After receiving blogging guidelines from the International Olympic Committee we have revamped a few elements of my blog including the web address to remain within the rules and regulations. I am sorry for the inconvenience, but I would hate to flirt with the rules....
Please pass this new web address onto friends and family to keep up with me and my experience leading up to and at the Olympic Games.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Monday, July 28, 2008
#4
Im back. It didnt take too long either. I just finished talking with Ashley. We have just recently discovered the invention of the webcam. We were both very impress on how well it worked so that was really fun being able to hang out with her and see her face and also to see Daisy (our dog). Basically spent about 2 hours talking to her today so that ate up a lot of time.
I have had a little bit of jet lag the last two nights. Monday morning I was up at 2:30AM and stayed awake until last night so yesterday was a long day. It was good that I didnt take a nap though because I was able to sleep until about 5:30 this morning which doesnt sound like much but I got 8 hours of continuous sleep which was nice.
Yesterday night we did some fast work at the pool. I went a couple of 50s at my race tempo and went some pretty good times so I am starting to get excited. Only 10 more days. Wow coming fast. Today is going to be pretty boring just sitting around the hotel since we are supposed to be resting. We will be able to go on a drive through safari tomorrow night. I am pretty excited for that and hopefully I will get some good pictures to put up for you guys to see. I didnt mention this but we saw about 10 monkeys Sunday when leaving the pool so I think the safari should have some really interesting animals along the way. We will see and I will keep you posted on any pictures that I take. Later.
I have had a little bit of jet lag the last two nights. Monday morning I was up at 2:30AM and stayed awake until last night so yesterday was a long day. It was good that I didnt take a nap though because I was able to sleep until about 5:30 this morning which doesnt sound like much but I got 8 hours of continuous sleep which was nice.
Yesterday night we did some fast work at the pool. I went a couple of 50s at my race tempo and went some pretty good times so I am starting to get excited. Only 10 more days. Wow coming fast. Today is going to be pretty boring just sitting around the hotel since we are supposed to be resting. We will be able to go on a drive through safari tomorrow night. I am pretty excited for that and hopefully I will get some good pictures to put up for you guys to see. I didnt mention this but we saw about 10 monkeys Sunday when leaving the pool so I think the safari should have some really interesting animals along the way. We will see and I will keep you posted on any pictures that I take. Later.
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Blog #3
Hey I am back. I know that I said I wouldn’t wait so long to write but I forgot that I was going to be traveling for about 24 hours. My itinerary went basically like this. Leave Palo Alto hotel 10:30AM Friday morning for airport, leave San Francisco 2:00PM and fly 13 hours to Hong Kong, about 2 hour layover in Hong Kong, 3 hour flight to Singapore, and arrive at hotel 1:30AM Sunday morning after going through customs and getting out bags. Where did Saturday go?
The hotel here in Singapore is sweet. The world university games team came here last year before going to compete in Bangkok and everyone was talking about how nice the hotel was and stuff but I didn’t pay much attention to it. I have been in a lot of nice hotels around the world but I think this one may take the cake. It’s also pretty awesome because usa swimming gave most of the us our own rooms here. Now I have heard this is a five star resort so usa swimming must be shelling out some good money for us to stay here. Coach Schubert said that he wants us to have a five star taper so I plan doing so. I just have to remember I can’t gain five pound before I leave, if breakfast is any indication of how good the food is then I am going to have to be diligent about how much and about what kinds of food I am going to eat. Either way it’s a really great “problem” to have because village food is okay but nothing like this. You can’t really consider anything about this trip to be too much of a problem except for the fact that I can’t see my wife for about a month and a half.
I plan on getting some pictures up on the blog if I figure out how to do it so you guys can see the hotel for yourselves. It’s actually hard for me to call this only a hotel, it really is a resort. The pool outside is probably 30 meters long by about 15 meters wide so pretty big. They also have a putting green and two golf holes that are about 30 or 40 yards long. Too bad I didn’t bring my clubs; I guess I have other things on my agenda besides golfing like the Olympics. I almost forgot. They also had walking path that goes through what I could only consider a small rainforest with some waterfalls and small ponds with koi fish in them. I didn’t go in the Spa/ Gym but it looked pretty sweet from the outside (the gym overlooks the pool).
I plan on going to the pool later to swim off the trip and then enjoy my time here as much as possible. The trip has gone by so fast already and it is only going to go by faster. That’s all for now but since I have my own room now I may be posting a little more since Shanteau and I will be playing a little less chess. I probably shouldn’t say that though because there is a real possibility that it will be three days before I post again. Just keep checking and maybe I will keep my word. Later.
