WELCOME!

Welcome to the CAN Fund Athlete Blog!
This is where Canadian Athletes will be posting as they train and prepare to represent Canada on the World Stage! Keep up to date on when and where our athletes are training and competing!

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

NIKOLA GIRKE- Sailing

After two weeks at home, I'm off again... No competitions this time, just training. My first week at home was spent recovering, the second was back at training - both on the water, dryland/gym and at the end of the week, just to finish me off, a fitness test! Needless to say...yoga was quite tough the following morning.

I arrived here late last night, my training started today (our session was already over by 7am my time!), in Santander, Spain (atlantic coast), at the Spanish Olympic Sailing Team training center. I'm joined by a really great group of girls - both on and off the water. Within our group (World #1 - Spanish sailor Marina, Lee from Israel, Demita from Mexico and Vicky from Hong Kong, and myself), we've got experts to cover all the bases: heavy, medium and light winds. The training facility is world class (we sleep here in dorm rooms looking out over the boat storage area and the harbour), there is a gym here on site as well as a gym/pool close by that we can go too. The sailing conditions here are good too, as is the surfing. It was a requirement to bring a surfboard :) And for all of you who've expressed some jealousy that I'm in Spain...it's NOT the warm part of Spain I just found out. It was a normal summer day today; 16 degrees and rain. Hmmm... I wonder why nobody told me that before I got here.

Attached are some pictures: the loading of the Spanish Van in Weymouth after Sail For Gold...little did I know until packing day that there are about 8 guys training in Santander too...and everyone's equipment had to go in or on the van. Not much room left for anything else!!! The pile of gear that we had to sift through to find our stuff. Our dorm room...before and after we moved in, and the view of where we are at the club. The town is very close...although I haven't seen any of it yet because it's been raining too hard.

And now it's off to try to sleep - should hopefully be a bit easier after a full day of sailing and the gym!

1 comment:

  1. Nice post. It is important that you learn on a safe, comfortable, high performance, well maintained boat.

    Boat charters Sydney

    ReplyDelete