UK Eagles 9: Feeling like Julia Roberts

We spent all morning/afternoon yesterday waiting for the match against England.  We got to watch some of the earlier matches.  There was quite a big upset in the mix with France beating Canada pretty handedly.  After watching some rugby we had to go bag inside to rest some more so we spent that rest time finishing the puzzle and having hallway dance parties.

Finally it was time for the match.  We Once again the fans were amazing.  Blair's whole gang was there and they were body-painted and decked out to the nines.  Blair's mom brought 25 Abe Lincoln-style tall red-white-and-blue hats for folks to wear.  We could hear them all over the field.  Though we didn't win the match, it was a great game and I am very proud of the way the team played.  We fought hard and left it all out on the field, which is all we could ask for.  After the match it was more ice-baths and pool sessions before heading back to my room to hit the hay.  I was exhausted.  Completely drained.  It's been a while since I've felt that tired both mentally, physically, and emotionally.  I think all the physical energy coupled with the emotional energy that always goes into a game of that magnitude and intensity just took it out of me.

I wish I would have gotten a chance to sleep in, but alas I told Monica I would meet her and A-C in the Starbucks at 9am.  So IWoke up and made my way over to breakfast at the Sports Complex.  At 10am, I received a text saying "I think we are talking about different Starbucks".  Though I wished I could've been sleeping, I wasn't too fussed because I got to do a lot of reading, which I had been missing.  We had a quick pool session at 11am before getting lunch.

After lunch, and several outfit changes, we loaded up into a bus (and several mini-vans) to head out to Windsor Park, which is a part of the Windsor Castle Estate. Beckett's uncle had gotten the whole team tickets to a match at the Queen's Guard Polo Ground.  We were there to see the finals of the Duke of Cornwall Tourney.  It was a 4 chukka match (4 periods) with the first two chukkas happening in typical British weather - rain varying between a drizzle to outright downpour.  The last half was held under a clear blue sky, though.  At half-time we got to go out onto the field and stomp in the divots ala Pretty Woman.   I think perhaps we resembled Julia Roberts a bit in our cheering as well.  We weren't sure that we were allowed to be super loud, but then the commentator goaded us into getting a bit more boisterous in our applause.  After the match, Ashley and I helped hand out awards to the two teams which entailed a whole lot of cheek kissing.


After the match we took the bus home, and then many of us headed into Guildford for dinner with friends and family.  Monica and I met up with my mom and John and went out to dinner at the Three Pigeons, which is the restaurant I ate at with Stina last Sunday.  It was good, to get away and see my family and get to spend some time with Monica.  After dinner, we walked around town a bit before heading back home. I went back the dorms and hung out with folks chatting a bit before heading back to my room.  I originally was just going to download pictures from Bill English's Photo site, but then I got a second wind and decided to write this post.  I was going to wait until tomorrow to do it, but the schedule looks pretty busy, so I decided not to wait.

So, now it's time for bed.  Gotta get some good rest in preparation for what looks to be an intense day tomorrow.  I am a little nervous for how sore I am going to be tomorrow since that'll be two days after the match and that tends to be when the soreness hits its peak.  I guess it's a good thing we are hitting the gym in the morning, so we can work out some of it before practice.

UK Eagles 8: Moving on and up...

 After multiple times starting to write and then getting distracted by other activities, I think I finally might be in a position to get caught up.  We have a little time this morning before we go over to the fields to watch some of the Sweden-Scotland match for me to get started, and then a lot of time this afternoon waiting for our game.   So I should be able to get it all in before our last pool match this evening against England... so going back...

My last post was right before the Ireland match and a lot has happened since then.  That game was really hard, both physically, mentally, and emotionally.  It is really disappointing when you feel like you should have won a game and instead, lost it to yourself.  We just couldn't seem to get out of our own way in terms of penalties and possession issues.  It was also hard because I didn't feel like I performed as well as I know I can because of the cold I was fighting.  Very frustrating and disappointing!  Although, I did score my first International Try, so that's something.  Needless to say, the mood back in the dorms was really somber as each of us processed the implications of the match.  I coped in my own way by sitting with the stats sheets and figuring out where we were in the points and what needed to happen in the 3rd pool games for us to still get into the semi-finals.  Being able to use my logic allows me to manage the emotion better.  It's my own form of mourning that I feel more control over.  

I slept really late on Wednesday trying to kick the rest of this sickness.  The morning was spent having some coaches and captain's meetings to try and figure out how to recover from yesterday's loss.  After those meetings, it was over to the pool for a recovery session and then lunch.  After lunch we went and did a light lift in the gym to get the muscles moving and get the crap flowing out of our joints.  It felt good to get on the rower and just move around a little.  Then we had a meeting to go over our game plan for England and get ourselves mentally aligned as a team and announce selections for the England match.  I'll be at tighthead again, which is exciting because I feel like my engage has been really strong recently.

Then it was then time for dinner before coming back to the dorms for some serious chill-out time.  Christy finally got her luggage back - after it being lost for the past two weeks.  So we had a lot of priceless picture moments of her being reunited with her bag.  Also, we finally got to watch Phaidra on her episode of MTV's Made.  It was hysterical and painful all at once.  I would have strangled that girl if I had to try and coach her.  I started writing that night, but decided sleep was more important for getting the last of this illness out, so only got little bullet points down before passing out.


