Open Water Swimming Connection

I wasn’t expecting to be at the Beijing police station 4 hours after my 10K race, so when I ended up there, frantic and confused, it felt like I had just participated in a particularly grueling portion of the “Amazing Race.” Unfortunately, my journey was not for television entertainment, rather it was to prevent my family from getting deported immediately. I want to send a big “Thank You!” to the female students from the University of Columbia that tried to mess with the Beijing authorities and, in so doing, caused an enormous international incident that affected quite a few Americans in Beijing.

So here’s how it got started. A few girls from Columbia University wanted to share their political persuasions with the world at the Bird’s Nest. They had made signs with a political agenda that we typically see on bumper stickers in America (particularly in California and Santa Barbara) supporting a region that has been at odds with the Chinese government. The local authorities didn’t like the political display at all and deported the girls immediately. Unfortunately my family had been renting a short term apartment in the same complex as the girls and, since we’re all Americans, my family started to look rather suspicious. The authorities demanded that everyone in the group report to the local police station immediately for an interrogation. Unfortunately, the demands from the Chinese authorities were made during my 10k race, so immediately after I was done swimming my family had to frantically hurry away from the venue to follow the orders.

The ordeal that my family endured opened my eyes a bit. I suppose I was under the presumption that criticism is essentially a human right. A few weeks ago, when I mused about the seemingly silly blogging laws during the Olympics, I believed that the Chinese warnings were more about posturing than anything else. It seemed to me that the Chinese authorities wanted everyone to have a positive Olympic experience without a bunch of bickering about cultural differences. The reality, however, is quite different. There are real consequences behind the threats of obedience, and both foreigners and natives are subject to punishment for disobedience.

Sadly, I lost a bit of my enthusiasm for China. When I first arrived here 2 weeks ago it seemed like the culture was firm but pleasant. For instances, instead of using the word “No” the Chinese people use the phrase “I’m sorry” constantly, and it seemed like a very polite way of communicating. I now realize that “I’m sorry” actually means “You’ll be sorry.” No one in the group was deported and they all got to experience the rest of the Olympic Games, but it did put a damper on the festivities.

In other news, the Olympics ended yesterday. The Closing Ceremonies were fun, I didn’t feel nearly as hot as I did at the Opening Ceremonies (thanks to a more manageable parade uniform) and there was plenty of room to sat down on the field and enjoy the show from a more relaxed setting.

In the days after the race I got to watch a few sports (beach volleyball and water polo significantly) and got to eat everything that I’ve been preventing myself from enjoying for the past few months. At the USA House, an exclusive location for American athletes and their family members, I had 3 pieces of cheesecake at one sitting. I also became an avid user of the Beijing mass transit system and got to enjoy the swap meet that ensues at the Olympic Village (athletes trade pins, T-shirts, warm-up jackets and whatnot with each other).

I’ve had some nice moments with my family as we reflect on the significance of the moment, and reminisce about the journey that brought us here.

I’m going to end rather abruptly because I need a bit more time to process how I feel about the experience, and I also have to go to the Silk Market – a truly bizarre shopping experience. My family leaves Beijing to go back to America this morning, but Diana and I are going to stay in China for a little longer to see some famous spots. Thanks for reading all the posts. It’s been a pleasure writing them and receiving your responses.

Hey everyone.

Things are happening at warp speed right now. I'll write about it in a future post but I thought I'd share my thoughts on the race today and then tell you about the craziness since the race in a couple of days.

Race Analysis

I haven’t seen a replay of the race on television but I’ll do my best to recount what I thought happened.

The story of the day starts about 5 minutes before the announcer said “Take your mark…” Unfortunately, athlete family members and other 10k swimming fans were relegated to seating areas far from the start location and so the 25 athletes stood on the waters edge waiting to get introduced to the members of the media. The excitement of being announced to an Olympic crowd was thus diminished greatly but we were all preoccupied with the task at hand. That task was not the upcoming race, but rather the need to relive ourselves of a full morning of hydration.

Prior to the introductions the athletes had been sequestered in a ready room, then herded to the starting location, and then told to stand at attention in front of the cameras in the media section. The whole process took about 20 minutes and by the time the athletes were finally introduced the only thing we really wanted to do was find the restroom, which of course was not an option. Thus, there was quite a bit of eagerness to get into the water as quickly as possible. At the beginning of the historic race, levity triumphed over tension at the starting dock.

Nothing of significance happened in the first lap of the race and all I really remember was trying to establish a good drafting position, which I believe I did. The race was physical from the start with a lot of jostling for position within the pack for the entire first lap. At the start of the second lap I was the unfortunate recipient of an elbow to my shoulder blade that, now 2 days later, still hurts. I don’t know who it was that got me, but I must have made an aggressive retaliation move because I was given a Yellow Card a few moments later. The race official blew his whistle at me, held up a yellow flag and produced a board with #18, my number, written on it. I was a bit confused about what I had done to get a Yellow Card, but there really isn’t any time to get an explanation from the official. The only thing you can really do is adjust your race strategy accordingly, knowing that a second infraction will result in a disqualification from the race.

At first I didn’t think that the Yellow Card would really affect my race strategy. Every 10K swimmer believes that he swims a docile race, but the reality is that there are times when the situation demands that you get a bit physical. A Yellow Card makes the athlete more apprehensive at the critical moments, and there was one critical moment where I had to back down when I normally would have stood firm.

Going into a turn on the third lap the Russian and I were battling for position. 25 meters until the turn buoy we were side by side. I had an inside position (technically the better position) but the Russian was making it clear that he was going to try and angle me inside the course. His goal was to try and slam me into the buoy instead of going around it cleanly. I knew what he was trying to do and, under normal circumstances without a Yellow Card, I would have held my position. However, holding position would have required a lot of physical contact, and I didn’t want to draw the attention of the race officials. So, I backed down, lost my position, and had to try and scramble to get back into the thick of the pack.

(I realize that the previous paragraph was gibberish to a lot of you, but it was necessary for me to explain it to the 10K swimming enthusiasts.)

Up until I got cut off at the buoy on the 3rd lap I was in the hunt, or so I thought. The upside of my position was that I was drafting really well, but the big downside of my position was that I was taking a physical beating. In retrospect I should have abandoned the desire to draft in favor of getting clean water, but I didn’t know this at the time.

At the start of the 4th lap the pace picked up tremendously, and this is when I knew that I was in trouble. My heart rate shot up, my technique started to flag, and my mind lost a bit of coherency. This isn’t abnormal to 10K races, in fact it happens every time, but in good races I can usually keep my composure at least until the 9,000 meter mark. I fought like crazy from the 7,500 to the 9,500 to stay in the race but I kept getting tangled with the Dutchman (the eventual winner) the Russian (previous world champion) and a whole bunch of other swimmers.

At around the 9,200 I saw the red flag go up right next to me and for a split second I was worried that I was going to be kicked out of the race. It turned out that the race officials gave a Red Card to the Russian world champion Vladimir Dyachin for his physical contact on me but I wasn’t carded for similar contact. I don’t know why he was carded and I wasn’t, but I do know that the physical contact took it’s toll on me because with 800 meters to go – when I needed to make a surge to the front – I didn’t have the energy.

I scrapped my way through the last very painful 800 meters, and the closer I got the more it became apparent that I wasn’t going to win a medal. I won a small battle by out-touching a few of the other competitors at the finish line, but my 8th place finish was about 20 seconds behind the winner. I put my hand on the touchpad 1 hour 52 minutes and 13 seconds after the start of the race.

The winner of the race, Martin VanderWeijden from the Netherlands, is a great guy. It would have been unfortunate for the sport of Open Water swimming if the Russian (who was the odds on favorite to win the race) had won. He doesn’t speak English and he isn’t friendly at all. Martin, on the other hand, is without a doubt the most popular guy in the sport. He’s funny, very well-spoken, and he has a great story before he became the Olympic champion.

