The Olympics- You Never Know What Will Happen

Hey everyone,

I am still here in Beijing gearing up for the 4x400 meter relay. The races so far on the sprint side have been amazing and unpredictable. You think you already have an idea of who will win, but things end up working out totally different. I have seen World Records, amazing finishes and some disappointments! This 2008 Olympic Games has allowed me to further open my eyes to how hard it takes for one to excel. We athletes sacrifice a lot, put in hard training and our experiences can range from ups/downs. I am thankful for my gift that I have of running and will always cherish it and the memories. Well back to the fact that my Games experience isn't over. 4x400 relay is what ends it all for track and field.

As of today I do not know the order or details about who will run, but I will post once I know more information. The weather has been nice here with sunny skies and warm temperatures. Today is one of the weird days in which it is RAINING, and no not just a little but a lot. I woke up this morning and knew hat I had to head to breakfast in the rain. I put on my layers of rain gear and made the trip over to our dining hall. I made it and didn't get that wet. So let me tell you all more about the dining hall. It is a large building that can hold about 1000 individuals. At certain times during the day it is so crowded, I have definitely had the chance to encounter so many different countries that I didn't realize existed. I have also been doing a good job of "pin trading" and what that includes is taking your countries Olympic designed pins and trading with other countries. I have had so much fun doing this and the Chinese love to try and trade something else for a pin. It could be a small stuff animal, small key chain or even a panda pin. I traded with countries such as Germany, Jamaica, India, and China.

We now have one more addition to this trip, Uncle Scott arrived a couple of days before my first round of the 400 meters. I am so happy that he was able to make the long trip and hope he is enjoying himself. We have done a couple of interesting things such as, visiting the Great Wall and taking him to the Silk Market. The Great Wall was an amazing experience, it is so long. You could not walk the entire thing in one day it would take one walking 20-30 miles a day for maybe 4 months. Whew myself, Chris and Uncle Scott (Chris's uncle) walked a little portion of the wall. Some spots were very steep and you had to hold onto the railing or you would fall. At one point we had to let Chris do the hard work and climb to get us some good pictures. Well I guess I can't leave out what happened prior to actually giving our ticket to the attendent. I am not a big fan of heights, I usually do fine on roller coasters because I know what to expect. This was a shocker for me, I didn't know that we had to ride cable cars to get to the other side of the wall. I got inside the cable car and we headed up into the sky! I immediately broke into a huge sweat and sort of had a panic attack. The cable car was just a little round thing attached to a cable that went over the mountains. It went high into the sky with nothing below us and I immedialtely thought "Oh no we are going to tumble to the rocks" Chris came to my rescue, I closed my eyes and started to fan myself.
When we made it to the other side I was so relieved. I told myself that I wouldn't be riding it back.....but I guess I changed my mind once I found out that it took an hour to walk back.


Talk to you all soon