One of the reasons that I was happy to be leaving Norway, besides leaving behind non-paying and bankrupting soccer clubs, was the freezing cold weather. A regular day in winter last year was about minus 15 degrees C and hours of walking around cursing my decision to live somewhere that was so cold. In 2009, people tried to comfort me, telling me it was the coldest winter in Oslo’s last 30 years….and in 2010, with even colder weather, the same people were promising me that it was a freak 2 years. I learned some good lessons though including a) converse all-stars are not appropriate for winter in Norway no matter how cool you think they look with your outfit, b) playing outside in minus 15 is possible (we practiced outside 3 days a week) and c) you can get through any kind of bad weather with proper clothing (Yes, it took me a few years of cold weather to realize this).
So, I’m getting into a bit of a groove now here in CT. First of all, my training group is pretty fantastic. There is Brett Maron, Manya Makoski and Johanna Rasmussen (Danish Nat Team) from the 2010 WPS Beat, Tiff Weimer from the 2010 WPS Breakers, Casey Frobey, who was Fairfield U’s captain this year, and Alyssa Naeher from the WPS Breakers and US National Team. Not a bad group to kick around with.
We are taking full advantage of a pretty great set up with a place called UAC (United Athletic Center) that I raved about in a previous post, 3 indoor fields, a futsal court, a functional training area, and a full fitness room with cardio machines and weights. We are training 3 times a week with a guy Mike who is awesome. We do lifting, plyo/agility stuff and we do position specific work after.
Also almost every day we are playing pick up with a bunch of local guys. This has been pretty entertaining. We have a facebook group and its whoever wants to come shows up. We have had some pretty great sessions with some unreal players, but the other day I knew things would be pretty interesting, when a guy with pink Nikes showed up.
Already 5 minutes into the session, he had earned the name Ronaldinho from both his team and ours. All they had in common was their love of the scissors. Other than that, our Ronaldines, flailed his arms, took large gasps of air every time he made one of his moves, seemed to have no body control and would scream out phrases after someone would make a move, such as “ddduuuuuuuudeeee that’s siiicckkkkkk”.
It wasn’t the greatest quality session, but again something to be learned in every situation (this time, playing the ball quick when you have 6 foot uncoordinated guys barrelling down on you and try not to laugh when ronaldinho’s alter ego pants as he throws 25 scissors in front of you)
All in all, even though we’re dealing with snowstorms, and ice that makes this one of the worst winters in recent history, its a good time being out here.
Essays on Life 