The hotel here in Singapore is sweet. The world university games team came here last year before going to compete in Bangkok and everyone was talking about how nice the hotel was and stuff but I didn’t pay much attention to it. I have been in a lot of nice hotels around the world but I think this one may take the cake. It’s also pretty awesome because usa swimming gave most of the us our own rooms here. Now I have heard this is a five star resort so usa swimming must be shelling out some good money for us to stay here. Coach Schubert said that he wants us to have a five star taper so I plan doing so. I just have to remember I can’t gain five pound before I leave, if breakfast is any indication of how good the food is then I am going to have to be diligent about how much and about what kinds of food I am going to eat. Either way it’s a really great “problem” to have because village food is okay but nothing like this. You can’t really consider anything about this trip to be too much of a problem except for the fact that I can’t see my wife for about a month and a half.
I plan on getting some pictures up on the blog if I figure out how to do it so you guys can see the hotel for yourselves. It’s actually hard for me to call this only a hotel, it really is a resort. The pool outside is probably 30 meters long by about 15 meters wide so pretty big. They also have a putting green and two golf holes that are about 30 or 40 yards long. Too bad I didn’t bring my clubs; I guess I have other things on my agenda besides golfing like the Olympics. I almost forgot. They also had walking path that goes through what I could only consider a small rainforest with some waterfalls and small ponds with koi fish in them. I didn’t go in the Spa/ Gym but it looked pretty sweet from the outside (the gym overlooks the pool).
I plan on going to the pool later to swim off the trip and then enjoy my time here as much as possible. The trip has gone by so fast already and it is only going to go by faster. That’s all for now but since I have my own room now I may be posting a little more since Shanteau and I will be playing a little less chess. I probably shouldn’t say that though because there is a real possibility that it will be three days before I post again. Just keep checking and maybe I will keep my word. Later.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Blog #2
16 days until the start of the Olympics and 17 until I swim my first race.
I mentioned in my last blog that sometimes different people swim in different groups. Last Friday was one of those days and Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte came and swam with our group. I guess at some point and time last week Eddie Reese decided that our group was going to do a quadrathlone. I don’t know if I spelled that right or even if it is a real word. A quadrathlone is very simple. It is a 50 of each stroke all for time. We did the set in the short course yards pool. I think that we went on somewhere in between a six and eight minute interval. The coaches recorded everyone's time on a white board and at the end you add up all your times to see where you place.
For those of you that don’t know much about my swimming history when I was in high school and even I college I was a very successful Individual Medley swimmer. There were several times while I was at Auburn when we did a quadrathlone as a team. Because I am a pretty good sprinter and I am good at underwater dolphin kicking I usually won or placed second during my time at Auburn. Now we had some really great IM swimmers at Auburn when I swam there but not like Phelps and Lochte (obviously they are one step ahead of everyone). Just to refresh your memory of some of the other guys swimming in the group Ian Crocker (amazing at three of the four strokes and not a bad breaststroker by most standards), Aaron Peirsol (144 in the 200IM), Eric Shanteau (great IMer), Ricky Berens, Brendan Hansen, Dave Walters, and Scott Spann. As you can guess it is pretty exciting getting to be able to race these guys in this set. In fact everyday at this training camp is pretty fun.
It not going to come as a surprise that before the set most of the talk was on Phelps, Crocker, and Lochte (for good reason). My main goals was to show these guys and the coaches that I am a pretty good sprinter and that I am good at all of the strokes. I wasn’t worried about where I was going to place, I just thought if I had a great set maybe I can come close to one of those guys. As you have probably already guessed by my long introduction, I had a great set. For those of you wondering what my times were here they are. Fly 21.5, Back 22.3, Breast 24.1, and Free 20.3. All of those except the breast were personal best times for me. For all of the young swimmers that are reading this you can do best times in practice without fast swim suits on. It will not happen often but if you are feeling good let it go and just swim fast, that’s what makes swimming fun. I am sure most of you are wondering how this measured up to the other guys. I am proud to say that I got second place in the quadrathlone. Ryan Lochte won. His times were. Fly 21.1, Back 21.0 (wow!), Breast 25.3, and Free 19.5. Lochte beat everyone by quite a bit. It was one of the most fun days of training that I have ever had.
