Rhian Wilkinson's Official Website

RHIAN'S JOURNAL:

Mexico & Netherlands Camp February/March 2006

Day 10: Off to Victoria

Today, Thursday. the wake-up call came at 06:30am. I had a really hard time getting out of bed and going. We boarded the bus soon after and headed to the ferry for our trip over to Victoria. We all spent most of our time on the bus, and then on the ferry, completely knocked out from exhaustion.

I have never been to Victoria before and am totally blown away by how beautiful it is. I had heard about the city, but never thought that people actually telling the whole truth….Victoria is gorgeous. However, I am not quite as excited about the cold weather here, even though it is warmer than Vancouver.

We had a training session at 2:00pm on the University game field. Unfortunately, the ground is rock hard, and quite a difference from the soft field at UBC Thunderbird Stadium. The starters from yesterday worked with Dave, the physio, and stretched and massaged their legs, getting the back from yesterday. The rest of us, Sasha, Katie Thorlakson, Brittany Timko, Shel and Ian, played 3 on 3 soccer and did some shooting. It was a good session and I enjoyed getting some running in…even if my team of Shel, Katie and I, lost the competition.

The team was in high spirits until a man and a woman walked across the field with CCES written across their chests. This meant that we were facing the dreaded dope testers…..8 girls were chosen. The only good news about this was that I was not picked, (for a change), and I found it hard to wipe the smile off my face as the unlucky lucky ones that were picked, traipsed past.

Those of us who were not chosen to face the humiliation of having to pee in a cup in front of a complete stranger, boarded the bus and headed back to the hotel. We all thanked our lucky stars, but our turns will come again eventually! Among those being tested, only Amy Walsh made it to the bus just before we left. She informed us all that she had almost broken the record for the fastest test ever taken, but that the CCES man had messed up the form….right!!!! I think that her late arrival to get the bus had more to do with the fact that she had taken a victory lap around the dressing room with her sample to show off to the other donors.

Day 9: Wednesday Match Day

Game days are always long when the match is scheduled in the evening. You are always nervous about the game and have to try and keep your nerves in check all day. We didn’t do much of anything until about 5:00 pm when we got our game faces on, and started our preparations.

The crowd was a pretty large one at the UBC Thunderbird stadium and even though the game was not as good as we would have liked, the fans stayed behind us the whole game. Even though we ended up winning the match by 1-0 it was a close one, and the goal only came in the 85th minute. We came within inches of scoring a few times, but just could not get the ball in the net - very frustrating.

I ended up getting into the game in the 82nd and came on as a substitute for Diana Matheson. I was really nervous, especially as I have never played center midfield before. I did not have too much to worry about though, as Amy Walsh and Andrea Neil are both awesome at getting their wishes across and letting me know what they want me to do!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I never once felt like I was on my own out there, and I always felt supported. It is a good feeling to know that the team is behind you, ready to help out. What a fantastic feeling that is, being so scared, and then realizing that you have nothing at all to worry about.

The girls on the team who played for most of the game were absolutely wiped out by the final whistle, totally exhausted. The field was really soft, almost like playing on wet sand, so after the match, the team just grabbed a quick bite to eat and headed straight to bed. We knew we had an early morning wake-up call coming the next day, so even those of us who had not played as much welcomed our beds that night.

Day 7: Misery on the way to BC

We had an early morning wake-up call this morning, at 07:45am, as we have a tight schedule. We were all loaded into taxis and brought to the training field by 09:30 am, and we slowly tried to warm up our bodies again after a lazy day of doing nothing yesterday.

Training was short, but intense I think the coaching staff were happy with our work effort. It was also a fun practice with 5 v 2 to start with, always a team favorite. I was in a group with Charmaine, and she is always dangerous as she LOVES this drill, and will win at all costs. I was also in a group with Les, the equipment manager, and he and I spent most of our time in the middle running around in circles - fun for everyone else, not so much for us.

On getting back to the hotel we showered quickly and then headed out to eat. We had to be speedy at this, because our bus left for the airport at 1:30 pm. After a quick bite for lunch, we headed back to the hotel to get everything ready for departure, and ………… everything was on track, until the flight was cancelled completely.

Diana made a joke that we would probably end up busing the entire way…. I am now writing this journal from the back of the bus!!!!!!!! It isn’t quite as bad as I at first thought though, as we are only busing to Los Angeles International Airport, a four hour drive. From there we should be able to take a flight. This side trip by bus may even make things go a little smoother as I think we might now have a direct flight instead of the stopover previously planned in San Francisco.

