Mark is second from right.

Writing from Palo Alto on the campus of Stanford University
 
July 13th 2008,
 
I would like to send out a few e-mails over the next couple of weeks.  Hopefully I can find a computer in Singapore and Beijing to continue the posts up until the closing ceremonies on the 24th of August. 
 
Post 1
 
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.
 
mdw

Post #2 From Palo Alto July 16th, 2008
 
This post has a bit more swimming info than the first post but I thought that the swimming readers would appreciate some specifics.  I also included the first post (from last week) below in case you didn’t get it.  attachment is of my golf team.
 
Sunday night the men’s team and the women’s team had separate dinners at the homes of USA Swimming supporters in the Palo Alto area.  When one team breaks up into two teams and embarks on separate adventures, there is always the question as to who is going to have a better experience.  In this case the men’s team dined with the family of Ted Knapp, assistant swim coach at Stanford, and had an excellent Mexican themed BBQ.  Good food, good people - no complaints.  The women (based upon the breakfast conversations Monday morning) had the enviable night though.  The shrimp cocktails and a live Mariachi band tilted the scale in their advantage.  While still being perfectly content...
Report from the pool.  Practices are exciting.  When I was at USC I remember practices being exciting, but it wasn’t like this training camp.  Competing against Michael Phelps and Erik Vendt and Larsen Jensen and Peter Vanderkaay is intense because I MUST be on top of my game every practice.  I can’t have a bad day because I’ll look like a novice swimmer.  (For example: Kick set on Monday 5x200 on 3:40 with 2,4,5 fast.  I went 2:58, 2:54, 2:52 on my fast ones - all fairly decent times.  Larsen, Erik and Michael were in the low 2:20’s.  That’s about 35 per 50 on a kicking set with a board.  The technical term, for those non-swimmers out there, to describe what that means is “stupid fast.&rdquo 
At the same time, the downside to exciting practices is that you eventually become emotionally drained.  When you have to be perfect to win a workout, you often find that you lose more than you win and there is nothing that hurts a swimmer’s confidence more than losing. 
 I think that my personality thrives in competitive environments for short periods of time, and then prefers a little bit of solitude.  This training camp is a perfect situation for my personality because I am going to get to compete with the best in the world for about 3 weeks.  Then, at the end of the training camp, when I am going to be a bit drained, I get a break from the competition and get to do practices alone for the last few weeks leading up to my race. 
Monday afternoon was a good practice.  The main set:
2x400 moderate on 4:40 went 4:28, 4:22
2x300 moderate/strong on 3:30 went 3:15, 3:12
2x200 strong on 2:20 went 2:07, 2:07
30 seconds rest
10x100 strong on 1:30 started at 1:01 moved down to 1:00 towards the end
  5x100 almost fast on 1:40 went 59, 58, 58, 59, 58
  5x100 fast on 2:00 58, 58, 58, 58, 57
Did the first part of the set with Erik, Pete and Larsen.  When we got to the last 2 sets of 5x100 Larsen and I were the only ones still swimming and we had a fairly good audience of swimmers and coaches watching us go head to head on fast 100’s.  It was simultaneously very painful and exciting to be doing all out 100’s next to America’s best distance swimmer (and holding my own) in front of an elite coaching staff.
Monday night we had a team meeting.  The highlight of the meeting was a 3 minute music video featuring an up-tempo rock song with the chorus line “How Many People Want to Kick Some A**?”  Let me explain: USA Swimming periodically makes music videos with inspiring race footage from the past 20 years of Olympics.  The clips are usually of Matt Biondi, Janet Evans and other legendary swimmers winning dramatic races at the Olympics.  Basically, for a swimming junkie like me, it’s really, really cool.  I almost always end up with blurry vision because the emotions of the Olympics become very real.  This particular music video did the trick again, emphasizing a few races from Seoul, Barcelona, Atlanta and Sydney, but culminating with the dramatic 4x200 Men’s Freestyle relay from Athens where underdog American squad out-touched the Ian Thorpe Australian team. 
After the video the men’s team had a separate meeting and Frank Busch gave a speech about gang mentality.  Frank’s point: there is tremendous power that a group of men, all working together for a cause, have at their disposal.  Use that power.  The combination of the music video and the motivational speech made me want to do something.  I had already swum 2 hard practices, but I felt like I was ready for my race right then.  How many days until the 21st of August?  5 weeks?  Can I wait that long?
 
We also elected captains:  Erik Vendt, Brenden Hansen and Jason Lesak. 
 
Tuesday afternoon practice was pretty good.  Coach John (SBSC coach) gave me this workout by myself because the rest of the mid-distance group was doing a lot of fluff and very little meat.  The entire set is on a 1:10 per 100 base.
800 swim moderate/strong went 8:48
3x1000 buoy only moderate went 11:18 on all
800 swim went 8:42
600 swim went 6:29
400 swim went 4:12
200 swim went 2:02
100 swim went 57
 
Tuesday night we did a bit of team bonding.  We went to miniature golf and broke up into teams of 4.  My Team: Jessica Hardy, Margaret Holtzer and David Walters.  There’s a six stroke limit on each hole, and our group pushed the limit pretty much every time.  Jessica Hardy is a great swimmer and an awful golfer.
I was pretty beat up after Monday and Tuesday, but I fought my way through a tough Wednesday morning practice with Larsen even if I didn’t feel top notch.  Here’s the set and my times (all swim):
3x400 on 5 went 4:19, 4:15, 4:13
3x100 on 1:20 went 1:02, 1:02, 1:01
1 min rest
2x400 on 5 went 4:17, 4:15
5x100 on 1:20 went 1:02, 1:01 remainder
1 min rest
1x400 on 5 went 4:15
7x100 on 1:20 went 1:03, 1:02, 1:02, 1:01, 1:01, 1:00, 57
This afternoon I was supposed to go to a nearby reservoir to do some “Open Water Training.”  Instead I elected to do a sprint quality set with the fastest swimmers in the world.  
Next post: BEAN in warm-up with the entire National Team coaching staff on deck.  Getting beat by A LOT on a sprint quality set.  Getting a post-training session massage.
 
mdw