My Olympic Journal - There's A Lot for You All

Here's the journal I've been keeping and sending to family and friends back home. Hope you guys enjoy.

My Olympic Journal

Wed, July 30
The last few weeks have been so busy. After making the team, I was bombarded with newspapers, interviews, photo shoots, and even a Sports Center crew coming out for a segment. On top of that, Whitney, my wife, and I have been trying to get ready for our move out to Memphis, TN where I’ll begin optometry school August 28th. So we’ve been filling out applications for apartments, packing up our old apartment, and moving it into the in-laws. Monday and Tuesday consisted of packing and moving. I also had to shop for Whit’s birthday presents and make sure all was ready for her surprise party last night. Her birthday is actually today so I wanted to make yesterday a great one. I think it was.
My alarm was set for 6:45AM, but I woke up at 5:56AM. The excitement was a good thing since I was able to get a 5 mile run in this morning before leaving for the airport. I read some of “The Translator,” a book about a man’s account of the genocide in Darfur. I also watched some of “Drillbit Taylor.” Down at baggage claim I greeted Jill Camarena, shot putter and also a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She was at BYU for a while as a weight trainer while I was there.
There’s about 20 of us on the bus going to San Jose State University for team processing. Most of them are wrestlers. I need to squeeze in a fartlek run sometime. Looking forward to going to dinner with some friends who live out here.

Thurs and Fri, July 31-Aug 1
The flight from San Jose to Beijing was a 12 hour flight. It felt like 12 hours too. I slept maybe a total of an hour and a half. It always seems that the flight attendants come around just as you’re falling asleep. Sleeping is difficult when the sun is out the whole flight. I bought some compression socks to wear during the flight and they definitely helped minimize the swelling in my legs. Last years flight to Japan left my ankles and calves looking like someone had pumped water into them.
I finished up the book, “The Translator,” and started on “The Twilight.” I dissed on “Harry Potter” before I started reading them so I am giving this series a fair start. Its good so far. I also learned some valuable words and phrases from my neighbor on the plane.
As we came into the airport, I looked out to see a beautiful green mountainous countryside. The sky was a perfect blue and I thought surely we must be quite a ways from Beijing. It didn’t appear that there was any pollution as we landed and in fact, the landscaping and air were magnificent. From what I’ve heard, the Chinese government sent up some chemicals to induce a rainfall that morning to clear up the sky. As far as I’m concerned, they can do that every night through the Games.
From the airport, we were wisked onto a bus to the athletes village. The media was all over this U.S. gymnast who is a hopeful for the gold medal. I believe Johnson is her last name. She is so tiny and it must have been a little crazy for her. The Athlete’s Village is pretty sweet. It consists of tons of apartments for the athletes, a huge cafeteria, training facilities, and shopping district for whatever you may need. Perhaps I am biased because I love food so much, but the dining hall is very impressive. It is probably the size of a football field and has a huge variety of food. There’s even a McDonald’s in it so you can eat your hearts content. And I probably will after I’m done competing. It is cool to see all the other countries in there, and this is where you can see the most athletes at one time. The Thai weightlifters sat behind me during Friday nights dinner and I found my self eves dropping on their jokes. I introduced myself and talked to them for a few minutes before heading to the WiFi spot to call Whitney.
In the building with wireless access is also an arcade. And by arcade, I mean full on video games with the sit down speed racing, the free throw basketball challenge, the shoot ‘em up hunting, and your typical others. The room was very large and packed with athletes playing. Kind of funny to watch and I snagged a couple of photos.
The running in the Village isn’t so hot. It’s like 2 miles around and all asphalt so I ended up going out of the complex which I think is okay. It’s just so stuffy in there. It feels like a prison with the double fencing and barbed wire.
I squished my first mosquito in the bathroom with the old missionary one hand swipe. I got lots of practice while having discussions with people during warm evenings in Thailand. And that was the end of Friday in Beijing.

