Tepic E16: IMPROVING SKILLS BUT LOSING… FRUSTRATING
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Tepic… the place we thought we were going to be taken last year (if you are unfamiliar with the story -> checkout last years blog). Needless to say, we were not super thrilled to be heading back to a place where we must rely on Subway to fuel us, but sometimes work takes us to less than ideal places and we must perform. However, there are some pros to playing in Mexico… only a two hour time difference, three and half hours was the longest flight (we did have 3 flights though), and Barbie and La Chaparitta were back in their birthing place.
We were scheduled to depart early Saturday morning to arrive in Tepic later that evening. We try to book our flights early so sometimes when the trip gets closer, we question our decisions. In this case we questioned it big time. Why were we going to spend two extra days in a place we are not fond of when we could stay home, get more training and stay in our time zone for as long as possible especially when scheduled for an 8am game Thursday morning. After deliberation, I got on the phone with Delta customer service to attempt a flight change less than 24 hours before departure. Unfortunately, the woman on the other side of the phone was not super friendly (usually hit or miss with these workers). After 30 minutes of being on the phone and on hold, she came back stating that it was going to cost $1400 per person to change. With Taryn standing next to me, I kindly asked the woman if I could briefly discuss the decision with my business partner to which she outright snarled. Taryn and I decided to ask her to confirm one more thing before making the change which meant back to listening to more of the annoying on hold music. Another 5 minutes go by and to my surprise I hear a new voice on the line, “Hi, this is __ your Delta customer service member. How may I help you?” What the heck just happened?? You’re telling me I have to go through this whole process again… yep, had to explain everything again but this time to a very friendly woman who after clarifying everything informed us it was going to cost $28 total to change the flight. Without any discussion with my other half, I made the change and we had the whole weekend at home! New plans had us leaving very early Monday morning after being able to hit the Ponchatoula Strawberry Festival, getting in a scrimmage against Mojib, our practice player/coach, and Drew, and lastly getting to spend an afternoon catching up with family… $28 well spent.
Monday morning came dark and early with a 4:10am alarm but it was time to be back on the road… it was competition time!
It’s crazy to think how spoiled we have gotten when it comes to flying… First, lounge life is really where it’s at. If you travel a lot, I HIGHLY suggest investing in a travel card that gives you lounge access. It has saved us so much money on airport food and drinks. Second spoilage… since we changed our flight last minute we “had” to each sit in the middle seat in comfort+. I know that makes us sound spoiled but with all the flying we have realized what works best for us and that is aisle seats. When traveling to an event we are really focused on hydration, so let’s just say the people in the aisle are not fans of us. I try to wait until they get up but sometimes (most of the time) I can’t. We landed in Mexico City and came to realize when searching for our connecting gate that pretty much half of the tournament was also on the flight. We decided to stay very close to Melissa Humana-Paredes because she speaks pretty fluent Spanish, so she would know what they were saying. After a delay we were finally boarded and I just so happened to be seated next to Mr.Skyball (aka Adrian Carambula). It’s still such a weird concept to me that we are peers to these people that I have watched and admired from afar only 3 or 4 years ago. We deplaned and headed to the provided transportation which again Melissa assisted with. Our shuttle consisted of Mel/Brandie, their physio and coach, Italian’s Carambula/Ranghieri and then us. A large amount of the conversation was why we were playing a beach volleyball event inside and in a place like Tepic. The venue is nice, but the host hotel and other accommodations are not the best.
TBH could eat it for another 5 straight days… never get tired of Mexican food
Taryn checked us in while I went to the restaurant and attempted to order chicken fajitas for us to split. I say attempted because there was a language barrier, but both sides were able to make it work… chicken with onions and peppers with beans and guacamole… little did we know this would be our exact dinner for the next 5 days since the provided meals were less than ideal.
We drew the short stick with our match on Thursday being the first of the day at 8am so we decided it was best to try and stay on that early schedule Tuesday and Wednesday by setting our alarms for 7am. We made our way down to breakfast which I was super pumped about… chilaquiles, beans and eggs. A Mexican breakfast is up there for one my favorites and it did not disappoint (similar to dinner – we both ate the same exact breakfast every morning). We hit the SmartFit gym next door after breakfast to get our leg day in. The process of getting into this gym was like trying to go through TSA… they needed our passport number and our fingerprints (a little overboard in my opinion). It was strange to work out in a public gym, but it provided some amazing entertainment in the form of people watching. Our leg day starts off with some stretching and exercises provided by Force Vector Volleyball (place we do bi-monthly athletic assessments) followed by high depth drops with a pause into an explosive jump, reverse lunges into single leg depth drops, some explosive lateral movements, and lastly explosive glute bridges and RDLs.
Post gym session we invited Theo Brunner to brunch at El Punto Café & Cocina with us 1)because we love his company and 2) for some added protection since this would be our first time branching out from the hotel. They served breakfast until 1pm (yay) and picking Theo’s brain on all things volleyball and Greece made for a successful lunch. We call him our volleyball dad and we are super thankful for him.
