I work with Josh Mcadam's cousin, and she's been emailing me his journal entries from his experiences so far in China. (He graduated from BYU and is competing in the Steeplechase, for those who may not be familiar with him). I've enjoyed hearing the thoughts of a first time Olympian and cannot imagine what the experience must be like. He tells of his workouts, his eating, smog, etc. I joked about putting it online but then found out that he is publishing it online already at
www.cleveland.com/olympics . . . So I guess it's free game. You will find it at the link if you scroll down, and all new posts will be found there throughout the games. Below you will find his entries for the last few days:
Mon, Aug 4I am finally caught up on these entries. Everyday I am here I feel better and better. Last night Leo and I were in bed by 10PM and woke up around 6:30AM. Of course the night is filled with waking up 3 or 4 times to go to the bathroom. My theory is that we are drinking so much room-temp water that it is not being absorbed as readily and just passing through. That problem is solved now that we just found out there’s a little fridge in our room. Another funny story is that Leo always seemed to be awake when I got up. I’d go to the bathroom and he’d be like, “What’s up my man?” as I was sleepwalking back to bed. Or he’d get up to go and be like, “Hey my brother.” How do you respond to that when you’re droggy from a melatonin-induced slumber? I had a hard enough time staying awake while standing at the camode.
But the beds are basically stiff cardboard boxes. I found an extra blanket and use it as another layer of padding. Don’t sleep on your side or an elbow or arm turns into a sharp object digging into your ribs.
So today we were up ay 6:30AM. Breakfast of Special K cereal, sliced oranges, cantaloupe, and cheese and tomato. We jumped on the bus to this horse track 5 minutes away, and I ran around that for an hour. It felt good to be on some soft terrain. I ran with Lopez Lamong. We’ve talked quite a bit since we are both on Team Darfur, a group of athletes that have petitioned for peace from the genocide in this area of Sudan. It’s another topic for some other time and China is involved in a negative way. Anyways, his story is incredible. He’s one of the Lost Boys who fled to Kenya at 6 years old. They traveled at night for 3 days straight. He came to New York through some American foster parents. The high school coach got him a letter jacket with his name on it and told him if he ran, it would be his at the end of the season. So now he’s running the 1500m for the USA in the Olympics. Obviously there’s more to that, and today on our run I just kept asking him questions about his family and home and Sudan asking him to run for them. Amazing! That’s what America is all about.
I did some abs and stretching while waiting for Leo to get back from the track. We hit lunch where “Iron Chef” Adam had prepared some incredible food as alwayd. One of my favorites are these sweet pumpkin stuffers. Soo good! I brought my new ping pong paddle and broke it out of it’s case to break it in. After defeating Abdi and Coach Mann, one of the Chinese hotel staff stepped up to play. He of course played pin holder and so I was intimidated. While warming up, he said something to another staff member and 20 seconds later that guy showed up with what I assume was this guy’s personal paddle. I guess he thought I was decent enough to break it out. Game on! We split the first 2 games with him taking the first and I the second. The final game was 21-19 China over the USA. But it was way fun and some of the USA athletes and staff said I represented us well. During our games we were able to say, “Very good,” to certain plays by each other, and it really felt like the Olympic Spirit of sport. Just a good time…and a good sweat too.
Back at the room Leo was Skyping his girl acquaintance. Since we don’t have the external headphones and mic, your roommate can listen and add to any conversation. Leo and I don’t care whether we listen to each other’s conversations, but we’ve found that it’s a little awkward for others – especially girl acquaintances. Not mine of course. I decided to grab “Twighlight,” the teenage vampire book, and go read in the hall. Pretty good book. Makes me wish I was a teenage girl with a vampire boyfriend. Just kidding. I’ll throw in some pics with this and try to send it out later today. I love being able to put this stuff down, and I’ll include a funny story Whit sent me from church on Sunday.
Here’s the funny story from Whit:
You were a good news min. today in Relief Society... you know how they ask "Any good news this week" So Julie Kowallis had a good news minute, it was that she saw you running by our neighborhood in only your short shorts... ha ha! It was actually hillarous how she told it! The R.S. loved it. She now has some inside joke about when ever they see some old guy plodding along on the trail they say, "and that is NOT an olympic athlete..." anyways, you had to be there.
..." anyways, you had to be there.
Tuesday, August 5, 2008Slept til 5:15AM and then couldn’t sleep anymore. I guess that’s what happens when you go to bed at 9:10PM. It’s just hard to stay awake when 1, it gets dark at 7PM since the whole country is on one time zone, and 2, the meals by our chef flown in from Denver are so good you just eat until you get droggy. So I Skyped, internet phoned, Whit and read some.
