Homeostasis: the property to regulate the internal environment of the body so as to maintain a stable, constant condition. In essence, the human body loves routine. Whether it’s eating, sleeping, exercising or just about anything done on a regular basis, the body strives to maintain homeostasis by keeping itself on a schedule. So traveling through time zones can be a tricky thing, but lucky for us the human body also operates on principle of adaptation, or the ability for an individual to rapidly adapt to its environment.
Now that the biology refresher course is up, I guess what I am trying to say is that my first 24 hours in Tiyuan have been pretty rough as my body is trying to adapt. Hungry in the middle of the night, no appetite during the day, and cant hardly keep my eyes open at 4pm. I woke up to look out the window this morning and could barely see the building a block away. I didn’t expect the air quality to be worse than Beijing, but it was . Since I was flat as a pancake I didn’t even attempt to go outside before 2pm when we headed over to the track to check it out. The air outside was choking and I honestly felt like the hour I spent at the track I had chain smoked a pack of cigs. I learned from Todd (one of the USAC staff who lives in Beijing) that what we were seeing was really the combination of a sandstorm blowing over from the Gobi mixed with pollution. Apparently the sand is very fine, like baby powder so when it blows over like this its nearly impossible to differentiate from the pollution. Either way it sucks for the lungs, but he said the storm should blow over in a day or two.
The venue itself was pretty cool, they obviously spent a lot of money on landscaping and logistics to set the track up, including an 8 man BMX sculpture that had everyone stoked. As for the track, it was a bit of a shock to see small jumps again because all I have been focusing on is supercross, but it looks super fun with an awesome rhythm section down the third straight that I am looking forward to riding.
Some of the interesting food items on the menu today: cow Achilles, parts of pig head, beef tongue, horse, and duck.
Tomorrow we will have a practice session in the evening then a day off before we hit it again Friday.