As previously mentioned, we woke up early Wednesday for a quick serve and pass practice. Wednesday is the day of the qualifier, so the main draw teams have to practice at a different venue for the most part. We practiced at said venue last year and were not pleased by the dark, concrete sand and less than ideal location. We looked at the qualification schedule and figured it would be no big deal to go to the actual competition venue for 8am since first match was not slated until 10am. We were wrong which still does not make any sense to me. We were the only volleyball people in the building. The courts were wide open, but while warming up the security guards came and kicked us off. We resorted to the warmup court that was outside and again while warming up they approached Sean Scott, director and our “coach”, saying we were not allowed on the court. With some negotiating, Sean got us 30 minutes on the court. Sometimes (most of the time) beach volleyball logistics don’t make sense to me. Anyways, we decided we wanted to be adventurous and try a different lunch spot. The Uber dropped us off only to walk in and see a sign that said “no acepte tarjetas”… we struck out. Plan b was return to El Punto Café & Cocina. They remembered us from the day prior, so they were a little more chatty with us. We asked our waitress who was from the area, “What is there to do in Tepic?” to which she responded “NOTHING” very quickly and adamantly.
Before heading back to the venue to get credentials we hit a coffee shop to chill and read/journal. We also did some thinking like we typically do on trips… what could we be doing with this free time? Should we start a business? In what? Should we do more school? Should we get a flexible, remote job? If anyone has suggestions on what we should do, please feel free to pass on any ideas!
That’s me in the picture btw
The preliminary inquiry (aka when you go get credentials) was from 16:00-18:00 so the 16:00 shuttle was pretty packed. Most of the Netherlands mens teams were on it, and they were cracking up. Taryn and I were confused what was happening until they showed us a picture and then we were able to join in on the humor. It’s also fun that we can joke around with these other teams now. Enjoy the pic :)
It's 13-13 in the third set against Ludwig/Lippman and I am going back to serve. Serving is something we both have been working on. We need to be more aggressively consistent with it, so I thought perfect opportunity to be aggressive. Unfortunately, that may not have been the best decision *serve goes long*. We side out. 14-14. Taryn goes back to serve. *serve goes wide* I don’t side out and we lose 16-14. Frustrating. We have been shooting ourselves in the foot lately. Go on a 3-point run but then give back 2 points immediately, miss a serve out of a timeout, don’t capitalize in transition at key times, the list could go on. We are just not playing a consistent game and making plays when they matter most. We outplay opponents but still come up short… VERY frustrating.
3:30 match 2 meant coffee run around 2 and it just so happens that Laura Ludwig was doing the same for her team. It’s a very cool experience just getting to casually chat with one of your idols. Conversation ranged from her thoughts on coaching after she is done, how we manage everything without having a coach travel with us, being a mom and still competing and our very early morning match.
The tournament provided transportation from the hotel every hour, but our match was at 3:30 so the 3 would not work and we do not like just chilling at the venue so we had to get an Uber. Just a little wild to me that we must get ourselves to these matches. Wish we would have just not shown up to that match because we never fully stood a chance against Stam/Schoon in that particular game. Schoon was hitting whatever line she wanted whether it be on her serve, offense, or transition offense. Taryn was authoritatively getting blocks that they would somehow cover with one arm and they were able to score with sets coming from the back line. Think they may have had some extra motivation from our previous meeting in Doha World Tour Finals. On top of getting smashed, I was hit with a drug test right after the match (really get you while you’re down). I have gotten to the point where a drug test at the event takes about two hours. I am proud to say this one took me under two hours (about an hour and 45 minutes to be exact ha) and it’s probably because the woman doing it was super friendly.
Before loading the shuttle to head to our win or go home afternoon match against the rising and feisty Klingers from Austria, we were approached by a guy wearing a South Dakota shirt. He discussed how much he enjoys watching us, that he is originally from Brazil but during covid moved from Los Angeles to Rapid City, South Dakota… WHAT ARE THE CHANCES. We pulled out the grueling 3 setter which meant waiting to find out the draw for the round of 12 later that evening.
These first two tournaments we have been right there in just about every single match and seem to come up just short and it was no different in the round of 12 against Germans Muller/Tillman. 22-20. 24-22 Brutal. We did not even make it to Saturday which also meant we were not going to have a hotel room provided for Saturday night. We didn’t even wait till we got to the hotel room. In the Uber back to the hotel, we were looking at changing our flights. The best option was flying out of Guadalajara (instant PTSD to last years transportation). We were trying to find private transportation but kept coming up short. I called one company to which when asked if she spoke English she sharply said “NO” and then hung up. We started to panic about not being able to get transportation. Thankfully the tournament was able to help us out and set up a ride which went wayyyy smoother than the year prior. We were back home in Baton Rouge Saturday night which is not something you want to be writing for an event that goes through Sunday.
By: Kristen Nuss
