will I know when I'm there?: "I'm on the practice field running 2-a-days so I don't drop the ball when it's threw my way"

Yes, I know it is now October and it's been more than a month since I've written anything, so here I am with a little (a very little) bit of free time to let yall know what's been up.

So, our preseason training, without competition, lasted for about 6 weeks with a schedule as follows:

7:15am 30-50 minute jog (length of the jog depended on coaches mood that morning, but towards the end was cut to just 30 for all the old chicks', ME INCLUDED, knees
8:50am head to the track for sprinting, stairs, and ab work. Written it doesn't sound one quarter of how intense it was. But it was something that I dreaded, thinking about laying in my bed each night, not knowing what kind of sprinting was to come the next day.
10:30am- 12pm head to the weight room, usually for some sort of circuit that always included supersets
3:30pm French Lesson
4:45pm-7:00pm ball training

All of this 4, sometimes 5 days a week.

Six weeks of that equals no blogging, so there :) Needless to say our training was very intense in all arenas, running, weight lifting and on the volleyball court. We were all so tired in our bodys and minds, but of course found a little time to party.

Our "preparation" period ended on September 7th with our first tournament in Frasnes, Belgium (yes, land of the delicious chocolate and beer). We stayed in a hostel out on farm land in the absolute middle of nowhere. Frasnes is about an hour drive from Belgium and full of corn fields, cows, gorgeous flowers, barking dogs, and more cows. In our hostel, all of the girls stayed in one big room with 6 sets of bunk beds and two singles (thanks God i got a single), two toilets and two showers. I'll just leave it at that, you can all guess how ecstatic I was for the whole week. When we got to Belgium after our 6 week preparation period our training schedule for the next 7 days was as follows:

7:15am 30 minute jog
10:00am weights
12-3pm treatments (massage and Beamer, has anyone every heard of that??? Let me know)
5 or 6:00pm match

Yes, we ran and lifted weights before amatch and on one occasion jogged in the am, played a match and then went to sprint up hills afterwards, just because. So we played with heavy legs all week with this CRAZY schedule and still managed to finish 2nd. The other teams there were Menorca (from Spain), a German team (who my old Japanese roommate from Switzerland Hiro was playing for,( nice surprise), and two Belgium teams. On the Spanish team, who also happen to be staying in the hostel with us, there was a girl I recognized at first sight, turns out Janine was from the UK, but raised in Arizona, played at U of Washington (yes the purple school) and happen to be roommates with my former UT teammate Brandy Magee last year in Spain, crazy hu? And I recognized her from US Nationals a couple summers ago. So we finally officially met, got a chance to hang out and talk for a little bit about our experiences, being away from home, Spain, France, my team's crazy training in Belgium, and about her crazy libero who took our clothes out of the washer and put theirs in, ha, yes. I'm so glad to have met her and had such great conversation with someone who is going through the same things I'm going through from sort of the same perspective, she's cool people.

We had one weekend off when we came back from Belgium, which I used to run as fast as I could to Switzerland, ha. A nine and a half, almost ten hour trip each way by train which was worth every second, as I needed a break so bad, to get away from my teammates (since we spent the last week in a 14 bed suit) and away from Istres (and my nightmares about running on the track). I spent less than 24 hours in Schaffhausen with Dave and even missed one of my trains in route home on Sunday night, but like I said, worth every second!

Since Belgium, we've been playing "friendly" matches with the teams nearby (Saint Raphael, Cannes, Venelles, and Le Canne)t and continuing to train. Our schedule is not half as intense as it was as we approach the start of the French Championship, but we are still going hard at the beginning of each week running and lifting like we're training for the Olympics.

The French Championship begins on October 17 in Paris and it couldn't come any sooner for us. With press conferences and sponsor events, we're super excited to get started with competition. Our big sponsor Ouest Provence's big promotion this year is "The Space of Champions", backing four major sports clubs nearby, Men's Soccer and Basketball in Fos (a city less than 5 minutes away) and Men's Handball and Women's Volleyball of Istres. So because of this we've had a few gathering with all four teams and gotten a chance to get to know some of the other athletes. The exciting thing is that on the Men's Basketball team there are two Americans and two other players that went to American Universities (a Puerto Rican and a guy from Martinique). So like I said about Janine (the girl from the UK), it's nice to have some people around that I can relate to. I think it's really important with being away from home for so long, to have something like that to keep you sane, so it nice, they're fun.

Each and every day I'm not training or dreaming about training, I'm on the internet waiting for my sister to get online so I can video message with her, my niece and nephew, and those occurrences are way to few and far between, I'm just saying, Ja'Nice...? Ha, but no really I miss everyone at home so much and love you guys, I wish sometimes I could pack you all up and bring you on some of my adventures, I really do.

Happy Saturday people, peace!

the great city of Istres