First post from Worlds

World Championships start on Thursday in Budapest. Pentathlon is considered a national sport here, and the Hungarians are eager to put on a good show. Unlike in America, everyone here seems to be familiar with the sport and excited about the upcoming competition.

I arrived here on Sunday after taking a Saturday night flight out of the US. While this is the last chance for people to qualify for the Olympics, it is serving as more of a practice competition for those of us who have already qualified. Because of this, I have been training extremely hard for the last few weeks and have only given myself a short period of rest to prepare for Worlds. Given that we are less than three months until Beijing, now is not the time to be slacking off in training. So right up until the morning I left, training went on as normal.

The venues here are fantastic. Everything is within a half mile of our hotel and all facilities are located in one location. Because most of the facilities are set up as temps, the construction workers are still building them today, only two days before women’s semi-finals. To get everything in one location, the Hungarians have built a 25 meter pool adjacent to the riding venue. This will allow people to see the swim, ride, and run without leaving their seats. We have heard that all 10,000 seats will be filled during the finals.

I have two more days to rest and adjust to the jetlag before competing. Getting over here 4 days ahead of time was a good call because I am extremely tired today and would probably not compete well. Hopefully I can fully recover during the next couple days and be at 100% by the time men’s semi-finals hit. It will take a good day just to make the final here so being adjusted to the time and rested from the travel is extremely important.

Cami is also here this time and will be guest blogging here for the next week. She has our good camera and our video camera, and together we will try to do our best to share this experience with everyone back at home.

Stay tuned, more from Budapest tomorrow.