be honest, between lousy internet service and being busy all the time I doubt I would have been very good at updating my blog regularly..but you never know! Visiting this country is just incredible. IT IS SO HARD to travel in a country where I am clueless about the language! It is great that we have a guide named Aaron who is incredibly helpful and thoughtful and Margaret who speaks the language beautifully but the truth is when we are split up and out of touch with the Chinese speakers we are completely helpless. I feel like I am in a silent movie! I say what I want or need. They respond in Chinese and then we just stare at each other hoping one of us will all of a sudden learn to speak the other’s language. The silence is so funny because in reality no one has a clue what to do. The silence is usually broken by one of us saying the same thing only louder and slower….as if that really helps! Then we move to body language with no words thinking our signs and ideas might be the same. It is really funny if you aren’t in a hurry or in an emergency! All the hotels we stayed in were 4-5 Star which I learned really means toilets with stools, breakfast buffet with at least one western item and front desk staff that speak some English between 7 AM and 7 PM. After that you are on your own. And calling the front desk is really hopeless however they recognize this and always show up at your hotel door. Great service and nice people…just soooo different! I decided not to 
keep a traditional hand written journal this trip as I rarely go back and read it and I knew I would want to update my blog so I am only writing in my blog. Plus when I journal I write about a lot of people stuff and I always run out of steam to write about the trip, culture, people, places etc. so this trip I am writing in hindsight based on the photos I have from 6 or 7 of us. It will be different and I think more interesting and easier to keep clean for my blog.
I left home on September 3rd. John sweetly took me to the airport then turned around and headed home to finish packing and then the rest of the group left for the airport. I spent 6 hours in the Detroit airport before flying directly to Beijing. I arrived tired but excited. I had an entire row of seats to myself to sleep. After rolling through customs where I had to have a special inspection because I was with the triathlon I met 
Aaron, or Anlei. He introduced himself to me as Aaron. Every Chinese guide we met had selected an “American” name at some point in their lives. The bus drivers kept their traditional Chinese names but all the guides had names. In our 14 days we worked with Anlei, Andy, Summer, Jacky, Teddy, Shirley, Jessica, and of course, Jacky Chan! They were all terrific, professional and had mastered some level of English. One of the greatest challenges for them seems to be that we have words that don’t exist in their language so it is hard for them to grasp the meaning. I loved watching them search for the right words and be so pleased when they nailed it. They take great pride in understanding our culture and knowing our language…at least from their perspective. Each guide would also try to teach us some critical Chinese words…Ni Hao which means hello and Boo Yao (which I know isn’t spelled correctly!) which means I don’t want any! This became a mantra for all of us as we spent each day navigating through the 
mass of vendors trying to get the rich Americans to buy their products! The tones that are used in the Chinese language are likely harder than the words themselves and after a short lesson about how many ways you can say Ma Ma I decided to depend on Margaret, our guide and Eli, our 17 year old friend (and Sandy’s son) who has been studying Chinese for a couple years and took every opportunity to practice. He was quite good, certainly better than any of us, and he was never afraid to try! Very cool young man!
Blogging about a 2 week adventure like China can get overwhelming and probably pretty dull for the readers so I am going to break this update up over a few days and categorize things for ease of reading. Many of my friends and family are likely most interested in the #1 reason we went to China in the first place…ITU Worlds in Beijing. Race day was September 11th and I couldn’t think of any better way to honor my country than by racing with USA on my heart! It was simply awesome!
Since my training hiatus May through July I had set my expectations very low for China. I wanted to start the race, participate in the fanfare and enjoy the splendor of the day! Mission accomplished! I started training August 1st after a huge does of cortisone pumped into my hamstring and butt. Initially I was pretty wary and discovered right away that I would have little strength to bring when in China so I was just going to build slowly and see what happens. I did manage to complete the 78 mile Copper Triangle and cover 15 miles with Laurie Nakauchi at Leadville August so I knew I still had some endurance. Susan and I talked about a plan and she worked in as many bricks and builds as she could…but it wasn’t enough to see if my hamstring would respond to racing. It would just poop out on me. So I went into race day without really knowing if the cortisone was a temporary fix or if it 
was permanent.
