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Hey guys or should I say "Nǐ hǎo".
Since I spoke to you last a lot has happened, I will start with how we are getting acclimatised. Apparently it takes two weeks to do this due to not only having travelled through 7 time zones but we have to get used to temperatures of 90 degrees plus with humidity of above 90 percent. I think we are only just getting used to it now. We have done endless amounts of fitness work in the last few months yet as soon as we started to train here we felt so unfit!! This is just our body getting used to the conditions apparently (I hope they’re right). Every time we have a break in play we put our hands and wrists in cold water for 1 minute and also put ice cold towels on the back of our necks, this is to reduce our core temperature. Along with this we weigh ourselves both before and after training and have been found we can lose up to 2 kg of body weight in the form of sweat in a training session. This in turn corresponds to 2 litres of fluid we have to replace straight after the session! I thought it would be worth putting up with this sort of heat for a nice tan when I get back. However, instead I have brown knees, face and forearms everything else is obviously covered. I suppose I can’t complain, as the keepers also have to wear big gloves…. We are playing 3 games while we are here in the training camp so we are used to playing 90 minutes in the heat and humidity. The first one was against China on Sunday, we got beat 1-0 which wasn’t the result we were looking for. There were a lot of positive aspects we can take out of the game and to be honest we could have won it. We had a few chances so now have to ensure that we become a little more clinical. It is all a learning curve so we are in the best shape possible for September 11th. No excuses but we did train on the morning of the game during the hottest part of the day and as I mentioned before we still aren’t actually fully acclimatised (yeah yeah..). We then are going to play a men’s team from Hong Kong and one from Macau, which should be a great test for us because of the higher tempo and strength the men have on their side – AND they are already acclimatised.We have been given quite a lot of downtime for rest and team bonding etc so on Saturday we decided to go to Macau town centre for either a shopping or historical viewing trip. Yeah you guessed it being female I went shopping and managed to get some great bargains. I wont say what the presents are as they will be great presents for friends and family when I get back. On my last trip I spoke of the interesting food, at this hotel the food has been fantastic however when we went shopping there was some interesting looking meats for sale, something they were cutting off with scissors. I hasten to add I didn’t try it. Don’t worry Jack (my pet dog) I haven’t eaten your Chinese Uncle. We have also decided to do a donkey of the day, which is the player who does or says something silly and they have to wear a t-shirt with “I am a donkey” together with rather elaborate donkey ears. This wouldn’t be too bad however in our holding camp there are lots of other teams and athletes staying here who I have to walk past during mealtimes. There have been a few classics like our goalkeeper who brought 1 studded boot and 1 moulded to training and had to wear them and yes she did get blisters with the studded boot as the ground is so hard. Before you ask I got the dreaded donkey top yesterday. It was only a matter of time being the dizzy blonde I am! I wore my sports bra back to front in swimming and didn’t realise doh! Anyway I am just out for training now it’s quite bizarre as I m writing this at 10am our time and all you guys will be fast asleep as its 3am in England. Dont forget let me know if you have any questions for me ( email via contacts) Sue |
