Saturday, August 9
Hi all,
After nearly 40 hours of travel, we finally reached out destination in Jeju. The first 6 hr flight to San Fran was uneventful. Then as we were getting ready for a 12 + hr flight to Seoul, we were taken from our seats and moved to Business Plus (to me it was first class. A glass of champagne, a few beers and a 4 course dinner (followed by 3 movies and a 3 hr nap), we arrived in Seoul. Since it was 5pm, me and Alicia decided to get in a swim at the hotel’s 25 m pool.
After an easy 1500m, we exited the pool to the lifeguard clapping for us (guess they don’t see to many people training there). After dinner and some Tylenol PM, a good night sleep was in order.
The next day of travel was the last leg to Jeju, witch required a 45 min bus trip to another airport. Once at Gimpo, we were pulled into a room to explain why we had a cooling vest and C02 cartridges to the security who did not speak English and knew even less about exercise science. They thought we had life vests and inflators. Well after we explained it, we were good. Boy did we stick out at that airport.
We next got our car at Avis, wherethey spoke no English, and had no English maps. And the road numbers did not match the map. So a 45 min drive turned into a 3 hr adventure. We finally found the training center and got checked in.
The athletes arrive from the opening ceremonies later today. We spent the morning scouting out training roads around the center.
More to come in the next few days...
Monday, August 11
It's getting to crunch time. The final key training sessions are being done, and it's time to sharpen up and rest before we head to Beijing.
Yesterday morning we went down to the coast for a flat run, and it poured harder than I have ever seen it rain, as Jarrod did his final 9 miler.
Later in the morning, it was up to the mountain where the road was rolling hills but windy. It's very hard to find flat roads with little traffic. I have spent several hours over the last few days searching for good cycling roads. This doesn’t sound too difficult, except all the maps and street signs are in Korean. Getting lost can be an adventure. But with my sense of direction, no problem.
Today was a sprint triathlon put on in Jeju for the elite athletes training here. It was a 750m swim, 20km bike, and 5 km run. Jarrod used this as a final tune up. The goal was to get in a hard effort safely. He raced to a 3rd place and had a solid race.
After lunch, the athletes who did not race did an ocean swim. Jarrod did an easy ride, and I followed behind in the van, using the road I discovered the previous day. That was perfect until he decided to ride the narrow streets of a fishing village. This made for some interesting driving.
When I went out to run at 1pm today, the heat index was 110 degrees. We just found out that the temperature at the Beijing swim venue is 90 degrees.
That’s all for now. I will send the next update before we break camp and head to Beijing.
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