Beijing 2008: The Experience of a Lifetime!!!!!

Reflections:

What an unbelievable experience, truly a once in a lifetime kind of feel – something I was cautiously hoping it would be, but was worried about being disappointed. I was 6^th row for Usain Bolt’s 200 record!! (which I personally don’t believe will go do for a long long time…I think he may break is 100 record as soon as the end of this season).

After having lived in Beijing for nearly 2 months last summer (and feeling the unbelievable energy and excitement of the lead-up to the Olympics), I can’t believe how much more the city has changed in just one year. It seems like everything is new (or at least covered up with an Olympic themed wall) and relatively orderly. From the roads to the bright and shiny subway system, one can see certain advantages to a central planning political system.

The 7 days I was here…other than one day of rain, this is the clearest, best air and weather I have seen here. No joke, the 2 months I was hear I did not see this many clear days. Kudos to whatever the government has been doing (including taking half the cars of the road each day..which, unbelievably hasn’t seen to make a dent in the terrible traffic…still takes 30 mins to 1hr min to get anywhere. The subway is excellent is mostly brand new, but still takes many transfers to get anywhere).

Things definitely more expensive here than last year. Not just b/c the exchange rate went from like 7.5/1 USD to 6.8, but just general inflation – not unexpected at all. That did not stop me from getting 2 hour massages with all you can eat food for about $20 J (anything labor related is still cheeaaaap)

Need to shout out to the tour company I went with, Ludus tours, who do an amazing job. It is founded by Adam and Jessica Dailey, former runners at powerhouse University of Arkansas who also competed in the Olympic Trials. The company started out at the Athens Olympics as the partner to USA Track and Field, and therefore was basically the company that took care of most of the US Track team families. They have since expanded to include events such as the Running of the bulls, Oktoberfest, and the World Cup, but still had a lot of the athletes’ families go so it was super cool to hang with the parents of a lot of them – they must be so proud! Also just a bunch of cool folks I got to meet from all over the world – special shout out to Graham “the human track encyclopedia” from London who I had great track discussions with, but also excellent late night convos about society, politics, religion, etc.

I will certainly go with Ludus next time I do a tour like this, perhaps the Worlds next year in Berlin. Want to shout out to the other Ludus-ites that made this such as awesome trip like Diana, Stephanie, Ann, Melanie, Dan, and the whole crew. Here is one of my favorite picture I think of the trip, me with Dathan Ritzenhein, US Olympic Marathoner (9th place in a great time if i recall of around 2 hours, 12 minutes), former cult HS runner (he and Alan Webb were to put the US bank on the map for the longer distances), and all around nice guy. His family was with Ludus so he joined them at my table at the Beijing Duck closing dinner:

Sorry for the non-track fans if you are looking at this...some of this may become pretty boring fast. Also...I am a terrible photographer with a mediocre camera, so be prepared for some mediocre-to-crappy shots!