Here’s a good story. This past May Martin and I raced to a photo finish in the 25K in Seville. (He beat me by 4 tenths of a second in a 5 hour race.) At the 20,000 meter mark of the race Martin and I happened to be next to each other and breathing towards each other. We made eye contact through our goggles and Martin smiled at me. It was a really funny gesture considering the circumstance of our location.

Now, fast forward to the race here in Beijing. Just before the pace picked up at the 7,500 meter mark I happened to be next to Martin when the guy did the same thing. It was only a split second of a grin this time, but it was noticeable, and it made me shake my head and laugh a little. That moment, just before the pain really increased, was one of the highlights of the race.

Looking back on it now I feel good about my race experience. No I didn’t win a medal, but I was in the race the entire time and I gave it my best effort. To wrap up the race analysis I thought I’d share the Olympic Creed: The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as in life the most important thing is not the triumph but the struggle,. The essential thing is not to have conquered, but to have fought well.

I have a lot more to write about but I'm working on some frayed emotions. Here's the teaser: I was at the police station in Beijing 3 hours after my race worried that Diana might get deported. Everything's fine now but it'll make for a good story once I sit down to write it.

This is my last post until after my race. I’ll have a lot to write about on the 22nd and I’m looking forward to sharing my experience over the next couple of days with all of you.

The race is at 9 am local time on the 21st. I’ve told most people that this means 6 pm Pacific on the 20th, but there’s no telling when NBC is going to air the race. There’s a guarantee that NBC will not show the entire race and it’s likely that you’ll get to see 5 minutes here or there throughout the night (it may also be on MSNBC or USA or another channel so check the local listings). If you want to ensure that you are watching the race LIVE then you’ll have to go to nbcolympics.com and watch it on the internet.

The posts over the past month have covered a number of topics but I left out matter that is important for me to share and may be interesting for you to read. It’s a testament of faith in relation to anxiety before big swimming races.

One of the great dangers of a successful athlete sharing his faith is the backlash reaction of an occasionally hostile audience who may think that I believe that God took my side in the competition. I don’t believe that, but I do believe that God gave me peace when I asked for it. Here’s the story:

Back when I was a pool swimmer I would get very anxious before big races. Behind the blocks I told myself that I had spent so much time swimming and I had made so many sacrifices that if I didn’t do well in the race those sacrifices would have been wasted. I would stand up on the blocks and my heart would be beating out of my chest. My muscles would tighten and my confidence would sink. I was paralyzed by anxiety in the moment, so much so that I couldn’t perform when the gun went off.

About a year ago, before the USA Olympic Trials in Fort Myers, I realized that I needed to confront my anxiety instead of hoping that it wouldn’t surface at the last moment. I offered up a simple prayer of thanksgiving, and asked the Lord to give me peace of mind in those horrible moments before the race. And, that’s exactly what happened - I wasn’t anxious at any point before or during the race.

That moment in Fort Myers stuck with me when I went back into training for the World Championships, but I didn’t really put all of the pieces together. I knew that I had taken a major step in my faith, but the larger picture of what it all meant was still a bit hazy. Then, as the race in Seville approached, I came across a song that I really enjoyed - Mat Kearney’s “Undeniable.”

On the day of the 10K, the race that would determine the Olympics, I looked at the race course and said to myself “by lunchtime….you’ll know.” I put on my Ipod and found “Undeniable” on the list. I stood there listening to the song and the words of the chorus jumped out at me:

(chorus)
It’s undeniable how brilliant You are
In an unreliable world You shine like a star
It’s unforgettable now that we’ve come this far
It’s unmistakable that You’re undeniable.

The line that got me most was “It’s unforgettable now that we’ve come this far.” I stood there just a few feet from the water and it dawned on me that my long journey was a deliberate path to realize something that day: The highs of my career (1999 World University Games) had been necessary to make the lows (everything from 2000 to 2006) even greater. The lows were necessary to make me realize that the highs were fleeting and that joy in life doesn’t come from winning or losing. The joy of winning is temporal, the joy of the Lord is everlasting. Not only did I have peace in the moment in Seville, but I experienced an incredible amount of joy before and during the race. (At least until the pain got to me).

In the year leading up to the race I did make the request to God to give me the strength to do my best performance, but the realization of peace and joy before the race is the testimony. I had always been such a nervous wreck in my career, but at the most nerve-packed moments I’ve ever been apart of, I had complete peace.

I believe that God is looking over all of us right now. I don’t know why one person makes the Olympics and another doesn’t but I do know that whatever happens in the 10K here in Beijing I’ll be at peace. If I am successful or not I will leave the race knowing that God was with me on the journey that got me here and he’ll continue to be with me long after Beijing.

My testimony is my own, so it’s probably not going to help you a lot if you’ve got anxiety issues. Aside from reading the Bible, which from my own experience can be incredibly difficult to follow at times, a good resource is ITunes sermons. (You get the benefit of the information without all the heavy lifting). The sermon that really helped clear up a lot of my issues was “The Umpire of Peace” from 10-22-06 at Reality Carpentaria.

It’s Friday night in Beijing and we’re less than a week away from race day (Thursday morning the 21st). My wife Diana, accompanied by my brother Paul and sister-in-law Anna, will be departing LAX on a red eye very early Saturday. My parents, with my sister Kara, lifelong family friend Dave Thoreson and my coach Gregg Wilson will be leaving out of SFO later in the same day.

There’ve been quite a few significant moments in my Olympic experience thus far, but they’ve been enjoyed without those that I hold most dear. I’m ready to share the remainder of the experience with the people that have made tons of sacrifices in their personal lives to make this Olympic dream possible.

Significant among those making sacrifices is my wife Diana who, amongst other things, orchestrates the daily happenings of our lives with sensitive care to my swimming schedule. If you don’t know a dedicated swimmer I’ll inform you of a little insider information right now - living with one can be very demanding. An unassuming bride 5 years ago, Diana married me and got my lifestyle, and she’s done it all with a beautiful smile.

Also, my parents, who have been tremendously supportive over the years. My mom was so nervous in both Fort Myers and Seville that she couldn’t watch either race. That may sound silly at first, but it’s completely understandable when you remember that between my dad’s decathlon career and my swimming career she had to endure 6 Olympic Trials of heartbreak before experiencing the other side.

Now, before I get all weepy, lets move on to the main event.

10K pre-race analysis. I’m currently ranked 7th in the world.

First, the good news.

My learning curve over the past year has been enormous, and in terms of tactics and strategy I don’t think anyone has an advantage over me. The water is going to be a very hot 84 degrees, which plays to my advantage. I’ve never worn a full body suit, but many of the swimmers in the race have grown accustomed to the full body suit and those swimmers will have to make the choice: go with the full body suit they usually race in, or go with a smaller suit that won’t make them overheat. Body temperature is going to play a huge part in the race.

Now, the bad news. Everyone else is really fast and it’s going to take the swim of my life to win a medal. Here are the significant contenders that I’m going to have to take down.

1. Vladimir Dyachin is brilliant and fast. He’s the Russian World Champion and he will swim a nearly perfect race.

2. David Davies, from Great Britain, got second at the World Championships, he’s very fast and his learning curve is about a great as mine.

3. Thomas Lurz, from Germany, is also highly intelligent and also very fast. The guy is legitimate.

Now for the news that is neither good nor bad.

Everyone in the top 10 is pretty much equally fit, so that’s a draw. The variables of the Olympics could determine everything: who ate what in the week before the race, who stayed focused in training, and who will get nervous before the race. And, significantly, who will make a mistake in the race. There’s always mistakes made in a race, it could be any of us, and there’s no way to tell who is going to be kicking themselves afterwards.

This is the second to last post until after the race.

First things first: 10K swimming.

