It’s been a while since 1) I’ve blogged about rugby and 2) I’ve played high-level rugby. Since my last blog, I’ve been to San Diego and back again (for the third time in 2011) for the NASC 7’s championships. We (MARFU) were the defending champions, however NRU and Pac Coast bested us, and we ended up playing in the 5th place game, which we won (in dominating fashion against the South).
Immediately after returning to a wind-blown Richmond, post hurricane Irene, I jumped right into our club season. We (James River) only lost two matches this Fall and were in a three-way tie for second in our division. However, we failed to put up the points needed to give us that second-place seed and a trip to the playoffs, so we were left to cheer for Raleigh, who represented MARFU in the National Championships, and who eventually won it all.
A couple of free weekends and a Christmas 7’s tournament later, I’m now playing rugby again, only now I’m back with this group of freaks (see earlier blogs for proper context)—these women, who can’t get enough of rugby and who have dedicated a lot of their time and much of their effort to becoming the cream of the rugby crop (I think the rugby “crop” is like a cross between aloe and mango—hardy and able to heal itself, but delicious and a little exotic). It feels good. It feels like a vacation, despite the fact that we’ll have our noses to the rugby grindstone for the next four days with practices, skills sessions, meetings and of course physical assessments (including the beep test).
Tonight, we’ll have a dinner and a meeting and will try to prepare ourselves for the physical assessments tomorrow. There are about 120 women here (15s, 7s and collegiate players), so I’m wondering how the dining hall will accommodate us.
We’re staying at a training facility in Tigertown (Lakeland, FL). Apparently, and I’m just going on my eductions, this is a spring training facility for the Detroit Tigers. Of course, my brilliant eductions were based on the tiger paw prints everywhere, the Detroit Tigers logo on everything and the fact that the dining hall threw up Tigers baseball cards on all of the tables.
The rooms are a bit smaller than those at the Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista, the bathrooms more sparse and apparently, there’s a random baseball player on our floor, with whom we may or may not be sharing a bathroom.
These details aside, we’re all anxious to start tomorrow—what I mean by anxious, is that we want to get the physical assessments done and play rugby. Breakfast at 7am…it’s time for me to sign off. Sweet rugby dreams.
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