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RHIAN'S SOCCER JOURNALS:

SLEEP, SLEEP, GLORIOUS SLEEP 5th February 2008

I am sorry that this most recent journal has been so long in coming. I start becoming lazy as I settle back into my Residential Camp regime and recover from our long-distance trips. Alex Lim photo

After getting home to Vancouver from China we had a week off to recover, and boy did we need the time. If we thought we had already struggled in adjusting to the time in China, the jet-lag was a thousand times worse coming back to Canada. Karina and Amy Vermeulen are both still not adjusted. Our focus was sleep, sleep, sleep.

However, the problem with having time off when you return from Asia is the fact you don't have to get up early, and so you allow yourself to sleep in until you wake-up. This obviously feels wonderful, but it is not best way to get back on track with Vancouver time. What ended up happening was that everyone either fell straight asleep at night, but woke up, fully awake, unable to get back to sleep, at 4:00 or 5:00 in the morning. Or, they found it impossible to sleep at night at all, and then fell asleep about 6:00 or 7:00 in the morning and did not wake until the early afternoon.

One morning I decided to go for a bike ride around Vancouver at 4:30 am. I just figured that it might make me tired, and help me sleep, and that I would then be able to watch the dawn with the sun coming up ..... did you know the sun only comes up around 8:00 am here? All I ended up doing for my exertions was biking around for 2 hours, getting really cold, and then returning to lie in bed totally awake and shivering. This is not my favorite start to a day.

We have now been back in camp a week, and have been joined out here by a flock of Under 20 players. They were out here for a week of camp and I really enjoyed getting to meet them all and see them all in action. There isn't much more I can say about them other than that the future of Canadian Women's soccer looks very bright, and I hope they get to play at home occasionally so that fans can watch them. The women in this young team not only have tons of talent, but they are impressive athletes. I didn't meet them all personally, but the ones I did get to interact with, were great girls, and I wish them every success on their soccer paths to success.

I should mention that I found it to be an odd experience, having to watch the Under 20 Canada team run their fitness test. I almost felt guilty about not participating. Usually we are the ones gasping and heaving while an audience comes to watch us push ourselves to the point of exhaustion. I have decided that I much prefer watching other people run the tests!

We have a game this afternoon against a Men's team from the North shore - Ambleside. I apologize for not getting this information out sooner, but scheduling and locations have been a bit of a nightmare recently, and because of the weather and pitch conditions, it is hard to know where we are going to be ourselves. For the past week we have trained, but only in the soccer bubble at TSS or out in Surrey. All sessions were previously scheduled for somewhere else, and our activities were often last minute changes. I will try to do a better job of keeping everyone in the loop.

I hope everyone enjoyed the Super Bowl. If only the whole game had been like the last quarter. I really didn't care which side won, and I think this made the event more fun to watch. I did end up jumping on the couch with Sincy when the Giants pulled ahead at the end, but that was more because she was bouncing me around anyway in her excitement, so I thought I might as well jump with her.

I suppose that after the game I did rationalize that I should really have been rooting for the Giants as Eli Manning's brother (Peyton) went to my alma mater at University of Tennessee. Eli did not, but he did go to another SEC school, so my support should be with the Manning family - I am a true football fan, as you can see.

I would like to end this journal by again thanking everyone for their kind e-mails congratulating me on winning Fan's Player of the year, and all those who took the time to vote for me. I was very excited to win the award, as well as shocked. Thanks again to all. You have made a right wing/midfield/defender very happy :)