Las VEGAS!!!

Really wanted to write this sooner, but after a very annoying 6 hour delayed flight in Denver I didn't arrive back to Toronto until 4am Tuesday morning.... then sleeping-in and having a busy day yesterday there was no way I could get this posting before this morning. Las Vegas, the last of the World Cup Season....definitely a great place to hold this event. Unfortunately for me, it was probably one of the worst tournaments I can remember. Nothing at all went right. How can I explain it....? Think "overload", or going "stale" we say in the sporting world which may best describe it. Since August of last year I have been eating, sleeping and breathing fencing. Since January its been a traveling schedule that, as you have read, could make Jacques Cousteau jealous. With all that, and the hours daily I've been putting in at training, it just felt like I had hit a wall. I had nothing to give. Even though my physical, technical and tactics at this point are at they're peak my mind felt like a jelly doughnut had been stomped on. I couldn't focus, I couldn't think straight and honestly I wasn't having a good time. We call this "burn out". Thank goodness there wasn't a team event this time (which is my main concentration at this point)....so it was decided at dinner on the Sunday night that the best thing for me right now is to take two weeks off. Even though I don't want to, but as it goes sometimes you need to take one step back to go two steps forwards. To forget about fencing. To clear my head and think about friends, work and other sports.....maybe throw in a party and some dangerous tricks....so that when I return I'm hungry for it. This is probably the most common issue in sport. Keeping a tight mental game throughout an entire season, tournament after tournament, its feels like being a deer caught in head-lights, you don't know where to turn. So with that all said, your help is needed too. If I'm going to forget about fencing for two weeks, you have to too!! If you see me out at the bar, walking down the street or flying a kite lets chat about, uhmmmmm, something else....the weather, Wimbledon or even Paris Hilton (yes, I would stoop that low)....just remember its all for a good cause!!

Vegas on the other hand, is unlike any other city I've been to. The lights, the casino's, the people...its like a glorified Walt Disney World for adults. Non stop betting, drinking, dinner party's and shows, these people love the life money whether they have it or not!! I must admit I gave my hand to the Roulette table and a little BlackJack just to taste the addiction.....fun it was there is no doubt about it, but didn't win enough to make me want more. Saturday night a couple of us went to see the Celine Dion show at Caesar's Palace. Thanks to Michel's wife, who is family friends with Rene Charles (Celine's husband) made a last minute phone call and managed to score some 6th row tickets. I mean I'm really not a fan of her music (even though she is Canadian) but the show was spectacular. Vegas knows how to do it right...I was in awe the entire time!!!

Sorry, but only three pic's this trip. With such a poor showing I wasn't really in the mood to walk around with a camera around my neck. Except for the last day, when I was chilling at the pool side catching some rays, man that desert sun is hot. Then on the way to the airport I noticed a roller coaster weaving its way through the downtown strip which deserved a quick snap-shot.....but that was it, three shots for good luck!!

As the summer time is in full force now there is a lot to keep me busy. Haven't been able to get the MG out yet, so I think I'll wax it up and take it for a cruise this week. Canada day long weekend too, think I'll head up north for some real Canadian R&R.....sun, a dock and some cold pop's!!! What else does a fencer need?

Talk to you soon.