Track and Field Blogs - Josh McAdams

Saturday, August 10, 2008

After hitting the sack at 2AM, 8AM was pretty early for getting up, but as the Kenyans say, “You better be up and running before the lion or you’ll get caught.” No wonder they are so incredible at distance running.

We just missed the bus going to the practice track at Beijing Normal University so we had an hour wait. I called Whit and the opening Ceremonies were just about to start in Utah. I let her go and cracked open some Twighlight to kill the hour wait.

On the bus some female freestyle wrestlers sat in front of us. The smaller one got off and I asked Leo if he thought he could take her. He said he thought he could give her a run for her money. I said I bet she could pin him in 30 seconds. He said no way. When she got on I asked her what weight class she was. 48 Kgs. So after we’re all done Leo and I are going to find her and make this thing happen. Whether she pins Leo in less than 30 seconds or not, Leo’s still happy because he thinks she’s pretty cute.

So I get to the track to find that I will be running my 10-12 miler in this enclosed area of about 7 minutes per loop. Oh well. It went by surprisingly fast with my eclectic iPod playlist. It was also nice to run a lot of it on a soft track surface and have cold Powerade and water every 15 minutes. After 10 miles, I called it good. Miles 5-8 were around 5:40 per mile and the last 2 around 5:20 per mile. I’m finally feeling like I should.

I’ve been wearing the short runner shorts lately, but today I decided to wear the half tights. Much better. Shorts just soak up the sweat and then you’re carrying around a pound of sweat that’s bouncing and dripping. At least the half tights don’t bounce and the sweat gets somewhat wicked away…somewhat. But after my run, as always, it was pretty nasty. If you’ve ever ridden a horse bareback, as I’ve done once, you’ll know that horses sweat more than we do. My jeans after that trip were stuck to me from the sweat, and that’s what it was like with my half tights after this run. PS A real gentlemen sits on the haunches of the horse while his date takes the saddle. Just make sure you have a change of pants…and something for the chaffeage.

As I tell this story I still feel bad, but guys are guys and we’re still just as close as ever. Leo and I have been jesting with each other by taking our nasty sweaty shorts of and pretending to toss them at each other. In Dalian, I put a pair of my recently worn shorts on the arm rest of the chair Leo likes to sit in. He enjoyed that. J Well after my run, I took of my shoes and socks. I had to use the wet suit method to get my socks off. You know, peel them off inside out. Then a light went on. How fun would it be to toss one of these socks on Leo? Like the boys from Whit’s favorite show, Malcolm in the Middle, I couldn’t resist. It was just one of those innocent little lobs, but the soppy sock landed right on Leo’s forehead and across his sunglasses. It sat there like a leach. Ahh, good times! I let him come over and rub the sock-leach in my face. It was the least I could do, and I barely noticed since I was still laughing. Boys are so gross.

I had heard that China, or Beijing rather, was going to regulate the number of cars on the streets to cut down on emissions. So their method is to put only cars with license plates ending in odd or even numbers on the streets on alternating days. So that takes care of half of them and probably quite a bit of pollution. I noticed this on our bus ride back to the Village. I could only imagine what traffic would be like with twice as many cars.

The day was pretty chill for the most part. During dinner, Leo really wanted to talk to some cute Mexican athletes, and he was almost there. Of course, I had to get that on tape so I pulled out my camera to film it. It was just funny because just as he was about to make contact, she turned and went the opposite way. When he looked over, there was our table staring at him and me with the camera on him. He pulled the Manzano, “Man, you guys got to be kidding me,” face and came back disheartened.

But on a more serious note, people ask why Leo, Lindsey, and I are always hanging out together. On our walk back to the suites – quite an overattractive word for our dorms- Leo had a hypothesis on this. His idea is that we balance each other. Well, more like Lindsey and I balance him. He’s so bad that it takes us two to equal things out. I thought that was funny. So I did what any good friend would do and invited my bad buddy to come to church with us tomorrow.

Sunday, August 10, 2008

Got up at 6:30AM. Layed there for about 30 minutes and decided that if I was going to church from 10:30-1:30, then I’d need to call Whit before I left. So I did. She had her baby shower, and it was good. Someone gave her something- yes, I’m vague- that said, “Daddy’s little girl.” So that made my day. I can’t wait to get home and check out some of the girly stuff.

Jill Camarena went to a volleyball game late last night so it was Lindsey and I to church. She wore a Ralph Lauren USA polo short sleeve and jeans. I put together some Ralph Lauren opening ceremonies leftovers consisting of a tie, belt, and shoes. I had a white collared shirt and jeans. A little underdressed, but you make do with what you got.

The taxi driver had to stop 4 times to ask directions, and he kept talking to us in Mandarin like we understood. And the AC was out. Oh, and he had this huge metal and plexiglass cube around him. The other cab we were in did not, so I can only assume that this guy doesn’t get along with his customers. But we made it to church with ten minutes to spare.

It was in this big business building on one of the upper floors. Regardless of our apparel and sweat, the church members welcomed us warmly. Anywhere you go in the world- Thailand, Brazil, Japan, China- the Mormon services are the same. This was an English speaking branch and so translators weren’t necessary. It was great to get away from the whole athletics atmosphere of the village and dedicate some time solely to God. No amount of training can substitute for the benefits of spiritual exercising, if you will. Running for me isn’t just physical and mental. It’s spiritual too, as is the case with many athletes I’m sure. The Lord plays a crucial part in my attitude towards life and running. Well, it was a breath of fresh air to be at church today. Lindsey and I spoke to the youth about how our testimonies of the gospel have helped us prepare for the Olympics, and how our testimonies have changed while preparing for them. That’s another discussion for my personal journal sometime.

We shared a cab with Josh Westover, who served a 2 year mission in Taiwan and speaks fluent Mandarin. It made life a lot easier when he could tell the driver that we needed to get back to the Olympic Village. The driver said to Josh, “Do those two know they have to have a pass to get in?” He told them we were athletes. He seemed impressed by that and the fact this lao wye - long nose- was speaking fluent Mandarin. I took the opportunity to say, “I run the 3000 meter steeplechase,” in Mandarin. I run is said, “Wa pow.” But you have to say, “Pow,” with a low tone and then rise to a high tone like going from bass to tenor. Josh had a smirk on his face and he looked at the cab driver who had one too. Apparently I had been using a high to low tone. “Let me clear that up for you. Pow with a high to low tone is like saying getting it on.” The cab driver was laughing, and I was shocked at how vigorously Lindsey was laughing. So I’ve been telling a lot of people I’ve been getting it on instead of running. No wonder I’m so tired. Ahh brother. I took the opportunity to ask Coach Lee about it. Indeed, pow, as I was saying it means to fire a cannon which is indeed the slang for getting it on. Once again Lindsey was there and once again to my utter shock, she got a good laugh from it.

We saw the women’s cycling on the streets today as we were heading back to the Village. I had Josh get on my shoulders to get some video of it. The Chinese loved that one. Two long noses about to tip over. But guess what? I got the sweet 3 seconds of blur as they flew by and they didn’t.

Also saw some fencing tonight. By some I mean we caught the bus at 7pm. Got to our seats around 7:30pm. We were mesmerized or rather dumbfounded by it for 20 minutes. Then caught the bus back at 8:15pm. It was cool, but not quite as good as Inigo Montoyo vs. Wesley in The Princess Bride. Plus you just have to watch the slow motion replay to see what really happened. We broadened our sport horizons though.

In the dining hall, we just happened to be seating next to the Aquaman, America’s own, Michael Phelps. He just got back from winning a gold medal and setting a world record. So we took a picture or two. Nice!