Last few days in Mountains

Back again. We are down to the home stretch of training camp in the mountains as we have one more weights session and practice tonight followed by weights and pool conditioning in the morning.  After that we will head back to Murcia for a day off and a few more weeks training camp practices I believe. Tuesday was an interesting day as we took part in a cycling class at a local gym for conditioning. This class was a pretty wild experience for me as a I would describe it as a mix between Cosmic Bowling, the upstairs dance floor at the Summit bar in Iowa City and the Tour De France.  Our instructor was a small blonde woman who had more energy than my mother (which is a lot of energy for anybody who hasn’t seen her teach a water aerobics class, epic!) and also was part time DJ and strobe light operator throughout the workout.  She would whistle loudly and shout things in spanish, but I had no clue what she was saying or attempting to say so I just followed everyone else and did what they did.  Was an interesting and quality conditioning workout. After the spinning workout we went to a local pool outside for some running that is easier on our bodies. This was a good time and a bit refreshing but of course I got sun burnt… One of the players on the younger team that is here with us who is from Montenegro said, “I thought I was white until I saw you”…ouch. Still a proud red neck Iowan though.  ANF!

Today we got the morning off to relax and sleep in a bit. I went for a walk up a mountain side close by to see the view and get an up close sight of this gigantic statue of Jesus Christ you can see all the way down in the village. The statue is named “Sagrado Corazón de Jesús” (holy Heart of Jesus) monument, by Nicolás Martínez (1954).I was very happy I decided to get up and do it because the views on the way up and at the top were breath taking. I’m going to try and take my family up here when they are here if we have time because the views are like something I have never seen before. The hike up the mountain took  20 minutes from our hotel and was a nice little workout in the morning sun. I am going to post a few pictures on the bottom of this blog from it. The interesting thing was on the way up the mountain there were smaller statues depicting the crusifixion of Jesus every   hundred yards (or METERS i should say) all culminating at the top with the gigantic statue of Jesus arisen overlooking all the villages below.  I thought it was a pretty cool experience and I’m glad I wasn’t attacked by a mountain lion as i was by myself…whoops mom.

I’m excited to get back to Murcia and get in my home for the next 9 months and get a car. The language barrier is difficult in practice as our head coach doesn’t speak too much english so the assistants and some of the other players help out as much as possible.  Just makes simple drills, such as layups, difficult to understand at first but hopefully my vocabulary and listening skills grow in Spanish. Hope all is well in Iowa and the States!

View of villages below. This is what the statue of Jesus overlooks.

 This is a view of the hotel we are at. I was about halfway up the hike here.

 Up close shot of Statue. Can see this statue for miles.

 

 

Training Camp

Hola from Spain!  I have been here 6 days now and figured I should get around to this blog thing and put some thoughts and experiences on paper.  It was a first few days as I really missed home and the realization of being gone for 9 straight months was hitting me pretty hard. Things have gotten a lot better since then though! The guys on the team are all real good guys which makes this a lot easier and better. The two guys I met first were Marcus Lewis from the states and Kim Tillie from France who is in the same boat as us Americans as he doesn’t know much Spanish and is a foreigner.  They are both good guys and easy to get a long with so we hit it off pretty quick.  We stayed in a hotel by our arena in Murcia the first few nights until Saturday when we met the rest of the squad and took off for training camp in the Spanish Mountains just above the village of Totana.  It is about a 40 minute drive from Murcia.  Our hotel is pretty incredible as my room looks right out onto the mountain range of Parque Regional de Sierra Espana. The photo at the top of the page is from the patio of my room. My roommate here during training camp is Berni Rodriguez. He is 32 and was once on the Spanish National team that finished second at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and first in the 2006 World Championships. He is a great guy that has helped me out a ton with the language barrier and other spanish tid bits.  It is kind of cool too since he is considered pretty famous here in Spain but is very down to earth and helpful. We have had 4 practices here in the mountains while also doing weights and conditioning running the hills up here in the mountains. Last night the whole team took off and went to the coast about 45 minutes away for dinner at a great pizza joint.  It has been fun getting to know the different guys on the team and start creating some chemistry with them on and off the court.

Some things I have noticed in my first week in Spain: They love to eat a lot of bread at every meal, the fruit is amazing, they love american music, we participate in siestas after lunch (which is awesome), the weather and terrain in this area is similar to that of southern California (I’m told it rained 6 days last year), all the people are very nice and they diet coke is coke light.