COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - This is one of my favorite times of the year.

I love fall. I love the cooler temperatures and I love pro and college football. Can't wait to see how my two favorite teams, the Washington Redskins and Iowa Hawkeyes, do this season.

But my favorite part of this season is having the opportunity to travel to the World Championships and the Olympic Games for wrestling.

This year, I'm traveling to my fifth World Championships as the communications manager for USA Wrestling.

The Worlds are in Moscow, Russia, this year. Russia is the mecca of wrestling. They have the best freestyle team on the planet, and I'm looking to forward to seeing how the young, hungry and talented U.S. team stacks up against them and the rest of the World.

The U.S. is sending strong teams in all three styles, and look for the Americans to step up with a strong showing as we move closer to the 2012 Olympic Games in London.

I am scheduled to leave Thursday morning out of Denver, along with communications director Gary Abbott and broadcasting/video man Jason Bryant. We fly to Atlanta and then will fly over the Atlantic Ocean on our way to Moscow.

We are busy scrambling to make sure we don't forget anything for the trip. I will pack two suitcases and a computer bag for the trip.

The weather forecast looks like cool and rainy in Russia with temperatures in the 50s and 60s.

We will arrive in Russia a couple of days before the event to acclimate and check out the venue.

We plan on providing the best coverage we ever have for this event. We are going to do an audio webcast, Twitter updates, stories on the event, video interviews, features, blogs, brackets, etc.

Stay tuned to TheMat.com for updates from Russia. The seven-day tournament is scheduled for Sept. 6-12.

Let's hope the Internet is up and running in the arena when we get there.

DENVER, Colorado - I am on the road again.

My alarm was buzzing at 5:30 a.m. today, and I finished packing before meeting colleagues Gary Abbott and Jason Bryant at USA Wrestling World Headquarters.

We made the 1 hour, 15 minute drive from Colorado Springs to Denver International Airport, went through security and are now waiting at our gate to fly to Atlanta.

We only have 50 minutes between flights, so any kind of delay could be crippling. We will have to hustle to make our Delta flight from Atlanta to Moscow. It looks like about a 10-hour flight.

You may see three frazzled looking passengers sprinting through the Atlanta airport in a couple of hours.

We will meet up with officials Rick Tucci, Tom Clark and Zach Errett in Atlanta and fly with them to Russia.

Our iPods are fully charged, and hopefully we will see a few decent movies on the flight.

I already bonked my head on the tailgate of Jason's truck when we were unloading bags, but I think I'm going to be OK.

I had my "last supper" last night before heading on the trip. I took my daughter, Hayley, to dinner for her 18th birthday. We went to Phantom Canyon in the Springs, and the pot roast was outstanding.

I've heard the food in Russia is not the best, so I've packed a few crackers, granola bars and items like that.

It's going to be a long day, but I'm excited to be headed to the World Championships again.

We will arrive a couple of days early to acclimate and check out the press operations for the event. The seven-day tournament opens with the Greco-Roman competition on Monday at the Sports Complex Olimpiskiy in Moscow.  

MOSCOW, Russia - Red Square is one of the most historic places on the planet, and it more than lived up to its billing on Saturday.

Jason Bryant and I climbed aboard the Metro train system in historic Moscow - a great deal at 52 Roubles round trip (less than a Starbucks coffee, with a train ticket at $1.69) - and headed down to Red Square.

It was an amazing day, to say the least.

We started by hitting McDonald's. It was mid-afternoon, but the place was still packed. I got a No. 1 Value Meal with a Big Mac, french fries and a Coke for 180 Roubles ($6 U.S.). It tasted about the same as McDonald's in the U.S., plus I hadn't eaten all day so the timing of the trip there was perfect.

We saw Moscow's showpiece, the spectacular St. Basil's Cathedral, along with the Kremlin. The buildings are nothing short of impressive.

We walked nearly all of the way around Red Square before running into officials Rick Tucci, Tom Clark and Zach Errett, and Iranian native Ardeshir Asgari. We decided to walk around with them, and checked out the large outdoor market there.

I ended up buying a black, fur Russian hat, a Matrushka doll, and a few other items. We had fun negotiating with the merchants and driving the price down.

