Celebrity Camp in Dalian

Going to the Olympics is a dream that so many athletes share. Competing with the best in the world, walking into the Opening Ceremonies, wearing the red, white and blue of Team USA.... Well, there are other perks.

Let's go to training camp, Olympic-style.

Day one: You are met at the airport in Dalian by USA Track & Field officials, receive a short briefing while your luggage is loaded into a truck for you and you walk to an air-conditioned shuttle bus. You're thirsty, so there is water handed to you as you get on the bus. Sit down, notice that no one else is in this section of the airport parking lot except for Chinese security and police personnel. Two police cars escort your bus as it pulls out of the airport on to a road that is completely empty of cars, buses or trucks. All traffic in both directions has been stopped. You are driving down the main street of a city of five million people and there is no traffic. You don't stop at stoplights. You don't slow at intersections. You simply drive. You feel like the president.

Check in to your resort. You have your own room, queen-size bed, cable TV (though the BBC station is a bit fuzzy), and a view out over the Yellow Sea. Life is good. You wander down to the dining room of the hotel and are greeted by the chef. He is an American chef who teaches at a culinary institute in Colorado, caters for professional athletes, and knows that what you want right now more than anything is a grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup. And it's hot. And melty.

Day two: Eat a light breakfast in your room, stretch out a bit, and then take a short ride from the resort down the hill to the public beach access road. You are planning to walk two loops of the 11km road course that has been closed for you today. You've never been here before, but that's okay because you will be given a police escort for the entire workout. If you come to an intersection and don't know which way to go, a police office standing at the corner will direct you right or left. Every 100 or 200 meters, there will be a plainclothes security guard keeping watch over you. There is also a police escort that consists of three cars. One follows Ryan Hall as he begins his 17 mile tempo workout in preparation for the Olympic Marathon. The other moves between a group of Dathan Ritzhenheim, Deena Kastor and Jen Rhines. The third positions itself behind the racewalkers as you head down the road. There's a view of the beach and the Yellow Sea to the right, hotels and restaurants to the left. No cars. No bikes. When pedestrians step out into the road, security guards holler at them to get back on the sidewalk until after you have passed. At a few intersections, there are cars backed up waiting to cross. People out for a stroll crowd around the corner and cheer for you as you walk by. In English they yell, "Go go go!" Your USATF coach jumps out of the van every 20 minutes to hand you water or give you a fresh bottle of Vitalyte or a PowerGel.

You finish your workout, stretch out, get a ride back up the hill to the resort, shower, and then go to the training room. Your athletic trainer stretches you out, hands you a towel, and then you go sit in the ice bath for 15 minutes with Ryan and Dathan. You chat about Ryan's race at the London Marathon where he ran the second fastest time ever by an American. Dathan tells a funny story about a trip to Europe.

At lunch, you get more delicious food piled on to your plate and sit down with Ryan, Bernard Lagat, Jorge Torres and Ian Dobson. Someone asks Lagat what his workout is for the day and he says he's headed to the track in the afternoon to do a 1,000 meter time trial. His plan is to run 2:20. You do the math and realize, that's awfully fast. No wonder he won the World Championships last year in the 1500mt and 5000mt.

In the afternoon, you can take a nap, go for a swim in the pool, stroll over to the temple looking out over the ocean, or sign up for a massage. It's training camp, so you can also go out and do a workout. Enjoy.

More Opening Ceremonies Insights

The Opening Ceremonies were HOT. And I'm not talking about the fireworks. I'm talking about sweaty, steamy, dress-shirt-stuck-to-my-back, wearing-a-plastic-bag-in-the-sauna HOT. But we looked so good, I didn't care. The outfits Polo Ralph Lauren gave us – blue blazer, white dress shirt, khaki pants, dock shoes, and what they call an "estate driving hat"– were really classy. The were so sharp, I almost cut myself!

Unfortunately, it was a hot, sticky night in the stadium. Some countries were dressed in tan blazers and they were actually soaked through with big sweat marks all over the armpits, shoulders, and back. The ride back to the Village in the bus was nice, kinda like a rolling locker room.

