Beijing Day 4

Team Canada, originally uploaded by jfilliol1.

The clouds rolled back in for day 4 here in Beijing today, but it was still relatively cool temperature wise. I went out for a run first thing again (4 days in a row - woohoo :-), and didn't see too many people out this time. The early morning runs (which Kim pointed out are actually the same time as I usually run at home, 5pm pacific) have been great to get onto the time zone.

Training wise it was a pretty smooth and simple day with the women doing their pre race routines including morning run with strides, short activation swim in the pool and a bike spin with accelerations, while the guys did a ride around the reservoir early and then the pool swim at the same time as the women. We had 8 athletes swimming in the pool today with 5 different workouts going on, all in 3 lanes.

Today we watched the mens eight rowers dominate and "crush the dreams" of the other teams - awesome performance and an inspiration to the women who are racing tomorrow to really go for it, and leave everything on the course. Going into the Olympics as a gold medal favorite is a whole other experience than "making the team" and just being happy to be there. Seeing the rowers execute under that pressure was a real highlight and what it is all about. Canada is on the medal board now after a great weekend with some excellent performances in rowing, wrestling and a great swim from Ryan Cochrane of Victoria finishing with the bronze medal in the 1500m.

Before dinner Tom, Gabor and I took the womens bikes to the race venue, where they were inspected for logos and handlebars (there are strict logo rules in the Olympics for equipment, in the case of bikes, only one manufacturer logo per side). They'll pick the bikes up race morning before the warm up and finally placing them in the transition.

The few days we've been here have flown by and its time for the women to have their go. They are ready and looking forward to giving everything they have tomorrow. Send them good vibes!