Tom was the master at driving the price down, walking away a couple times to get the man to drop the price. I was giving him crap for buying an Ohio State Buckeyes Matrushka with OSU quarterback Terrelle Pryor on it. I grew up near Iowa City and I am a big Hawkeye football fan.

After dinner, we did some more shopping and then started walking back to the train station.

There was a huge festival going on, with a Russian band playing Hip Hop music. It was amazing to see thousands of people singing along. The streets were filled with people. It was Moscow City Day. They were celebrating Moscow's 863rd birthday today. Around 3 to 4 million people were expected to be out celebrating. Russia is a city of approximately 10 million people.

We found our train and headed back to the hotel. We spent about seven hours at Red Square. On the way back, we spotted a familiar face in the subway. Photographer Tony Rotundo has arrived in town, and he rode back with us to the hotel.

It was a great day! The tournament is set to start on Monday afternoon at 1. Looking forward to seeing how the Greco-Roman boys from the U.S. fare. The first three U.S. Greco-Roman wrestlers - Spenser Mango, Faruk Sahin and Justin Ruiz - will weigh in and receive their draws tomorrow afternoon.

MOSCOW, Russia - Covering the World Championships has been a bit of an adventure for the media and the press officers in past years at this event.

Internet has been hit and miss, and we didn't even have a press tribune to work at in 2007 in Azerbaijan.

But this year's Worlds have been run much better.

We have a press tribune, press center and access to the athletes in the warmup area. Plus the Internet is working well and they have done a nice job distributing information to us here. That makes an already difficult job that much easier for us.

I have covered sporting events all over the World, and it can be a bit of a challenge with the language barrier. But the folks here should be commended for their efforts.

Hopefully, that will continue in the five days we have left in this event.

The support from everyone back home means a lot. It's great to see messages and comments on Facebook, and e-mails from a lot of friends and wrestling fans. Hopefully, we will have some more good news to give you over the next few days.

MOSCOW, Russia - One of the coolest parts of the World Championships is seeing all the different people from around the World gathered in one location.

On the bus ride over to the venue today, I sat in the seat next to the girl from Kazakhstan who American Clarissa Chun defeated to win the 2008 World title in Tokyo, Japan.

Seated directly in front of me was a wrestler from India and to his right was a women's wrestler from Russia.

A Bulgarian wrestler was in the seat directly to my right.

After returning to the hotel last night, Gary Abbott and I were on a jam-packed elevator and at least five different languages were being spoken at the same time.

Our seats in the press tribune are right next to the Iranian broadcasters. The guy sitting right next to me, Pirirani Gholam Ali, is a great dude. He speaks good English, so we've been able to chat. He offered me some cashews they brought from home. They weren't bad. I gave the Iranians some of the USA pins we brought along. Jason Bryant, who is doing our audio webcast for USA Wrestling, said he doesn't speak a lick of Persian but he thought the Iranians sounded good on their broadcast.

Wrestling is the National Sport in Iran, so the Iranian broadcasters are major celebrities back home

The Iranians are taking the day off today since their women do not compete in athletics. They will be back for the freestyle competition over the final three days of the tournament.

Our hotel is having some issues with its elevators. Terry Brands, a two-time World champ who is one of our freestyle coaches, got stuck in one of the hotel elevators after the freestyle team arrived a couple of days ago. Fortunately, he was able to make it out of there OK.

MOSCOW, Russia - Winning is a great cure for what ails an athletic team.

And the U.S. achieved some much-needed success on the mat Thursday when Elena Pirozhkova captured a silver medal, Tatiana Padilla won bronze and Kelsey Campbell placed fifth.

The U.S. displayed some of the fire and fight it traditionally is known for.

The Americans had been shutout in the medal department in the first three days of the event.

Ran into Olympic gold medalist Randy Lewis in the lobby of the hotel last night. Randy, in my opinion, is the best Iowa Hawkeye of all-time. Randy wrestled an entertaining, wide-open style and wasn't afraid to go for broke. He may have won a second Olympic title in 1988, but he was beaten out for the U.S. team by a young man named John Smith. All Smith did was win four World titles and two Olympic titles.

The Metro train system has been a life-saver on the trip. The underground trains go everywhere. A one-way ticket from the hotel to the venue is 26 Roubles (just under a buck in U.S. money).

My stomach is in knots today. All I've been eating is McDonald's, so maybe it finally caught up with me.