Last Day

We made it! That was a long trip, but so much fun. I’m so glad we have Skype to see each other. That makes it bearable to be away. I’m on the plane now and am so excited to see everyone.

Last night was a great finish to the meet for the USA. We won both relays, got a silver in the 5k, had our first finalist in the 800m in 12 years (he nearly medaled, but couldn’t quite hold on in the last 30m), the gold medalist in the women’s long jump, a finalist in the javelin, three runners in the 5k final, and three runners in the women’s 1500m. That’s the best showing for the US in distance running in decades. I met lots of great people and had a good time in Berlin. After the meet, there was a closing ceremony on the track that we all got to be in. I got two photos by the finish clock.

I tried going to church on Sunday morning, but got the notice in the picture here. The marathon course went right by the Tiergarten church and they had to cancel services. So, I wandered around the park until the marathon began. Kara Goucher got 10^th. That’s the best finish for an American in a really long time. She did that even with throwing up at mile 9.

At the airport, a lot of people asked for autographs. One of them asked me to sign the photo he had of me. It turns out it was a photo of Jeremy Wariner (silver medalist in the 400m). Other than the hair, I don’t really look like him. I also smile a lot more than he does. Yesterday, someone near the hotel ran after me as I was heading to the train station. He was calling out, “Mr Hardee!” I had to disappoint him when I told him I was not him (gold medalist in the decathlon). He’s up in first class on this flight and if you saw us together, you would realize could look a little similar if I was 5 inches taller and had 70 pounds more of muscle.

Berlin was a great place to see. There is so much history there. It’s strange to walk around seeing damage from the war in the churches, remnants of the wall, the concentration camp and then to see how different the country is today. The German’s have done a good job memorializing with respect. The confusion and lack of love for people because of religion or race is not evident anymore. I really enjoyed being with the Berliners and seeing how much they enjoy life now.

Men's Marathon

I just got back from the men's marathon. I took the long way home to see another church that was damaged in the war. The church is in Sudstern. I found an English shop in Sudstern. Finally, I was able to find some Jelly Babies, but they were $5 for a small bag, so I passed them by. I did get a nice pastry from the backerie.

Here are a couple of photos from the marathon. I was trying to be artistic with Matt Gabrielson from the US in one. Guess who is in the lead? Kenya and Ethiopia were right up front as expected.

Sachsenhausen

Josh and I went to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp this morning. I'm glad we went there, but it's mostly a depressing experience. There were some highlights though. The last part we went into had exhibits of some of the little pieces of hope that showed up every now and then through all the misery. The text next to this shoe at the concentration camp says, "Ludwig Peters was given this decoration as a present by a young, Russian, fellow prisoner. the 16 year-old, who died shortly afterwards from tuberculosis, had put aside part of his meager bread ration and had molded these flowers from it. This gesture came from the heart. It was the most beautiful present of my life."

In the evening, we had some good performances, like a gold and silver in the men's 400m. However, after the 4x100m, GBR put in a protest saying we passed the baton too soon on the last exchange. My video showed that we probably did, but it was really close. After the protest and our appeal, the US men's team is out of the relay for the second year in a row. Hopefully, the women will do better.

A lot happened today

We had a very long day at the track planned, but decided to take it in shifts and maybe miss filming some things. So, I had the morning off until 12:00pm, then I was at the track until 10:00pm. After a run, I ate breakfast and went to the Zoologischer Garten trainstop. I didn’t go into the garden, but looked around an old church. These are some photos from it. I will find out its history when I get back to the hotel. I’m at the track now filming the hammer throw and decathlon pole vault. I have a little break to write this since our only thrower in flight 1 was Jessica Cosby and she threw her personal best to qualify for the finals in one throw. I’ve attached the video of it here. She spins really fast. The church was really interesting since you could see the marks from where it was burned and there are a lot of pieces missing. I’m guessing it was partly destroyed in WWII. I’m curious to find out.