Thursday, I had a lazy morning followed by a core session with the forwards.  We had a really productive and fun session before heading to lunch.  I think we needed a little levity to get back into a relaxed state of mind.  After lunch, there was very little time before we had to load up into a bus to head to our private practice session.  We had a short, but sweet practice to work out a few things that we felt needed to be cleaned up.  When we got back to the Sports Park, we had ice baths and then we got some much needed free time.  In fact we didn't have anything that we had to be back for until our captain's run late Friday.  I'm not sure what everyone else did, but I took trains, planes, and automobiles to London to see my family.  It was great to see my dad, Jack, and Jane.  We went out to dinner in Grosvenor Square and then I stayed there with them.

Friday morning, I ate an amazing breakfast with Jack (waffles with strawberries and ice-cream) after spending the morning lounging and talking with my Dad.   I took train back to Guildford and did some shopping before heading to Surrey Sports Park to relax for the afternoon.  I did some much needed laundry and walked over to the TESCO to get food for the next week.  We then had Captain's practice quickly followed by the jersey ceremony.  It was great to have my family there.  My dad was there with Jack and Jane, and my Mom and John were there.  Everyone loved Jack.  What's not to love... well, I guess they don't have to try and get him to eat vegetables.  It was also exciting to have Potter with us again.  We've missed her and it's great to get to see her.

It was nice to get to spend time with everyone, but definitely overwhelming by the end. I went back to the dorms with every intention of writing, but then Lynelle opened a new puzzle - that's the craze around these here parts.  It's a crazy puzzle that in which the picture on the box doesn't match what the puzzle will look like.  Instead, there is a character in the picture on the box and the image on the puzzle is what that person's perspective would be.By the time I went to bed, Vix, V, Lynelle, and myself were talking to ourselves and the puzzle and it was 1/2 done. I was worried I would find them in there first thing in the morning. 

I woke up this morning without an alarm which is always nice.  Then had a leisurely breakfast before heading over to core and our arousal session.  Now we are heading out to watch some rugby and eat lunch before more waiting begins.  Everyone seems pretty light hearted and ready to go, so I am excited for the outcome of this game today.  We are the underdogs and have nothing to lose, so we might as well have fun with it! 

UK Eagles 7: Game day again!

Well, another game day is upon us.  This time it's Ireland.  I have been struck with the plague (i.e. a cold) so I am in quarantine and can't go to core or the arousal session so that I can make sure I get rest and hydrate before the match this afternoon.  I feel like I just woke up (and in fact I did), so I'm going to write my post before heading back to sleep.

The last thing I wrote after our first match, which while only three days ago, seems likes forever.  On Saturday morning, I decided to sleep through breakfast again.   We knew we had an IRB anti-doping training/quiz later in the morning, so we spent some time over coffee studying the guide they gave us.  We went over to the anti-doping quiz/meeting and learned a few things about the role of drug testing in sports and our rights as athletes before taking a 10 question quiz.  

After the quiz, we went over to the pool and had a short recovery session to try and get some of the soreness out.  I didn't get to capture it on film, but Cheeks, Sha, and Amy came up with a lovely synchronized swimming routine that I'll try and video next time.  Then we just stuck around the Sports Complex waiting for it to be lunch time.

I was definitely feeling the effects of the game, so just wanted a mellow afternoon, which I got in the form of movie time with Beckett and Sha.  We started watching X-Men 2 with popcorn - sorry about the crumbs in your bed, Beckett!  We didn't quite get all the way through the movie before we had to go over for a team meeting in which we discussed our Ireland game-plan and got selections... Now is when things start to get hard as a player in terms of selections.  Everyone is aware that the first game there are going to have to be folks who don't get selected.  But once you get into the 2nd and subsequent games and people aren't getting selected it can be challenging to stay present.  It takes a big person to be a good teammate in those circumstances.

We went form the meeting right to dinner and then back to the dorms.  I thought it was going to be a mellow evening, watching Mari and Beckett since the Beatles.  Next thing you know though, Amy and Sha are in a wrestling match involving markers and me and Beckett are trying to stay out of the cross-fire.  Some nice stripes of varying colors later, and we finally got to finish watching X-men 2.

Note to self... I should not watch those types of movies before bed because I had crazy dreams.  There were dams breaking at the World Cup and scrumhalves with laser-eyes.  I diffused some of it by eating breakfast in the flat and discussing Thich Nhat Hanh and Buddhism with Kim over coffee. Before heading out to practice.  Practice was short, sweet and intense.  We had a core session and then worked with the group that would be playing today on our game-plan.  After practice we had ice-baths, where it seemed like the goal was to figure out how many people you could fit in one go.  I think the record was eight.

After ice-bathing it was time for lunch and laundry.  During that time, I finally was able to talk to my dad and come up with some semblance of a plan for when he was arriving.  I also spent a considerable amount of time figuring out the bus schedules to get to town so I could meet a friend for dinner.  I got my laundry done just in time because we had a players meeting followed by sub-unit meetings that afternoon.

