Ride & Climb 5 Canyons

I've been working out the logistics for my friend Trent's birthday challenge, which is to do a human-powered five canyon day, featuring riding and climbing. Trent's great at coming up with stuff like this. He once linked a bunch of desert towers by bike in Canyonlands. This time, his idea was to ride all of our local canyons and climb a 5.12 in each one. Actually, there aren't 5.12s in every canyon, so the plan is to ride all of the canyons that have 5.12s: City Creek, Mill Creek, Big Cottonwood, Ferguson, and Little Cottonwood. I said I'd come along for support and, since Trent hadn't done all the routes on the agenda, I've been scouting for him. Here's the plan:

Ride from Trent's house in the avenues to Little Cottonwood Canyon, where we'll climb Cool Your Jets, 5.12a

Next, we'll cruise over to Ferguson Canyon, where Condor awaits.

This finishes the granite portion of the day. We'll then take a short ride up Big Cottonwood Canyon to feast on some quartzite.

Highlander, while short, is probably the best route of the day.

Because there aren't any recorded 5.12s in Mill Creek, we'll head up its northern flank on to Grandeur Peak to a scruffy, seldom visited limestone crag called The Reef. Its one 5.12a, Leviathan, is quite powerful for the grade and may provide the day's crux.

Finally, we'll ride over to City Creek Canyon and finish things up at the Shoreline Crag, with another powerful offering, Bat Cave. Shoreline is a steep conglomerate crag, so we'll add another unique rock type to our day.

I haven't done 5 5.12s in a day in quite some time. Trent hasn't ridden his bike this far in quite some time, especially considering the elevation gain. We'll also be adding 3 hours or so of uhill/downhill hiking and, of course, carrying our stuff.

Should be fun.

pic: Andrew Burr shot of Highlander. Check out more at www.andrewburr.com

The Big Nasty

Romney and I dusted off the tandem and rode the Moab Century Tour last weekend. We hadn't ridden it since Ebbett's Pass over the July 4th weekend as it's been pretty hot and Lisa is a staunch fair weather rider. The ride is called "The Big Nasty" in honor of the opening 4,000' ascent into the La Sal mountains. Our 40-pound monster is no nimble climbing machine, so it seemed like the perfect century for us to start with.

We rolled out with our friend Jeff on a perfect Sat morning. The forecast of rain seemed exaggerated. We lost Jeff after registering, which didn't matter much as the first 30 miles were mainly uphill and we had no designs about keeping up with anyone reasonably fit on a standard bike.

The ride turned out to be a lot harder for me than my off-the-couch wife. The ascent went well, as did the long descent into Castle Valley where we pulled pretty much anyone that responded quick enough to get into our draft. The monster may be tough to coax uphill be she descends like a meteor. On the slight angle of Castle Valley we were spun out in our largest gear the entire time.



At the bottom of the valley we had the choice of turning left for a quick and easy 65 miles or right for the full 102-m century. My off-the-couch partner asked "what else are we going to do?" and right I turned.

My over-exuberate pulls in the decided not-rainy weather on this long, rolling, and mainly uphill stretch got the best of me. I overheated and finally allowed a few other riders to take on the wind for the ride to the turnaround.



At the turnaround, a lot of riders were struggling with the heat. It had gone from cool to hot quite quickly. Luckily, it wasn't a race and we could chill in the shade until we felt like riding back. I was still fairly miserable--though not nearly as bad as many of the riders we were passing--until we got a short squall of rain. After this, we wielded the tandem's power by passing scores of riders struggling in the wind on the flat-ish ride back to the start.

It was a great training day. I was cooked. Lisa, on the other hand, felt great and began wondering whether she had found her forte in long endurance events. Looks like they're will be more of these in our future.

The Big Nasty is part of the Moab Skinny Tire Festival. Of the 900-some-odd participants, most opted for one of the four variations that weren't the full century. They pretty much have an option for any fitness level, all with stunning views throughout. As a century, most people said it was harder than it looked on paper. It's not the Death Ride, but I heard one woman who had just finished the Triple Bypass (with over 10,000' of climbing) saying "this is hard!" As far as centuries go, it's got to be one of the better ones.