Before getting back on the train to get to the stadium, I finally got an ice cream cone. I’ve been waiting on that for a long time since I’ve been here. The ice cream shop in the hotel is closed all week, because they could not handle the demand of all the people that need ice cream this week. It was really good especially when it was a little bit melted.

Tonight is the men’s 200m final. Everyone is putting their predictions of the winning time. My guess was 19.29. We’ll see later on if I’m right. Usain looked really good in the 100m final and didn’t let up to celebrate. The question is if he’s tired and won’t do well. In the preliminary rounds, people are saying he doesn’t seem as relaxed and isn’t playing around as much as usual. I still don’t see anyone beating him. It’s too bad that Tyson Gay (the best US 200 runner) is not running due to a hamstring problem.

Okay. So, he was 0.10 quicker than I predicted. That was fun to watch. The 110mH final was good too. It took them a long time to figure out who got second and third.

The traffic light pictures are Ampelmaennchen. It's kind of fun to read about Ampelmaennchen. Click here for Wikipedia's description.

The church was badly damaged in an air raid during WWII.

The last picture is at the stadium tonight. It was totally sold out. That's a lot of seats and money. The cheapest seats are 35 Euro for one session. There are two sessions a day.

Tomasz Majewski

I was just on the elevator with this guy.

http://www.sporting-heroes.net/files_athletics/MAJEWSKI_T_20080815_GH_T.jpg

He is 6'8.5" and 290lb. I wasn't sure if I felt really safe or should be really scared. Anyway, nothing much happened. I got off on my floor and he continued on. It's kind of fun to see someone that big. He throws the shot for Poland.

17 August 2009

Aaron and Mary Jane will be so jealous now. We made it to Zum Haxnivert. Others of you might not be so jealous, since you may not enjoy black pudding and liver dumplings. I had Wiesn' Teller. We all had the drink that begins with an "S". I can't remember what it is called, but it is Fanta and Coke mixed. Everything was really good, except I still don't really like sauerkraut.

We attempted to rent scooters for the morning and cruise around, but ran in to troubles. The first place had closed down. The second place stopped renting scooters and only sells them now. We couldn't find the last place, but we had fun riding trains and walking around. We stopped by Alexandarplatz (famous for its TV tower). Giraffitti tagged along for the trip. She was sad we didn't get a scooter ride.

The meet went great last night for the women's steeple and men's 10k. Everyone performed well. Chelsea Johnson got a silver in the pole vault. That wasn't expected, but she did well and others including the world record holder did poorly.

I'm off to the track now. I'll write more later.

I miss my family. It would be fun to have them here.

16 August 2009

I'm back at the hotel for lunch. All of our steeplechasers struggled and Jill had a bad day throwing. It's still a fun trip though.

On the way back from the track I met Augustine Yawo (the head coach for Ghana). We had a good talk about sport science and filming at these meets. He knows Leonard (our BYU sprint coach), so I got this picture with him. Pieces of the Berlin Wall are in the background. I'll hopefully add to this later if I get back from the track in time. The men's 100m is the last event tonight. It will probably take a very long time to get back.

Wow!! I just finished filming the men's 100m final. I'm posting it on youtube as I write this. Jessica Ennis from GBR won the heptathlon in style too, but not the same style as Bolt. Tyson Gay ran an American record 9.71, but that was not fast enough to win tonight. The best part about tonight was having Giraffitti with me. She loved seeing the races and especially enjoyed the heptathlon. She said it was fun to see the same people doing all kinds of different events. Giraffitti and I love the granola bars I get from the hotel. We have eaten so many of them. We shared this one at the meet. It says, "Warning! Corny!" on it. The taste like the chewy Quaker granola bars.