This has already turned into a longer blog than I was expecting but I also wanted to tell everyone about Saturday morning when we got all of our gear from the USOC. Basically after our morning workout we got on a bus and headed over to the San Jose State University campus where the USOC was doing the processing for all of the 2008 Olympians. When we got there my group was selected to go straight to uniforming. The way that uniforming works is they give you a huge shopping cart. Not a little shopping cart like the ones at your local grocery store. We got big Home Depot shopping carts. They also give you a check list with about 50 or 60 things on it and everyone lines up. Once you are in line you go through this huge room that is set up like a warehouse and try on and pick up all of your sizes. Now Nike is the main sponsor for the USOC so the majority of the stuff that we got was Nike but Ralph Lauren did the uniforming for the opening and closing ceremonies so we got plenty of Ralph Lauren stuff too. The cool thing about the opening ceremony stuff is that Ralph Lauren sent some of the their people there to make sure everything fit correctly and even had a tailor and seamstresses adjusting everyone's pants. When it was all said and done the entire Home Depot cart was over flowing with stuff. I should also mention that USA Swimming is sponsored by Speedo and earlier last week we got a ton of Speedo gear as well which was pretty sweet. They have also told us that we are going to be receiving a box of more stuff from the USOC with more clothes in them. So if any of you end up getting some USA Olympic gear from me for Christmas, you know where it came from. What can I say I am a regifter.
After uniforming we did some other logistical things like we got sized for our commemorative rings, took some head shots, and had a team briefing meeting. It all is so boring after getting all of your free stuff. All in all Saturday is one of the most fun parts about being a part of the USA Olympic team. Hopefully I wont wait four days before writing again.
Mark
Saturday, July 19, 2008
7/19/08
19 days until the start to the Olympics!!!
Hello all. If you have made it this far I must start off by saying thanks for coming and checking my blog out. For those of you that dont know me my name is Mark Gangloff and I am a professional swimmer that will be competing in the 2008 Beijing Olympics. I am going to do my best to keep everyone posted on what is going on leading up to the Games. I am a first time blogger so bear with me because my thoughts may be a little scattered. So much has happened in the last three weeks and I will do my best to let you know how it has gone.
For those of you that dont know after the Olympic Trials in Omaha, NE finished the whole Olympic team assembled in Palo Alto, CA for a training camp. We got here on the July 7th and will be here until July 25th. On the 25th we leave for Singapore for another training camp (if you can call it that; by this time most if not all of the athletes are tapering by now). The main reason we head to Singapore is probably to get our bodies acclimated with the time change. On August 4th we go from Singapore to Beijing and get settled into the athlete village. As most of you know the Olympics start on August 8th and then swimming starts on the 9th. The prelims of the 100 Breast is on first day so I will be competing on the 9th, 10th(semi-final), and 11th(finals) and then on either the 15th(prelims) or 17th(finals) I will be swimming on the 4x100 Medley Relay.
That is basically how the next few weeks look for me.
Taking a few steps back I want to let you guys know what it is like at the training camp here in Palo Alto. We are staying at a hotel pretty close to the pool which is on Stanford University's campus. For those of you that have never been to Stanford's swimming facility it is pretty phenomenal. The have two eight lane 50m pools, one eight lane 25yd pool (which contains a diving well), and there is also another 25yd diving well that has several power racks and power towers in it. I usually get a lot of questions on how training camp works, who trains with who, who coaches who, does the intensity of training go way up, ect. Basically every athlete is assigned a coach who is on the official USA Olympic staff. For instance I was assigned to Eddie Reese's group. Now Eddie has several swimmers on the Olympic team (Spann, Shanteau, Hansen, Peirsol, Crocker, Walters, Weber-Gale, Bernes) so those swimmers swimming in his group with the addition of me. Greg Troy, Bob Bowman, and Frank Busch are the other coaches on the Olympic staff and they each have their own groups respectively. Coach Troy and Coach Bowman for the most part take the athletes that swim middle distance to distance events. Coach Busch takes the sprinters for the most part. Hopefully you get the idea. Just because you were assigned to a specific group does not mean that you have to train with that group every practice or every day. If you or the coaches decide that it is better that you change groups then that day you change groups. An example of this would be Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte came into Eddie's group yesterday because they wanted to do a sprint set with our group (more on that later). Or if Eddies group was doing some longer more aerobic work and I needed to do some sprinting then I would probably go with Coach Busch's group or ask one of the other staff members to help me out with a sprint set.
Since there is only about five weeks between the Trials and the Olympics training is kind of strange because you have to increase the volume and intensity of the work that you are doing but not too much. If you increase the intensity or volume too much and get broken down then there is not enough time to get fully rested again. So a lot of the training is on how you are feeling every day. If you feel good then you can usually go pretty hard but if you are starting to feel fatigued then you probably need to back off some. This basically goes on until about two or three weeks out from the Games and then usually everyone starts their taper again.