Here's the web site.

Period-i-zational

This word still doesn't show up in the dictionary, yet, it's probably the most important technical term in physical training. Lack of adherence to the principles of periodizational training means that your training program ends in one of two ways: plateau or injury.

Periodizational training is simply breaking up a training program into targeted blocks of time where you focus on one aspect of training. It can be fairly straight forward when training for one sport. When training for multiple sports at one time it becomes tricky. This, hopefully, is my forte. At least it should be by now. The aim of this cycle is to put my theories to the test.

A cycle of training can be as short as two weeks and of an indefinite length. Most do not exceed one year, though coaches will make up loose programs for athletes to progress over the years. Over the last decade all of my cycles have been short. In the 90s, when I was climbing pretty much full time, I'd often set up cycles that took up most of a year. That's what I'm attempting to do here. This will be a loose format--so it can be amended based on how real life is going--but it provides a structure so that my training has a purpose. The end of this cycle will be November, 2009, to target my birthday challenge next year.

Sticking to a training program is hard for any weekend warrior that likes to do various sports. This is because with limited time, and many activities, it's so much easier just to do whatever sounds fun at the moment. In general, this is how I roll. However, in order to remain passionate about any endeavor it's good to make some amount of progress. I'm not one who cares much about results. But I do care about experience. Increasing your level at an activity provides you with the ability to create new experiences. For example, I've always wanted to climb the Eiger. I could do this now but if I'm going to spend the time, effort, and money it will take I'd like to make an attempt that will be meaningful. The list of routes that would fit this bill will require me to climb hard 5.12 in an alpine environment over and over, quickly. I'm not up to that at the moment, and only some focused training will get me there. So, while that's not the end goal of this training program, it's one of the carrots that will help me stick to it. I'm not getting any younger. Some of the things on the "always wanted to do" list need to be addressed sooner rather than later.

Here is an overview of my training blocks. I'll go into more depth about what these mean later. For those of you who've read the 90x book, some of this will look familiar. We designed the X on strict periodizational principles. These often mean that you get worse before you get better. During our initial test group I had to fight for this because people were doing worse at various points. I got my way when Tony backed me up, and we were pretty happy with ourselves when performance began to skyrocket during the third block.

These are macro cycles. There will be shorter more targeted cycles within them. Each shorter block consists of an adaptive phase, a growth phase, and a recovery phase.

Oct, Nov - Foundation - Improving the base

This will be a mini cycle, with short hypertrophy and power segments. The base aerobic foundation is strong but certain aspects are weak. I need to train these in order to train them, if that makes sense. There will be some big days during this period as well.

Dec, Jan, Feb - Hypertrophy/Power - Increasing absolute strength

What limits most weekend warriors is their inability to step away from their sport and train. Only increases in absolute strength lead to dramatic increases in performance (provided technique is already sound). These increases in strength can then be molded into performance.

late Feb to early April - Power-endurance

Teaches the body how to use its newly developed strength over time.

April - May - Performance Round 1

We're traveling in April, so this period will be all playing. This reprogram engrams (neuromuscular patterns) to be efficient.

June - October - The Weekend Warrior Cycle

With the foundation solid, this period will feature short training cycles towards targeted goals. It will mix energy systems trained and targeted to be sports specific. For example, training power for climbing while training aerobically for the bike. The idea is to peak at different times for different things based on the calendar.

pic: The Eiger, dangling on a stick

Fall Training Program: Walking the Talk

Fall is the time of year where I usually combine my summer aerobic fitness with a more power oriented training cycle to build up for a birthday challenge. This year is going to be a little different. Instead of a short cycle I'm going to test my training knowledge but creating a program to excel at multiple (non-related) sports over the coming year. Call it planned weekend warrior-ing, if you will.

