Overcoming the rigors of long-distance travel
Sep 6, 2012, 1:56 PM | Updated: Sep 7, 2012, 11:04 am
By Sigi Schmid
Well, last week was a long trip and then some. Traveling is great when you are on vacation and going to places you enjoy and can stay for a while with no time schedules.
That was not the case for us. Tuesday morning we got to the airport at 4:30 a.m. to leave for Houston, connected in Houston for Port of Spain in Trinidad, got delayed and arrived finally at 11:30 p.m. We got to our hotel, had dinner and went to bed around 2 a.m. Wednesday.
The next day we let the players sleep in, had breakfast at 11 a.m. before stretching at 3 p.m., then lunch and left for training at 5:30 p.m. The bus ride took over an hour. It only took 20 minutes to get back after training. The pleasures of traffic.
Thursday we played and won. It was important for our points in the group stage of this tournament. The game kicked off at 8 p.m. and we got back to the hotel around 11:30 p.m. It was the 50th year national independence day in Trinidad. The players had dinner and then we were up the next morning at 4:15 for a bus departure to the airport. But the bus never came, so we scrambled for cars to take the team and bags to the airport so we would not miss our flight.
Thank goodness for the efforts of Grant Clark and Vince Johnson and their quick thinking.
We connected in Miami and got into Dallas and its 100-degree heat on Friday at 3 p.m. We just left the 90-degree heat and 80 percent humidity of Trinidad. At 5:30 the players who started the night before did a regen training at the hotel and the others went to train on the Dallas training fields.
Saturday we got to sleep a full night and then trained at 11:30 a.m. on a high school field since there were no training fields for us at Pizza Hut Park. The school was very nice but the field was not the best, but training went okay. We had dinner and our video meeting that evening.
Sunday we played and then we had a normal night’s sleep and left for the airport at 8:45 Monday morning to return to Seattle.
Want to join us on our next trip?
We eagerly await Chivas this Saturday, mainly because we are at home all this week. Look forward to seeing all of you, the best fans in America.
Take care,
Sigi