(Later) Well I guess the trip was smoother than it was on day one, but it still sucked. We ended up getting to the airport just after 4:00 pm; our flight was then scheduled to leave at 8:30 pm. At least most of our flights were at 8:30 pm. The coaches and Sophie (no one really knows why she was singled out) flew earlier. We, the ones left behind, were now starving, so we headed to one of our two options: A greasy sports bar; or, Burger King. I went with the latter. So much for all our nutrition lectures!! Then, the rest of our stopover was spent killing time.

We boarded the flight at the right time, but of course, we ended up sitting on the tarmac for ages. The weather was terrible. The flight was also packed, and not one empty seat. The only good thing was that we enjoyed star gazing on the way in, as sitting in first class were Lex Luther from Smallville (no idea what his real name is), and Ryan Reynolds. It was a brief moment with the stars, as we filed past them into cargo class.

The flight was a bumpy one as we had tail winds of up to 200mph (so we were told). This strong wind also meant we landed on time though….I think I would rather have been late, without so many of the bumps. Even though we landed on time we somehow all got separated at baggage claim. Thius is nit a big deal, except we didn’t know what equipment bags the team had so we were forced to wait some more to ensure that nothing was forgotten. Just to add to our misery, Charmaine ended up losing a bag so she, Amy, Charlie and I did not leave the baggage claim until area after 12:30am.

Of course, by this time the bus had left and no one knew how long we were going to be, so we arranged for alternate transportation. We were driven to the hotel in a stretch limo. This might sound glamorous, but don't forget about the team baggage that was travelling with us!! It was a really cramped and uncomfortable ride. We collapsed into the hotel just past 1:30am and either went to eat a little snack or headed, like me, straight to bed!!!!! I'm exhausted.

Day 6: A Day Off

To take advantage of our day off, I went for a walk with the Ottawa girls, Diana and Taryn. We found little of interest, other than a pie shop that sold Taryn a piece of pie for 5 dollars. Mind you, he ended up giving her a quarter of it, so you should have seen her eyes light up. Other than that, this is a lazy day for all of us. We are on our own till 10:00 pm tonight and I think most of us will be using this time to either catch up on homework, sleep, or just tan by the pool.

Day 5: Match Day La Quita California

Last night, after training, we were brought to take a little walk around the game field. The arena management never turned on the lights though, and so we ended up walking over a pitch black field and even then, we knew something wasn’t quite right.

Our day was spent going to meetings and relaxing to prepare for game #2 versus Mexico. We finally arrived at the field just after 6:30 pm, and soon after headed out to the field for some pre game warm-up. Then, as we we walked out to the stadium, we were all stunned by the size of the field. It was a tiny football field. The length wasn't too bad, although even that was short, but width-wise it was ridiculous. I don’t ever remember playing on field this small, nor do I ever recall playing on a field that was half sand, spray painted green!!!!!! Nice.

However, even these conditions don’t explain our awful start to the game. We were TERRIBLE. Nothing seemed to be working for us. Our passes were off, crosses were too long….we weren’t ourselves, and the harder we tried to correct things, the worse things seemed to get.

Fortunately, the second half was much better. At this point we were a goal down though, and we needed to play at our best if we were going to get any sort of result from an inspired Mexican side. We came close a few times, including a shot of mine being cleared off the line, but nothing would give us a break. It took a fantastic header from Martina Franko, off a brilliant feed from Sharolta Nonen, to even things up.

This was one of those games that you thought you might just lose from pure evil luck. Even though we felt hurt and bad about tying a team we should have beaten easily, we walked away pleased that we had achieved some sort of result.

Day 4: Off to California

Wake-up call was at 08:15 and we loaded the buses at 09:30. Everyone looked tired and sore this morning and not at all excited about our bus trip to La Quita, California for game number 2 which happens tomorrow.

At the border we all had to climb out of the bus, unload the whole vehicle, send everything through an X-ray machine, then load the bus back up on the other side. Annoying as the border demands were, it didn't take long for us to settle back down and catch some transportation shut eye. It is going to be a sore day for a lot of people, as we train once we arrive.

