Since the last post I was in the following places: Russia, Portugal, Holland, Home and now back to Portugal.
My trip to Russia was completely non-sailing related and was a fantastic break from the whole sailing scene. I got to see my brother, who is living out there for work. My sister also took some time off to make the trip out at the same time, so we had a great trip with the three of us for our first time ever. I got to see Moscow, St. Petersberg and Novgorad. Its a very neat place, with a lot of history!
This is a picture of the Hermitage in St Petersberg:
This is my Brother, Evgenia (his girlfriend), my Sister and I on a boat tour
After Russia I went directly to Cascais, Portugal. The venue for this years world Championships. I was there for 5 days of training, just to check things out and get an idea of that the place is like. It was certainly worth it as I feel a lot more relaxed now that I've returned. I was training in May with Nufar from Israel and Sara from Portugal as well as a couple of days with the British Team! It was good hard training with lots of wind for most of the days.
Photos courtesy of James Lucas
Holland was my last event that I did. This regatta, which is now called the Breitling Regatta (formerly SPA, formerly Holland Regatta) was yet another light wind event. That makes every regatta so-far this year to be light winds. It was very difficult for me, and I was getting extremely frustrated with my sailing. It did not help that I completely missed the first race of the regatta because I decided to tune up before the race and couldn't make it downwind in time for the sart due to a lack of wind. The rest of the regatta was a bit off after that. I don't even know where I finished there, but I had a couple decent races in the silver fleet... though I did not feel too good about being in silver fleet. The good news from that regatta is that Mike Leigh finished 3rd there, so that was really exciting!
Going home after Holland was such a nice feeling! It was so good to be back in Vancouver for a couple weeks... unwind a little and unpack. I was back in Vancouver for just over two weeks. I didn't do much sailing in that time, but I did hit the gym quite hard and got back on track with my fitness training which had slipped while I was travelling around everywhere.
This is a photo of me on my way up the Grouse Grind. I look happy, but my legs are burning and I'm dripping sweat! It was really fun, though I'm going to have to work on it so I can get under an hour! (for those of you who don't know, the grouse grind is a famous climb practically straight up a mountain in Vancouver. Its really beautiful!)
photos courtesy of James Lucas
Right now I'm back in Cascais in preparation for the world championships which start on the 4th of july. I will write another post tomorrow! Its late tonight, and I need my beauty sleep... or just sleep at any rate. Its supposed to be windy again tomorrow!