8-15-2009

The meet started today and I have so much to talk about, but no time to write it. Last night, we went to the "Welcome Night". It was a really big deal, but we didn't know it beforehand. Only three Americans went to it (Me, Andy (a filmer with me), and Mike Hazel (a javelin thrower). We had a great time. I have video to prove it, but the camera was in the wrong format and I can't capture is until I get back to Utah. There were some enormous wireframe puppets with six people controlling each one. I'll get the video of that up sometime. There was an orchestra, a few German bands, and the last song was Aha singing Take on Me. The singer is a lot older now, but he can still hit that high note, just not for as long. We got to go through a celebrity tunnel kind of thing with fans lining the sides outside a fence. A few cheered for USA as we went through, but I'm guessing they were a bit disappointed to not see some more well-known representatives.

The meet went well for some yesterday and not for others. We did get our first gold medal from Christian Cantwell in the shot. The sad thing is that we should have had at least one more medal in that. Most of the men qualified for upcoming finals. The sprinters all did well and all our 400m women and 400m hurdle men moved on. Jenny Barringer qualified for finals in the steeple. It's been fun to see her do so well since she has had a great season this year. When I've chatted with her on the bus and at some meals, she is really a genuine person that it's easy to be happy for when she does well. Things didn't go well for Betty Wade. She started off great in the heptathlon, but then fouled all of her shot throws. So, she will get no points in that, when everyone else is getting about 700 or more.

Tomorrow is the men's steeplechase qualifying. We have three people entered and Josh McAdams is one of them. I'm hoping for the best. It is a tough race to make finals in though. I think Josh is ready though. When I get more time, I'll add photos and maybe some video too.

I just found time to add some photos.

The picutres are all from the Welcome Night at the Brandenburg Gate. The one with all the people is an introduction of former World Champions. The African second from the end is Frank Fredericks. He was a teammate of mine when I was a freshman at BYU. He went on to win four Olympic silver medals. The giant puppet is a wireframe thing that had six people controlling it. He did a slow motion long jump that was really fun to watch. The last picture is the IAAF president. I'm not sure why I bothered to take it, but he is very important in governing track and field internationally. He is from Nigeria.

8 August 2009

We made it to the Olympic Stadium today to scope out where we want to film from. We have a pretty good spot where we are assigned to be and a really good spot if we can get to it without anyone telling us to move. We'll see how it goes on Saturday. That's when the meet begins.

The entrance to the stadium was interesting. Here are pictures of the main entrance, a photo taken before 1945. Finally, one zoomed in of what it looks like today. I'm not sure what the marks are where the swastika was. To me they looked like bullets had hit it, but I doubt that's the case.

The stadium photo was two photos that Photoshop merged for me. It is a very nice stadium. I think I'll be filming to the right on the far end of this photo.

We had a long team meeting today where all the athletes were introduced and the staff told us about interviewing and how to respond, drug testing, uniforms, representing the USA, and a lot of other things. The team photo was after the meeting. You might have trouble finding me. I'm way in the back.

After the team photo, we got a picture with all the Utah connections. There's just one more coming tomorrow (Coach Eyestone).

Lindsay ran the steeple at Weber State.
I still don't know how I ended up here.
Josh ran the steeple for BYU.
Dustin is a team athletic trainer here and is our track trainer at BYU.
Dustin's wonderful fiancee is with him. She will throw the shot and is one of my master's students.

I haven't figured out how to organize the pictures better, so you'll just have to look at it and figure it all out.

12 August 09

The track was fun today. I got to do some mile repeats on the track after I was done filming the discus hammer throwers. While I was warming up, the Jamaicans had their music playing. They have fun dancing and singing while they get ready to run. When I was finished, it was Trinidad and Tobago playing their music and singing. It's fun having all the teams out here practicing. I have no clue what some of the countries are. I look at the flag on their credentials and sometimes have never seen it before.

The other picture is Dustin working on Ian Waltz. He is one of the best discus throwers. The only problem is he pronounces his name with an "I" sound to begin with. It does help us know who people are talking to "Iain or Ian".

On the way to the track, we drove by this radio tower that is seen in one of the Bourne movies. I guess it's kind of famous. We also drove by the Berlin-Tempelhof Airport, which is known for the Berlin Airlift.