Day 3: Match Day Mexicali

We got to sleep in this morning, very, VERY exciting. Our wake-up call was for 09:15 and we all appreciated the opportunity to catch up on some sleep. Our game tonight is at 8:00 pm, so we have the whole day to ourselves. I like days like this. You can spend the day reading, watching television, and walking around town, and then kick opposition butt in the evening - a great day.

I went for a walk with Taryn and Diana down the road. We managed to get ourselves stranded on a little triangle of pavement with fast moving traffic all around us!!! I blame it on Taryn for no other reason other than she is usually so careful about things likle this!.

We then met with out mental training coach Saul Miller at 12:15. He has been teaching us how to channel our energy and focus in the most productive and useful way for each of us individually. These meetings are useful and interesting and everyone seems to get something from them. I have scheduled an individual meeting with him later on today before the game.

Saul called me an "agent of chaos" …. I love that!! I thought my meeting went well in that I liked how he first made sure that *I had to underline what I think I bring to the team. The he tries to change what you think you need to work on. In my case we decided that I need to practice my breathing so that when I am running full tilt all over the field I am then able to be calm and composed when I get to the front of the net

We left for the field at 6:30pm and arrived very quickly. The parking lot was completely full and I thought it was because of the men’s game before ours, but it wasn’t. The crowd wasn’t huge, but there were many of them, and they filled up the small stadium and never stopped singing and dancing the entire 90 minutes. They had a band there that played non-stop. It was so loud that we couldn’t even talk to one another and Shel had to practically run on the field just to tell Karina that she was doing well - it literally took him a good few minutes to get her attention and even then she had to run over to the sidelines to hear what he was saying. This is too much effort for one compliment.

The game field was a little bumpy, especially in the middle where there had been a discus and shot put competition earlier in the day, but we dealt with it. The first 20 minutes of the game were a little panicky, but we soon settled down into a sort of rhythm, and this was helped greatly by a great goal by Sincy. Diana crossed the ball into the box and Martine got a fantastic header off that hit the crossbar and fell perfectly onto Sincy’s foot.

Our second goal came after a ball played down the middle by Diana. She chipped it over the defense and Charmaine ran onto it and calmly chipped over the keeper. The third was off a Sincy header from a free kick by Brittany. We went into the locker room (aka tent) leading 3-0.

The ref had done quite a good job up to this point, only giving out one yellow card, but the second half was a different story. We had to be careful to pay extra attention to keeping our tempers in check. However, the problems came less than 5 minutes into the second half, when the red card was shown. KK came out of her box to stop a breakaway and the girl ran into her. The referee called a straight red card and a free kick right on top of the 18 yard box.

Taryn hadn’t even seen it happen and had to scramble to get all her things together and run on the field, Even took Charmaine off to make the change. The next couple of minutes were pretty panicky as we tried to adjust to playing a man down. However, everyone really pulled together and even though the ref gave us another 5 yellow cards, we kept calm and kept our shape. With ten minutes left they got a goal back on us after the ball sprang loose on the top of the 18. The Mexican player took advantage of our momentary lapse in concentration and sent a laser into the left hand side of the net.

The final score ended 3-1 and we were presented with the winner’s trophy, a hand sculpted soccer ball. The crowd had been awesome, so we all stayed for over an hour taking pictures with fans and signing autographs. One young girl even took the sweaty pre-wrap from my hair!!!!! hmmmm. We got back to the hotel at 11:30pm and had a quick supper before taking a hot/cold contrast bath, having a shower, and then climbing into bed.

Day 2: Mexicali, Mexico

The dreaded wake-up call came at 08:15 am and we sluggishly went downstairs to eat. It was good to see everyone again at breakfast; you could easily pick out the ones who had been on the “later” buses though. We had a quick bite to eat and then headed out for training by 09:30. It was, surprisingly, a really good training session. Everyone seemed happy to just get their legs moving again and we looked sharp during the drills.

We had lunch with the local mayor, where they held a brief ceremony to welcome us to the city. The Head of our delegation Angus was presented with the key to the city. Fortunately, it was a good lunch and we enjoyed it - unexpected as most of us just wanted to be back in bed. Everyone we met at the reception was great, and one dude said our team was "muchos beautiful'" which was a nice compliment, but he was a tad intense, and I suspect I saw him lurking around the hotel later

We were given some down time between our two training sessions and I have to admit I passed out. The last thing I remember was telling Diana, my roommate, that I didn’t think I was going to be able to sleep. Over an hour later, the alarm woke me up for the second training session.

