals, particularly in the dashes where many of our sprinters went into finals with the number one seed.

Finals turned out to be pretty successful even though our evil arch-nemesis school took home the championship trophy once again I think we did pretty well for a small young team. Some stellar performances included: senior Angela Davie winning the mile with a national provisional qualifying time and shattering the school record; 800m runner Julia Morton finishing second; and Emily Watts with a second place finish in the 55m.

I was pretty pleased with my own performance because I won the 55 and finished second in the 200m dash. The 200 was a little disappointing because I got edged at the end of the race, but what can I say? It was an improvement from last year.

Ironically we had people doing fewer events going into the meet than last year and still somehow managed to finish second overall which is two places higher than last year. I would say everyone was proud of each other and pleased with their performances.

After the meet we were all tired and hungry but wanted to get a little glimpse of NYC before it was time to go home. We got stuck in some unfortunate traffic while driving through the city. You know you're in New York when some random guy just thinks he can make a dead stop in the middle of the road and walk out of his car blocking several people behind him. Luckily our coach has guts and isn't afraid to get crunk with people.

Probably one of the funniest moments of the trip was when Curtin starts flailing his arms and yelling at the guy to "BACK UP!" The whole team thought it was hysterical. The bus driver had some serious skills and was able to get us to the NYU field house to have just about two hours to grab lunch and walk around the city.

After showering at the NYU field house and receiving a generous stipend of $12 from the coaches (really I'm being serious, they shelled out $600 for 50 athletes) people went in groups to go exploring. Emily Watts, Esther Choi, and I walked around and finally settled on a cute little Thai restaurant. The food was good and affordable. We finished just in time and were able to get back before the buses left.

The ride home wasn't too bad and I have to say our plane captain was…interesting. He made quite a musical performance of welcoming us aboard and even gave our track team a shout out which was pretty nice. It was good to get home and rest after ending a great indoor season.

Jane Ukandu is a sophomore from Sugar Land, Texas. She would love to answer e-mail questions from Emory recruits and fans.