The Zhangjiakou Olympic Village Morning Shakeout
Written by Jake Brown
Bing Dwen Dwen for president!
It’s minus 4 degrees Fahrenheit and the air is dry and cold. I know this, so I roll back over and bury myself deeper under the covers. Why is it so much harder to get out of bed when you know you have to get up and face something uncomfortable? I glance at my watch. 8:23am; I really should be getting going, I need to get that sunlight through my eyes to keep my body adjusting to this Beijing circadian clock. Okay, 1…2…3… hmmpphhrrmmph OK I’m up! Fine! Now to bundle with 3 layers on bottom and four on top for the walk to breakfast.
This is how each day began for me during my time at the Winter Olympics. We got to know the cold and the layout of the Olympic Village intimately on our thrice daily walks to meals, the hustles to catch the bus for training, and, most of all our shakeout jogs around the village roads and through the team courtyards.
All of the housing blocks were decorated by their associated nation. Team Finland was especially eager to let everyone know where they were living. Very stoic of them.
So! You’re probably wondering, what was it like to run in the mountains in China??? Well, we couldn’t! So, yep, as you may have figured by the title to this blog, we did our running exclusively around the village! And here is what it looked like, thanks to my teammate Mr. Paul Schommer’s vlog Biathlon Uncharted: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSb7llvVXWQ&t=632s
After my first jog, I uploaded my run to Strava (unsure of the cybersecurity repercussions, I grant you) and was surprised to find no segments in the village, yet. I suppose it made sense, since the whole of the Olympic venueopolis was constructed in the middle of a barren Wyoming-esque landscape and was only recently welcomed into existence. So, by the time I logged off, we had the Usain Bolt Winter Speedway, The Olympic People’s Loop, the Z-Village Tour de Pavement, and Kipchoge’s Winter Paceway to entertain ourselves. By the end of the week, Åsne Fenne Hoksrud (I think a Norwegian XC ski team doc?) was local legend with 52 attempts on Usain’s Winter Speedway. Quite impressive!
I’ll admit, the loop grew to be a little monotonous for anything over a 15 minute jog (15 minutes got you about 2 full loop variations), but a few things made these runs more interesting:
Company- an obvious one as any runner knows. The Patterson family (Caitlin being a GRP teammate of mine) were two who were always up for a jaunt.
People watching- the overstaffing of Chinese volunteers for any and every service made for excellent people watching. It snows a quarter inch? Now imagine 25 parka-clad volunteers on a single block shoveling and sweeping the street by hand with bundles of tree branches until the pavement is spotless. No joke. Another great watch for the morning jog is the line outside the village’s Beijing 2022 Olympic Store. It so happened that the plush Bing Dwen Dwen panda became quite the coveted sensation, and every morning a line of hopeful patrons (mostly Chinese volunteers) would line up outside the shop in hopes of acquiring one of the 15 Bing Dwen Dwens delivered to the shop daily. And I guarantee you they weren’t exactly warm as they stood patiently waiting for the store to open at 9am. I let that dedication inspire me.
Survey the Surveillance- There are enough cameras to make “count the security cameras” a game that will keep your head on a swivel! That includes the robotic spy car as well… and I’m sorry but I didn’t dare to photograph it.
Designer outfits- It’s kind of funny to me that designer brands want athletes (especially skiers) to wear their stuff for the Olympics. I don’t know how to dress myself for anything other than a workout, let alone how to pull off some sort of gaudy outfit designed by a Kardashian. It’s fun to see other athletes try to make it work.
Find the stolen bike- If you watched Paul’s vlog from the link above, you’ve heard that the USOPC bikes became quite the hot item for athletes from other nations to “borrow.” Our team experienced a handful of stolen bike incidents, so there was more than one jog spent running the village to check bike numbers to find the missing wheels and culprit.
So there you have it! The Olympic village jog, reported. Trust me when I say it’s not a route you need to add to your bucket list.
Running with Scott and Caitlin Patterson
The 8:30 am morning line-up for the coveted Bing Dwen Dwen
Our street in the Olympic Village. US Biathletes lived at the houses in the far background of the photo, on the ride side of the road. Yes, those metal boxes were temporary holdings for positive Covid cases... although I never saw anyone go in or out.
Chongli District, where the Olympic Village was located, got enough snow for a snow man and snow pandas, which apparently almost never happens.