Today is Tuesday, this week at training camp in Germany from Monday to Thursday, then flying to Prague on Friday for my last world cup in this competition phase.
Last night I heard about a massive earthquake in my home town of Christchurch, New Zealand. We had a big one last September, but this one is so much worse, multiple fatalities and the city seems destroyed. I spent the night trying to contact my family and finally managed to hear that everyone’s ok at 5am. Still didn’t really get any sleep, and ended up missing training today. I always feel very guilty missing training and this is no exception, but I was so tired and don’t think I would have been able to concentrate. It’s so hard being on the other side of the world and hearing about all this happening in the place where I grew up, I feel so helpless. I’m so lucky my family is ok. It brings things into perspective.
I started writing the following on the plane here, it all seems pretty minor in comparison now:
Over the past few weeks it had been more training, more fighting. Last week the intensity increased, with some hard conditioning and weights sessions. Monday morning always seems to be particularly torturous, this week we had 4 x 4 min flat out running around the track. Maybe doesn’t sound like a lot of work, but it sure feels like it! I’m probably one of the worst runners ever, so always seem to be far behind everyone else, but since I’m a judo player this doesn’t really matter, the benefits are related to how hard I work, not to how fast or far I run. Unfortunately we couldn’t get to randori at Dartford on Monday night as there was an accident on the motorway causing massive traffic delays, a real shame because there was apparently quite a few visitors. Speaking of visitors this week we have had an American athlete visiting Camberley, it has been good to have her around, even though a bad knee has meant she hasn’t been able to train fully.
Last weekend I competed in the Austria World Cup. Unfortunately I again didn’t win my first fight, and consequently had no further opportunities. I did fight much better than in Bulgaria, however, and felt on another day I could have won. Austria was very beautiful. The competition was held in Oberwart, which was about 90 minutes from Vienna. We stayed in a kind of health village, about 10km from the venue. This time the participants were spread about five hotels in the same little village, I was lucky enough to stay in probably the smallest one, which had a family-run feel and delicious meals. Unfortunately to get to weigh in on Saturday morning I had to walk uphill in sub-zero temperatures for 15 minutes to get to the main hotel, which is certainly not ideal. In addition to the proximity of hotels there were other logistical problems, including the official bus forgetting to collect people from my hotel on the morning of the competition, which resulted in us arriving very late, and leaving minimal time for a warm up. The only large team staying with us was the Dutch, and their coach was very nice to me, a lone kiwi, and made sure I got into the extra transport she arranged. As for the fight itself, I drew Morocco which is not traditionally a strong judo country, and managed to learn she is right handed. The fight was very even at the start, but I got thrown for wazari about three minutes in, and again with 20 seconds to go. I was not happy, and when I was fighting I felt a lot less than 100%. As always I have learnt a lot from this experience. No excuses, I had an off day and performed below my ability level.
So, now in Germany. Arrived Sunday night, was happy to be collected at the airport and taken to my hotel as I was worried they might have forgotten about a team of one arriving on Sunday. I met up with another kiwi Jason who is from my club, and who competed in the competition, and with the two Australians he trains with in Paris. It was good to see them again.
Monday morning we had first training at 11, 4 x 4 min newaza and 5 x 5 min tachiwaza. I had quite a good session, did particularly well in the newaza managing to hold down some good fighters. The tachiwaza was also quite good, but I have a bad habit of saying yes to everyone who asks to fight me no matter what size they are, and this resulted in me fighting a couple of heavyweights. I really should stop fighting much bigger people at training camps, I just feel rude saying no if I don’t have a partner already. I guess that’s one of the things about being a full-time athlete, you have to learn to be selfish and do what’s good for you, even if it’s not nice and polite.
Monday afternoon was 9 x 5 min tachiwaza, and I had an ok session. I fought lots of random Germans, along with a few foreign fighters. I arranged to fight one of the top Japanese fighters 7th but she forgot and by the time she managed to tell me there was no one left without a partner, so I had to sit that one out. Apart from that I did all the fights, and was able to work on some of my gripping targets.
It has been good to not be alone for once, there are a few Camberley players at the camp and our coach Luke has come along for a couple of days. I think this is the first time I’ve had a coach at a camp, and it’s so good to receive some feedback, something I’m really not used to.
I’m looking forward to going to Prague. I’m going to concentrate on preparing to fight my best for the rest of the week, and also on making weight and doing some preparation for my PhD viva which is less than a month away. Sometimes it gets hard to know where to best put my energies, all part of the challenge of trying to live life to the full!