Pre-Race Day of FUN

I was asked "What do you do on they day before an important race?"

I don't do anything special. I woke up, washed dishes, and made a pot of coffee. I watched stage 7 of the Tour on TV before meeting Mickle (who is also my neighbor) to walk to the training center (that's what neighborhood ladies do together... they walk... and bake pies. Tehe!) We ate a leisurely breakfast in the cafeteria and then headed for the boathouse, where we washed our boats and went for a light paddle on the course.

This afternoon I'm going to lay in bed, continue plugging away at Atlas Shrugged, and maybe have a nap. The goals for today are to relax, eat plenty of food, stay hydrated, and not really give tomorrow too much thought. The training and the preparation have been done. In the immortal words of the Forge members, "Tomorrow I will go as fast as I can go... and that will be as fast as I can go."

I like to spend the day doing fun things like reading, watching movies, and hanging out with good people. That way I end the day feeling relaxed, calm and confident.

Good luck to all of us (10 girls and 6 boys) who are racing for spots on the World Championships team. I'll announce the lineup on Sunday evening!

World Cup Videos Online

Nathan posted some great videos from the World Cups that are on Youtube. They are kind of like highlight-reels. I like them. You should watch them.

World Cup 1 in Racice, Czech Republic
World Cup 2 in Poznan, Poland
World Cup 3 in Szeged, Hungary

Pie-making

The Fourth of July is on Saturday, and Mickle and I were [no surprise here] looking for ways to be festive. We settled on baking an apple pie (using the home-grown apples I'd picked from my friend Thure's apple tree last week!) What could possibly be more American?



It turned out really well and we adorned it with star-cutouts for the holiday. We gave it to Steph and Jamie, the USOC sports medicine interns who [sadly] have just finished their year-long internship at the training center. We're going to miss them!

Little Fem goes to Hollywood

Yesterday Maggie and I went to Hollywood to shoot a commercial for Nintendo Wii! There's a new Wii game coming out called Sports Resort that features table tennis, archery, basketball, and a bunch of other sports, including canoeing. We were asked to be a part of the commercial because we are "canoe experts." It was tons of fun, save for the awful traffic in LA. We got star treatment: our own dressing room, make-up artist, and stylist!


Mags and me pre- make-up... and also pre- taking-out-my-eyebrow-ring.



Gettin' our hair did

I can't believe how much work goes into one commercial! I'm fairly certain some of the crew members were there for 12-15 hours. We were only working for about five and a half, but it was surprisingly tiring. Everyone has to work hard to get the whole thing just right on camera.... otherwise you have to keep shooting over and over until it's perfect.


Working on my diva attitude



I'll post a link to the commercial when it comes out in a month. It's going to be aired on the internet as well as on the actual Wii system.

Adventures Abound!

Yesterday Tyler and I drove up to Long Beach. On the way back to San Diego, we stopped to see our friend Thure, who is great for a lot of reasons, including the fruit orchard in his backyard!! Grapefruits, apricots, apples, avacados, persimmons, plums, and pears! I was so enamored by these fruit trees because all I've ever really seen in New York is apples and grapes. And now I have a bag of fresh apricots to eat!!

Saturday Night

I am so happy to be back in California! We just finished a killer week (weak?) of training. Getting back into the swing of things caused aches and pains, fatigue, and an unbelievable level of sore-ness... the kind you only feel, like, once a year. But we got through it, as we always do, and now the training week is over.

I am now sitting cross-legged on my bed in front of my open window, eating 4 different kinds of vegetables, and feeling just as content as can be. It was cloudy and cool today and we have tomorrow off.

America, after a long hiatus, is wonderful.

Just when I thought my globe-trotting had gone without a hitch....

I sat down on the plane from O'hare to San Diego, seated in the second-to-last row in the middle seat next to a large woman. We departed from the gate but the plane failed the safety check, and we wheeled back in to the gate for the maintenance crews to check it out.

I love that safe feeling you get when the fix-it man comes to put your airplane back together.

It was during this two hours of sitting in my seat in the stationary plane that I realized the strange whining, snorting, high-pitched squealing noise was coming not from a baby seated nearby.... but from the tiny lap dog stuffed into the bag which was at the feet of the large woman seated next to me. She unzipped the bag and the dog started sneezing and snot-ing all over my leg. It was then that I learned that the dog's name was "Boo Boo," and that its owner- this woman- was harboring particular concerns that the dog couldn't last this long without going to the bathroom again.

Remember, this was before the plane even got off the ground... before the four-hour, very turbulent flight on which that little monster cried, barked, wailed, squeaked, squealed, and generally broadcasted its gross, pathetic existence to the entire population of the airplane.

Disgusting.