I caught the bus to town (with Vix, Kmimi, and Ham) to meet up with my friend Stina from back home.  She's on of my PhD classmates from UNH who has been studying in Cambridge for 8 weeks.  We went out to dinner at the Three Pigeons pub, which is supposedly haunted - though I think everything in England is haunted.  Then we went to Jamie's Italian (as in Jamie Oliver) for dessert.  I had the brownie with raspberries and vanilla-bourbon ice-cream.  It was divine! We ended the evening by heading over to the Star Brewer, which is a small quaint pub with big comfy chairs and couches and sat and read over a cup of tea for a while.  It was great to be out in the world and novel to not really talk about rugby for 3.5 hours.  Instead, we talked about social justice, our respective PhD work, literature, etc.

I somehow misread the bus map, and wound up taking the "scenic" route home, but I got there, so no harm.  Then I sat and downloaded all the awesome pictures that Ashley's dad took of the KZN game from his site before hitting the hay.

The day before a game is always pretty mellow, which I needed as I am starting to feel a little under the weather.  I slept in forever.  I think I finally woke up at 10am.  I was going to watch the latest episode of TrueBlood, which came out in the States on Sunday, but then got talked into going into town by Vix, Bridges, Lara, Kitt, and I.  I don't think I would have gone if it weren't the fact that I knew that Stina was in town doing work

So she and I met up and she introduced me to the Caffe Nero Caramelatte... it was deadly (in a good way).  Picture melted caramel ice-cream with a shot of espresso.  We then took part in some rertail therapy.  I managed to escape with only one new shirt, which is impressive given how much I like to shop and how many things Stina convinced me I looked fabulous in.  After the shopping, I came back to Surrey Sports Park and had a quick lunch before a fitting session with the folks from Canterbury.  It was quite the tease to try on all this schwank gear and know that it's not for us right now :(

After the fitting, there was a little bit of time before the Captain's run.  We took some official team photos and then got the session underway.   The Captain's run was quite windy, which was good because it gave us some practice in conditions similar to what we are supposed to face tomorrow.  After the run it was time for a shower and dinner.  I decided to just wear the clothes we had to have on for the jersey ceremony to dinner, so I wouldn't have to walk back down to the dorms.  Instead, I sat in the Starbucks and ate dessert and read some of my book while waiting for Stina to arrive.

Kathy gave another rousing jersey ceremony speech, which left all of us ready to play right then and there. It was really interesting to have Stina there for it because she does not come from a sports background.  So she was a bit dazzled by the whole environment, setting, athletes, etc.  It caused me to take a little step back and remember how special this all is and see it anew through a different set of eyes.  We then sat and chatted for a bit more before I went off to the dorms and to bed.

And then it was game day again.  I went over to breakfast... I figure I ate the official breakfast when we beat KZN, so I ought to continue the tradition.  After breakfast, I came back to the dorms and was banished to my room.  So that is where I am, writing and getting ready to play again.  I am excited that my friends and family will be here to see the game and I'm just excited to play.  Alright, at this point, I should put my self down for a nap. Nighty night!

UK Eagles 6: We love our bikini-clad fans!

Whoo hoo!  For anyone who hasn't heard the cheering all the way from England, the we beat Kazakhstan 51-0 in our opening match of the Women's Rugby World Cup.  Amazing!  Still coming down from the intensity of it all.... well that and thawing from the glacial ice-bath we took post match.

Picking up from my last post and leading up to today's victory...

Wednesday night we got our bikes, and like I wrote before, I rode to the store and back.  After I got back, Ham and I took part in a little cultural exchange.  We were tossing around a football, when some of the Irish girls asked if they could have a go.  They had some nice catches, but the best part was the touchdown dance done by one of the Ireland centers on the walkway.  While they were learning about American Football, a few of them tried to teach me and Ham how to play hurling (or gaelic football).  Both Ham and I tried to hit the ball like it was a baseball and with little success.

Thursday we we had a mild morning before heading into our captain's run.  A few folks took advantage of their new found freedom and rode their bikes into Guildford to have lunch.   I rode my bike around the corner to the post-office to get a few stamps.  We had a brief captain's run on Thursday afternoon just to get a feel for the field and get some more opportunity to fine-tune what we were going to be taking into the match today.  It was a novel experience because up until that point, I always took captain's runs for granted in terms of how they flowed.  It was an entirely different experience when running it.  But it flowed well, and despite some slips because we had to do the run in sneakers, everything looked crisp and fast.

After the captain's run, I came back to my room and did some work, chatted, and otherwise tried to stay relaxed.  Other folks napped, watched movies, etc.  We had our jersey ceremony that the evening and it was great to see all the friends, family, and fans who came out to support us.  It is always awesome when that happens.  Then it was over to the Surrey Sports Park for Bridges, PK, and me, as we had to do an interview with Jackie Finlan of Rugby Magazine.

Today was an action packed day.  I got up this morning and made my way to breakfast... I normally bypass making the trek from the dorms to the sports park for breakfast, but I had a little extra energy to burn this morning and couldn't sleep any more, so thought I'd go.   After breakfast, we rode our bikes over to a field for a brief core session and arousal workout to get everything firing on all cylinders before heading back to the dorms for our final preparations.   From there everything seemed to be happening in fast-time.  We warmed up and got to the locker room and next thing you know we were following our flag-bearer out onto the field and belting out the National Anthem (with the help of all our fans).  Then it was GAME TIME!!!

