Track and Field Blogs - Josh McAdams

Okay now that Leo and I got these straightened out, I will share the last few days with you according to my journal that I've been sending home. The pics are of the girl who is predicted to take the gymnastic gold, Casey and AG with lil ole me, and the arcade at the Olympic Village.

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 28^th. 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 18^th.

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.