Qualifiers: soak it all in

The best part about the club volleyball season is going to the qualifier tournaments. For those of you who don't know, a qualifier is a tournament that if your team does well enough, you can qualify for Nationals. These qualifier tournaments are the most amazing things. You walk in to these giant convention centers and there is just court after court. There are like 100 of them! If that's not cool enough, there's venders set out all around. You can get really cool things like headbands, clothes, and I've even seen phone cases and random stuff like that. Going to these tournaments just makes me feel like a professional. 

These tournaments are incredibly tough to win. It depends on the division you play in, but all of them are hard. I'm not sure what all of the divisions are, but I do know that the top division is called the open division. In this division, you have to be super really absolutely fantastic otherwise you're going to lose almost every game. Yay for my team because we are playing in the open division for most of the qualifiers we go to. We have to be on our game! 

I wish that I could have been on good teams every year I play volleyball because the qualifiers are the best part and I haven't been to one since I was like 13. That makes me super excited for next weekend because my team is going to our first qualifier in Minneapolis. It's a 3 day tournament and we have to do good on the first day for any of it to count. Wish us luck!

Let the running begin...

The time has come!!!! Yes you guessed it, track season is almost here! Exactly 23 days until first practice! How do we feel about this? I'm feelin a little shaky, considering there's still snow on the ground, but I am very excited.

Last year, the season at my school was a little rough. We have over 2000 people in our school and yet only 30 girls go out for track. Doesn't seem right does it? So if you didn't already guess, that means we're lacking in the speed department. We only had 1 girl go to Drake Relays this year and my freshman year I had 3 events go, plus like 15 more events.

Track is an individual sport, but it's also a very team dependent sport too. If your not fast enough to make it to State in open events, your whole team has to be on point. One messes up hand off and all your hopes and dreams are over (maybe I'm exaggerating that!). 

I am dreading the first, maybe 2 weeks or so of season because those are the days where your getting back into running everyday  and your legs feel like they are going to fall off. This happens to me every year! Last year was a little worse because I'm vitamin D deficient and apparently if you don't have enough vitamin D in your body, your muscles can't get rid of lactic acid (the stuff that makes it sore). It was a terrible time! I recommend taking ice baths, they actually work. It is terribly hard to make yourself do them, but it's worth it I promise! Once you force yourself to get in, stay in for like 10 minutes. Your legs will eventually go numb so it won't be as bad!

Practicing is a hard thing to do for track because if you're not already fast, there's not much practicing can do to help you. Plus, practices at our school are outrageous. One day last year, we did 17 200's at 100%. I felt like I was going to die! In the long run, I think those kind of days paid off because we turned our season around and ended up bringing 18 girls to the State Track Meet. Always a really fun experience. It is very important for every runner, may you be distance or sprinter, to work on your fast twitch and your slow twitch muscles. Alternate days of practicing hard sprinting and days of longer strides. For sprinters, long strides are not as important unless you are a 400 runner. 

Hopefully you are all ready to get runnin, because first day of practice is right around the corner!