At least the train is always on track...

Things were definitely not running smoothly for Pio in the game against Burgos last Friday... Or in the game this weekend against Arxil. I have nothing to say about the Arxil game except that we lost and that it was very cold on the bench...(If you want to know more go here)  So I'd rather tell you about the previous week.

We left early on a rainy Friday morning for the road trip to Burgos. For the first time I was able to sleep for most of the 6 hour on the bus as we drove east, and before I knew it we pulled up to the hotel. The first thing I noticed about the city was that it was excellent for riding a bike as it was flat and had more than 1 km of bike lanes :-P The game was not until late in the evening so after our pre-game meal we had time for a much needed nap (yes, another one ;) ). Sleeping is a great time-killer! The only bad thing about naps is that I always have these crazy dreams that feel so real it's scary. Usually they are so weird and twisted that there is no way they could be real though...

Anyways, time to get on the bus! I had my music, my painkillers and my mind set on the game. At least trying as hard as I can to just focus on what I have to do on the court and not on the pressure to perform or the pain. Those that know me would be able to tell that I haven't been completely myself lately. Telling yourself not to think about something usually doesn't work very well. I have to admit that I had I had one big thought in the back of my head; after this game I was going to have to stop for a while to heal my plantar fasciitis. The bad thing is that this was my biggest motivation to get this game started :-P  For those that don't know, the pain can be excruciating! An advice: if you start getting it: stop doing whatever is aggravating the inflamed arch tendon because it will get to a point where it hurts ALL THE TIME. Hiding the pain with anti-inflammatory drugs might be worth it in the start, but not when you can't walk or stand because it hurts too much... I know I'm not the only one that is having or has had the same problem and I want to thank all my friends that have given me tips on how to treat plantar fasciitis :)

Looks like I'm trying to fly away... 

Let's get back on track to where I was, the game in Burgos; we did not get off to a good start :( giving up 5 offensive rebounds in a row is not how you win games... But we did end up with 4 more boards than them in the end. I'm sad to say the game was never really close, but a 20 deficit is not much in basketball and we had every possibility to battle back in the second half. We did battle, for a little bit, but Burgos took advantage of our zone which left them with wide open shots from the 3pt line too many times. Their 41% against our 17% made a huge difference. Coming out of our zone we did better and won the 3rd quarter by 5. 10 mins should be plenty of time as long as we get stops on defense I thought, but I felt like when we didn't succeed we fell apart (or derailed I should say). Final score 76-57... Not many happy faces after the last buzzer went off, but I did see one smiling lady in the stands behind our bench. Yes, my mom was at the game and it was comforting to get a hug and some Freia melkesjokolade after a game like that. "At least you made all your free-throws" was the first thing she said to me haha :)

Instead of climbing back on the bus and head back to Santiago I stayed with my mom who was in Spain until Monday for "educational purposes" (one day at the science museum in Burgos!) I had the weekend off and only had to be back in Santiago before Monday afternoon so we quickly planned to take the train to Barcelona the next morning! It wasn't just any train either, but a super-fast one (or two since we had to change on the way). Traveling at over 200 km per hour is fun! My mom of course had her camera and spent most of the trip snapping pics of the landscape, while I watched a movie and played some games in addition to a mandatory nap :) A few hours later we arrived at our destination: BARCELONA

To be continued...

The sun is always shining somewhere!!

If that is true, it has been far away from Santiago the past week...  I'm trying to start to appreciate the wet weather, but I found myself missing the snow at home in Norway instead. Pouring rain can be depressing and when it's combined with a long bus ride home from a 7 point loss against the league-leader, the best thing is to curl up under a blanket with some music and try to get some sleep. Buut, that's not always easy for a frustrated mind. The game went by so fast compared to what I usually feel. It was a close game until we all of a sudden were down by about 10 points with 5 minutes to go. Before that we had a few runs to take the lead ourselves and I really thought it was, like coach said "nuestro partido", but Zamora is a team that knows how to make important shots and wouldn't let us pull away. A lot of those shots were after grabbing offensive rebounds which was what hurt us the most throughout the whole game. This is frustrating enough if you're in the game, but even worse when you're on the sideline watching most of the time... I have to rewind one week to tell the whole story. 

Since August I've been having some problems with my feet that with physiotherapy have been a non-issue up until a couple of weeks back when the plantar fasciitis in my left foot got really bad. I know a ton of people experience or have experienced this extremely painful condition that makes getting up in the morning even harder to do. Last weekend we played at home against the bottom team and we won, but the pain was worse than ever. I talk to the physio and then coach and make a deal that I try to stick it out for the next two games since he tells me the team needs me. So last week I go through hell to get ready and prepared for the game in Zamora. Come Saturday I actually felt great and go through warm-ups almost pain-free :) I was prepared to not start and knew I would get my chance. I did and was focused to to my job, especially on defense and I did a good job. The best part was that my foot wasn't a problem at all, so it was a smack in the face when I only got to play 13 minutes (2pts, 3 rebs). I know I could've helped my team a lot more if given the chance. I'm usually not one to complain about a coach's decision because they know what's best most of the time, but shoot, they pay me to play so why not use me. I felt like the whole last week was a waste of time as I should have been resting to let my injury heal instead of fighting through it so I could sit on the bench and watch us lose... My goal this week is to communicate better with coach to understand what and why he does what he does. 

Over to something totally different and fun;

Not for me...

since we played on Sunday the previous week we had Saturday off! This was the same day "El Papa" came to visit Santiago so my teammate Lidia had the perfect plan for the day; take a trip and leave the chaos :) Andrea and I both agree she saved us from an otherwise very boring day. (I miss having a car...) Our destination was Pontevedra on the west coast, but on the way there we stopped in Caldas de Reis for lunch and some sightseeing. We ate a super nice little "Taberna" by the river. I think I mentioned before that the Spanish food is different and really an adventure in itself. I'm always ready to try new things, but this time I had to pass on the squid that had ink coming out of it... 

One of the locals came up to us while eating and introduced himself as "Papa Noel" and he really did look like Santa! He asked about us and told some stories from ancient Spain (From what I could understand. My Spanish still isn't great). Alejandra translated for me when he was telling us about a man that was being hunted by the church for saying that men and women are equal! I hope that was a really long time ago... One of the guys that worked there gave us a tip about "Cascada de Segade", a waterfall nearby, so we decided to go exploring to find it :) 

Cascada de Segade

We did find it and it was definitely worth it even though it was nothing like Niagara Falls ;) After a photo session by the water we moved on to the city of Pontevedra (only 40 mins away from Santiago.) We were going to see two of the teams in our league play in the evening, but before that we had some time to walk around and look in the shops. None of us ended up buying anything, but it was still a successful trip. After the game (Aviles beat Arxil) we drove home just tired enough to get a great nights sleep before gameday.