The focus of this training plan will be to excel at the sports I enjoy without needing to spend all of my free time training. I still plan to be a attentive husband, see my friends, play with the dogs, enjoy eating in restaurants, beers with the boys, see shows, cinema, operas, and travel. I plan to have fun because, if it's not fun than what's the point?

Of course I won't do any of these things at my highest level. You can't concurrently train for, say, cycling and climbing and be your best at both. They require completely opposite physiques. But you can train to do them both at a high level. My plan is to concurrently increase my current level at both power and endurance climbing, power and endurance cycling, endurance running, and my technical ability at skiing (no big task here, btw) over the coming year. And I plan to do it with an approachable training program that can be adopted by others.

My hope is that this little experiment will be something that can be used by anyone desiring to improve their level as a weekend warrior athlete. And, of course, it'll be another new personal odyssey. It's all about the journey.

pic: training program objective #1 - the social calendar stays intact.

Birthday Challenge Thoughts

It hasn't been much of an athletic year but it's time to start thinking about a challenge. My new page is up. It's still in the works, so suggestions are encouraged.

Birthday Challenge 2008

The Tao of Running

sunset over SLC

It seems I'm finally able to run again pain free. Last week, the dogs (Beata and Copper, who is just hangin’ out with us for a bit) and I ran up Grandeur Peak. It was my second run of the year. My first, which was a race, set my recovery back a bit. Today, after my third, I feel that I may be able to add running back into my repertoire.

Running is the most love or hate sport that I know. Most of the people I know who call themselves runners have a type of mania. These people live and breathe running. They hang out in running stores, read running books, talk about running, and go crazy when they can’t run.
varmits on the summit

I’m not like that at all. I’ve run most of my life. There are occasions when I love it but often, especially running on pavement, where I don’t enjoy it at all. But I do like covering a lot of ground out in nature and this, more than anything, is why I run. I mountain bike for pretty much the same reason. On a bike I can cover more ground in a day but running allows me to get places where I can’t go in the bike. When I throw a little climbing into the mix I can cover a lot of somewhat technical terrain in very little time.

From my house I can head out and tick a ridge or handful of summits after a full day of work. In an hour or so I can get somewhere I’m very unlikely to see another person. It’s magic. It’s my church. The Tao of why I run. At least that’s how runners might describe it. For me, it’s just good fun.

Maybe We Need A Senior's Tour

The return of the Texan is getting more press than the presidential race. Not only that, it seems to have prompted a slew of possible comebacks. Landis, Chechu, Beloki, Boogerd. Even Ullrich isn't saying never. Next year's peloton is shaping up to look like we're back in the 90s. Maybe Festina will get back in the fray. And what about ex-DSs? I miss Manolo Saiz. "Venga!"

Here's an article on Beloki, Boogerd, and Ullrich.

But, really, just what is on Lance's mind? This is the question everyone wants to know. This article covers the topic in depth and provides a lot of links.

It's all fairly strange. Perhaps not as strange as our election, but strange indeed. Above is a pic of Lance in a race yesteray. I'm not saying that guy next to him can't ride, but he looks like a guy out for a Sunday stroll around the park. And he looks nothing at all like Alberto Contador. Big Tex has a long long way to go.

The Lance Chronicles

As most of my friends' "cycling friend" I've been asked a lot about the Texan's big return. I'll comment further on but, in general, I'm psyched. I've already bet a couple bottles of bourbon with Josh and Reed that he never lines up for the Tour. This is based on athletic precedent. I don't see Armstrong playing Ali and getting beat up by Trevor Berbick. If he can't win he won't race. I hope I lose, as seeing him, Basso, Contador et al next would be fantastic. Landis should also sign with an international squad. Even Ullrich has joked about his return but, um, I don't think so. He wasn't that motivated when he was young. But the more the merrier. Lance will bring a lot of money, coverage, and enthusiasm, and all will be good for the sport.

At 37, Lance isn't too old. It's a question of motivation. He sounds psyched now but let's see how that plays out over the winter. He's sacrificing a pretty good life and this, historically, has not gone well for athletes.

Here is the Vanity Fair article announcing his comeback.