The prep for my race is going well. I did a pulling set yesterday:
1000 went 10:49
10 seconds rest
2000 went 21:15
20 seconds rest
3000 went 31:14 (last 1500 was a 15:32)

Other than that there isn’t much to report. I’ll give you a pre-10k race analysis in a few days, but at this point it’s simply maintenance work until the 21st.

If you’ve been watching swimming on NBC here’s my take from the venue itself. The saddest part so far is that we’ve been so spoiled by Michael Phelps breaking World Records that we have become desensitized to a certain extent. Don’t get me wrong, we all cheer like crazy in the stands, but there’s always a feeling that the World Record time make sense, when in reality it makes no sense at all. It’s stupid how fast that guy swims. Today I saw him race the 200 Freestyle, a race that I used to consider my best event, in a time that is totally obnoxious, and the reaction in the team section was “That’s a fast swim.” We’ve grown so accustomed to watching it that we start to take it for granted.

And here’s the part that proves the point - Phelps’ individual performances aren’t even the highlight of the meet. The swim of the Olympics thus far was obviously the 4x100 Free Relay. Jason Lezak just put himself in a very special place historically. It’s a race that will go down in swimming lore as one of, if not THE greatest race of all-time. The USA National Team, watching from the stands, reacted the way that Oprah Winfrey audience guests typically act when Oprah starts giving things away. It was, by far, the most excited I’ve ever been as a spectator of anything.

Changing gears now, I want to give you the background story to the NBC piece that you’ll see sometime in the next week.

The day after the Opening Ceremonies I was contacted by the same NBC producer that organized the “Mark Warkentin: Avocado Farmer” story. He wanted to film another story, this time with me doing something that is native to China. The original idea was to take me to get a Chinese massage. I liked this idea, but for some reason Mark Schubert (National Team Coach) did not share my enthusiasm, so NBC came up with a different idea – teach me how to do Tai Chi. And that’s what happened.

The next day I met the NBC television crew who were accompanied by a Tai Chi master, and we went of in search of a suitable place to do Tai Chi. We eventually came upon a grassy field with bamboo in the background and the Tai Chi master started demonstrating the moves of skill. He demonstrated the skill in slow-motion, all very elegantly, and it only took a few minutes to realize my preconceived fear that I was going to look very stupid when I tried the same moves.

Here’s where things got crazy. After about 10 minutes the guy was done showing me the general idea of Tai Chi, and I took my position about 4 feet behind him with the plan of shadowing his moves. The Tai Chi master had a different plan. He wanted to demonstrate the moves ON ME. He came up close to me, grabbed me by the arm, did something fast and crazy and I was on the ground. The scene was straight out of a movie: a Neanderthal bad guy (in this case me) gets dropped by the older, shorter Asian guy that is faster and smarter than anyone else alive.

I got up, brushed off the grass from my shirt, and prepared for whatever was going to happen next, which turned out to be him taking me down again. This time he wanted to SHOW me how he was going to take me down. There was a lot of Chinese grunting that I think I was supposed to understand, which I didn’t, and then a few seconds later I was on the ground again. This scenario repeated itself about 10 times before the NBC people decided that it was time to stop the contest. I think the NBC producer was anticipating non-combat Tai Chi lessons rather than full contact Tai Chi so he told the guy to stop the beating and to teach me something that didn’t involve me ending up on the ground.

So, I took a shadow position behind the Tai Chi master and started to mimic his moves for the NBC camera. Unfortunately, we didn’t get very far into the lesson. The guy was a perfectionist and he kept stopping the demonstration to scold me for incorrect technique. He would scold me every 5 to 7 seconds for incorrect form such as not having my fingers relaxed enough. At one point the guy stopped trying to teach me proper form and went to have a word with the interpreter. I didn’t know what was happening, but a few moments later the interpreter came over to me and told me that the Tai Chi master was upset that I wasn’t learning Tai Chi fast enough. He told me, and I am not making this up, that I should “try harder.”

I realized that I had offended the guy so I told the interpreter to relay the message that I was an idiot and that my inability to learn Tai Chi was no reflection on his teaching. He liked hearing this and we were much better friends for the rest of the day.

I don’t know when the piece is going to air on NBC, but I was told that it would probably be shown nationally. The attached picture tells the story.

(I'll be on the Hugh Hewitt show on Tuesday at 3:20 pacific)

The Opening Ceremonies of the 2008 Olympics. Where to begin…I suppose I’ll start with a schedule of the early evening:

5 pm take shower and put on deodorant (significant information for later in post)
5:15 get on bus with American Delegation. Sit with Peter Ueberroth on bus.
6:30 arrive at USA Staging Arena and become a member of the self-paparazzi
7:00 meet the 41st and 43rd Presidents of the United States
7:30 arrive at the International Staging Arena talk with New York Knicks coach
8:00 start to recognize that there is an odor in the air that I am not particularly fond of
8:10 get restless when I realize that the odor is me
8:30 get picture with Kazakhstan volleyball team
9ish get ushered from my seat in the Staging Arena and slowly shuffle to the Bird’s Nest

The chronology of rest of the night is a bit of a blur, but I know the night didn’t end until 2 this morning - so a lot happened. This is going to be a long post.

Backtracking to the beginning. Because the night is so long and crazy, and because swimming starts competing the first day of the Olympics, most of the swimmers do not partake in the Opening Ceremonies. Only 6 men and 2 women decided to be apart of the night. I’m tired, dehydrated and my entire body aches, but I don’t compete for another 2 weeks, so the experience was worth it. For people like Michael Phelps, who compete today, the Opening Ceremonies would be a disaster.

After the USA Swimming Opening Ceremony Delegation team took our group pictures we all got on the bus to go to the USA staging arena. I got to sit next to the United States Olympic Committee Chairman, Peter Ueberroth, on the bus ride from the village to the staging arena. We talked about spear fishing in Laguna Beach. Mr. Ueberroth, other than being a very successful businessman and philanthropist, is also a very dignified man and I’m really glad that our conversation took place at the beginning of the night when my deodorant was still putting up a fight.

A short bus ride took us to the Fencing Arena, the location that the American athletes would meet President Bush. Fortunately the President was a bit late in his arrival, so all of the American athletes got to loiter around and take pictures with one another. This is when I became a member of the self-paparazzi. Here is the transcript of almost every conversation that took place:

“Hey, can I get a picture with you?”

“Sure, can I get one of us with my camera too?”

The whole experience took me back to my high school prom, and, just like prom, the coolest kids in school arrived last. Just as soon as we had finished exhausting ourselves in self-adoration, the most recognizable athletes on the planet arrived. I succumbed to temptation and joined the other athletes as we tried, as maturely as we could, to get photos with NBA stars.

The hype of getting a picture with the NBA stars weakened dramatically when the President walked in the room. It’s a rather funny commentary on our culture: we’re always looking for one person better than the one we’re with. We’d have been perfectly happy taking pictures of ourselves until we saw the NBA players, and we’d have been happy with our picture with Kobe Bryant until we saw we could get a picture with the President.

My first great photo was with the First Lady, who was really nice, and we engaged in a bit of chit-chat on swimming. I then made my way over to the First Daughter to get a picture and, absentmindedly, I nearly asked someone in the Secret Service to take the picture. Fortunately I caught myself before asking the serious man to do something very silly. I stopped, reminded myself that I was acting like an idiot, and then found a person not carrying a gun to take my picture.

I then got a picture with the former President, a man who wasn’t really interested in me at all, but gave me the obligatory 3 seconds needed to get a photo with him. Afterwards I tried to imagine how much of his life has been wasted waiting those 3 seconds for the camera to take a picture.