At the track I did a hard interval workout. I warmed up by pacing Lindsey Anderson through 800 meters of her 1500 meter time trial. Then I did a mile with Abdi Abdirahman at 4:27, a solo 1200 meter at 3:14, an 800 meter at 2:07, and finished with two 200 meters at 26 seconds. By the time I was done, I was drenched. It looked like I had just jumped out of the pool. Humid is an understatement and it was more like a mist in the air. We aren’t completely sure if it’s fog or pollution. It was great to have my coach, Ed Eyestone, there. We do have a distance coach for Team USA, but as they and any other runner will tell you, no one can take the place of your coach. Coach Eyestone will be commentating for NBC during the Olympics for some track and marathon events so he’s able to play dual roles until the games get under way. I feel lucky to have him here.
We grabbed some pictures at the track with the mayor or assistant mayor of Dalion. Some things are lost in translation. And then I got a picture with our SWAT guys. Leo Manzano and I have become friends with these two named Sun and Pong. Whenever we travel, they are our dudes.
We did another excursion to Dalion’s main city area. They took us to these nice malls with overly expensive items. We had our entourage of course of three security guys including Sun and Pong and this translator. All we really wanted to see was traditional Chinese clothing and artwork. Johnny, our translator, was just so excited to show us everything. He was this 20 year old student that reminded me of the squirrel from “Over the Hedge,” after the caffeine. So the highlight for us was outside of the mall at the little open market. I got a keychain with this thorny bug in it and another that flashes the “Hello Kitty” thing without batteries. It’s solar powered. Crazy! And that’s not for me obviously.
But for me the coolest thing was the food market. You walk down a few steps and BOOM! The fish smell just dazes you. Aah the memories of Thailand. All around was fresh, dried, pickled, fish, squid, shrimp, sea cucumbers, eel, and live turtles. I wanted to buy some of the dried squid strips for everyone to try, but I was afraid I’d end up eating the whole thing. Once my races are done, I’ll try it all. Leo and I got some desserts that looked large white and purple Bon Bons. Inside was a thick purple mush and I am guessing that it was taro. It’s like an Asian potato. Not bad.
And the best part was the fruit. I found mangostein. It’s the Queen of Fruits and you can’t get it fresh in the States. It’s either canned or dried. It has a dark thick purple rind and the actual fruit is in white slices like that of an orange. I bought about $4 of it which only got me about 8 of them to share with those in my group. They all agreed it was good. And I picked up a couple of lynchees too. Another Asian fruit that’s yummy.
As the ping pong goes, Jill Camarena and I are undefeated so far. We beat AG Kruger and Reese Hoffa handedly.
Finally, here is an article from my home paper. I really enjoyed the angle that Tim, the writer, took on it.
http://www.cleveland.com/olympics/PS I am wearing board shorts in some of the pictures because after workouts I’m so sweaty it’s easier to just throw those on and hang dry them. Sorry if you wanted more of the skimpy shorts.
Wednesday, August 6, 2008Not too much today. Ran at the horse track which is a 1450 meter lap - just under one mile. That took care of an hour. Typed up some of this journal, helped Coach Eyestone set up Skype on his laptop which is not an easy task when most of it’s in Mandarin, and tried to get some video and pictures of our facilities. I am going to try and attach those so you all can see it too. It was nice to have a relaxing day. I wanted to get a nap in but there’s always things to do.
After snapping some photos of the coast, an old wood bridge, the theatre room, pool, bowling alley, and athlete lounge, it was time to unwind. Ping Pong. Jill and I took on Wallace Spearmon and Sanya Richards. Beat them 2 out of 2. They were both close and Wallace has great spin, but we won the 2nd game 23-21. We also beat Coach Eyestone and Coach Hayes, Lopez Lamong’s coach. But that victory wasn’t as rewarding for some reason. I guess beating world champions has something to do with it. Still undefeated.
Leo and I went for a second run of 30 minutes down what Leo calls The Hill of Decaying Rotten Fish. There’s a stretch of about 5 minutes where it really is putrid, and I’m used to some pretty horrific fish smells. Whit and I would probably say something in regards to a decroded piece of crap. I don’t believe decroded is a word, but it’s a perfect combination of decrepit and corroded. But we had a good heart to heart on running, dating, marriage, real estate, and life. 30 minutes and all that. We distance runners value every breath so although we may not delve deep, we still connect.
Our dinner conversation was very interesting. It started off with Kung Fu Panda to painful ways to die to the Holocaust to how long one could go without sleep to how tasty a distance runner would be (not very since it’s lean meat) to Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle to which one of us would last the longest stranded on an island. We decided Jill Camarena since she was the biggest among an 800m runner, a 1500m runner, a steeplechaser, and heptathlete. Jill is a shotputter. I motioned in the event we were stranded that scrawny Leo Manzano be the first to go since he wouldn’t make it long anyways. It was unanimous.