8-11-09

I think I forgot to write anything yesterday. I woke up at 3:00am again and couldn't get back to sleep. Today was much better. I woke up to my alarm at 6:00am. Tomorrow, there is no morning run, so I'm hoping to sleep a long time. We don't have to leave for the track until 9:00.

I went in to town today to do some shopping. I got presents for the girls (including Adrienne) and Morgan. I'm still trying to find just the right thing for John. The shopping area was on Kurfurstendamm Street. Our credentials for the meet let us have free public transportation, so I had fun traveling on the subway and train. I took the S41 (ring) and the U9. I'll bet Aaron and MJ used that a lot. It's kind of hard to get directions from people here since the street names are so long. I was really tempted by the chocalatier store, but decided there is so much to eat at the hotel, I didn't need to buy any food. The meals here are really good. The only problem is they only have milk out at breakfast. Everyone that knows me knows I love to drink lots of milk.

It was fun at the track today. I got to work with Darvius Patton. He is a really fast sprinter. I filmed his starts and his coach and he came over to view it and look at the 10 meter splits. They were both getting pretty excited about the times and his body positioning during the starts. In the morning, I filmed a little of everything, including some steeplechasers. It was raining a lot of the day, but usually not pouring. Tomorrow is supposed to rain some more. It will feel good for my mile repeats.

9 August

They are providing us with more security than I thought we would have. There is always one or two men in suits on our floor when we get off the elevator. They just hang out there and read magazines while they check for imposters. At the practice track, we are the only team and there are about five policemen and one dog (sniffing for bombs) hanging out there. It's kind of funny because their uniforms are colored like Boy Scouts of America uniforms. At the track, they wear a red credential around their necks which look like scout neckerchiefs from far away.

This morning, we made it to the Teirgarten Ward for church. I went with Jill and Dustin (you can really tell they are engaged). We didn't have any translation, but it was easy to tell what was going on and what each talk was about.

After church, we walked to a different subway station through Teirgarten. We saw the Berlin Victory Column, the Brandenburg Gate, the Holocaust Memorial, the Berlin Wall, and Checkpoint Charlie. That's what the pictures are. I tried to include Giraffitti whenever I could.

We just moved to a much bigger hotel. It is pretty nice and now we have Internet in our room. If we want to have a wired connection in our room, it costs 24 Euro per day. That's about $34. So, I'll stick with the wireless.

8 August

I woke up at 3:30 am and was done sleeping. We were told not to be outside after dark for security reasons, so I waited until 5:00 am and did my long run. It went really well (mostly because I didn't get lost)! I've been known to do that sometimes.

Our hotel is constantly playing Frank Sinatra music. Right now, "When I was 17" is playing.

After breakfast, we went to the track and I filmed the shot putters practicing. I'll be back to the track this afternoon to film some more practices. I might do a little workout too. The athletes are not all here yet, so there's not much to do at the track.

When the family dropped me off at the airport, Meghan gave me Giraffitti (her favorite stuffed giraffe) and told me to take good care of her. I decided to show Giraffitti around Berlin. Here is the first picture with me, Giraffitti, Jill (the shot putter who is working on her master's degree with me at BYU), and Dustin (our athletic trainer for track at BYU who is on the USA Track and Field staff). So Meghan, don't worry, Giraffitti is doing fine and having fun with us.

On the way to the airport, Meghan told Adrienne, "I'm really going to miss Giraffitti". I guess she'd been thinking about sending Giraffitti with me. She is so sweet!

7 August

The flight was pretty good. We spent a lot of time driving around in the plane in New York. We landed an hour before we were scheduled to be there, then we drove around for an hour. Taking off took 45 minutes. They have too much traffic in NYC. I took a little nap and go to bed around 10:00pm. We are in Tempelhof until Monday, then we move on to another city closer to the stadium. Not much happened today except we spent a little time at the practice track. The food is very good at the hotel. They do a buffet for us with each meal. I think I'll like it here.