Chile: Round 2!

I am back in Chile for the second time this summer. With immigration at the airport I entered Chile through the citizen line for the first time (after coming through 6 times previously with a US passport). I felt a touch of national pride, and it was much faster than the foreigner line! I've done a lot of travel this summer, here’s a quick snapshot:

Miles flown so far: 17,200 | Miles yet to fly: 11,510 | Total: 28,710 | Completed: 60%

It rained in Santiago, which cleared away the smog.
Fresh snow on the Andes Mountains was absolutely stunning!

Training

Typical breakfast at CAR,
 the training center

I've been back in Chile training with the team for a week and half. I have to admit, coming back together was not as smooth as I hoped it would be, as we were not able to be 100% together as a team until this past Thursday. With the part of the team that arrived on the 10th of July, we did some fitness tests/max-outs. For weighted max-outs we did bench press, 45 degree squats (instead of 90 degree), weighted cable pulls from our knees to above our shoulders, weighted cable pulls from above our shoulders down to our knees, and the beep test. The way we maxed-out was different than what I’ve experienced before. Instead of warming up and deciding the weight you wanted to max-out at, everyone started with the same weight. Each round we added 10 pounds and had to do 5 reps to pass to the next round. Once you couldn’t lift the weight you were knocked out. We started at 55 pounds, and I went up to 145 pounds (bar with 50 pounds on each side), which meant I did 9 rounds of bench press! The next day on the beep test I achieved my personal best score, (I did the test in high school and college) and reached level 13!
Also, on the 4th day of practice we were scrimmaging against the U17 team when suddenly some teammates started running for the doors. I had no idea why, and then found out it was because of a small 4.4 earthquake. I hadn’t even noticed lol!

Games vs. Ecuador

We have played 2 out of our 4 exhibition games vs. Ecuador. Friday we played in San Fernando, and Saturday we played in Santiago. I learned and experienced a lot in my first international game. We rode a bus together with Ecuador to San Fernando. Game time was scheduled for 8pm, and that’s when we arrived lol, so we didn’t have very long to warm up before starting the pre-game announcements. Each player from both teams was announced, then we sung the national anthems of Ecuador and Chile. The high school sized gym was mostly full with about 600 people, who cheered often and were into the game.

The gym in San Fernando was very cold, and when
I came out from playing my head had a bunch of
steam coming off of it, like you see with
 players in the NFL during cold games.

 The style of play is a little different than the US. The game is more physical all around, with lots of grabbing and pushing on and off the ball that's not called. Ecuador is a quick and athletic team, and they have good drivers and passers. We pulled out an 8 point win, but we played mediocre. We went to eat dinner after the game at 11pm, left for home at 12:15am, got back to Santiago at 2:45am, and went to bed at 3am!

Yesterday in Santiago we played in front of about 500 people, and won by 4. It’s been good to win both games, but we have a lot to work on as a team. The biggest areas we need to improve is with our passing, limiting turnovers, hitting more of our open shots, and our help-side defense. Personally, I need get better at knowing the short 24 second shot clock, taking pull up jumpers or passing the ball back out to teammates (defense collapses quickly and strongly), using less dribbles, and shooting sooner.

Tonight we play in Talca, and tomorrow we play in Valparaiso. Then we practice here Tuesday-Friday, and fly to Brazil Saturday for a few more exhibition games.

I'm looking forward to playing more games and getting better each day!

What looks like art on my right knee is actually 

tape to limit swelling and keep me playing!

I've had great support from family and friends!