The dirt is already flying:

David Walsh's perspective sounds like pretty straight talk to me.

Some of the French authorities.

Contador is gracious. And, oddly enough, we already see a lie in the VF piece. LA states that Bruyneel will be his DS, but Bruyneel hadn't even heard of the plan.

As is most of the peloton.

When it all comes down to it, this is about training and motivation. I see how Armstrong misses the template; the challenge. Now he has a new template to both contemplate and then test. From an athletic perspective, this is what it's all about. The training. Lance won all those tours by training harder than everyone else. Those long hours suffering anonymously in the middle on nowhere when the weather's bad and you just know that you competitors are all in bed or at the pub are pretty much the most meaningful times in any athletes career. If you don't love those times than you aren't a champion. I think Big Tex revels in them.

This is the essence of all of this, at least from my perspective.

“Then Leadville, this kind of obscure bike race, totally kick-started my engine. For me it’s always been about the process.… The process of getting there is the best part. You start the season a little out of shape, a little heavy. You get in better shape. You lose some weight. I mean you’re just crafting this perfect program. For several weeks I [had] trained [for Leadville] and went riding by myself. Obviously beautiful territory and fresh air, just feeling fit, losing weight, getting strong—living a very healthy lifestyle. I thought, This might be fun to try again.”

Charging Like Madmen

The Eagles' strength and conditioning coach is a big advocate of P90X. He talked to Tony after yesterday's season opener, after the Eagles laid a can of whoop-ass on the Rams.

Just got off the phone with Rick B. He gave half the team our recovery formula at half time. The Rams were bonking and the Eagles who drank our stuff were charging like madmen in the heat. McNabb threw for over 300 yards and Rick is convinced that he's been using the X (He won't admit to it) because he's never been this lean coming into the season. Rick told me point blank that P90X played a roll in this win today. Is that crazy or what???

Here's an article on why Recovery Formula works.

Here are Akers' stats from yesterday.

On Sep 7, 2008, at 2:28 PM, Horton Tony wrote:


The Eagles capped the 11-play, 82-yard drive (6 minutes, 20 seconds) with Akers' PAT and led 14-0 withi 1:53 to go in the quarter.

Akers kicked off and it went deep into the end zone and was downed for a touchback.

Akers kicked 67 yards to the Rams' 3.

Akers came on and booted a 23-yard field goal to give Philadelphia a 31-0 lead.

Akers kicked 64 yards to the Rams' 6

The China Chronicles

not your typical half time entertainment.

I’m back in the States—writing at 4:30 in the morning because my jet lag abatement plan got diverted by a flu I picked up on my last night in Hong Kong. I’d like to say it’s because I ran out of my Peak Health vitamins. In fact, it may be. But instead I’ll point to our waiter on our final night that, upon greeting us, coughed mightily into his hand and then wiped it on our table cloth. Jon’s cries of protest were met with laughter. We almost left but decided to run with it, as we both see a lot of humor in bad service. Turned out to be a mistake, but what can you do? If the food had been as advertised, it may have been okay. It turned out to be very below average. We won’t be recommending Isola, in the IFC building in HK, anytime soon.

The most popular shirt in China. Tranlated: Kung Pao Chicken. Okay, I thought this was funny, and would be particularly funny in the States where people wear all sorts of kanji with no idea of its meaning, but the Chinese went bonkers over it. It always brought a laugh, a smile, a comment, preferential treatment, and helped us breeze through security checks. I recommend one.

I’m finally feeling better and will post pics are report of the rest of our trip over the next week or so (or whenever Jon gets back from his trip, as some photos are his). It was a fabulous time. Big shout out to UPS, who sponsored us (along with hundreds of their best clients). As one of the Games’ major sponsors, they really did it up. We were inundated with food, drink, and Olympics for the duration of our stay in Beijing. It was all rather amazing.

don't forget to cheer. jon and i were pretty sure we would be attacked in our sleep by these creepy Olympic mascot monsters.