The Chinese government and ITU seemingly went out of their way to make this a challenging event long before we got to race day! There were 4 of us racing from our troupe of 17: me, Jewels, Sandy and Barry. We spent a large portion of Thursday and Friday before race day on the bus, in taxis and traveling around Beijing making sure we were where we were supposed to be. It was really a comedy of errors as we tried to register, get tickets for our crew to attend events and the races as well as figure out the logistics of getting everyone to the venue at 5 AM both race mornings! My goodness it was crazy! I was really upset when they told us that all the tickets for the Opening Ceremonies 
were sold out. In fact I was livid. We’d spent the better part of 3 hours in a car trying to get across Beijing in time to register, fund the team photo and get ready for the parade and all I wanted was for my family to participate too. In Australia they all missed the opening ceremonies and I was disappointed so I was really ramped up about this year! What a waste of energy! Due to traffic chaos I advised Margaret and the crew to head to the hotel and skip the event anyway. There were security checks, long waits and an unknown meal in our future….THANK GOODNESS they didn’t come to the “stadium” for the opening events. The parade was great fun because in a Communist Country they can do what they want so they cordoned off an entire lane of traffic at rush 
hour and we were really in a parade. We walked about 2 miles on a main highway with traffic all stopped going the other way and people 4 and 5 deep waving, cheering and whooping it up! It was really funny and fun! We wore our USAT shirts and got into the groove! We waved back, posed for pictures and had a blast! Then we entered the EMPTY stadium. USA was the first country in the parade so we wandered in and took up seats on the bleachers. The rest of the countries came in and the stadium was only 35% full. Thank goodness the ceremony was lame and the food was weird and lame. After a ceremony with bad sound and bad visibility we decided to grab our dinner boxes, grab a hotel and find our hotel. It was a crazy day and we were all toasted. That’s when the adventure really began! We walked out beyond security thinking we would grab a cab! HAHAHAHAHAAA! Not a chance. The only cab company is run by the government and the drivers have no compulsion whatsoever to pick foreigners up…I bet we got passed by dozens of cabs. When one finally pulled over I ran up to him and handed him the address and of course he starts yelli
ng at me in Chinese! I have no idea what he said but I do know it included “NOT A CHANCE” so we started again. Then a woman approached us who had decent English and she explained that no cabs would stop for us but her friend could take us and where did we want to go….I don’t think so! Like everything else, there is a black market for cab services. Once the non-official drivers saw the foreigner bate we were swallowed up by drivers who could help us! It made us all very uncomfortable so we went back into the race venue, back through security and then to find our bus! Once on the bus we were starving so we 
opened our dinner boxes only to discover a host of interesting and bizarre options ranging from yogurt or milk, not sure, to dried pork and some chicken item, dried fruit, a 1/2 loaf of bread and a generally un-appetizing selection of foods. Mind you the only other thing we had eaten since breakfast was an egg sandwich on white bread and although very satisfying at the time…not really the kind of nutrition any of us are accustomed to!
Of course the day wasn’t over as we had to go back to the Loong Palace Hotel with USAT and then find a cab the other direction to our hotel…The Floral Palace. At one point during the taxi negotiations I wondered if we were going to get back to our crew at all. Phones were dying, patience was dying and hunger was on the rise. FINALLY we got our hotel front desk on 
the phone with the bell hop at the USAT hotel so that they could explain to one another where our hotel was and how to get there! What a fiasco. We had even managed to worry John, Priscilla and the Garcia kids a bit. Fortunately they ordered food for us and we were safe and sound at our new hotel. We were 30 minutes from the race venue and it sounds like we were as close as you could get. Our bus driver, Jimmy Choo, was awesome at taking us back and forth for bike check and race drop off. Jewels’ raced in the sprint and it turned out to be the first really rainy day we’d had since landing. It just poured with rain and many of our fans decide to stay warm and dry in the hotel! The hard core fans, Margaret and Dave, Walt, John and Nicole and Priscilla along with the kids stuck it out in the wet and cold while Jewels raced her guts out on a slick and sketchy course! She raced well and had a great time! The advantage we had was watching how the race unfolded for Jewels. We learned where bike in/out were, where the swim run out was and a good general lay of the land.