I would give you the play-by-play recap, but I think Jackie's article for Rugbymag.com or Katie Wurst's press release with USA Rugby do a better job of it, so I'll just stick to the feeling of it.  We came out of the gates on fire and got on the board quickly, but everything seemed pretty frenetic.  After that opening burst we got a little too crazy and got a series of penalties that had us on the back-foot.  We just couldn't keep ball in hand initially, which I attribute to match-day jitters, and everyone trying to force something on every play.  We weren't happy with the scoreline heading into half-time and knew we needed to step it up on both offense and defense.  And did we.  We scored  38 points in the second half because we started to relax and trust each other and just play rugby.  It was great.  I was bummed to come out of what had become such a pretty game, but glad to have been a part of it and to get a chance to watch some of that beauty as a fan.  Speaking of fans... ours rock!  We had such an amazing group of supporters there.  Between family and friends, as well as the D.C. Furies, who were decked out in Star Spangled Bikinis (there's a pic here), we had the best fans.  In fact, Ali Donnelly of Scrumqueens said the USA fans were the loudest of the day.  That U-S-A chant definitely picked me up every time I felt a little lagging.

After the match, Christy and I were rushed off into the media corral where there were more interviews to be done with IRB TotalRugby, RugbyMagazine, Scrumqueens.com, etc.  It's definitely more time in front of a camera or mic than I've ever had to face before and it is challenging me to be quick on my feet in thinking of how to respond to, sometimes, difficult questions.

Then it was into the coldest ice-bath I have ever experienced before a brief pool session to try and loosen up some of the stiffness that will no doubt be at full-force tomorrow.  After that we got to go watch some of the other games before dinner (see all the results of the day at the Women's Rugby World Cup site).  There was some good rugby being played all around.  After dinner we went out and watched the Ireland-England match.  Mari and I decided that the best place from which to watch would be between the two fields, so we walked with authority and positioned ourselves 15 m back from the sideline between pitch 1 and 2.  It was the best seat in the house - after a bit a few other teammates wised up to our genius and came to join us.   The match was hard-fought, with Ireland playing dogged defense.  We were really hoping that they could hold England to under 4 tries so they wouldn't get the bonus point, but alas, it was not to happen.  England scored their 4th try in the waning moments of the match.  But it was a brutal game, so we can only hope that they  beat each other up a bit in preparation for our Tuesday match.

After the match, we went back to the dorms... Ham ordered pizza, so I enjoyed a little late night snack before I went to my room to write.  I originally wasn't going to post tonight, and instead was going to wait until tomorrow, but I still had too much adrenaline from today's win, so thought it was as good a time as any.  We really stepped it up today and set the bar for our World Cup endeavor high and I couldn't be more proud of us.

UK Eagles 5: Bikes... again! Whoo hoo

This is a quick post, but necessary because it is so exciting.  We got bikes again.  Our liason here at the Women's Rugby World Cup set us up with bikes for the whole time we are here.  I rode to the store and back just for the sake of having wheels under me!  It's great.  Everyone is so stoked.  And not only did we get bikes, but we got helmets as well.  This is probably a very good thing considering that we aren't really that used to the fact that cars drive on the opposite side of the road here.

On another note, I changed the titles of the posts because there are pretty strict media requirements around the tournament with regards to what we can and can't write about/post.  One of the big ones for branding reasons, is we are not allowed to abbreviate the name and I can't be bothered with writing out "Women's Rugby World Cup" every time I want to refer to it.  So I'm going to try and come up with other euphemisms.

UK Eagles 4: Officially at the Women's Rugby World Cup

I have a little time this morning because I opted to skip walking over to breakfast and ate here at our flat.  It was nice and leisurely sitting in my PJs enjoying some coffee and chatting with Kim and Ashley.  With that extra time, I am going to start working on this post before our morning session.  We'll see how much I get done before heading out to practice.  If I don't finish it, I'll just come back to it later.

We moved over to the official Women's Rugby World Cup flats on Monday morning.  It was pretty comical watching all the bags pile up, as well as the plethora of food that had accumulated... though I benefited from that food this morning.  It was pretty exciting to get to the new facility.  We are the first athletes staying in these dorms and they the ones that are going to be used for the 2012 Olympics.  We have our own bathroom (shower and all) in our rooms, which is exciting.  All the other teams were also  arriving, so it started to feel very real.  We have Ireland across the walk from us, Canada next door, and Australia diagonal from us.  So we get to see all the other athletes on a regular basis (whether for good or bad).

.... ran out of time before practice, so now I am returning after a practice, pool session, lunch, and getting 2 loads of laundry through the washer.  I figure what better way to kill 60 minutes while the clothes dry than to catch up here.

After arriving on Monday, we unpacked and got a little settled in before heading over to the dining area for lunch.  That first meal was our first chance to see some of the other teams and get a feel for the environment.  It was a little chaotic at first, as I don't think the Surrey Sports Park were prepared for female athletes that were as big as we are and who eat as much as we do :)  But after a couple of meals, they seem to have gotten into a groove.  We were supposed to have a gym session in the afternoon, but there was a little miscommunication, so instead we did a little bodyweight session at the field with partners, which involved some wheelbarrow races, fireman squats, etc.  It gave us a chance to model our new tech tees, which show off our massive guns.

The rest of the afternoon was spent unpacking and finishing the settling in process.  We had a brief meeting after dinner to just get the general lay of the land and understand what we were doing schedule-wise.  We got to have quite the adventure getting to the meeting room since it entailed hiking to the top of what seemed like the empire state building.

