On Thursday I woke up at 7:00 and went down to eat breakfast. I got my go-to breakfast, a plain bagel, and fruit. After I ate, I went back up to my room and packed up all of my things to move into my new room for the next few nights. Once I moved my bags, I met with the other Southeast girls at the shuttle to head to the Nike World Headquarters. Once we arrived, we took a couple of pictures and Sasha, who raced at Nike last year, showed us around the Headquarters. After looking around, it was time for our gear reveal.
With anticipation, we waited outside the doors until they called us in. When we walked in, they opened the curtain showing us all our gear. We were especially excited about the shoes because there are only 400 pairs in the world. After we got all our gear, the other Southeast girls and I did a shakeout run around the Headquarters. We finished up our easy run and strides on the Michael Johnson Track and ran back to the Headquarters.
Back at the Headquarters, we checked out the athlete lounge. In the lounge, we ate snacks, got our shirt personalized, and won some Nike lanyards in the claw machine. Then we went back to the hotel and had lunch, tried on our new gear, and got ready for the opening ceremony. After getting ready, we left to go back to the Nike Headquarters around 2:30. When we got there, we hung out in the athlete lounge for a couple of hours playing all around the world ping pong.
At 5:15, we walked over to a different building for dinner and then finished out the night with the opening ceremony. During the ceremony, all of the teams and individual qualifiers were called out. Along with this, various athletes sent us motivational speech videos to prepare us for Saturday's race including Eliud Kipchoge. Once the ceremony ended, we loaded up the bus and went back to the hotel to relax and get some sleep before another eventful day!
