Aug 5th – The big show is getting closer and closer.

Today I decided to sleep in a bit, and was actually able to because I was pretty tired from all the stuff we did yesterday. Anyways when I woke up I went down stairs to the internet room and lounge area for team Canada, which is right here in the apt and made something to eat. Oh yeah if you don’t want to head all the way over to the cafe. You can grab something from here – they have snacks, cereals, toast – meal replacement drinks, stuff like that! After Eating and little bit and checking my email it was already time for practice, so I headed off to catch the bus. Each day we have a scheduled time for 11:30 so we leave around 11am for the venue in the bus. This morning on the bus ride over I was taping my fingers and getting myself ready for practice when one of the Brazilian gymnast who was sitting beside me asked me at the time, asked why I was taping my fingers, to which I replied - for Judo because we do a lot of gripping and my fingers get sore. She kind of smiled a bit and then showed me her hands. WOW I mean when you look at these girls they look like they are 10yrs old, but in fact they have to be at least 16 to compete at the games because of the pressure countries would put on the really young ones. Anyways this girl showed me her hands and the whole palm of her hand, all the way down to her wrist and father was one big cracked callus.. I can’t even imagine how painful that is. Here I am taping my fingers, being this tough guy and there is this 80lbs girl beside me with war wounds worse than my collie ear lol. Anyways just thought I would share that with everyone. Today at practice I did a little less drills and a little more randori then I did at the first practice, I did 5 rounds of 4min.

After practice we headed back to the Olympic Village, showered, ate lunch and went to check out the gift shop to get some cool presents and whatnot - for friends and family before they sell out of everything -which surprisingly they already are starting to do. On our way there we got a free stuffed animal which is one of the 5 Olympic mascots – so that was pretty cool – free stuff is great! When we got to the Gift area, which is huge by the way, I didn’t think I was going to buy anything right away – but when I got into the store and started looking around, well that idea of not buying anything went out the window, 250$ later I was out of there lol. I’ll probably end up buying a lot of stuff here, seeing how its china. We are going to hit up the silk market next week after we are done fighting as well.

The silk market is where you can buy nice stuff for pretty much nothing compared to back home. I think I am going to get a tailor made suit, which would go for about 800-1000 back home. Here it’s only around 120$! Anyways after our shopping day we headed back to our room for a little R&R before I had my sports Dr. Meeting at 6. We are pretty lucky because are Doc is with us here from back home. Anyways we just talked about being mentally ready and how to stay relaxed but focused on the task ahead, not to stress out too much, stuff like that! At this level the difference maker in a lot of cases is who makes a mistake first - which is normally traced back to a mental error. Anyone can win, and me seeing him and talking to him just gives me that much more of an edge. I mean if you’re not good at a sport, seeing someone about your mental game won’t make you a champion, but at this level studies say it is the key factor to make it to that next level, and I will continue to see him even after these games are done, leading up to the next games in 2012, but for now it’s all about 2008 – and bringing home that medal!!

After chatting it up with My doc, we shot around the basketball a bit(Canada has their own net) and then I went for my run, after my run I ate some dinner and we played some video games in one of the main buildings – they have all these building all over the Olympic village where you can use the internet, play arcade games and just hang out watch TV, etc.. Oh yeah and I met up with my buddy Mike yesterday.... for people who don’t know who Mike is, Mike is one of my friends who I grew up with in Perth and who also made these Olympics for swimming, actually I have another friend who made it to the games as well but for hammer throw, she is also from Perth. The cool thing about that is we all graduated together from P.D.C.I high school in Perth Ontario. Not bad for a small town eh :P... something in the water – or so they say. I say it’s because were from a small town, and there is nothing else to do haha jk.. GO PERTH GO... anyways after that we headed off to bed..