After about an hour of waiting it was time for the Swimming delegation to get a picture with the president. Erik Vendt and I had exchanged cameras a few minutes earlier when we hatched a plan to each get a personal picture with the President even though earlier in the evening we had been told that this would not be possible. We were told that a group picture would be taken and then mailed to us. However, we noticed that some of the athletes in the other disciplines had managed to get personal pictures anyway, and so Erik and I were determined to get ours as well. If you know Erik it will not surprise you when I recount what Erik told me just before we met the President:

“Mark, no matter what ANYONE says, you get a picture of me with the President.”

For some crazy reason this actually made sense at the moment. It wasn’t until afterwards that I thought about the insanity of DEMANDING on getting your way when you’re 2 feet from the President of the United States.

Erik got to the President before I did and thus he engaged Mr. Bush in this conversation:

Erik: Mr. President will you be at the swimming finals on Sunday morning?

President Bush: Sorry, but I’ll be going to church on Sunday morning.

Erik: I thought there wasn’t church in China.

President Bush: There’s church alright, it’s just underground.

Somewhere around that last line I took the picture for Erik, and then, lacking anything really profound to say at the moment I gave Erik the signal to hold up his end of the bargain. I said:

Mark: “Mr. President can I get a picture with you?”

President Bush: “Sure you can.”

I know, I’m pretty weak. But, I got a picture with the President at the Opening Ceremonies of the Olympics, so I’m okay with being tongue-tied in the moment.

Swimming was the last group to get pictures with the President and we were behind someone’s schedule so after the cameras were put away we were encouraged to hustle outside to go from the USA staging arena to the international staging arena. It just so happened that we were exiting the USA staging area at the same time as the basketball team, and we were now walking with Kobe Bryant. I bring this up not because I was star-struck, but rather because there were thousands of Chinese people lining the streets chanting “Kobe! Kobe! Kobe!” and pretty much going completely crazy. I’m quite certain that my mug is in thousands of Chinese digital camera pictures right now, and equally certain that I’m getting cropped out of those pictures thousands of times over.

The primary purpose of the international staging arena was to make us as hot and sweaty as possible. USA was shuffled up to the highest spot in the indoor arena to a place where it was certain that all the hottest air would accumulate. I sat next to Mike D’Antoni, former Phoenix Suns basketball coach now coaching the awful New York Knicks. After the obligatory introductions I asked him about how the NY media had been treating him and we talked about the perils of coaching in New York. Somewhere in the middle of this conversation I realized that my deodorant had fought the good fight and had lost and so I started to become incredibly self-conscious of the situation.

Fortunately LeBron James saved me when he came over to the coaches and told them to follow him out of the USA seating area. There was some confusion about where they were going and why, but Coach Krzyzewski summed up the matter by saying: “I don’t know what he wants, but we can’t win a gold medal without him, so lets go.” I was tempted to follow, but thought better of it for a number of reasons.

The next hour or so I wandered around the arena observing people as we all waited for our country to be called for the Opening Ceremonies procession. I got a picture with the Kazakhstan women’s volleyball team and with a shooter from Kuwait that reminded me 3 times in 45 seconds that Kuwait and America are friends. I’m trying to determine his reasoning for the repeatedly enthusiastic friendship reminders.

Eventually America’s turn came and we shuffled from the staging arena into a maze of barricades and into the Bird’s Nest. I put my camera away at a certain point and just started to take it all in. The walk to the arena was similar to inching towards the biggest roller-coaster ride you’ve ever been on: the adrenaline increases as you move closer and closer.

I got out into the arena and immediately felt a difference. I looked around the stadium and the whole scene felt so big and awe-inspiring that it almost seemed like a Hollywood movie. I walked in slow-motion, not really looking for anything in particular, but rather in a daze of wonder at the moment. I waved at everyone, smiled at everyone, and just enjoyed the moment. It was incredible.

After America had made it around the track we got into our spots in the field and watched the rest of the teams file in. On television I’m quite sure it looked good, but down there on the field it was disgusting. The smell of sweat hung in the air and dominated the mood of the athletes for remaining hour of the ceremony. Thousands of athletes had waited so long to get to that point and all we could think about was when it would be over.

The rest of the night wasn’t anything incredible that you didn’t see as well. The lighting of the torch was amazingly creative. Cheers to the Chinese, they did a great job with that moment.

After the ceremony we were bused back to the village. We spent a lot of time in traffic and at various security checkpoints and I felt terrible for the guy from the Dominican Republic that was forced to sit next to me on the bus. Incredibly I think I sat next to the only guy NOT sweating like crazy. And so began the Olympics.

A couple of days ago I was walking to the training pool here in Beijing and I saw my former coach Larry Liebowitz. Our first handshake here at the Olympics was one of the true highlights of the trip so far. Larry was my coach when I was a young swimmer in Santa Barbara back in 1993, and it was at that critical time in my life that Larry and I forged a life-long relationship. I can attribute a good portion of my success in this sport to Larry.
During my swim practice that day it occurred to me that many of the coaches that have had a huge impact on getting me to this point are going to be in Beijing for the Olympics. Following is a list of my personal coaches that are here in Beijing and the years they coached me:
Larry Liebowitz 1993-1995 (here coaching a Japanese swimmer)
Mark Schubert 1998-2003 (here as USA National Team Director)
Frank Busch 2003-2004 (here as USA National Team Coach)
Gregg Wilson 2004 to present (will be here to watch the 10K)
John Dussliere 2006 to present (here as USA Open Water Men’s Head Coach)

I haven’t said much about my current coach, John Dussliere, who is here as the Open Water Men’s Head Coach for USA Swimming, but John’s been with me for all of major events since 2007. Aside from the daily grind in Santa Barbara, John and I have gone to Brazil, Spain (twice), London, and all over America for 10k races. John’s been with me through all the training camps up to the Olympics, and he’ll be on the feeding dock during my race. In less than 2 years John has become one of the premier voices in the 10K Open Water community in America and around the world. I have a tremendous respect for John’s knowledge in regards to race preparation, race strategy and race analysis. Having him as my personal coach and as the Olympic coach has been really beneficial and fun.

Report from the pool. Training is going fine. I had two bad practices in a row so I decided to go back to the training tool that got me here – pulling. I love pulling sets with a passion, and I would have quit this sport a long time ago if it weren’t for paddles and a pull buoy. (Pulling, for those of you lost right now, builds upper-body strength in the water and is really much more enjoyable than swimming.)

Warning for those watching the Opening Ceremonies on Friday night. So, here’s the story. A few months ago NBC wanted to get some footage of me in the new TYR swimsuit and interview me about all the new technology in the sport. During the interview I was asked what I do in between practices, and I responded “I’m an avocado farmer.” This wasn’t a lie, but it also wasn’t really the truth. The truth was that over the past 2 years I have planted about 50 avocado trees at my parents’ house. The trees were purchased at Home Depot in 3 gallon pots and, since I’m not very good at avocado farming, the trees haven’t grown very much. It’s not like I’m enjoying avocados every night, let alone selling avocados by the pound. Well, when I told NBC that I was an avocado farmer they were interested in the story and the producer told me “Mark, we’re coming to Santa Barbara to film you on your avocado farm.” Thus, in the hour before the Opening Ceremonies on Friday night I will probably be on television. It may or may not be on nationally, but NBC’s LA affiliate is almost certainly going to show footage of Mark Warkentin – 10k swimmer and avocado farmer.The funny part of the story is that some of the trees could still be mistaken for overgrown weeds, and the most prolific ones appear to be shrubs. Living in Santa Barbara with REAL avocado farmers, and the fact that Diana is from Fallbrook, the worldwide capital of avocado farming, I realize I am setting myself up for a great deal of ridicule at home. This e-mail is a warning.

Finally, Opening Ceremonies are just a few hours away. I’m getting my suit pressed as we speak, and at around 4 pm local time I will head over to the Bird’s Nest for what may be the most elaborate performance ever. To put it in perspective, there are over 16,000 couples getting married in the Beijing area today (a Friday) because people wanted to start their marriage on the same day as the beginning of the Olympics. If there’s one thing to watch at this Olympics (besides the 10k swim race) it’s the Opening Ceremonies. Hope all is well with all of you. I really appreciate the e-mails that I’ve gotten over the past few weeks during this trip.