This session was also a good one. Even though we have only 16 players here, everyone looks fit and excited to face Mexico in the morning. We had a group of young Mexican school kids watching us, and it took a while to get used to their continuous heckling. It was good for us though and it ended up just being funny, because every time anyone made any sort of mistake they had to deal with the whistling and cat calls!!!! Anyways none of us had a clue what they were saying. You could make some pretty accurate guesses but why bother?

Day 1 (courtesy of Amy Walsh with bits of Rhian!)

Today’s travel day today was possibly the worst one I've ever endured -- and I've been to some weird places. You just think that you're going to Mexico, which is just over the border from California, and so you don't really worry too much about the logistics of the trip. Let me tell you, that after this trip, I will never take travel lightly again. Whomever booked us on these flights, sent us on some interesting milk runs.

Anyway, to get to the nitty-gritty of the travel. The day started off badly, when one of our number at Doirval airport in Montreal discovered she'd left her wallet in her boyfriend's car. Of course, he was was long gone to Laval by the time she realized her mistake. This apart, The flight from Montreal to Washington, D.C., was uneventful.

However, the leg from Dulles, Washington to L.A. took almost 6 hrs due to a vicious headwind. Our late arrival meant that we had missed our connecting flight to Ontario airport. So, we then had a 2 hour interval when the following happened: First, I realized that I was no longer in possession of my cell phone, and I had no idea where I had left it or lost it; Second, the airline didn't know where our bags were; Third, after calling home, my family calmly informed me that my cell phone had been found and handed in at Dorval airport. (This might have been the only good news of the day.); Fourth, having located our luggage, the airline informed us that all the later flights to Ontario were booked and standby with little chance of success became their option for the four of us (Rhian, Diana, Izzy and Amy). So, we decided as resourceful members of the national team, that we would need to arrange for ground transportation. Crazy, right?

Anyway, after all the haggling, we managed to secure a voucher from the airline for our "Super Speedy Shuttle" (which turned out to be anything but). We waited. And we waited. And waited. And waited some more. By the time our shuttle arrived, we couldn't wait to hop on and re-unite with the rest of our teammates in Ontario. The 45 minute ride to the airport honestly, no exaggeration, took a full 2 hours! We met up with 6 other girls at Ontario and waited for our next ground transport for a rumored 3 hour drive to Mexicali.

Two buses were sent to come and collect us and we were informed they were 7 miles away once we arrived, two hour later they were still a mile away. When our “buses” finally pulled up we found ourselves 11 people with one SUV and one mini van. It would have been a tight squeeze even without all our bags and luggage, it was insane. We ended up pilling in with some of our bags tied precariously to the roof, I would have been more upset about this had mine not been safely tucked in the trunk of the SUV, Brit’s was on the roof and she looked a little a tad concerned.

None of us had eaten anything since about 10am (east coast time), and by the time the guys with the “buses” got there at 11 (pacific time, no less) we were all ravenous. We ended up raiding 'Del Taco' 10 minutes before it closed and the lady running the counter, a dead ringer for Nanny McFee, was not impressed. I thrilled her further by demanding if the refried beans were cooked in lard and the rice cooked in chicken stock (Amy’s a Vegan)...needless to day, my veggie burritos were a little suspect after our exchange. We hopped back into the vans for the long ride, and everyone dozed off---Except Latham, who woke us all up when she almost jumped out of the back seat to yell at the driver for sleeping at the wheel. None of us went back to sleep after that.

Rhian was in the SUV with Izzy, Brit, and Diana so were lucky enough to have quite a bit of room and a driver who seemed fairly alert and awake, the mini van didn’t have quite as much luck. Their driver weaved and bobbed all over the road and even Shel said he had been scared for his life, the four of us in the SUV slept peacefully!

At 01:30am our two vehicles pulled over in a Denny’s parking lot and we were told that we were now on the l;ast leg of our journey, and we would have to now get into some other buses for the final leg of the journey over the border!!!! We grouchily threw our bags into our new buses, two big ones this time, and we climbed in. After slowing down to 10 mph at the border and getting a wave from the "guard", (security was laughable), we made it to our hotel at 02:30 in the morning. At this point, we east coasters had put in almost 24 hours of travel in one day....... Need I say anything more?. Once we arrived, no one looked around, no one spoke, we just grabbed our things and headed to our rooms. We had a wake-up call at 8 the next morning and training at 09:00 --Gong-show all around.