After the meeting we came back to the dorms and got into position for the latest episode of Trueblood.  It aired last night in the States, but we had to wait a day.  It was the best episode of this season, in my opinion.  So now, I don't know how we are going to cope with waiting an entire week before getting a new episode.  I guess we'll have to come up with something.  Maybe our rookies can use that time to really perfect their skit.

After Trueblood, I came back to my room and did some PhD work that I had been putting off and then started The Poisonwood Bible.  I am not too far into yet, so I don't quite know how I feel about it.  It hasn't sucked my in like Push did yet.

Yesterday (Tuesday) was a jam-packed day.  We had breakfast in the morning and then were out for a core session before doing set-piece work.  We had a small break and then went to lunch, and next thing you know we were back out on the field again.  After practice, we had ice baths, which were our first ones since we've been here... I don't know that I've missed them, but I did feel good at practice today, so I guess they're essential.  While we were ice-bathing, Ashley English went over at the official tournament launch with all the other team captains.  She got to hold the actual Cup... exciting!

 Amy, Bridges, Kmimi, and I walked to the TESCOs after the ice-bath.  It's a lot closer to us now, so should make it easier to get last minute food cravings taken care of.  We walked back from the store just in time to head over to dinner.  After dinner, the forwards had a brief players meeting.  I think I found the key to people being invested and interested in meetings - Ben & Jerry's on top of cookies.  It's amazing how much more energy there was in the room after I got that stuff out and started passing it around...

After the meeting everyone adjourned to various movies and card games and such.  I watched Prescious with Blair and Phaidra.  Everyone had said that it was a sad movie and hard to handle, but I think having just read the book made it more bearable.  For any who have read the book, it is really graphic, so the movie was relatively mild in that regard and made it less intense than it would have been if I hadn't read the book first.

I decided last night that I wasn't going to go get breakfast, so got to sleep in for a bit, but I already wrote about that.  From breakfast it was out onto the field for core and then over to the private field for our last true practice before our first match of the 2010 Women's Rugby World Cup.  We were pretty fired up at practice and you could feel it in the pace.  Now the key is keep all that energy reigned in for another day before we play.  After practice, we did some recovery work at the pool and then had the afternoon off besides a meeting... So now it's time for me to go get the clothes from the drier and get ready for our meeting.  I don't think I'll be writing again before the game (maybe I will if I need something to keep me calm).  So hopefully the next post will be all about the thrill of the match!

UK Eagles 3: Where's Waldo?

I figure I'll catch you all up on the happenings of the past two days as a way of decompressing from a slightly traumatic haircutting experience this evening.  To explain; on every tour Kmimi gives me a haircut.  For the past few years it has been a standard faux-hawk.  She is really good at it.  Recently it had been suggested that perhaps I should have more mo' and less faux', which would mean having my hair considerably shorter.  It's hard to do that with scissors, but as it would happen Ham had a pair of clippers so we were able to get it shorter... mush shorter!  "uh-oh", "oops", and "is it supposed to look like that" are never things you want to hear coming from the people cutting your hair.  After a small snafu in which more hair than was expected disappeared from my head, Phaidra came to the rescue and faded, blended, and clipped me out of tragedy and into what became trendy.  In fact, at one point I felt a little like a movie star with Phaidra clipping one side and Kmiecik trimming the other and all my teammates wandering in to take pictures because they heard disaster was abounding.  All I needed was someone doing my make-up...

My exciting haircut aside, yesterday and today were really relaxing days, which was nice.  Yesterday, we had a morning session that was really high-paced and intense, which felt good.  It's great that things are starting to click and we are starting to get really excited about our game in less than a week!  After practice we came back to the dorms and pretty much just relaxed.  The weather was really gray and rainy again, so I didn't want to do anything.  Some people went into town to do some shopping.  I helped Kitt do laundry.  We got caught in a bit of a deluge, but eventually made it back to the dorm.

When we got back to the dorm it was time to start prepping for dinner.  Kmimi was heading up the food brigade, so we had all hands on deck to do the prep work for pizza night.  We had all sorts of veggies, meats, and other toppings being chopped and diced all over every surface of the kitchen.  We wound up with an awesome feast of three different pizzas.  We even had a few slices left over so we could snack on them during the Trueblood showing that happened later in the evening.

As you might have guessed, we watched some Trueblood that evening.  We decided, since we had today off, that we could watch two episodes.  We made some popcorn and got settled in.

Interestingly enough, we ended our day last night with Trueblood and then started our day with it today.  After having an awesome omelet that Ham made for breakfast, we decided that we had some time, so we ought to watch an episode of Trueblood before starting our day off.  We got through Episode 7, we decided it was still early enough that we really should watch Episode 8 as well.  I mean afterall, Episode 9 was going to be aired tonight.  We really should get ourselves caught up!  So we watched another one and then got ready to head into town to do some sight seeing.

There was a large group that all went into town.  We had a lot of fun adventures during our time in Guildford. I think a lot of it was facilitated by Nathalie who decided that we needed to recreate the Where's Waldo books all throughout the village.  We found Waldo at the bus, in phone booths, in trees, at the castle... really everywhere you looked there was Waldo.