I had lunch today with Bob Bowman, Batman’s coach, and we were talking about being appreciative of the situation. He said: “The athletes from the larger countries may complain about this or that, but there are people here that are going to live better during these two weeks than they have ever lived before.” I thought about it for a moment, and even though I knew he wasn’t talking about me I said: “Well, I think I may be one of those people.” I’m a spoiled American, I know that, but I’m having an incredible time so far. I don’t want to gush too much, but the following post (which covers the first two days here) is pretty much an advertisement for the Beijing Olympics.

First thoughts from Beijing. August 5th 2008

I don’t know what you’ve heard or read about this Olympics, but I can assure you that this place is about ready to burst with excitement. Everything is huge, everything is organized, everything is planned and prepared and just in case there’s a problem there’s 50 Chinese standing on every street corner willing to help. I’ve never been to the Olympics before, but from what I can tell, China wants this Olympics to dwarf everything that came before it.
The people are motivated, friendly and well-spoken. The facilities are state-of-the-art. The food is spectacular. Basically, if you read my last post, you can disregard the word substitution key…because this place is awesome.
Monday was travel day to the Olympics, and I decided to dress for the occasion. I donned the sweater vest again because it’s so outrageous, but this time I wore the white shorts instead of the white pants to go along with the white shoes. Before departing Singapore Dara Torres noticed I was dressed for success and asked me: “Mark, why are you so dressed up?” and I responded “Dara, I’m going to the Olympic Games, I thought I should look nice.”
It was a good thing I did dress well because the flight to Beijing, onboard Singapore Airlines, was the nicest flight I’ve ever been on. I believe the plane was the largest commercial aircraft in the world, the service was incredible, and the food was worthy of a fine dining restaurant. I am not making up the next sentence: I could live in my seat on the Singapore Airlines plane for at least a month without a single complaint.
We arrived in Beijing in the afternoon, and hundreds of people were waiting for us at the airport. (Actually they were waiting for Batman, but everyone else got a lot of attention too.) We were hurried onto buses and taken by police escort through Beijing. In preparation for the Olympics, Beijing did a bit of an environmental makeover. Thousands of trees line the sides of the freeway from the airport, so much so that it felt like we were going away from a city rather than towards the city. A thick blanket of greenery was our only view until we were in the middle of Beijing.
The Olympics dominate every aspect of Beijing and for a tourist coming to the city you’d probably miss out on the typical cultural experience. The city in clean as a whistle and the streets are free of congestion. The planning for this event is obvious at every turn, and, with the barricades, high-tech name tags, and general security presence, Beijing has the feel of a post-apocalypse city.
On Monday night we went to the Water Cube, which is only a couple of hundred meters away from our dorms, but takes 20 minutes to get to because you have to walk to the bus depot and then drive around the village to get to the venue. We’ve all seen the Water Cube and gawked at it for the past 2 years, but finally seeing it was pretty special. It really is different than any other pool I’ve ever seen because the architecture of the building was given more planning and thought than any natatorium before it. (If you’re a Gene Hackman fan rest assured that the pool itself is regulation size.)
The interior of the Water Cube is beautiful, and the spectator seating goes up and up and up. I was however a bit disappointed to see that so many of the prime seats in the natatorium have been reserved for media. China wants these Games to be broadcast to the world, which is fine, but Olympic tickets for swimming are scarce, and many of the athlete families will have to watch their loved one swim from a television screen rather than in person because the journalist section takes up half the seating.
The dorm situation is great. It’s new, clean and organized. I think I can’t tell you who my roommate is by name, but he’s the world record holder in the 100 Butterfly and an incredibly cool guy. You figure it out. The dorm buildings are neatly organized into rows and each country has a group of rooms together in one building or, in a few cases, the entire building. (USA and China, the two largest delegations, have at least 2 full dorm buildings.) Every nation puts flags outside their windows and doors so that as one walks around the village you are aware of which building houses which country. Actually, that’s not entirely true: every nation displays the flag except for America. Because of security issues, America is absent from the dorm flag display. Finland is here, Australia, Switzerland, and Brazil are as well, but based upon flag representation America hasn’t showed up yet. The funny thing is, because everyone knows that America IS here, and because there’s only 2 buildings in the entire village without any flags, it’s certainly obvious which buildings house the American athletes.
I know this post is getting long so I’ll finish with a quick analysis of the Village cafeteria. Think of a room the size of Costco. Now, put about 5 buffet restaurants in there and add a McDonalds. Throw in a couple of thousand chairs and you have your Village cafeteria. The food is excellent and there are Chinese people everywhere interested in making the experience enjoyable. Six people, all doing different jobs, served me one piece of chicken and a scoop of rice, and when the sixth and final person handed me the plate they all looked at me, smiled and said “Enjoy your lunch.”

I’m enjoying everything.

This is my final post from Singapore, and tomorrow I will be in the Olympic village in Beijing. I feel like I Aubrey Montague from “Chariots of Fire” writing home to his mum. Actually, at various points over the past few months, I can identify with all four of the major characters from that movie. I’d love to write that during the journey thus far I’ve emulated the life of Eric Liddell, but often times I find that I am behaving like Harold Abrahams…

We leave for Beijing tomorrow and there is a logistical item I wanted to share before I get there. Apparently blogs are monitored quite strictly (some are getting this as an e-mail some are reading it on a blog). Not only are there China laws, but there are also Olympic laws and both sets of laws carry with them a punishment for lawbreakers.

The China laws are pretty straight forward. Don’t write anything bad about China. I don’t know exactly what that means, but I don’t plan on being critical of Beijing just in case. However, if criticism is warranted and necessary, I’ve created a word substitution key for readers. If I have something critical to write about Beijing I’ll refer to it as Stockholm, as in “The smog in Stockholm is really bad.” (Word substitution key at end of post).

The Olympic laws are totally obnoxious. There are restrictions on the use of the word “Olympics,” and restrictions against posting pictures, so if you’re reading this at swimroom.com, usatoday.com, wsj.com or 10kswimmer.com you won’t be able to see any of the pictures I may be referencing. (I may have just broken a rule in the previous sentence by advertising websites). Also, I can’t write anything about any of the other swimmers so, hereafter, Michael Phelps will be referred to as Batman.

The point is that there are lots of rules and I hope the administrators of those sites are able to censor me when I forget.

Additionally, if you want to get more information on the particulars of the race in Beijing and of Open Water Swimming in general, go to 10kswimmer.com. Steve Munatones, one of the most knowledgeable members of the 10k swimming community created a website with up-to-date info of everything pertaining to the race. There’s a popularity contest currently underway and I am in a close battle with a guy from Egypt - your support in my favor would be appreciated.

Final thoughts from Singapore

I’ve got to give credit to the people of Singapore. When I was back in Palo Alto I signed quite a few autographs, but most of the fans wanted my signature because they recognized I was in the same costume as Batman. Here I have people coming up to me saying “Mark Warkentin, could you please sign my autograph book? Good luck in the 10K in Beijing.” They even pronounce my name correctly.

The autograph books themselves are incredibly impressive. Many of the people would take a picture one day then return with the developed photo the next day. All the athlete photos would be organized alphabetically and next to each photo was an accompanying athlete biography. It’s not hard to see why Singapore is an incredibly successful country.

On Saturday the USA Team was invited to a 6 course dinner at the country club we’ve been training at for the past week. I sat at a table with Chinese people who lived in Singapore because it’s a more financially advantageous location. At least that’s what I gathered from our somewhat spotty conversations. I was given another crash course in Chinese and again I forgot almost everything, except now I also know “Thank You” which is pronounced “Shea Shea.” The attached picture is of me enjoying a Singapore country club salad, or as I call it “A culinary garage sale in a glass.”