We left the Olympic Village as a team, all of the US athletes together in several buses, almost three hours before the Ceremonies started. Many of the athletes competing in the first couple days of the Games didn't walk: swimmers, cyclists, volleyballers. There were still a few hundred of us that rode to the fencing venue for a photo op with Presidents Bush Jr & Sr. Rather than individual photos, they tried to separate us into groups. While we milled about waiting for things to happen, most of the athletes chatted or got photos with some of the NBA stars that were there: LeBron James, Kobe Bryant and Tayshuan Prince. I was put in the group with the hurdlers, but check out the sign they had for us. Ooops. Looks like they gave me a 10km discount.

I don't watch enough basketball to care, so I talked with Anthony Famiglietti and some of the other distance runners. Fam is funny. He's got a good perspective on things. We talked politics for awhile, especially about the selection of the US flagbearer, Lopez Lomong. Fam was the one that suggested Lopez run in the 'election' for flagbearer. Each sport nominates one athlete and Lopez was the clear winner of the track & field delegation. In the second round of general voting, he won the honor of carrying the red, white and blue into the stadium.


Lopez is one of the Lost Boys of Sudan. He escaped to Kenya at the age of six with several other boys, lived in refugee camps for 10 years, and immigrated to the US to live in a foster home. Bio on Lopez's home page (with quote from yours truly!) Good article in the LA Times. On the athletic side, one of the most remarkable things about Lopez is that his Olympic 1500mt race will be his first international race. He's never raced in anything but collegiate or domestic U.S. races... and now he's in the Olympics!

After I passed on the Bush photo op (like the NBA stars, I didn't care for a photo with him), we all walked over to the National Indoor Stadium where the gymnastics competitions are being held. All 204 countries were seated by country in the stands. It was quite the patchwork quilt of colors. Each delegation wore a different outfit: bright reds and yellows of China, silver blues of Australia, white robes and turbans of Saudi Arabia, blues and reds of Russia, green jackets of Pakistan....

When the Games officially began at 8:08pm local time, the US team was seated in the upper deck, sweating already, drinking water and eating from snack bags that had been passed out. While the drama of the Opening Ceremonies was unfolding next door in the Bird's Nest, the athletes were being gathered to begin the parade of athletes. Greece is always the first country to enter the stadium, an honor given to the country that hosted the first modern Olympics in 1896. We were number 140 out of 204. The countries were lined up in alphabetical order in the Chinese alphabet. As it was explained to me, the number of strokes in the Chinese character for the country's name determined the placement. So, in Chinese, "United States of America" isn't at the end of the alphabet, it's in the last third or so.

To organize things, the large video monitors were used to list the next country. Occasionally they would cut to the actual Opening Ceremonies for a few minutes and we would "Oooh and aaah" with the rest of the world watching at home on TV. Then they would cut to "Number 117, British Virgin Islands" and everyone in the stands would "Boooo!" Nothing personal, we just wanted to watch the ceremonies. Once we were called down, there was a huge backlog of countries and we shuffled and waited, shuffled and waited for a long time before we dropped down the ramp into the tunnel (it's the same tunnel that I will walk out of and back into for the finish of the 50km). I tried to line up near the right side where the cameras would be and I stayed near the women's softball team hoping that NBC focused on Jenny Finch and her teammates. So far, no one claims to have seen me, but Joanne Dow's husband saw her and we were close. We'll have to review the tape.

At my first Olympics in Sydney, I walked into the Opening Ceremonies expecting a huge emotional rush but it didn't happen. I was too nervous about my race or not in the moment. This time, I really let it sink in and thought of all the work it took to get here. I choked up a little bit waving at people in the stands. Shouting, smiling, screaming their lungs out, all the people in the stadium reminded me of all of you back home who have cheered for me or encouraged me along my journey. At one point, I took a real short break and just soaked it in. And then I kept walking, because that's what I do.

The rest of the Opening Ceremonies, standing and sweating (did I mention the sweating?), the lighting of the flame, the walk back out the tunnel to the buses and the ride to the Village is a bit of a blur. What sticks in my mind right now is that lap around the track. I'm looking forward to getting back onto that track for my race. Just twelve more days! Whoa!