First I have to say that everyone here is incredibly friendly, in fact the only rude people I have encountered have been Americans! The volunteers are great but they aren’t fluent in English, so the language barrier makes things very difficult. We are trying to get as many addresses and locations translated into Chinese as we can so that we can simply show people a piece of paper rather than playing charades.
The day started with an interesting breakfast buffet. I was warned that the Chinese don’t typically eat breakfast so they are trying to accommodate us Westerns the best they can. My breakfast basically consisted of vegetable stir-fry, fried rice, pumpkin porridge, hash browns (score) and watermelon. It was an odd mix but I ate enough of it to feel full!
The mission of the day was to get the tandem bike put together, take a test ride and get Patricia checked in for the race. It seemed simple enough at 8am but it would take us till 5pm to get it all done! We are not staying with the rest of Team USA so we decided we should take a bus to their hotel to have the team mechanic put our bike together. We took a bus (keep in mind we are dragging a tandem bike in a bike box and 2 transition bags) we thought would take us right to the hotel. However, it ended up taking us to the site of the aquathlon race. The bus driver made us get off the bus and took off. Thankfully a stranger helped us and told us the hotel where we needed to go to check in was close by and they would have a bike mechanic. So we hailed a bus again and quickly arrived at the hotel. The next 2 hours proved to be incredibly frustrating as I tried to explain that we needed to check in to the race and get our bike put together. The language barrier was too great and nothing was getting accomplished. After dragging that bike all over the hotel we finally decided we needed to get a cab to the Team USA hotel after all. It took another 30 mins to get anyone to understand where we needed to go and how to fit the bike box in a taxi (I ended up sitting on top of the box in the back seat)! Forty minutes later we arrived at what seemed like paradise. A beautiful 5 star hotel filled with people speaking English! I was exhausted but so happy that we had finally arrived. We found the mechanic and things seemed all good until Patricia realized she left the wheels in a different box at our hotel. So we hailed a cab again (which is never as easy as it seems) and drove another 80 mins round trip to pick up the wheels. We finally got the bike put together, grabbed some lunch and even had time to see the team chiropractor. Things were looking up!
Then it came time to actually ride the tandem, the thing I have been dreading for 4 weeks. We decided to practice in the area in front of the hotel because the streets of Beijing are SCARY! I knew that mounting the bike would be the hardest part but I had no idea how hard it would be. After 5 failed attempts to even get us on the bike, Patricia suggested I try to ride it alone to get comfortable. That proved to be a good idea and after a few minutes on my own I rode back over and picked her up. I can’t explain how stressed out I was thinking that I was flown all the way to China to help her race and I couldn’t even get on the bike! For the next 20 minutes we road back and forth in front of the hotel like 5 year olds who just got the training wheels taken off of their bikes. We practiced mounting and dismounting and each time it got a little easier. It’s still not a pretty sight as I am having a hard time keeping the bike steady for the first few pedal strokes but at least we get up each time and stay on. Tomorrow we will take the bike to the race site and hopefully we can ride for a longer stretch. I know the race is only 12 miles but I am more nervous now than ever. I really don’t want to screw this up for her and I am just not that confident in my ability to do this! It’s funny because as a triathlete we only have to answer to ourselves if we have a bad race. For the first time I am not only part of a team but my performance, or lack thereof, will determine someone’s else’s race outcome. It’s a lot of pressure and I am sure once the race is over it will make the success even sweeter. Fingers crossed that tomorrow is a better day!
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