One World. One Dream.

not exactly communist archecture

This Olympics is being called China’s coming out party. After a 45 billion (yes, billion, with a b), one would expect that things might be a little tidy but the Bejing we’re experiencing has had a bit more than a face lift. The layers and infrastructure is too deep to have been changed just for the Olympics. Beijing is a beautiful and modern city, with little to no resemblance to the drab communist state that we Westerners tend to visualize. Luckily, we had an avenue to find some answers about what’s been going on.
room with a view

Jon’s high school buddy, Michael, has been living in China since 1990. He owns and operates a production company here and has seen the country’s transformation first hand. When he arrived, it was still in all its red China dreariness glory. Michael was working on location in Shanghai when we arrived and flew in for a day just to show us around.
jon and micheal

Michael became interested in China’s history and culture, came for a visit, and never left. Now he’s well established, has a family, and was more than happy to brief us on the Chinese evolution. His Gung-Ho Films office is in a historic part of the city that’s funky, cool, and reminded me of an Asian version of any hip city in the West, with better Kung Pao.
where can we find a good kung pao?

“When I got here,” he told us in front of a small restaurant with cheap metal tables sat on a chipped tile floor, “every restaurant looked like this.” Now the place looked more like a homage to the days of old in the middle of a trendy neighborhood. We then walked to an area on a lake that dissected the center of Beijing. The quay was littered with bars, restaurants, and shops that oozed character. It was not what either Jon or I had expected to see in Beijing. It was exactly like the kind of place you try and find when you travel—an area frequented by educated locals and savvy tourists.

We’ve been told by the US media that all this change is a façade for the Olympics. According to Mike, however, that’s not what’s happened at all. Things have been steadily changing since he got there, which is the primary reason that the Chinese wanted the Olympics so badly.
in search of street smarts

Later that night, we ended up on the street, kickin’ it with some locals. We chatted about China, how it’s changed, and what its future might hold. Like everywhere in the world these days, there was plenty of bad along with the good. With 1.3 billion people, China’s got more than its share of problems. But it’s hardly a world apart from what’s happening in the west, or anywhere else on our planet. The world has become a very small place. What happens on one continent directly affects what happens on the others. The Beijing 2008 slogan of “One World. One Dream,” may not have much to do with sport. But it definitely has a lot to do with the future of our planet.

jon in beijing, or is it paris, buenos aires, or salt lake city?

Kings Of The Beach

the block that got bigger and bigger

“I don’t think they should even call it beach volleyball anymore,” said Jon. “Because it’s really sand volleyball. Beaches no longer come into play.”

True enough. We were in the middle of Beijing, without a sea gull in sight, and about to watch the men’s “beach volleyball” medal matches. The sport that had grown up on the beaches of Southern California was now an Olympic phenomenon, played by countries world wide and at venues thousands of miles from the nearest ocean.

warming up as the crowd filtered in

Walking into the event, however, you’d never know it. The place really did resemble a beach. Right down to the smell of sunscreen. Music blared, bikini clad dancers paraded around, and the announcer spoke a perfect beach dialect of SoCal English. It was hard to believe we were in China. I even had to keep reminding myself that I couldn’t go cool off with a dip in the ocean.


For this reason, beach volleyball has become the number one ticket at these Olympics. And, somehow, we’d scored a couple. Not only were we there; we were a few rows from the action, right behind the players’ wives/girlfriends. However lucky, it was fitting if not serendipitous. Jon has played beach ball for years and had introduced me to the sport as well. Back in college we’d often roll out of bed, throw on some shorts, put a ball on the back of our motorcycles, and head to the beach. As long as we were in Beijing together, we had to be here.

"number one ticket in beijing" any questions why?

Also, in the small world that is sport, I knew one of the two American players. I used to work with Todd Rogers’ wife, Melissa, at a health club a decade or so ago. Back then Todd’s career was struggling as beach ball was going through an identity crises. Now here they were; playing for the gold medal in front of millions. Life can be so sweet sometimes.

we're a long way from GVAC, melissa

In their way were Brazilians. Lots of them. There were Brazilians from Brazil as well as Brazilians from Georgia, who had nationalized some who couldn’t make the Brazilian team. There would be no beach interlopers from places like Switzerland. This was an old school showdown. All it needed was a floating Cuervo balloon and the sound of crashing waves.

