2010 Women's Rugby World Cup: The Prologue

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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.