Sunday September 11 was our race day for the Olympic. The sun rose warm and crisp…it was going to be a perfect race day! The venue was tied down with ridiculous security so it was hard for the few fans that actually attended to see the entire event but they had great seats for the swim and run so I guess I can’t complain! Barry, Sandy and I all had later start times so we slept a bit longer and had a relaxing walk to the venue. And Jimmy Choo and Margaret worked their magic and managed to get us a ride to the top right near security so I didn’t have to worry about Pop walking all the way up and down. I was so mellow and chillaxed knowing I had accepted my limiters and would only be having fun. I had every expectation 
that I would be in the bottom 25% if not 10% and I was cool with that! I would always have my finish picture and the sounds of my father’s voice in my head cheering me on as I ran past the grand stand. As usual it turned out to be a very interesting day. The swim was no wetsuit only adding to my malaise about the race. I hadn’t been swimming much and although I’d found a solid stroke I was hardly race ready! I sat on the pontoon next to a woman from Mexico and a woman from Russia! VERY COOL! They were clearly not as relaxed as I was so I turned and waved to the crowd, whooped it up and then slid into the water to get started. My swim time as 32 minutes…really lame…but my swim stroke was awesome! If I had to be done after the swim I would have been satisfied because I was actually swimming. I could feel and control my pull. Sadly I think I got too caught up in my stroke and found myself falling behind but it just felt awesome to feel the water fly past me! Woohoo! I popped out of the water with a Kiwi woman and we had a nice chat about how we sucked at siting during the swim…again maybe a little to focused on my technique! Ah well! I blew through transition 
and jumped on my TT, slid into my shoes and blew out of the stadium! The ride was 3 laps of fun! A couple short steep hills and one longer slow grade hill along with some sharp turns. I think the course was best for woman who have bike raced as we know how to take corners, deal with people who are clueless and hold onto our bikes if the road gets unsafe. They had put down some blue carpet through the entire spillway which was great for the run but the seams caught more than a few poor folks off guard and their were at least 2 broken collarbones that I saw as I blew through the spillway a 2nd and 3rd time. I loved the ride. The Chinese fans along the course were clearly interested and entertained by us. They whooped and yelled if I whooped and yelled at them, which of course I did.
My hamstring gave out 2 miles into the 2nd lap. I tried to power up the slow grade and I had nothing. I had to drop into my smaller ring and spin my heart out. By the 3rd loop I knew I had been compromised and decided to keep rolling as I had to get back somehow and plus I was having fun! I flew off my bike and into transition at half mast. My hamstrings were so locked up I couldn’t stand up straight, I strug
gled to push my feet into my shoes, stretched and trotted out of transition. I actually figured if I had to walk I could and that would be better than DNFing. John said when I went past them the first time I looked really rough. He has such a nice way of saying things. I felt rough! Slowly, as I kept running, I was able to relax my hammies and stand up straight and run faster. Not faster, just faster. Running past the grand stand 6 times was freaking awesome! I could hear the crew screaming and yelling and having fun! It was a spectacular day! I took the last turn toward the finish feeling accomplished and elated because I had done it with class and a smile and that was all I wanted! Sandy came in right behind me as well as a number of other American women. I ended up being 12th in the World (I love the sounds of that!) and the 2nd American. Based on my 4 weeks of training I was thrilled! I ran 8:15s and managed to ride 18 MPH. Really thrilled! After Sandy and I visited with some of our teammates for a while we watched Barry finish his race! He looked so strong and happy! I was thrilled to see him finish knowing he had left it all out there! Congrats to all my American teammates! We made our country proud!
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