MORE TESTS AND DAYS OFF       30th August 2010

We had the day off yesterday, or at least, we had the day off from training. Carolina is very good at knowing when we need a break, physically and mentally, and she gives us some time away from the soccer field  and rigors of testing.

Days "off'" for Team Canada do not mean that we can leave the hotel or do whatever we want. Instead, our coach expects us to do recovery work, see the medical staff and physio if necessary and rest up for when training is back on.

The day still managed to fill itself up, even without any training sessions. There is quite a bit of administrative and paper work that needs to be done by the players behind the scenes, and so our days "off" are a good time for meetings, e-mail writing (when the internet here is working),  and brainstorming.

We spent at least a couple of hours doing this kind of work and then I personally hit the books. It is so easy to neglect my studies while in camp. The temptation just to lie down instead of trying to get ahead in my physiology studies can be overwhelming .... I keep trying.

 Today we had an open wake-up, which means that we had to have eaten by 9:00 am. Even though all our fitness testing is out of the way, we have now learned that there is more medical testing to come this morning.

I am not quite sure what this involves, but I do know that we will be pedaling on a bicycle ergometer and having our lung capacity and heart-rate tested. It certainly sounds like a great time.

Then we have team training at 5:00 pm this afternoon. Carolina is trying to ensure that we only train when the sun has lost some of its intensity. A sincere thank you. Thank you also to Liverpool for winning. They have been making this fan slightly red in the face thus far this year.

The only bad news is that LSK lost 2-0 against Amazon Grimstad, and once more, there is an uproar over refereeing and a disallowed goal.