Colorado Springs Day 1

Hey everyone! Stacey and Jeremy Kamp here! (Team Navy)

After our first day in Colorado Springs we are super exhausted but really excited about the massive amount of cool things we experienced today! After a really frustrating last day in Phoenix, we think we finally have found where we belong, the mountains!!  First off, words cannot describe the beauty of Colorado Springs.  Everywhere you look there are massive snowcapped mountains and the sunset behind them at the end of our last race today was picturesque.  

We started off our morning with a tour of the Olympic Training Facility here in Colorado Springs.  After seeing many of their gyms and learning about the lives of the athletes living there we thought our tour was over.  Little did we know we would actually be competing and racing in some of the gyms/pool that many storied Olympians have trained in!! This was probably the best kept secret of the trip so far because every single person had a look of disbelief on their faces.  We had a mini Modern Day Pentathlon which includes fencing, swimming, shooting, running, and horseback riding.  However we did not do the horseback riding due to the lack of horses and an actual course on the grounds.  When we found this out, we immediately looked at each other with a grin on our faces.  We knew that these four activities were some of our strong suits and we looked for a high finish in this event.

After everyone fenced their partner, we had to choose who was going to do which activity.  Whoever fenced had to swim and whoever did the shooting had to also do the running.  We decided that Jeremy’s strong suit would be shooting because of his great background with hunting.  Stacey could excel in either swimming or running and fencing was kind of a tossup.  The 12 members that chose to fence went up against everyone one time, including Mark Asma, who really isn’t that good of a fencer.   After putting on our suits and feeling like we just walked out of The Parent Trap, it was a lot of fun to interact as a whole group in an exciting event.   

Next was the shooting and running part, these two were intertwined.  Jeremy excelled on the shooting right off the bat and never looked back in the running.   

It is amazing how the higher altitude with less oxygen will affect an athlete.  Finally we moved on to swimming where Stacey swept the field away winning the 100m dash by 15 seconds.  This was a highlight for everyone to be in the same pool that Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte both peed and swam in.   

After that long morning we were treated to the athlete’s cafeteria and had a pop quiz given by famous pairs figure skater, John Coughlin, with random facts we learned throughout the day.  

If that wasn’t enough for one day, we then were rushed out to a nearby park where multiple para-lympic bikes awaited us.  There were two different types of bikes, one was powered by feet while lying down and another powered with only hands.  Each partner had to take each bike around a .6 mile track in a timed relay race.  It was a cool experience for everyone to realize how different a lot of people’s lives are.  This was a great start to Colorado, and we feel that it was a day of good bonding with everyone in the group.  After this we proceeded to get pizza and obnoxiously watch the Calvin-Hope basketball game on multiple computers in a hotel lobby.  Way to show the Dutchmen their place Knights!!! We are looking forward to the rest of Colorado and hoping to keep the streak going!