My final practice this afternoon was pretty good. Coach John gave me a set that we’ve done a few times over the past year.

50 Ez 50 Strong – 29
100 Ez 100 Strong – 1:00
200 Ez 200 Almost Fast 2:02
400 Ez 400 Fast 4:07
800 Ez 800 Fast 8:28

At the end of a long week of training, working with less sleep than I normally get, I was pretty happy with the result. Next stop - Beijing


Word substitution key in case I need to criticize China

Beijing = Stockholm. As in “The smog in Stockholm is really bad.”

Chinese people = Norwegians people. As in “The Norwegian guy that I stood next to in the elevator could have used a shower.”

Chinese food = Danish pastries. As in “I’m sick Danish Pastries.”

Chinese bathroom = Soviet Gulag. As in “A Soviet Gulag is a place one doesn’t want to spend a lot of time.”

I've been in Singapore for nearly 3 days and I have yet to find the dark underbelly. Singapore is not like Andy Griffith’s Mayberry, it’s more like Dr Seuss’ Whoville. The people are, from this observers’ perspective, absurdly good-natured. While exploring the city yesterday I witnessed a guy digging a trench next to the road. He was sitting in his backhoe and he had an enormous grin on his face. I watched him for a few moments and he didn’t stop smiling the entire time – the guy was REALLY enjoying digging with his backhoe.
I continued to explore, and while walking in the downtown district I encountered a few locals here and there, and they were all positive and upbeat. Even the electronics salesman that tried to sell me a digital camera for twice the actual value was really quite friendly about the whole matter.
The place is also incredibly clean. There’s no spitting and no chewing gum. There’s also no litter – anywhere. Apparently there is a strict no-tolerance policy on everything, but I jaywalked 3 times yesterday and I didn’t get flogged, so I think it’s more of a myth. Singapore is a success, and I’m interested to find out if there is a Letters to the Editor/Complaint section in the local newspaper.
The downside to Singapore is that if someone is looking for authentic Southeast Asian culture I doubt this is the place to visit. All the street signs/menus are in English, everyone speaks English, and there’s a Starbucks on every corner. With all of the banks and high-end shopping, Singapore is capitalism on steroids and could easily be confused with a very humid Newport Beach.
As for the training camp itself: I’m pretty tired. The reason that I went out exploring the first two days was to prevent myself from sleeping in the middle of the day so as to acclimate to the time difference. However, it didn’t seem to work out the way I intended. I did double practices the first two days here (8,000 per) and explored the city in between sessions. Unfortunately my body didn’t adjust, so I was awake most of the night. Right now I’m tired from traveling, swimming, exploring and not sleeping. The combination showed last night and this morning at practice when I had a couple of awful sessions. Today I decided to take a different approach to my adjustment process and am going to try and rest any time I can, regardless of the hour.
One observation from the pool that’s pretty funny. Every day the swimmers all get in the water for a 7am training session and most of us do an 800 to 1,000 meter warm-up. During this warm-up period time all of the coaches go to the coffee bar and have complimentary cappuccino or espresso. They then return to the side of the pool, with a cup and saucer in hand, and casually sip their morning beverage. It’s rather funny to watch 15 coaches, who typically chug coffee from a 7-11 Styrofoam cup, daintily sip cappuccinos during practice.
Skit night is forthcoming.

Sunday July 27th, 2008

Flight from San Francisco to Tokyo was fairly non-descript other than my encounter with a guy that was going to Asia to close one sweatshop that paid employees very little so that his company could open up a new sweatshop in a different country that could pay the workers even less. I’m not going to elaborate. Flight from Tokyo to Singapore was longer than expected and by the time that I finally arrived in my hotel room I had been traveling for 25 hours - without sleep.

On the trip to Singapore I did a bit of reading. I’m currently reading two books (there’s a point to why I’m sharing this information with everyone). The first is “Disciplines of a Godly Man” by R. Kent Hughes. As one could imagine, the concept of the book is to use biblical teaching for modern application, and even if you’re not a Christian, it’s a good read. (I’m not preaching – there’s a reason I’m reading the book). The second book is “The CEO of the Sofa” by P.J. O’Rourke. The author pontificates on pop culture and politics from the comfort of his living room couch all while sipping a martini. The perspectives are essentially polar opposites.

I bring up my reading list because I just arrived in Singapore and my first inclination is to do the opposite of what I am here to do. I am a mere 2 weeks away from the start of the Olympics and less than a month away from my 10K race and I am faced with a self-discipline problem. The hotel, the pool we swim at, the meals (thus far only breakfast), the weather, and the general Singapore atmosphere all make me feel like reclining in a lounge chair and enjoying a drink under a palm tree.

Let me set the stage. Surprisingly, I couldn’t sleep very well last night so I woke up early this morning and went down to an early breakfast at the hotel. The most sufficient description of the breakfast is to use the phrase “the best breakfast I’ve ever had.” Really, the best ever, and I’ve had quite a few good breakfasts. This wasn’t one of those places that have a waffle bar that everyone goes nuts over. This was a place with a 20 person staff cooking fresh, flavorful, diverse foods at the whim of the hotel guest. My breakfast was broken in to about 9 courses consisting of: fresh Indian naan and a plate of breakfast curry, French Toast, poached eggs, an omelet, a fruit platter, smoked salmon with cream cheese, some sort of breakfast pudding, a few rolls and some delicious coffee. I avoided the pastries and about 5 other stations featuring breakfast items from all sorts of cultures. For the breakfast enthusiast this was essentially Willie Wonka’s Breakfast Factory.

After breakfast we had the option of going to the pool to swim. Since we arrived so late last night we were not required to get in the water, but I felt that it was a good idea to swim considering I had just consumed the equivalent of three meals in 45 minutes. The pool is at a country club that rivals anything in your neighborhood and the pool looks out over a tremendous golf course. The pool itself is one of those state of the art aquatics facilities catering to members that exercise leisurely.

Now, to the point. We all have a bit of a discipline problem in our lives in one area or another. Reading Hughes book reminded me of many areas of my life that I lack discipline, but I’ll keep this post in relation to swimming. The circumstances of our current “training camp” are primed for someone to loose their self-control. For most of the swimmers on the team, this time in Singapore is primarily about adjusting to the time difference and to begin to taper. (For those who don’t understand “taper” here’s a quick synopsis: Taper is about getting your body and mind extra rest so that it is prepared for peak performance. This means less swimming and very little hard training.)

The problem is that we all live a fairly disciplined life at home, in fact our discipline at home is one of the main reasons we made it to the Olympics in the first place. Those that can avoid the beer and the pastries typically find more success than those that cannot. Swimming is about discipline and routines and patterns, and we’ve just put a bunch of athletes in a beautiful tropical location where our discipline is going to be tested. (There’s a “no alcohol” protocol, but there isn’t a “no 10 pastries” protocol.)

I became self-aware of the situation while I nearly sank to the bottom of the pool this morning. I have to discipline myself in two ways. First, I need to keep the diet under control. Some people think that swimmers can eat whatever we want in any quantity, but the reality is that we have all become very efficient at swimming and an 8,000 meter workout doesn’t burn as many calories as you might think. Second, because I swim the 10K at the end of the Olympics, I have to train hard for the entire time here in Singapore. While the other swimmers do 3,000 meter warm-up practices and 15 meter sprints for main sets, I have to continue 8,000 to 9,000 meter workouts with a pretty high intensity. I’m going to be doing a lot of swimming on my own while the other swimmers arrive after me and leave before me.

The discipline required to fulfill both of these objectives is not unattainable, but often times we set out to discipline ourselves under the assumption that something is easy and quickly find out that it’s more than we bargained for. I’ve been pretty disciplined in my life and I’m self-aware enough to recognize when I’m being tempted, so it’s a winnable contest, but that’s not to say I can snap my fingers and have complete self-control. The pastries look good, and doing 8x800 on 9 minutes is not really all that enjoyable.