Sat, Aug 2
Got up around 6:15AM and ran for about 40 minutes. It’s definitely more humid than Utah. I went straight to breakfast and enjoyed Cocoa Puffs and fruit. The box of milk for my cereal said “Organic Milk” so I figured it was unprocessed or soy milk. It was delicious and I couldn’t wait to drink down the Cocoa Puff flavored milk leftovers. Delicious as I suspected. As I was leaving I decided to grab another carton of it. I looked at the ingredients on the back. No wonder it was so good. Main ingredient: Milk creamer. Mmmm yummy! But I will be staying away from that for a little while…at least until the 18th.
At the Beijing Airport we waited for our plane in this luxury lounge. There was this nice buffet set out, soft plush chairs, and wireless internet. It’s crazy how well they’ve treated us.
Dalian is a huge city. Flying in it was like New York City but spread out over 4 times as much land. It’s a city of a million people, and our 55 min flight used a plane the size of an international one. They closed all traffic for us to go to the hotel. On the way over I was struggling between doing a hard workout that day or the next. I was so tired from all the travel and eating garbage. Well I opted to do it. Normally that workout would have been easy but three things made it tough. The wind, the travel, and weight. Obviously I felt sluggish from all the travel, but I checked my weight at the hotel and I was 158.8. That’s about 9 lbs over what I normally train at, and I felt it. Oh well. You’ve got to get those workouts in at some point. Chalk it up as a good physical workout and a great mental workout.
I was way excited to see my homeboy Leo. Last summer we had a ton of fun in Osaka, and pulled for each other at the trials so we could room together. Seconds into moving in, we were already jesting and joking around. It’s like one of your old high school buddies that you always hung out with. You can just be you and chill and have fun. I think that’s why we get along so well. Nothing is serious and we just go with the flow. It’s been fun.


Sun, Aug 3
Rarely do I run on Sundays, but with the crazy travel schedule I needed to get in a long strength run this week. So I went out with the group for a morning run. They bused us down to the bottom of the hill and let us out on this 3 lane road. When I got off I looked behind us to find that traffic had been blocked by a SWAT van. The line of cars wrapped around the bend for who knows how long. I guess they planned on us coming and that was their method for ensuring a secure area. I and the others felt pretty bad about it. This is the main road in Dalion and they had it blocked off for 15 km (9.3 mi) until we were done about 2 hours later. So we talked to the coach about just blocking off one lane instead of all three. We distance runners are used to running on narrow shoulders and dodging cars. J
So I headed out with Abdi and Lopez. Put in a good 13 miler averaging about 5:30min/mile. Boy is it humid out here. In Utah I sweat but it’s so dry that it’s whisked away. My shorts were drenched and I felt nasty. To add to my embarrassment, there were guards stationed every 50 to 100 meters along with all the people going to the market. There are also guards hiding in the shrubs and trees throughout our runs. It’s wild. You’re always being watched. Makes it kind of hard if you need to stop when Mother Nature calls. And if you think that’s embarrassing, try explaining that you have to take a leak to the security guys in the Land Cruiser. Finally I just did charades for #1 and he understood in about 2 seconds. Easy enough. He just pointed to the trees and followed me over. By the time I was done, about 30 seconds, another security car with 4 guys had pulled up and were acting as a wall. Crazy!
The other highlight was going to a shopping center in Dalion. Of course they blocked off the road for us to drive there. And they told us not to wear any USA stuff so we don’t stick out. Well we pull up in this big red bus with all these escorts, and we all hop out. As an American in China, you don’t need USA gear to stick out. Leo, Lindsey, and went to this mall next door and it was a bartering area. As we walked in I saw this deep fryer that reminded me of the ones in Thailand. Sure enough there were all these crazy meats on a stick that you could have deep fried. Most of them are ground up squid shaped in balls. But there was also chicken hearts and large sliced hot dogs that bloom open as you fry them. Leo and Lindsey didn’t want to try them, and I am watching my girlish figure so we skipped it. After walking around for about 10 minutes Leo and Lindsey noticed this guy following us. I thought they had seen him earlier, but he was of course our security guy. As we bartered for webcams, ping pong paddles, and memory cards, he just lolly gagged around. It was fun having them pull out a calculator to show us the price, and then doing the math on the calculator to see how much in American dollars. Leo got a cell phone 2GB memory card with a sheath adapter to go in his laptop for $45. I picked up a very nice ping pong paddle for $12. We finally headed to Starbucks so Leo’s withdrawals could be satiated. He’s quite the coffee drinker.
And that was the excitement for Sunday in Dalion.

Mon, Aug 4
I 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. J 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.


Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Slept 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. J

Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Not 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.