Throughout this we saw a lot of cool stuff...  We wandered around the castle and the castle gardens.  The castle was built in 1066AD and there were walls around it that dated to the 12th and 13th century.  That is so ancient. I don't get how they were able to build the keep (that's what the tall castle tower is called) and the walls in those times.  Baffling.  While at the castle, we got to see a few teams competing in Lawn Bowling.  After the castle we went through some of the narrow alleys (called closes) and saw some of the old cathedrals and hospitals.  I've got some of the pictures here, but if you want to see all the days activity you can go to My World Cup Pictures.

We head over to the World Cup village at Surrey Sports Park tomorrow morning at which point all the other teams will be arriving (though NZ arrived yesterday so we've seen them around our dorms a bit).  So, tomorrow marks the official beginning of the tournament.  That meant that tonight there was a flurry of activity as we started packing up everything in preparation for the move.

Sadly, we weren't able to watch the latest episode of TB because it airs in the States at 8pm, which is 1am UK time. Maybe it'll be up online tomorrow so we can get our fix.  I really think that if we had had TB, we might have avoided the unfortunate hair escapade of this evening.  I think that we need TB to assuage our need for melodrama in our lives, and without it we are forced to generate our own...

Alright, time to sign out.  Next time I write it'll be from the World Cup athletes' village and we'll be one step closer to our goal!

UK Eagles 2: Putt-putt and Curling

Alrighty, now that I've got an episode of Trueblood done, I am ready to write.  I'm hoping I can get this post done, so that I'll be completely up to date and can just do posts every couple of days (or a shorter one each day depending on my mood).  Also, I'll need to get all my censorship-free posting crazies out f my system in the next two days since once Monday rolls around there are apparently a lot of media rules that we have to abide by in our use of social media in terms of what we can write and what pictures we can post and how we can portray the team and the tourney.  I guess I should read the document Ginger sent out so I can make sure I don't break any of the rules.

I left off my last post with Wednesday night.  The night I had just started this whole thing up again.  Like I said, I had  a really hard time sleeping.  Because it took me so long to fall asleep, I slept in forever.  Let me remind you we had Thursday off so I was okay with it.  When I woke up, the family was all sitting around drinking coffee and eating breakfast - I think it might have been 11am.  I guess everyone else was tired too because they all looked pretty groggy as well.

After spending a little bit of time working on editing an article that I had to submit back to a journal editor (like I said, being a PhD student can put a bit of a damper on things sometimes), Kitt and I decided to go do laundry and go explore Guildford (the town we are in).  After a bit of an adventure finding an ATM where we could get cash (note to those traveling over from the States: if you have BofA, you don't pay any ATM fees (normally $5) if you use Barclays ATMs) we got our flat's laundry in and were off to walk in to town.

One thing I do love about the UK is the fact that they don't mince words when it comes to signs.  For example, when near a seniors home you will see a sign which says "elderly people".   If there are speed bumps near by, well they tell you that there are "humps for 430 yards".  There's no room for error... well, maybe there is a little, but at least it makes me laugh.

Kitt and I eventually found our way in to town and somehow as if by pure magnetic forces beyond our control found ourselves in a sports and shoe store.  After looking at a number of cleats and other shoes, Kitt settled on a pair of white, European, 'I am going dancing at a gay-boy club' pair of shoes.  By that point we were starting to get hungry so we wandered out to find food, only to find ourselves standing in another shoe store.  I don't know how it happened.

In the store, we ran in to Lara and Lynelle so all of us decided to go get food and wander around a little more.  We ate at a cute little restaurant and then perused more stores before deciding that we needed to get back and get some more rest.  So Kitt and I went and picked up our laundry and headed back to the flat.



When we got back I spent more time working on my article.  It took a lot of time to get it done because I kept getting distracted.  First it was the hall-way putt-putt. Vanesha brought a whiffle ball set with her to the UK.  We decided that a great way to use it would be to work on our short-game, so we put a measuring cup in the hallway and worked on our putting.  That was less than successful so we moved on to curling.  We used two hand brooms and the whiffle balls again.  Still not particularly successful, but really funny.  My next distraction came in the form of dinner both the preparing of it, but also the eating of it.  Half-way through dinner we could hear the pod below us laughing, so we needed to get involved.  We took the whiffle ball bat and attached Kitt's belt to it so we could dangle it out the window with notes attached to it.  We thought we were very clever.  Next thing you know a broom appeared outside our window with a return message.  This went on for quite some time and we all had stomach-aches by the end because we were laughing so hard.   But alas, eventually it too was abandoned for the next distraction, Trueblood.

Last night we got a craving for two episodes, so we watched one on my computer and then borrowed Kitt's to watch another.  I wonder if there is a 12-step program for this type of thing?  Finally, I was able to finish my article and get it submitted... but it took a bit of time.

Then today we were back out practicing.  We had a morning core session for the forwards before heading to the field.  We had one morning session, which was held under an ominous sky and we just finished practicing when the skies opened up.  It was a gross day all afternoon.  Just a constant gray rain.  Ashley, Beckett, and I had to go over to the Sports Park with Kathy to do an interview with TotalRugby Radio, but the perk was we got to enjoy a nice hot cocoa at Starbucks, which was great given the gray conditions.

After the interview it was an afternoon spent hanging with the 'family', reading, relaxing, and getting this all caught up.  We had a great dinner together and ended it with an episode of Trueblood - like I said, we have a problem.  All in all, it was a good day.  Lucky (or not) for me, I finished Push this afternoon and haven't started a new book, so perhaps I can go to sleep tonight without too much issue.

