rest well with "releaf"

back in california.
our last match in hong kong v. australia was less than desirable. we left hong kong 2-1. i can't say i'm happy with the last game's performance, but i certainly learned a lot through that game and in watching the final. i/we have some work to do. it was great to see, in person, where we need to get our game to. england v. australia was a great match and inspired me to be better.

chula vista. the first day back was a blur..and sunday for the second time.
on day 2 we had morning assessments of our bodies and afternoon massages. the hour was a blessing! i did a bit of yoga with kelly and jill in the kitchen (corpse pose on a cold kitchen floor is not recommended) after dinner and realized i was more tight than i thought.
today we did a bicycle recovery with our trainer-it was nice to feel my legs moving without a lot of impact. we played horse on the basketball court (and added a rugby ball) afterwards which loosened up our smile muscles : ) we had our body fat analyzed and i was able to speak with the nutritionist about some goals. we'll chat more next week about how to obtain our specific goals, but for now i have some things to move forward with in terms of eating habits. i was lucky enough to be called in to take someone's hour massage this afternoon. unfortunately, the guy doing the massage was a beast and worked my lower body like never before. i left with sore calves and memories of painful pressure points being prodded. i went to the pool afterwards to help loosen things up a bit. heated pools are glorious.

we watched bridesmaids tonight and waited for lunde to arrive back at the house-yay to a full house again! : )


the rest of the week is more biking, pool, and recovery sessions. we'll do some rugby skills and jog around a bit, maybe hit the gym. it's nice to actively recover, but i'm looking forward to upping the work to get ready for the next tournament.

bring it london!

for real..?!

after today's matches i'm feeling pretty tired. it's only 8 o'clock here, but i'm ready for sleep..and was ready at 6 o'clock. i'm forcing myself to stay awake in hopes that i'll sleep past 3:30 tomorrow morning : /

so today..
our first match against spain was quite the battle. we played a lot of defense in the first half and spain ran in one try. one of the spain players called me "estúpido nigger" after running into me coming out of a ruck. that was an especially nice way to begin the match. in the second half, we put on our offense shoes and ran a bit more with the ball, but still battled quite a bit. about 4 minutes in we scored our first, and only, try of the match. kimber slotted the game winning points with a penalty kick in the last play. we were all pretty happy to end that battle on top.
our second match against tunisia was a battle of a different kind. we scrambled more than necessary and put ourselves in stressful positions. we came out on top, but recognize a lot of what we'll need to fix for tomorrow's matches.

tomorrow we play in the semi final match against australia at the hong kong stadium, where the men's tournament is being played. i'm pretty excited to play in the stadium and am looking forward to the match. time to go to work!

EXPLETIVES

 game day!

so far, jet lag hasn't been too bad. i don't sleep my usual 10 hours, but i'm managing well. i've heard that jet lag shouldn't set in for a few days, so hopefully we'll be good through sunday-when we leave.

it's almost time for breakfast, then we're off to the field for game 1. usa v. spain is the first game of the day. i'm feeling the energy already!

my thoughts are moving fast, yet i can't think of much to write. here we goooooooooooo!!!

find me!

we landed in hong kong around 7pm local time, 15 hours ahead of california. the flight was about 14.5 hours-holy moly! i did quite a few logic puzzles, read less than a chapter of harry potter, listened to 2 chapters of my new audio book (cleopatra-not what i expected), and ate a lot of food! there were a few movies playing in flight and some tv shows. i watched tower heist and snippets of the artist. the office came on for one episode and i smiled my way through 30 mins of good entertainment. nicole had some fun apps, so we played a few games-kimber is now an angry birds master ; )

because of the large time difference, we were supposed to stay up for a majority of the flight. i only slept for 3.5 hours, so you'd think i'd be ready to crash by now (11pm). unfortunately, i left my phone on the plane : ( and have been dealing with trying to retrieve it for the past hour and a half. no luck. good thing i dont need a phone while im out here.

tomorrow we have a pool session and a training session as our last day before the tournament begins. im really looking forward to the pool session to get rid of any left over swelling from the plane. all of the women's teams are staying in the same hotel. right now, 5 of the players from spain are sitting across from me in the lounge area.

i did take some pictures during the flight (really awesome views of huge sheets of ice in the ocean near russia) and upon our arrival, but i'm too distracted to upload them from my camera..maybe tomorrow.

cheers from hong kong!