Thursday, August 7, 2008
Leo and I were out by 9:40pm and up at 6:30am. Pluses and negatives to that. The plus is that I get to talk to Whit first thing in the morning. The negative is that you sit around until 8:30am when the bus leaves for the practice track. Then you don’t start your workout til about 9:45am and it’s hotter and more humid than ever. The workout wnet okay. 8x400m@59-60 seconds with 90 seconds rest between each. I went over the hurdles on the even laps. I hit all the times I needed to, but I still don’t feel as sharp as I should. It felt much worse than it usually does up at altitude in Provo, Utah. But sometimes you don’t feel great in races and you just have to gut it out.
It was really a short day. After getting back from the track, Leo and I grabbed lunch, I hit the showers, and we packed our stuff for the trip back to Beijing. I gave some of the security guards signed New Balance posters and exchanged email addresses.
Unlike most travel itineraries, we only left 2 hours and 40 minutes before our flight departed as opposed to 4 hours before. So we only had to sit at the airport for an hour. My flight consisted of finding out that Bella now knows that Edward is a vampire and she is dangerously secure around him. They are about to go on their first trip to Seattle. Isn’t wonderful that I can be in China at the Olympics, and in a mystical teenage vampire romance at the same time? But the Twighlight movie comes out soon, and the new book just came out a few days ago. I’m as excited as a teenage girl on prom night. J
Anthony Famaglietti and I shared old BB gun war stories from when we were kids and the torment our parents went through. He had some good ones, but considering my younger brother Andy still has a BB stuck in his cheek, I think I got ‘em. I have about 5 stories to most others’ one. But that’s how it is when you grow up with 8 kids.
We got in around 8:30pm, went for a 30 minute jog, and then went straight to the dining hall. The food was delicious in Dalian with our personal American chef, but here it seems that there’s so much more of a healthy selection. Here you can get your steamed veggies with nothing on it. There’s not all the dressings of butter, salt, and oil. You can put that stuff on later if that’s what you want. This is much more like Whit’s cooking back home.
Leo and I hit the hay a little late around 11pm. Our room is tiny. I’ll send a pic later. And our first night wasn’t too good. Leo kept making some grunting noise like a mosquito was annoying him. Well I guess it was me snoring. Finally, he just said, “Josh, man. You’re snoring.” So that annoying thing was me. I rarely snore, and of course I said sorry and in the future to just yell at me. While we laid there trying to fall asleep I said, “Is it hot in here?” The air conditioner wasn’t making any sound. Our power went out so I had to go to the breaker box in the hall and flip it. It wasn’t too bad but I couldn’t find my glasses with all the water bottles and junk on my night stand. So I had to scan through the breaker box at like 2 inches away. My wife will tell you it’s pretty entertaining to watch me try and read without my glasses. Then we slept well.

Friday, August 8, 2008 Day of Opening Ceremonies
Lopez Lamong was with our breakfast group this morning and said he had been live on NBC’s Morning Show. He will be the flag bearer for the USA tonight. Back in Dalion we had a selection procedure to decide who would be nominated among all USA athletes to carry the flag. We were supposed to say why we should carry the flag. When the lady asked, “Now all of you who want to carry the flag can stay up there and tell us why you want to carry the flag.” Prior to this I and others had told Lopez we would nominate and vote for him. I was going to stay up there and say vote for Lopez because…but everyone sat down leaving Lopez up there by himself. How awesome was that! Then he told the story that he told me on the way from the U.S. to China. Incredible! He deserves it. He embodies what our country is about. He is a devout Christian who acknowledges that God plays a role in our lives. He is grateful for the experiences he has had. He enjoys every moment out here. He just has an incredible aura about him. I feel privileged to have been able to know him personally on our flights and runs together.
Funny story from a few days ago. After a horse track run, I was talking to some of the student translators. I have been wondering how the Chinese use keyboards when their alphabet is more like each character is a word. They said that a symbol could be a few sounds. Okay I thought. So I asked how many vowels are in the Mandarin language. He scratched his head and said, “I think, hmm, maybe too many.” Classic!
And one more story from Tuesday that I forgot to put in. While we were downtown shopping with our undercover security escorts, we went to cross this side street. These cars were rolling through and the security guy steps out and puts up his hand for them to stop. This guy starts honking at us, and our security guy just pulls up the side of his shirt to reveal his pistol on his waist. Needless to say the guy stopped honking. Flash a badge or gun? I guess either way it takes care of business. The Chinese are looking after us.
After breakfast we walked back to our dorms and there were a bunch of ladies stretching in front of our USA building. What sport? is a fun little game we like to play. So I said softball and Leo wasn’t sure. So I asked them and they said field hockey. One of the women said, “What sport did you think?” Gulp. Leo said, pointing at me, “He said softball.” Ouch. For those of you who may not know, generally speaking, softball players are built much like male baseball players. So that probably wasn’t very flattering. I recovered with, “I was gonna say, ‘This is the best looking women’s softball team I’ve ever seen.’” And that won them over. Leo had this big ‘ole Manzano grin like, “Man that was slick” In the elevator he said, “Smooth pickups are wasted on married men.”
We have a team meeting today for the opening ceremonies at 3pm. I still need to iron my Ralph Lauren suit and shave before heading out. I anticipate putting in some good stuff tonight.