Senior World Championships 2013

Senior Worlds this year was in Taiwan! I was so excited to be going to such a neat country and experience a new culture. The flights and trip over were extremely long and the time change was about 10 hours different. We had an extra day to acclimate to the time and area, but was difficult to train much with the heat and high humidity. The pool felt like a hot tub and was hard to swim in and do a workout. I definitely had quite a bit of culture shock in Taiwan. Not many people spoke English and many of the signs or places had any English. It was a great experience but proved to be a little difficult at first.

 

We were also in the middle of typhoon season during the time we were there which ended up changing around part of our competition schedule.  For the women’s semifinal they had to split the events into two days and also had to change the men’s competition around. On the first day the women competed in the fencing and swimming events, and the combined event the next day.

The semifinal group I was in we competed in swimming first. I was happy with my time as it was close to my personal best from before surgery. I even slipped on one of the walls so was happy to feel stronger in the water and be back to swimming closer to my best times. Thankfully in the fencing we had air conditioning, but it was still pretty hot and humid. The fencing was hard and proved to be very difficult. I didn’t finish with a great score or quite what my goals were. I was a little disappointed, but my hip felt so strong and I was moving really well with no pain. This was a huge breakthrough for me mentally as fencing was the one event that was the most painful on my hip and the most difficult thing to get back into from the surgery. Because of the typhoon we had our combined event moved to the next day and our shooting was moved inside as well. I was happy to have more rest so that I could run hard and try to make it into finals.

The running course was wet from the rain and we would all be running up and down stairs to get to the shooting range. This definitely tested all of the athlete’s ability to adapt to change; we were all in the same conditions and had to be a little cautious on the course and the stairs. In the combined event I was able to move up a significant amount to finish in 25^th. My coaches were extremely happy with the way my running and swimming had progressed and my ability to come back from the surgery. I was not completely satisfied with the outcome, but looking back to where I was coming from and only 9 months since surgery I was happy to be feeling strong again and not having pain in my hip anymore!

 

 One of the nights a few teammates and I were able to go to the night market in the city. This was quite the experience. There were isles and isles of shops with clothing, jewelry, arcade games, food, toys, and all kinds of things. There were some strange foods that were cooking such as frog, squid, and many other things I am not even sure what they were which made for some pretty bad smells. It was definitely an experience to have and see in Taiwan. The night life was crazy and it was almost as if the town came to life when the sun went down with all of the bright lights and shops that were open. Our hotel was also near a lake with a lot of neat temples and buildings around it. We got to walk through one where people entered through the dragon and left through the tiger which was supposed to bring good luck. I was intrigued by all the shops along the streets selling fruit and different types of food and drinks.

 

While in Taiwan I was also able to compete in the women’s relay with Isabella Isaksen and Grace Kittle. We had a rough start to the event in the fencing portion, but had a strong swim to help bring us up in placing’s a little. The riding event was a lot of fun and I immediately clicked with my horse. He was great and we had a clear round on the course. Unfortunately my teammates had some troubles and we had some refusals and rails down which led to time faults and for us to drop back to 10^th place. We all had good combined events, but the rest of the field did as well and we were only able to move up one place into 9^th. Although it wasn’t the outcome we wanted it was still valuable experience and I was happy to be back competing on the international circuit!

I was happy to be able to qualify and compete at Senior World Championships this year especially with my gun breaking at Junior Worlds. I was not expecting to be able to come back and compete at the senior level this year especially at only 9 months post-surgery. I am excited for next season and there is only room to improve and keep working my way to Rio in 2016!