**score updates for the women's tournament can be found here, thanks to Your Scrumhalf Connection: HK Womens 7s

here goes!

tomorrow we set sail for asia. i started packing about 2 hours ago, 4-5 hours after i should have started, and i'm pretty much done. i hate packing. i have a bag full of food/snacks for our kabagillion hour flight around the globe. still deciding on which book will be my first audio book purchase for the flight, thank you lara!, but i at least have harry potter to keep me company for sure. there are also dominoes (near mexican train style-thanks shambles), cards, and some logic puzzles to keep me awake. because of the time difference we're supposed to try to stay awake for most of the flight (unlikely in my case, but im gonna try really, really hard!). we leave at 11am on tuesday and arrive at 7pm on wednesday-crazy times!

the team feels pretty good and i think we're all excited to put it out on the field-i know i am! we fine tuned our game pretty sharp and upped the standard. should be a good showing out there. we start with two games-spain and tunisia, and the rest of our tournament will depend on those game outcomes.

i wish we were being streamed online, but we're not. and i can't find anywhere that our scores will be updated. hopefully i'll have internet and will tweet or facebook some results, if not blog. send some good vibes out to us ; )

GO USA!!

toof - truf - maf..calf?

so far so good in preparations for hong kong. there are 20 girls training at the OTC this week and sessions are getting intense. this morning was particularly good, at least for me. we ran..A LOT! it was really fun because we played lots of 7v7 games. we've had a few video sessions, did a presentation (i wore a tie over my t-shirt..bc that's more professional), lifted, and ate lots of delicious meals..

we get to wear gps trackers during practice. they track how far you run, how fast you run and your speed changes throughout different drills. it's pretty cool to see the data after each session.  we're still learning a lot about it, but it has really helped me push myself during trainings and understand our work rate and pace better.

tomorrow's another lifting day, followed by a session with ric in the afternoon. i really like the lifting sessions, but im excited to get a new program when we come "home" from hong kong. luckily the intensity of the lifts and having the other girls around helps keep the boredom of doing the same thing for 4 weeks at bay.

going for shorter blogs in hopes that i will be inclined to write more often..

Rabbit!

or rabbit rabbit as my kids would say..apparently saying that on the first of the month brings you good luck..or so jillion and my 3rd graders say.

it's been another eventful week here in chula vista. we had off last weekend and watched the champagne classic tournament. the best part was seeing the under14 girls play 7s! they played 12 minute halves (death!) and were really good! i saw at least two girls who are bound to give me the boot from the team..good thing ric wasn't there watching ; )

this week brings our tapering week before hong kong camp begins. we trained monday and tuesday (lifting, speed sessions, practice with ric) and have off today, wednesday. i'm having a glorious day of rest. i slept in, labored through a shower, cooked myself a delicious breakfast..after cleaning up, i strolled to the training center for my 11am massage. barbara, one of the massage experts, went to work on my lower back and glutes-amazing! she even got up on the massage table to drive the knots away! i feel like a million bucks! i just started a new puzzle and that will likely take me through most of the day.

some of the other girls went to yoga, or shopping at the outlet mall down near the mexican border. i'm enjoying having the company of the dixie chicks and the indigo girls with me today.

tomorrow morning we are getting blood work done. i'm not exactly sure what the blood will tell us, but when i find out i'll pass that on. for me this means one thing..no eating after 8pm! that cuts out at least an hour of my daily snack time. looks like it'll be an early night tonight. we were planning to go to the drive in movie to see the lorax, but im not sure i could resist snacking, so i might be out.

after blood work we have a lifting session and an afternoon with ric on the pitch. friday is another day off with massages as we gear up for camp beginning on saturday. camp will be intense and long, but ends with a tournament in hong kong! i've been named to the traveling team and i'm very excited about it! last year i went to this tournament, so i'm interested to see the changes that have occurred with me and the team in a years time.. should be great!

Hong Kong 7s pool