UK Eagles 1: Welcome to the UK

Alright, so we are 5 days into our UK Residency... I might be a little behind in terms of my posting.  What's new?  But I'll still try to keep it up.  If I seem to be slacking just send me an email kick-in-the-pants.

So an update on what we've been up to for the past few days (I'll split it into two posts so that I don't get overwhelmed and not do anything).

After arriving in London at 7am and not really getting any sleep on the plane we were pretty much fried.  We took a bus out to Guildford and unloaded what seemed like a mountain of bags... upon reflection, it was a mountain of bags.   I took a nap, which in hindsight was a bad idea.  When I woke up to go out for a run around I was a bit of a zombie.  Luckily we were just trying to get a little bit of lead out of the legs, so we played some football and tag and other fun stuff so it wasn't too grueling or mentally taxing.

Because we aren't officially at the World Cup village yet we don't have access to a dining hall, so we are cooking for ourselves in our little flats.  So after the runaround one person from each flat went out to the grocery store and stocked up the fridges for her suite-mates.  I volunteered to go for my flat and I think they all benefited from my love of food.  If you want a full-fridge, send a prop to do your shopping.   It totally made me feel like I was back in Americorps, trying to figure out how to get the most food without breaking the bank.

When we came back from the store it was time for bed.  After no sleep and a wicked time difference, I was exhausted.  I went to bed at 9pm and didn't wake up until 8am the next morning.

Tuesday we had double sessions.  We did some subunit work in the morning and then spent the afternoon on team play.  It was super gray and rainy, but the practice was really productive.  We came back afterwards and ate dinner (I almost missed dinner because I fell asleep watching 'The Weakest Link') before having a team meeting.  After the meeting I started reading 'Push', and next thing you know it was 11pm.  It is an intense book, but totally absorbing.  Luckily I finished it today (Friday), so maybe I'll get to bed at a decent hour tonight.

Wednesday we had another day of double sessions.  The forwards got back into the whole morning core routine again and then we went to the gym as a whole team.  The sports complex that is being used for the tournament is brand new, so the weight facility are awesome, though it was a bit of a challenge converting all the weights from kilos to pounds.   In the afternoon, we had another team practice.  It seems like folks are starting to get over the jetlag a bit and practices are flowing. 


Back on the home front, we are having a blast on our flat.  It's Vanesha, Kitt, Ham, Kmimi, and me.  We've created a little family unit.  After realizing that having only a few folks cook for the entire team was not very time efficient, we decided to start having each flat cook for themselves with one group doing the prep work.  So now we are having 'family dinners'.  

After family dinner-time, it was time for some entertainment.  So of course, Trueblood had to come back out.  We managed to find a website where we could get one episode a night per computer of season three.  So, Christy, Phaidra, Nathalie, Ashley, and I sat around my laptop watching Episode 1 of Season Three.  Luckily, we don't have the projector set up like we did at Bowdoin so we can't just sit and watch 4 episodes in a row. We are forced to take a break and go to sleep.

Unfortunately, that whole going to sleep thing was not happening for me on Wednesday night.  I was up until 2:30am working on this blog because I just couldn't sleep.  Hopefull a few more days and I'll be over this jet lag thing.  Luckily we had the day off Thursday, so I didn't stress too much about my inability to sleep like I would have if we had practice.

Alright, I'm up to Thursday.  I'll leave off and come back to that with my next post, so that I can make sure I don't get too far behind.  Maybe I can even get Thursday and Friday up tonight after episode 4 :)

2010 Women's Rugby World Cup: The Prologue

For those looking to follow us other places, check out @swissbeatz, @maribwallace, @flank72002 on Twitter. ... and also Claudia's blog , Vanesha's blog, Kim's Blog, and Phaidra's website are other places to check us out. 

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So, I'm already off to a rough start on my whole blogging thing.  We had the entire day off yesterday and yet I didn't manage to get my post done... I was too distracted by shopping in downtown Guildford followed by hallway putt-putt and curling, the inter-floor note-feud, and Trueblood (all will be explained in a subsequent post) to get anything accomplished.  Luckily (or not) it's super-gray and rainy outside today and everyone is napping during our off-time, so perhaps I can get caught up.  I think once I am caught up it will be easier to maintain.  We'll see...

So, before just jumping into the whole World Cup (or rather Women's Rugby World Cup as we've been told it's to be called) thing, I figured a little prologue might be beneficial.  While we were pretty good at Nations Cup about keeping in touch, we fell off as the year went on.  So I'll give the abbreviated version of what we've been up to as a team for the past year leading into World Cup.  I'll try and keep it succinct (which for those of you who know me, know that will be hard) limiting my comments to only those things that are particularly funny, poignant, meaningful, or weird.

Nations Cup came and went.  We were good about being up to date.  Go back and look at USA rugby if you need a refresher.

We all came home and played for our respective Club teams in the first season of the WPL.  In between matches we were figuring out time to squeeze in fitness tests once a month

Two weeks after the end of Nationals, the WNT assembled at the Chula Vista Olympic Training Center in what will forever be known as Shanksgiving.  This was an entertaining way to spend the holiday.  I figure if I couldn't be with my blood family, then I'd at least be with my other family.  I'm not real sure what the backs did - maybe their hair?, but the forwards spent many days kicking the crap out of each other.

