Saturday, March 7, 2009
I did an easy 30′ run along The Goose before catching my flight. I flew through Seattle to Orlando where we were greeted by an organizer who got us on a van to take us to the hotel which was about 50 minutes away in Cape Canaveral. We were 25 minutes into the trip when we had to turn around and go back to the airport to pick up two more runners who arrived late. By the time we got to our rooms it was 1:30 in the morning and I was beat. Luckily my roommate Chantelle was still up so I didn’t wake her. I didn’t get to sleep until sometime after 3am since I was still on west coast time and ended up sleeping in the next morning. There was a 9:30 meeting that morning but I was still sleeping until Chantelle came back to get me up so I arrived late and groggy! Most of the Canadian team were there. The majority had arrived from Ontario and Quebec the day before. We introduced ourselves and were introduced to the coaching and support staff. We voted on team captains and Joel and I were voted as the captains and I doubt that our more senior age had nothing to do with it! haha!
The hotel were stayed at was The Radisson and was basically a resort. Check it out!
We were bused over to the course in the early afternoon. It was pretty hot out and I loved it! We took some time before the course tour to take some team pics:
Junior Boys
Junior Girls
Senior Men
Senior Women
After jogging the course I did a few strides and then got out of the sun as it was pretty hot out. If I didn’t have a race the next day I would have sprawled out on the grass and soaked up some rays! We had a bit of time before dinner so we went back to our rooms to shower and rest. Jon rang me to see how I was feeling and to talk about the race. We all then went to dinner for all the participating athletes but we scootched out as soon as we could so we could get to bed at a decent time. I was bagged and needed sleep. I didn’t sleep all that well. I was periodical and therefore spent a restless night dealing with cramps. Great timing as usual. Hope you liked that I share these details!
The next morning Chantelle and I woke up to her phone alarm with a hilarious message of her extremely cheery voice saying “Gooood morning!! It’s going to be a woooonderful day!” haha! Loved it!
We got to the course at about 9am and it was already hot out. Thankfully tents were set up so we could stay under in the shade.
Our senior women’s race had a pretty small field…only 16 women. I took Jon’s advice and got out fast but gave myself 2kms to see how I was feeling. I wasn’t sure how the day would go after having felt so poorly at last week’s race. I was almost sure I was back on track and tried to forget how last week played out. I started to pick it up after 2km and tried to catch the women up front who strung out the pack early on in the race. I managed to catch a few runners and although I didn’t feel the smoothest I have ever felt, I finished strong and ended up 7th in 20:54 (6km course). My turn-over wasn’t there today but I think that is mostly from having been running a bit easier this past week and been a bit sloppier withturn-over. With CIs next weekend and running a fast 3km (hopefully!) and some faster wos before worlds, I should be ready to run a good race. I am getting very excited!
More pics!
All in all a fun trip although a bit of a whirlwind since we grabbed a flight back that same afternoon. I got in after midnight and Juice was there to pick me up…nice to see his smiling face!
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