Paris

Been fairly good so far here in Paris. Left Charleston on Monday after a good workout in a local gym. Phil and I got a bit lucky and were able to upgrade on our flight from D.C. to Paris. Always nice being in those reclining seats in business class and getting a nice dinner to boot. Got into Paris on Tuesday morning about 7am. Took a taxi down to the site and did a sand plyo workout like we normally do at home. Let me tell you, that was mucho difficult. Been on a plane all night long and then going to the beach and jumping, sprinting ect... Took a long warm-up before and a long cool down afterwards.

For the entire day we just stayed down at the site and stretched, watched country quota matches and tried not to think that it was still 3am or 6am in the morning back home. We managed the entire day at the site and then took a taxi to our hotel. Paris is booked solid with this FIVB event, a huge AIRBUS airshow, and some music festival going on throughout the city. We had to book a hotel about a 30 minute cab ride from where we are playing. Fortunately, we only had to stay there one night. We were going to get up at 6am and go play but when the alarm went off I asked Phil if he was ready to roll and he said absolutely not!!! So we slept till about 11:30am and then made ourselves get up out of bed. It was very difficult. We went to the site and played a little to break a sweat and touch the ball. Then we finished the day by checking into the players hotel, only about 5 minutes from the site, and then had dinner. Finally got to bed around midnight.

Today we didn't have to play until 1pm. This was nice as some had to play at 9am and I know that Phil and I would have really struggled. We got up a little after 9am and had breakfast. They have a nice free breakfast at the hotel here. We mosied down to the site for our 1pm game. We played Herrera Mesa from Spain and beat them in three. 21-7, 20-22, 15-11. It was a good game as they are a solid team.

In our second game we played the Laciga brothers from Switzerland. We played very well and won 21-14, 21-13. Paul Laciga is set to retire after the World Championships in Switzerland at the end of July. He is playing with his brother because Martin's normal partner is injured. They did not look too fired up during our match.

Tomorrow we play a team from the Netherlands at 10:30am. Hopefully our bodies are starting to adjust and it won't be too tough of a wake up call.