After the Chula Camp, the pool got cut down to just 35 players working to try and earn a spot on the WC squad.  I think once that started happening, it became more real that we were in fact getting closer and closer to London.

We had Atlantic Cup down in Florida in January.  Somehow it doesn't matter where we go, we find ourselves facing atypical weather conditions.  How is it the one year we are in Florida in January, there are record-setting cold temperatures?  One morning we had to chip ice off the scrum-sled before we could use it.  In fact, it was warmer in Boston on one of the days we were there.  Regardless, it was a productive time together and we got to get two matches in against Canada, which was good because we need as much international game exposure as we can get.  We wound up losing the fist match 18-8, but went on the win the second match 11-10.

The backs doing what they do

We didn't have any other full assemblies for the next several months.  Instead, most players were working with their TUs and getting geared up for NASC's.  Though we didn't have any full trainings, we did have subunit work.  The forwards had a training in Monmouth NJ for fourdays in April, while the backs met in San Fran the following weekend.  This was to be the final set of trainings before the squad was reduced from 35 down to 30 players.  From the pictures it looked like they were having fun.  I know the highlight for the forwards was a barbecue in which we won a highly contested tug-of-war competition, as well as a rousing game of chicken-in-the henhouse (if you've never played, I recommend it).

After the forwards camp was when the final 30 was named.  That next round of cuts made it even more real... well that and the fact that we started to realize that matches were less than 100 days away.

In our final international matches before World Cup, we went to British Columbia to play two games against Canada.  We were on Vancouver Island for 10 days staying at Dwight International School on the shores of Shawnigan Lake.  We had a lot of time enjoying the lake (read: it was super cold and served as our ice-bath), as well as many nights spent watching movies.  We played two matches and lost them both, which was disappointing in terms of outcome.  But the from the level of improvement from game one to two, it is clear we haven't quite peaked yet, which frankly is okay as long as we're there come August 20.  After the last match of Can-Ams, the final selections were announced.  It was hard to know that 4 teammates would not be traveling to London with us after all the hard work we have all put into this endeavor, but in the end, we knew the day would have to come and when it did we tried to support each other as best we knew how.

Shawnigan Lake outside Dwight International

After the Can-Ams we had a few weeks off to back home before becoming professional rugby players for essentially the next 2 months.  I spent my time doing some more training, working some for the Red Cross,  and getting in one course working for Outward Bound.

Weight room at Bowdoin

Guitar hero

Residency was an awesome experience... and I certainly mean awesome in both the sense that it can mean great, but also in the truest sense of it brought on some awe.  In a country as geographically spread out as ours is, we don't get a lot of time to work together as an entire team.  It is so important to have time to work together consistently in order to create connections and understand timing so having the residency was a blessing.  We worked really hard for three weeks.  We had core sessions every morning for the forwards and stretching sessions for the backs, we did multiple practices a day, we got to use amazing weight facilities, got to watch match video, and have strategy session.  We truly were taking on the role professional athletes.  I think we became more aware of this role when we started getting recognized on the streets of Brunswick and people would stop us and ask for our autographs.  Being featured in the newspaper several times didn't hurt either.  In addition to all the we got a lot of quality time together.  Mari brought her Wii to Bowdoin, so on any given night there was guitar hero going on generally with an audience. In addition, Kitt had the first two seasons of Trueblood with her, which quickly became an obsession.  The first few episodes only had a few people watching, but by the end there was an entire cohort of us that were completely obsessed... the obsession has crossed the pond with us, such that we are now watching season three on my laptop at night.  Another fun feature of residency was our bike gang.  Mary-Beth (the coach of Bowdoin who took awesome care of us) told us about the yellow bike program, in which you can rent bikes to use around campus.  Many of us got them to use to commute to downtown Brunswick and around to practices and the weightroom and anywhere else we felt inspired to ride.  Each bike had a name, and quickly we began referring to our bikes by their name and knew who rode Megatron or the Lorax.  I still miss April!  

After residency ended, we had 8 days off to go home and have a little down-time, before heading to London.  I spent my time with my dad, girlfriend, and cat, watching Red Sox games, seeing Cirque du Soleil, and generally being lazy.

Whew... who knew writing about a year would be so involved :)  but now you know what we've been up to and we can start off World Cup with everyone all caught up.

Intro to the 2010 Women's Rugby World Cup: It's been a long time

Well, hmmm... it's been a little under 4 years since I last updated this blog - the last time being the 2006 World Cup in Edmonton Canada.  With the 2010 World Cup right here, and many requests that I do it again coming in from folks who used my blog during the last World Cup to keep up with what was happening with the team, I've decided to give it a shot again.  I can't make any guarantees that I will be as prolific in my posting as I was last time because this time around I have other obligations (i.e. a pesky PhD that I'm working on), but I will give it a shot.

Welcome to the 2010 World Cup in London

As of right now (1:36am, Thur), I am suffering from some serious insomnia as a result of jet-lag, muscle soreness, and watching Trueblood too close to bedtime, so it seemed like it was as good a time as any to at least kick off this endeavor.  This means this is going to be uber-short and what you see is what you get.  I'm just giving you the intro and then tomorrow - which is a day off - I'll work on getting you all caught up on what the National Team has been up to for the past however long so that we can get into the heart of World Cup 2010.  With that I say, welcome back and good night!