4:45am a groggy and anxious team Canada met at the Calgary Airport to depart to Medellin Colombia for the Roller Speed Skating Championships. 3 plane rides and a bus ride later we arrived at our Hotel at 11:30pm. Now, the bus ride from the airport to the hotel was an experience in itself. The speed limit was 80km/hr and our bus was chugging along at maybe 40km/hr - we could have skated to the hotel faster. At one point I honestly thought we would have to get out and push this poor dying bus up a hill. After a good 20 minutes on a ride that was only supposed to take 5 we eventually turn down this sketchy dirt road that's only fit for 4x4's. The rollercoaster like road is filled with massive holes and puddles overshadowed with overgrown vegetation, looking like something right out of a horror movie - and for a moment I thought we were actually being kidnapped - until we turn and stop at the front gate of the hotel Rondalla. I actually let out a sigh of relief as we safely arrived at our destination - in the middle of the Colombia jungle.
The Hotel itself is very nice and clean and the staff are amazingly accommodating. After our translator helped us check in and showed us to our rooms we went into the dining hall where the cooks, whom I'm almost positive just woke up for us, made the team warm sandwiches and peach mango juice at 11:30 at night. It was a nice welcoming after a long day. The rooms are both very spacious and clean - although there is a huge gap underneath our door which leads right outside, which makes me think of all the creepy crawlies that could get in, so far I have only seen 1 moth, and I hope that's all we find.
This morning was our first track practice; the team mostly just tested wheels. We started off with a few laps in a pack to get a little comfortable and acquainted with the track. It's been quite a while since anyone of us has even been on a banked track. Alex and Brett were the lucky ones and were at the Banked track clinic this past may, Mackayla and I haven't been on one in about a year and a half, and poor Tyron has never been on one. So needless to say we had our reservations about stepping on the track for the first time. After the ten easy warm up laps everyone seemed to settle in, learn a few of the lines, then the boys decided to open it up a bit and test their limits. The rest of the practice was all about trying different wheels and combinations. Most of us ended up liking a harder wheel than what we started with.
The altitude here in Guarne is higher than Calgary, and I think between that and a long day of travel yesterday, the team noticed they were all a little off, a little sluggish this morning. The afternoon practice was better; we were all more comfortable and started to feel out faster speeds on the track. The boys really started to come into their own and looked awesome flying around the track. Tomorrow will be an even better day when we are even more rested and acclimated.
After the first practice, our translator took us to the grocery store so we could buy water and snacks. The walk there was quite interesting; there were lots of little shops along the tiny street which was filled with buses, cars, motor bikes and pedestrians all trying to share the same space. We passed by a butcher shop with an entire cow carcass laying on the counter and the butcher would cut a chunk out of it, wrap it and pass it to the customer - it was quite the culture shock. The grocery store was tiny, with only 3 isles and smaller than a 7/11, it was difficult to move around with our skate bags. We ended up buying out most of their water supply and then had to trek back to the track carrying everything we bought - 10L of water gets heavy very fast.
The food here has been pretty good so far, there has been something for everyone, including pasta and tomato sauce for Brett, and wheat free options for me!!! Alex seems to like everything no matter how strange it looks. There is fresh fruit juice with every meal, and some sort of dessert afterwards served after lunch and dinner. Brett and Mackayla didn't like the dessert that was served with lunch, the cooks found out they liked ice cream and 3 minutes later they had ice cream in front of them. The staff just want to make us happy; they asked us what kinds of food we like to eat so they can make it for us. It very comforting to know that there is good food for us to eat everyday, and we don't have to take chances with random restaurants.
Tomorrow we have a very early track practice and then an afternoon road practice.
The organization of the practice times seems to a bit of a nightmare. We get the next days practice schedule the night before, and then it changes in the morning. This mornings practice went well and we were back on the track. Everyone seemed more comfortable than yesterday; we all hit faster speeds, worked on some transitions, passing, and accels. Most of the team doesn't seem to be affected by the altitude anymore, all expect for me where my asthma is acting up with the thin air - not much I can do but wait it out and see if it gets better.
Our afternoon practice did not go as smooth as this morning. We got to the track at 2:30 and the only people there were the construction workers. (Side note: there are only 2 days left until opening ceremonies and they are still working on the track!!!) Usually when we get to the track there are other countries skating, the first aid tent set up, translators and organizing staff, however today … nobody. We waited 20 minutes to see if anything would happen, if we could skate or not, when our Policeman showed up and we found out nothing would be happening for a while. So we decided to walk back to the grocery store this time though with our own personal Police escort. (Another side note- we now have our own policeman that is with us wherever we go). Our poor Policeman doesn't know a lick of English, if we have any questions for him he calls our translator to see what we want; it's quite the process but it seems to work so far. Once we got back to the track, Tyler tracked down the track organizer guy and asked about the practices today - this is when we found out that our practices today were actually supposed to be for 10am and 5pm, not 8 and 3 that we were told last night. At this point is was 4:20 and our taxis were coming to pick us up to go back to hotel at 4:45 - luckily Carlos our translator showed up and was able to call the hotel to delay our food, and ask the taxi drivers if they minded waiting for us to train.
With all the confusion this afternoon, it actually worked to our favour as we had the track all to ourselves for a good 20minutes until other teams showed up. It was awesome trying out some time trial starts, transitions and lines without having packs flying by as you're starting or skaters on the line that you would need to take for an actual 300m time trial. For me personally, I loved that Tyler could walk onto the track and show us exactly where we need to start and where to start the transition into the corner - with 40 other skaters on the track that's next to impossible.
All of us were on our road wheels, since the afternoon practice was supposed to be on the road, but with all of the confusion we ended up having another track practice. What was interesting was that we all liked our road wheels better on the track, than what we used earlier in the day. So if we didn't have all of this organization mess up, we may never have tried the road wheels on the track and found out they work the best for us. I guess there really is a silver lining in everything.