Anyway, being disciplined is on my mind and I thought I’d share it with you.

After Melbourne, I went back into training to prepare for the USA Olympic Trials which would be held in October of 2007. Sometime in 2006 the International Olympic Committee had determined that the 10K open water swim would be introduced as an Olympic sport in Beijing. I didn’t have one of those pivotal life-altering moments when I found out, rather the reality of the Olympics seemed to grow steadily in the beginning of 2007. I stopped focusing on the 25K race, and with my coaches John Dussliere and Gregg Wilson, I mapped out a plan for making the Olympics in the 10K.

Going into the 10K USA Olympic Trials in 2007 I was not the favorite to win. Chip Peterson was the clear favorite, followed by Fran Crippen. I was supposed to get third or maybe fourth behind Chad LaTourette. At the race the top 2 Americans would qualify for the World Championships (which would be the Olympic qualifier) to be held in May of 2008. Third place, as is often the case in swimming, was essentially no different than last place.

In preparation for USA Olympic Trials I decided to make a few sacrifices to ensure that I would be at my best for the race. I recognized that life in Santa Barbara was full of distractions and that I needed to go somewhere that I wouldn’t be tempted by friends, family and the town of Santa Barbara itself. I decided to go up to Colorado Springs and to the Olympic Training Center for most of July, August, September and October leading up to the race. John Dussliere (coach at Santa Barbara Swim Club) came up a few times to coach me, but he had responsibilities to the rest of the swim club program that kept him from working with me full-time. Gregg had his hands full as the UCSB coach. Diana stayed at home to continue working as a preschool teacher for most of the time I was away. That summer and fall I spent a lot of time alone in the water.

Obviously, the race in October went well. I swam most of the race in 4 to 8th place, and took the lead with about 1500 meters to go. Chip Peterson and I pulled away from the pack with 800 meters left and I touched him out by 1 second at the finish.

Now that the American Open Water Trials were completed the confusion about how to qualify for the Olympics began. Since the 10K would premiere in Beijing the International Olympic Committee wanted to limit the number of participants to 25 men. They created a bizarre selection process that would make you very confused, but for the purposes of this post the only thing that was important was that I placed in the top 10 or that I beat the other American (Chip Peterson) at the World Championships.

During the fall of 2007 and early in 2008 I went back to training in Santa Barbara, but I soon found that swimming in Santa Barbara was not as ideal as it was in Colorado Springs. Training at the Olympic Training Center took away the temptations of home, and without those temptations I logged many hours of lonely swimming in February, March and April. (Coach John came up a few times, but even when he was on deck I was the only athlete in the water).

In May the USA Open Water delegation went to Seville, Spain to compete in the World Championships. I had made quite a few sacrifices to get into the race at all and now I had one opportunity to make the Olympics. However, if I failed to place in the top 10 in that race my career would be over. Seemingly it would have been an anxious time, but I felt a tremendous peace leading into the race (a future post on nerves, peace and joy, with a bit of a faith testimony, coming sometime soon). I swam the race of my life and got 7th, nearly touched 4th and was only a few seconds behind 3rd.

The lack of anxiety I felt before and during the race made the post-race tension peculiar. Because the final sprint to the finish line had been very close between 4th through 13th place the officials didn’t want to prematurely announce places. The key was to finish in the top 10 and because so many of us touched at essentially the same time we had to wait for 15 minutes after the race to discover who would be an Olympian and who would be watching the race from home. My 7th place finish put me on the team, and that’s the story of how we got here. Next post from Singapore.

Over the past few posts I’ve written about what’s been going on in my life here at Stanford, but I haven’t really explained the process of how I actually got here. If you’ve heard this before you can leave now, but if you’re interested in staying……here goes.

Part 1 2006-2007

Leading up to 2006 I was a good swimmer but I couldn’t get over the hump - there were too many great swimmers that stood in the way of making it to the top. I failed to make the Olympic team in 2004 (after failing to make the Olympics in 1996 and 2000 as well) and nearly gave up the sport, but my mom encouraged me to stick with it. In the summer of 2005 the UCSB assistant coach, Jeremy Kipp (now at USC), encouraged me to do an ocean race in Santa Barbara. The race was against local fitness enthusiasts mostly in their 40’s and 50’s that swim primarily to stay healthy.

Fortunately I won the race, and even though it was against marginal swimmers, it was a big confidence boost. I still wanted to be a top level pool swimmer, but I could see the writing on the wall. Open water swimming had started as a novelty, but the curiosity quickly grew. The following year, 2006, I decided to abandon any hope at a career in the pool and devoted myself full-time to open water swimming. My original goal was simple: make the USA National Team in the 25 kilometer race. It wasn’t until much later that I realized that the Olympics were a possibility.

The USA Open Water National Championships for the 25k would be in May of 2006 in Fort Myers, Florida. That March I changed my training regime. Even though I was already a distance swimmer that had logged many miles in the pool, I increased my practice distance total from 70,000 meters a week to about 100,000 meters per week. The goal at the time was to focus on the 25 Kilometer race because there was a very limited number of swimmers in America willing to swim a 5 hour race. I realized that all I needed to do was to be able to swim for 5 hours at a reasonably fast pace and I could win the battle of attrition. I figured “Heck, I’m spending 20 hours a week training for a 4 minute race and I’m not finding success, but if I train 30 hours a week for a 5 hour race I can be on the National Team.” It seemed pretty basic at that point.

So, I went to Fort Myers and I decided to enter the 5K and 10K races that were held a couple of days before the 25K. (Coincidentally, the largest hammerhead shark every caught was reeled in less than 2 miles from the race course – one week before the competition). To my surprise I got 3rd in both the 5K and 10K races and beat quite a few accomplished swimmers. Then, in the 25K, I won the race by 15 minutes and put myself on the National Team.

That week in Fort Myers in 2006 was the beginning of my open water swimming career. As a National Team member I qualified for the 2007 World Championships in Melbourne, Australia and I spent the remainder of 2006 and the beginning of 2007 training for that competition. I went to Melbourne with high hopes (I would race the 5K, 10K and 25K over a week long period) but quickly realized that the rest of the world is really good at open water swimming. In the 5K I got 17st and in the 10K I got 20th. The water was freezing, my confidence was shot, and I was miserable. Fortunately the final race of the week, the 25K, was my best race and I got 4th place. My overall performance was still a bit disheartening, but I reminded myself that 4th place in the world is better than I’d ever been before in any race.

After Melbourne I came home to Santa Barbara and started to focus on the USA Olympic Trials that would be held in October of 2007. (Next post: USA Olympic Trials 2007 and World Olympic Trials 200

July 21st 2008

On Saturday the team went to San Jose State University to do processing for the United States Olympic Committee (USOC). Last week we’d already gotten a lot of clothing from USA Swimming but the USOC (the parent governing body for all American Olympic sports) has a different set of clothing for the athletes. At certain times over the next month the USOC wants all American athletes to look like a team, regardless if we are 10K swimmers or basketball players or high jumpers. For instance, when we get off the plane in Beijing, all American athletes are required to wear a particular outfit – no questions, complaints or requests otherwise will be tolerated. Similarly, when we give official press conference interviews we are required to wear an outfit with a particular sequence of shoes, pants, shirt and jacket. Diana can attest to the fact that I hardly ever dress correctly for any social engagement, so I’m a bit nervous of the dress code police that will be monitoring my outfits.

The primary focus of the processing was to get fitted for our Opening Ceremony attire. My good friend Ralph Lauren is the official outfitter of the USA Olympic Team, and I’ve got to give the guy credit for designing a pretty cool looking Opening Ceremony uniform. The uniform was modeled after the 1920 Olympic Team uniform (as seen in the movie “Chariots of Fire”) and the attached picture finds me enjoying my new wardrobe.

