Sorry, it's Wednesday night here and I believe Sunday was the last time I wrote. Been a little busy I guess you could say. The women's race was Monday and the Men's race Tuesday (yesterday). So I will go back a bit in time... Monday I was to be picked up at 6:30am by NBC. I just assumed I was going to the race venue and helping from a broadcast box but it turned out I went down into the city to the "International Broadcast Center" or IBC. This place is HUGE and is where all Broadcast companies from all over the world are staged out of. NBC had about 1/3 of this building that will be used as a convention center when the Games are over. It was AWESOME!!! So I'm waiting for my ride and they do not come. I call and 7 and the intern setting things up for me says she has made a mistake and can I take a taxi down. I had no idea where I was going but fortunately one of the athlete's husband was commentated for BBC. He's an Aussie who finished 4th in Athens. His wife ended up 4th here. Anyways, Greg and I shared a cab which worked great because he had been down the day before to check it all out so he knew exactly where to go to pick up our quest passes. So the intern, Janique they shows me around the NBC area. We pass Bob Costas and Chris Collinsworth... probably many others I did not recognize. She took me to the cafeteria that has free coffee and an awesome spread of food- anything you want. MMMMMMMMM... coffee... it was free Starbucks, just like a store only you didn't give them your money. So I sat next to the producer who was coordinating 30 miles away from the triathlon venue, which cameras should be on which athletes and who was who and how long it would take for this lap of the bike and that lap of the swim. It was pretty amazing. I attached a little video from my time there Tuesday... having technical difficulties, will try tomorrow.

My cathartic yell

The park across from the Auspicious- Sunday am

Dr. Keith and Sharon

You must be thinking, gosh, this girl has a lot of time on her hands to be blogging but there's so much to share. We woke up at 5:20 this am and headed out back to the trails for a morning jog/ hike. It was FANTASTIC. So many people out hiking these strenuous trails- dad, you would have been crying! So I'm not sure if it's a religious thing or cultural or just their way of cathartic release but the Chinese just scream. These loud, long releases from their belly. If you listen close to the video, you can make it out. You see these little old Chinese men climbing these trails and they are very steep and long- these people are in amazing shape. After being out about 90 minutes we came back to the hotel. There's a park across the street from the Auspicious and it was filled with people doing all kinds of activities: swording, ribbons, table tennis, badminton, rollerblading, meditating... pretty amazing.
Check it out...

So we had the absolute pleasure of meeting Harry at dinner tonight. He plopped himself down while Jeff and I had dinner in the western restaurant. Quite a curious and precocious 19 year old from the area. He was there having dinner and just decided he wanted to make some friends. He has friends from all over he told us, not a shy bone in this kid's body. His English was excellent, much better than my Chinese anyways. Jeff and I exchanged emails and skpe addresses and made Harry promise if he went to California he would go to In-N-Out Burger and not Burger King- a seriously BAD move to choose BK over In-N-Out. So, Harry, if you're reading this... this is a shout out to you. You are one cool 19 year old Chinese guy!

Oh, so if you did not know, the triathlon woman's events occurs here at 10am on Monday the 18th and the men's event is at 10am on Tuesday the 19th. I am told they will be televised prime time in the states on Sunday the 17th and Monday the 18th. Please watch an send some good vibes our way. Our athletes are looking great physically and seem to be calm and collected so... we want some medals!!! I will be helping the NBC broadcasters with indicating who's who for both races.

Harry- one rad dude!

Our first full day in Changping. I slept in this morning until 7:30. Again I am sharing a room with Sharon, one of the coaches, and we didn’t get to bed last night until after 11pm- and after waking up before 5am yesterday, and playing mother hen… it was GREAT to sleep. I took my breakfast in the Western style restaurant which offered eggs with ketchup, hard boiled eggs, lots of noodles, rice, some bacon, some sausagey things, a variety of sweet breads, some fruit and vegetable… and COFFEE. It was great to have some good old coffee with cream and sugar. Sharon and I sat for at least an hour chatting, eating and looking out the window as China went by. How time escapes you. The athletes were then off to ride up to the venue and get in a swim at the venue in open water. They had a packed day from there it was to the Jundu Tourist Hotel for their race briefing and pontoon draw, and then back to the Auspicious for a quick change and back to the race venue for a press conference. Unfortunately since I am not credentialed staff, only 3 staff are, I cannot get into the race venue until race day. I got an AWESOME run in. You ran about 10 minutes from our hotel to this gate, go through the gate and you are at the base of foothills. All along the ridge of these foothills are rocky trails. Yes there’s some climbing involved- increased heart rate, fatigue and sweating, but when you get to the top, it’s amazing. It looks like it goes on for quite a long ways. I plan to head back early tomorrow with a camera and more time. You can see south into Beijing which I am guessing people haven’t been able to do for a long, long time.

So we are working through a company here called Bafanzy. I’m not quite sure what exactly their business is but they help us with transportation as well as the accommodations. Most of them are younger women in their mid to late 20s with very American names, Sylvia, Merry, Wendy, ect. I am working with Sylvia a lot and she is just as sweet as can be. She’s 26 and spent 6 years in Moscow so in addition to English and Chinese, she speaks Russian and a little Japanese. All the staff is so nice and eager to help then again we are paying a lot of money for their services.