In the final we were treated to some of the best volleyball we’d seen. In a see-saw battle the Americans and Brazilians split the first two games. Rogers was amazing. By far the smallest guy on the court, the Brazilians would serve him every time. Yet his speed and savvy generally made this tactic look dubious, as over and over he’d use precision to overcome half a foot of disadvantage.


This actually put a lot of pressure on his partner, Phil Dalhausser. When the ball did head his direction, he needed to make the most of his opportunities. I suppose this could be frustrating but I’m sure they’re used to it. The Americans seemed calmer, more calculated. As the pressure mounted their tactics began to wear on Brazil. At one point Jon said that Dalhausser was “getting into their head” as his massive block seemed to get bigger and bigger as the match wore on.


In the final set it all came to fruition. Rogers dug everything and Dalhausser became a monster at the net. It seemed like every time the Brazilians set, they found Dalhausser hovering over them, ready to reject any shot down to the sand. After what seemed like five consecutive blocks, it was 9-1. Game over.

10 years later: todd and melissa look the same, but the crowd around them has changed

I was hot, sweaty, sun burnt; so I headed off in search of some waves to cool off.

Once Around

in front of the bird's nest

It's been a frustrating Olympics for our sprint team. Americans have dominated the sprints throughout Olympic history. We’re not exactly fading, either, but these Games have seen a rash of bad luck following our athletes around the Bird’s Nest—the incredible Chinese athletics venue—like some Haitian voodoo is at work—or at least Jamaican voodoo.

Voodoo aside, the Jamaicans have announced that there’s a new sheriff in town. The small island, know more for its music than anything else, has historically cranked out fast people. But these Olympics it’s reached ridiculous proportions. Beginning with Usain Bolt, the first man to set the world record in both the 100 and 200 at the same Games, the Jamaicans are cleaning up in the sprints. In fact, if the entire Caribbean was a country there’d be little left for the rest of the world do in these events. Each sprint final is filled up with representatives from these islands. From Cuba to the Bahamas to Trinidad to St. Kitts, it makes one wonder what’s in the water down there. Maybe the islands are so small that all you can do is run short distances. Whatever the reason, this must be the most concentrated region of fast twitch muscle fiber on the planet.


flag-clad 400 runners looking up at the new sprint Gods, or are they saying "is the Jamaican anthem really not a reggae tune?"

Thankfully, some of it is in the US. And even though our sprinters are being pushed aside, we’re still finding ourselves dominant at a single lap. It’s not an all out sprint, but not a distance event either; the 400 is often called the most painful event in the Olympics because it requires the ability to suffer along with a lot of white muscle fiber. And we’re good at it. Real good. The American men swept both the 400 and the 400 intermediate hurdles, which has basically saved face for our sprint team at these Games.


one lap too many: no Americans made the 800 semis

Our one lap dominance only seems to hold if ONE person is running, however. Last night we set an unprecedented record—that I doubt will ever be broken—of dropping the baton while LEADING both the men’s and women’s 4 X 100 relays. Both muffed exchanges came at exactly the same spot in each race, the final hand off. It was, truly, as if some voodoo was at work.


looking at the water cube where, obviously, michael phelps was the only one privy to any voodoo.

Olympians

me, jon, gail

It's interesting hanging around Beijing because many of the "tourists" you happen to run into end up looking familiar. This is because you've probably seen them on TV. The athletes are here for more than competition. Most of them are here for the experience. So when you think you've met that guy ducking into a noodle shop, it's probably because it's LeBron James.

You also run into ex-Olympians. I spent a bus ride talking with Matt Biondi. The three time Olympian seemed genuinely surprised that I'd recognized him. "But you're an icon," is what I was thinking.