Here at the camp I do have a roommate and it is Eric Shanteau. Most of you know by now that Eric was diagnosed with testicular cancer about ten days before the Olympic Trials. Eric was one of my best friends while we were at Auburn University so I was very upset to here that this has happened to him. Eric has assured me and everyone that he is being very safe about his decision to continue swimming. He is working with some very reliable doctors and is being tested every week to make sure that nothing is spreading or growing. I can tell you he is doing very well and training great.
By the way Eric has just called me and we are going to head to dinner so I will be back in the next couple of days to keep you posted on how things are going.
Mark
Hello all. If you have made it this far I must start off by saying thanks for coming and checking my blog out. For those of you that dont know me my name is Mark Gangloff and I am a professional swimmer that will be competing in the 2008 Beijing Olympics. I am going to do my best to keep everyone posted on what is going on leading up to the Games. I am a first time blogger so bear with me because my thoughts may be a little scattered. So much has happened in the last three weeks and I will do my best to let you know how it has gone.
For those of you that dont know after the Olympic Trials in Omaha, NE finished the whole Olympic team assembled in Palo Alto, CA for a training camp. We got here on the July 7th and will be here until July 25th. On the 25th we leave for Singapore for another training camp (if you can call it that; by this time most if not all of the athletes are tapering by now). The main reason we head to Singapore is probably to get our bodies acclimated with the time change. On August 4th we go from Singapore to Beijing and get settled into the athlete village. As most of you know the Olympics start on August 8th and then swimming starts on the 9th. The prelims of the 100 Breast is on first day so I will be competing on the 9th, 10th(semi-final), and 11th(finals) and then on either the 15th(prelims) or 17th(finals) I will be swimming on the 4x100 Medley Relay.
That is basically how the next few weeks look for me.
Taking a few steps back I want to let you guys know what it is like at the training camp here in Palo Alto. We are staying at a hotel pretty close to the pool which is on Stanford University's campus. For those of you that have never been to Stanford's swimming facility it is pretty phenomenal. The have two eight lane 50m pools, one eight lane 25yd pool (which contains a diving well), and there is also another 25yd diving well that has several power racks and power towers in it. I usually get a lot of questions on how training camp works, who trains with who, who coaches who, does the intensity of training go way up, ect. Basically every athlete is assigned a coach who is on the official USA Olympic staff. For instance I was assigned to Eddie Reese's group. Now Eddie has several swimmers on the Olympic team (Spann, Shanteau, Hansen, Peirsol, Crocker, Walters, Weber-Gale, Bernes) so those swimmers swimming in his group with the addition of me. Greg Troy, Bob Bowman, and Frank Busch are the other coaches on the Olympic staff and they each have their own groups respectively. Coach Troy and Coach Bowman for the most part take the athletes that swim middle distance to distance events. Coach Busch takes the sprinters for the most part. Hopefully you get the idea. Just because you were assigned to a specific group does not mean that you have to train with that group every practice or every day. If you or the coaches decide that it is better that you change groups then that day you change groups. An example of this would be Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte came into Eddie's group yesterday because they wanted to do a sprint set with our group (more on that later). Or if Eddies group was doing some longer more aerobic work and I needed to do some sprinting then I would probably go with Coach Busch's group or ask one of the other staff members to help me out with a sprint set.
Since there is only about five weeks between the Trials and the Olympics training is kind of strange because you have to increase the volume and intensity of the work that you are doing but not too much. If you increase the intensity or volume too much and get broken down then there is not enough time to get fully rested again. So a lot of the training is on how you are feeling every day. If you feel good then you can usually go pretty hard but if you are starting to feel fatigued then you probably need to back off some. This basically goes on until about two or three weeks out from the Games and then usually everyone starts their taper again.
Here at the camp I do have a roommate and it is Eric Shanteau. Most of you know by now that Eric was diagnosed with testicular cancer about ten days before the Olympic Trials. Eric was one of my best friends while we were at Auburn University so I was very upset to here that this has happened to him. Eric has assured me and everyone that he is being very safe about his decision to continue swimming. He is working with some very reliable doctors and is being tested every week to make sure that nothing is spreading or growing. I can tell you he is doing very well and training great.
By the way Eric has just called me and we are going to head to dinner so I will be back in the next couple of days to keep you posted on how things are going.
Mark
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