Tournament Time

The week is finally upon us. We have been preparing and amping up for this tournament for a long time now. Our final days of preparation are here. We are so excited and so ready to finally get our chance to show the world just how far we've come. We see the goal in sight.

As our build up peaked, this past weekend we finally got some time to rest. Our bodies have been beat up and tested so that we would be ready at this point. With a few more practices this week to put some last few things into place, we will be fresh and ready to go on Friday against Mexico. All the training, all the running, all the lifting, and all the game film we've studied will be put to the test. And I know our team is up to the challenge.

Although we are hosting the tournament, it is a major one and we will be moving into a hotel starting on Tuesday. Even though we are in the comfort of our own town and community where we train, we will be secluded so that our entire focus is on the task at hand. As much as we love the people and things around us, they all have to wait for 2 weeks while we take care of business! Needless to say we are excited to have the comforts of a home field and crowd advantage, as well as having most of our parents able to attend and see us succeed.

Personally, I can't wait to play. I can't wait to see all the supporters (my parents, family, friends, community, fellow athletes, etc.) cheering us on, beacuse without them, I could never have gotten to where I am today. I can't wait to show everyone (not only those watching, but all those who follow me, us field hockey, and field hockey in general) just how far I have come and our team has come. I am ready. We are ready.

GO STATES!!!

Last Full Week

Today began the last full week of training before the Qualifier begins!! This week will be one of the toughest for us. We have been building and building to this point, and it is the last full week of intense work/practice before we start to taper off for the tournament. We are all very excited because we can see the tournament in sight.

My roommate, Katie O'Donnell and I decided to start a new way of motivating ourselves today. Although we know what our goals are for the team and for ourselves, we thought it would be a good idea to write them down in a place where we would see them everyday to remind us to keep working hard and to constantly keep us focused on why we do this every single day. We wrote our goals on our bathroom mirror. We will see it every morning when we wake up, motivating us for the day, and every night before we go to sleep, giving us something to dream about. (I must give credit to the person we got this idea from, a Long Jump and High Jump athlete, Norris Frederick). It was just so good, we had to use it ourselves!

Back to Training

After a few days off upon return from Argentina, we were back out on the turf training again as a team. The first week back is always interesting. It was exciting to all be back together, as many of us went home for a few days and training again with those that didn’t travel. With the start of our final preparation for the World Cup Qualifier, practice, lifting, and running all become accelerated and more intense. We know we have to push ourselves to get the most out of these last few weeks.

Our coaches also finalized their new masterpiece, the sand hill, for added sprint workouts. They had been talking about it for weeks and now that it is done, we have and will be running sprints up it multiple times a week. Imagine how hard it is to run on the beach in the sand. Now, imagine that, but running up a hill. It is one of our harder workouts, but in a way it is fun. It gives us a change of pace to our normal workouts and allows us to work on our explosiveness. Although we are doing these in addition to our normal runs, we know it will help prepare us physically for the rigors of a qualifying tournament.

This week also brought about Lauren Powley’s birthday! It was one of the highlights of the week, including a double layer homemade cookie cake by our very own baker Lauren Crandall. We followed that up with a little surprise team dinner and festivities later that night. As this rainy, relaxing weekend comes to a close, we prepare for yet another busy week!! Bring on the sand hill!