September 2nd - Elena Pirozhkova

Today is our third day here in Ostia, Italy. The weather is amazing...its a bit hot during the day but the morning and evenings are a cooler which is nice when you go out for a stroll along the water. On the schedule we had a team mat practice in the morning and then open mat/game in the evening.
      Practice is short and sweet. There is nothing you can really change at this point technically. All this years hard work has lead up to this point... you either did the work or you didn't. We go over focus areas Terry has for us and do some live 3 min goes. Right now its all about just getting your body feeling good and staying in a good mind set.
    Between practices its hard to stay awake since we really haven't adjusted to the time yet so we resort to caffeine.  Me, Helen, Vicki, and some of the junior guys that are here with the mens freestyle team head to a cafe on the beach and kill time with some ridiculous "would you rather" scenarios along with too many lattes and cappuccinos.
    Evening is on our own. Some people come in to play soccer, some are wrestling, and other just doing cardio to get their weight off. But we all end up in the sauna.
     We are less than a week out from the start of the tournament and you can see people getting focused. Its one of my favorite times during the year, the week leading up to competition. Every one has a different "ritual" of how they get ready for the tournament and how they cut weight. You can tell there is a tension in the air...Everyone is walking a fine line of staying focused, but not to focused.  Staying relaxed, but not to relaxed. Trying to get to that perfect zone where you feel your body and mind are ready to compete.
    Terry tells us there is never a moment where you feel like "yep I'm ready" so I try not to look for it. You just have to trust yourself that when the moment comes you will do what you have been trained to do.