On our first night we had the pleasure of meeting, and then hanging out with, Gail Devers and her family. In case you've never heard of the Olympics, she's one of the most decorated sprinters in history. The five time Olympian and gold medalist isn't retired, but she wasn't here to compete either. Having just had her second child, she's here working with UPS as a spokesperson. As the night wore on, while watching the US track team struggle, you could see her competitiveness coming out. At one point she said, "where are my spikes? I need to get out there!"

In all seriousness, she is discussing a comeback. If she made the London Games, she would be the oldest sprinter ever, besting Merlene Ottey by a year. We, of course, offered to help her prolong "the R word," as she called it, for as long as possible. She sounded excited. So, hopefully, in 2012 she'll be at the Games as a spokesperson for us as well as UPS, while going for the gold at 45.


in front of our hotel

Like Rocky IV, with Bikinis

We were here in the last great bastion of communism, to witness beach volleyball final in what promised to be a remake of Rocky IV, only this time with bikinis. On the side of freedom were Misty May-Treanor and Kerry Walsh, a couple of happy-go-lucky beach girls up against all odds against the modern version of the Big Red Machine. China’s players may have had names but, as far as we were concerned, they were players that had been stamped out by their Olympic production committee, as both of their sides had easily marched through the competition, only losing to each other, and both playing for medals.


confusion reigns as jon tries to make sense of the bracket

The Chinese had also rigged these beach volleyball finals so that it was raining. This was, of course, to give their side the advantage since they must have learned their sport in an artificial venue that could simulate any condition, as opposed to the pristine beaches of Brazil and Southern California. We headed to battle; ready to stand alone amongst the masses of the proletariat, 100% ready to risk our lives in the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness. Then we walked into the stadium.


the weather was certainly a communist plot against freedom

China may still be communist but it doesn’t seem to lack freedom. It certainly doesn’t feel repressed. Its volleyball facility is an amazing venue. In spite of the rain, instead of exuding a grey communistic air, it felt like we’d walked into a beach party. Bikini clad dancers danced around in the rain, the beer was flowing, though it was only 9 am, and the big red machine was represented by a couple of cute svelte girls wearing tiny red bikinis. If this was communism, sign me up.


In the bronze medal game, the Chinese girls did dispatch the Brazilians with calculated precision. As opposed to any nationalized advantage, however, it seemed to come down more to the ability of the Brazilians to block—the same thing that derailed them against the US. They would have no such advantage in the final.


Our other story line inconsistency was that May-Treanor and Walsh hadn’t lost a match in pretty much forever. If anyone was going to play the intimidator, it was going to be them. On the games second point, the Chinese advantage in the opening match was countered when Walsh six-packed (a block where the ball goes right back in the spikers face) Jie Wang. If Ivan Drago was on the court, he was being played by Walsh.


Wang and Jia Tian played a great match. Their precision was matched with passion and they gave the more experienced Americans fits. In the end, however, team USA showed why they are the most dominant team in the history of their sport. When push came to shove, they always got the point. The Chinese had a lead late in game one but couldn’t hold it. In game two, it seemed like Walsh-May were going to easily put them away but, again, they made a spirited come back to, once again, take a lead late in the game. But that was all the Americans would allow. In the end, despite the rain, we could have been on any beach, anywhere in the world, watching some great athletes—in bikinis—having a bit of good old fashioned sport.

Let The Games Begin

How not to get sick on a flight: Immune Boost Formula and champagne

We're finally in Beijing. After a long but quite relaxing flight(s) we're ready to witness the spectacle. We began our trip watching the Games with a celebratory bottle of wine at Jon's house, when Bob Costas' said, "You can't possibly know what it's like unless you experience it yourself." Jon and I looked at each other, shrugged, and said, "Alright then. Let's go."


well, if Bob Costas says so...

We scored some great seats and a mere 14 hours later were in Hong Kong, a place we're both excited to get back and see. But there was no time for distraction. We had a to make a quick connection and, a few hours later, were in Beijing.


We love Oracle

The city sure has its happy face on. So far, it seems a far cry from the dirty polluted and overcrowded place that it’s rumored to be. Our accommodations are great; our event agenda even greater. We have tickets to a slew of athletics finals, beach v-ball finals, and the semis and finals for basketball. As long as we can shake the jet lag and get our sleeping hours on track it's promising to be a great time.