Let me back up. We got to SJSU and were taken into a room about the same size as your high school basketball gym. The room was set up like a grocery store, except instead of frozen foods, dairy products and vegetables, the room was filled with shirts, shoes, pants, jackets and hats. So, per instruction, we all grabbed a Home Depot Shopping cart and started filling them up.

It wasn’t a free-for-all (I had a checklist of things that I was issued) but it was still a rather surreal experience. It took about an hour and a half to get through the room and I was as happy as a pig in mud. My favorite part was getting our measurements taken by a tailor with a thick Italian accent. He looked me over once: “44 Regular, 32 Long” and someone appeared with a sport coat and pants. We chatted about suits, neckties and buttons as he sized me up, finishing with “Excellent, this is very nice.”

When I got to the last section of the room my shopping cart was full (actually it was overflowing) and my face hurt because I had been grinning for at least a full hour. It was a lot like that moment on your wedding day when you realize that you’ve been smiling for a long time because the muscles in your cheeks hurt.

After we got through the clothing section we were taken to a room where we got measured for commemorative Olympic rings. Now I’m not a jewelry man, but it’s hard not to appreciate a ring that looks like it could be used for a Roman Empire style signature. We won’t get the ring until after we get home from the Olympics, and I’m sure I’ll never wear it, but it felt rather stately to pretend to be Ben Hur for a brief moment.

I left the USOC processing having achieved a longtime goal. Former Olympians always talk about the day they got their shopping cart and filled it with Olympic stuff, and for so many years it was a fantasy that I feared would never become a reality. After the processing I did the math: averaging 30 hours a week for 50 weeks a year I have been training for 62.5 days of every year for the last 15 years. Sometimes, when the practice got really lonely I would question the motives for it all. Why? What’s the point? Is it all worth it? I don’t want to be callously materialistic and say that my experience on Saturday was the point for the struggle, but I will say that because of my experience over the past 2 weeks, I am more appreciative of the struggle itself. I don’t know if I would have appreciated Saturday if it had been an easy road to get there. It was something that couldn’t be bought with money, only with time, pain and sacrifice. I’ll cherish it because I know it was difficult to get there, not just because I was there.

When we got back to the hotel we were told that we had more stuff than we could possibly wear in China and that we had the option of sending some of it home. I packed up a box and sent it back to Santa Barbara because I knew that there was a very good chance that something might get stolen or lost in China and I wasn’t about to let that happen.

I’ve got some stories on other topics that I’m working on, but I thought I’d share that one for now.

The USA Swimming Olympic Team training camp officially began on Monday the 7th here in Palo Alto. I was the only swimmer that hadn’t just spent the previous 2 weeks at the exhausting Olympic Trials and so I was a bit more alert than my teammates upon arrival at SFO. Most of the swimmers were pretty emotionally drained by the Trials, and the first day was more about recovering than anything else.

USA Swimming is having an extended domestic training camp together as a team before we leave for Singapore on July the 25th because the coaches and team leaders don’t want us to go back home and swim on our own. There is a very real fear that without supervision we might lose our focus and not prepare ourselves properly. This is a problem because there are so many swimmers that are just excited to be going to the Olympics at all. USA Swimming, on the other hand, doesn’t care WHO made the team, they only care about winning medals at the Olympics. So, we have a 3 week training camp where we all swim 2 times a day and we keep our competitive edge by racing each other on a daily basis.

On Tuesday we were taken to the pool where we had a short meeting to determine what training group we would be broken into. Primarily there would be 2 sprint groups and 1 mid-distance group. Since I’m the only 10K swimmer on the team I don’t have anyone that wants to train long distance with me. The result is that I join the mid-distance group for their training session and then swim an extra 2,000 meters after everyone else is done. My training partners in the mid-distance group are a veritable who’s who of the American swimming world: Michael Phelps, Erik Vendt, Klete Keller, Peter Vanderkay, Ryan Lochte, and Larsen Jensen. I am, without a doubt, the slowest swimmer in the group.

Tuesday night Pete Carroll, football coach at USC, was brought in to give us a bit of an impromptu motivational speech. The gist: he was excited for us. I would say that he’s pretty much always excited.

Wednesday was the first day that the intensity of the practice started to increase. It feels rather momentous to be training in this group because I know that at the Olympics the athletes I’m swimming with are going to get the bulk of the primary TV coverage. I won a few of the swims, got beat on a majority of the swims, but I held my own for the most part.

Thursday was Christmas. I’ve often said that the reason I didn’t quit swimming 3 years ago (when I probably should have quit) was because I wanted to get a T-Shirt that said I was on the USA Swimming National Team. Well, Thursday I got the T-Shirt that said I was on the USA Swimming Olympic Team. In fact I got an entire bag of stuff that indicated I made the Olympic Team: shirts, shorts, sweatpants and jackets all with the USA Swimming logo’s on them. It was Christmas.

Thursday night was our first official team meeting. We all introduced ourselves and told the group one interesting fact that no one else knew. I told the group that I’ve had a series of accidents in the past few years, but none was more memorable than cutting my leg with a chainsaw. After the introductions Erik Shanteau (who qualified for the Olympics in the 200 Breaststroke) made the announcement that he was recently diagnosed with testicular cancer. He said that it appeared to be under control for the time being, and that he intends to swim at the Olympics. He’s going to get tests done weekly leading up to the games. It was shocking to hear that he was diagnosed the week before Olympic Trials and then he competed and made the team under the circumstances.

In between practices on Friday we had a meeting called “Being a good Ambassador” where we learned about how to be good visitors to China, how go give good interviews, and more importantly what NOT to do over the next month. The Olympics, on such a big stage, are a stage for incredible high’s as well as incredible lows. Stupid decisions and bad interviews can have some pretty significant implications if everything goes the wrong way.

We also learned how to speak Chinese - it only took about 45 minutes. The Ambassador program included a Chinese lesson from a teacher who gave us a crash course in the language. The problem, as is often the case with crash courses, is that the pupil retains very little information. This pupil remembers “Hello” which is pronounced “Knee-How?” and absolutely nothing else. I will be a very friendly visitor and I intend on saying “Knee How?” quite a bit.

Another rather special event on Friday was when the entire team signed a flag adorned with the letters “USA” in big letters above the Olympic Rings. Actually, the entire team signed about 150 of these flags. Some of the flags will go to donations and charities and some will go to “big shots” at various sponsors. All the athletes were promised that we would each get 1 for ourselves to keep, and as a result I made sure to sign my name legibly on each flag, just in case that particular flag would end up at my doorstep.

Saturday was the final practice of the week. The media and fans had been told that Saturday would be the only day for interviews and autographs during our stay in Palo Alto, so the pool deck was packed. Microphones, cameras, reporters, and hundreds of kids running around trying to get close to Dara Torres and Michael Phelps. The problem is that Michael can only sign so many autographs and Dara can only give so many interviews at one time. The result of the logjam is that autograph seekers started looking for other Olympians until the Dara and Michael line died down. This is where I step in. I happened to be one of the guys that facilitated the fans with a picture or an autograph while they waited for someone else.

I also got interviewed - by one reporter. During the interview another reporter walked up and interrupted the interview to ask the first reporter “Who is this?” “Mark Warkentin, he is our Olympic10K swimmer,” came the reply. The second reporter stood there for a moment pondering whether it was worth it to stick around or not. Fairly quickly he decided that it was not worth it and he backed away and tried to find someone else. (I don't write this with any bitterness, I'm really just happy to be apart of this whole thing, but it was a rather awkward moment that I can now chuckle about.)

It’s been an eventful week up to this point. Today, Sunday, is a day of rest and we don’t have any swim practices so I went to Menlo Park Presbyterian Church and enjoyed the service. Next week begins another week of swimming and whatnot.