Track and Field Blogs - Josh McAdams

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 2^nd 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, two steeplechasers, and a 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.