I've decided not to really train on this trip. I've been going hard since I began 90X in April and my shoulder, while it's gotten stronger, is still tweaked. I'm hoping 10 days of lots of walking and minimal impact will get it over the hump. Of course, I looked at the gym in our hotel tonight and am already jonzing a bit. So we'll see how that goes.

Anyway, things are going great. We met five time Olympian and gold medalist Gail Devers (and her family) tonight. But that's another story....

The Beijing airport looking absolutely spiffy

7 Days To Beijing

A week from now my friend, and boss, Jon Congdon and I will be in Beijing, representing Beachbody at the Olympics. We're pretty psyched. I'll be blogging whenever I can.

I love the Olympics. It's still one athletic event where, try and they may, commercialism and politics don't play a part. They do play a part in what we get to watch, for sure. From Munich to Moscow to the travesty that was trying to watch the Sydney Games in the US, the powers-that-be of the world try and inflict their greedy little paws on the Games. But that stories that tend to unfold--at least the ones that stick in our hearts and minds--are those of athletes who toil anonymously, often at great personal sacrifice, for a chance at one shining (and fleeting) moment. The Olympics is still the soul of what we call sport.

I wrote a short piece for our newsletter on 10 of the top stories to watch during this year's Games. Undoubtedly, there will be many more. The best, hopefully, aren't even on our radar yet. I can't wait to check out the spectacle first hand.

Crazy 8's

8-8-08 was the starting date of both the Olympics and the Outdoor Retailer trade show in Salt Lake City. OR is a biannual event where most of my friends get to come to town on their company's dime. Sure, they're here to work, but we always seem to find plenty of time for play. Generally, there's a fair bit of outdoor activities scheduled if, for no other reason than to sweat out the prior evenings toxicants. We had those this year, too. But we kicked off the show with something special, in honor of 8-8-08.

Last week my buddy Hans called to make sure I'd have a good workout concocted for us. A bit later I get a text asking if I knew it was 8-8-08, and suggesting a crazy 8 workout. Then I found out that the Chinese believed 8 to be a lucky number and we starting the Olympic Games at 8:08 on 8-8-08. Since a billion Chinese can't be wrong, I just needed a workout for us, that would include lots of 8s, to begin at 8:08.

Since my wife does cross fit, and neither Hans or I had done a real cross fit workout, I asked her to make up something hard for us. She came up with something where we'd do 8 rounds of 8 sets of 8 exercises. Each round would consist of 20 seconds of an exercise, followed by 10 seconds rest, repeated 8 times. We wamed up by practicing each movement for form and to get an idea of how much weight we'd use. It all seemed easy enough. So we began...

The 8:

push press (squat thrust military presses)
kettlebell swings
push-ups
atomic sit-ups (fully extended body crunch)
squats
pull-ups
one-arm kettlebell snatches
hanging knees to elbows

Of course, competition dictated that we both began doing way too many reps or using too much weight on our first set. The last few sets of most of the movements were brutal, especially since neither of us wanted to have the low number of reps. Soon, to the delight of Lisa, who was worried it wouldn't be hard enough for us, we were grunting and screaming like a couple of WWF wrestlers. By the end of a 40-minute workout we were bathed in sweat and pumped up like a couple of ticks. It seemed like a perfectly fitting way to kick off the Olympics.

Aftermath: By Sunday we both had a brutal case of classic day two soreness. Hans called from the show to ask if my stomach hurt. He said he thought he'd eaten something bad until he realized that his stomach muscles were just super beat up. He gave big kudos to Romney for her ability to inflict this on a guy who "has done a least a hundread reps of core work per day for years". As for me, I could barely raise my arms overhead. This didn't stop me from riding and climbing over the weekend, but it sure cut down on my ability to do them well. As of Monday I'm still hobbling around the house like I'm injured. I can't wait til our 9-9-09 workout.