We had a busy morning, as we had our first training session at 10:00 am, meaning a departure from the hotel at 9:30am. We are training at the Fart Soccer Club ( the same word from fartlek training.) The weather is cold and rainy - quite a shock after the 93 degree Fahrenheit weather we were used to in D.C. The proof rests in Mel Booth's sun burned legs as she now shivers on the field.

 

 

We were anxious to escape some strange smells in the locker room. The practice was great to get our legs moving again after a hard day of traveling. Even though our skill level in the drills was horrible, our intensity was pretty good. We should soon be much sharper in a few days. I know I was not the only one who felt as if her legs had been left behind in North America. 

 

 

I am enjoying my return to Norway, especially when people around us talk about us in Norwegian and I can understand. So far I haven't heard anything very good or flattering. People just ask each other the usual questions about how we must be a handball team. Or perhaps we are the Canadian youth soccer team. I should get back to practicing my spoken Norsk though. My Norwegian language teacher is not going to be impressed with how much I have forgotten over the three weeks I have been away. 

 

 

Between today's training sessions I felt awful. I was not really able to move. I just stayed in my bed and felt sad that I had to  get up again so soon to start runing again.

 

Fortunately, our warm-up with Mario for the afternoon run, soon had me going and, surprisingly, I eventually felt better in this second, training than I had in the first, morning outing.

 

 

But, the best news of the day came on my ride back from practice, when I heard that my club team, LSK Kvinner had defeated Kolbotn by 1-0. I send out a HUGE congratulations to the whole squad for earning the victory. Kolbotn is a good team and I am sure that LSK had to dig deep to take the win. It is a wonderful win for LSK, and we remain second in the Toppserien table.

 

 

 Our evening was spent with the physios and in meetings with coaches and staff. This is never the most enjoyable period of work, but it is essential. There is no way around one-on-one meetings to review progress or lack of it.  I underwent my meeting with all the staff and my test results from camp were evaluated: We looked at muscle percentage, body weight, fat percentage, lean muscle mass, muscle distribution … etc, as well as results from jumping and running tests. The results are objective and brutal, and I like the specificity. You know exactly what you need to work on. One area I need more work on is explosive power. It sounds painful, but I have clear goals.

 

 

Tomorrow we have been told that we have only one training session. I am looking forward to  some time to just lie down and recover. This coaching staff is good about allowing us to taper off our preparations so that we are at our best.