Location: Rus Park, Ukraine

I snapped opened my eyes at 8:30 am and couldn’t believe that in just an hour and a half I would be fighting. I piled my stuff up outside my room on the deck and started gearing up right away. Everything came together well and 45 minutes later I was ready. Jittery, but ready.

Master Uley, the guy making my helm, lent me a helm for the weekend that’s almost brand new and fits like a glove, so I was pretty excited to have that instead of borrowing from Ian. Ian’s helm is great, I would just feel bad denting it!

We marched down to the lists only to find out that my pool had been postponed for an hour or so due to space issues. More people had signed up in mens than anticipated so they gave 3 lists to the men’s categories and 1 to the women’s. At first I was annoyed cause I had psyched myself up, but then realized this was a blessing. All trip I have been worried that I wouldn’t measure up to the caliber of what these amazing women can do, but after watching a few rounds I realized that I could hold my own. I knew I could at the very least make them work for it.

Before I knew it I was up. I was feeling refreshed and excited, my nerves having calmed down a lot (a pleasant surprise). My first fight was against Estonia. I stood in the list looking at this woman across from me and was thanking god she couldn’t hear my heartbeat. The flag went up, we tapped swords and the fight started. It was only 1 minute but it felt like 5. I could hear the blood rushing in my ears and the smash of her sword against my head. It was all a huge blur I barely remember what happened and I could hear Ian and Lake shouting in my corner but I had no idea what they were saying. I won the fight in the 3rd round and have never felt so good. I didn’t even care about how what might happen later, my training paid off enough to win a fight (which to be frank is way more than I expected).

It’s good that I felt that way because my next fight against Moldova was close in points but she won in 2 rounds. And then Sweden kicked my ass. Lake, Land and Ian told me it was better than I thought but I swear to god I was screaming inside my helmet for a full minute as this woman berserkered me into a corner. I was pretty pleased to see she got the silver medal later on.

On top of that I was just extremely gassed. It was 28 degrees and I almost threw up in my helmet. I don’t know how to describe the level of sheer exhaustion I felt but I almost shed a tear when they finally stripped my armour off and I was able to breathe again. Ian poured cold water down my back. (Lake said I looked pretty cool the whole time though so I’m okay with that).

I spent the rest of the day watching the fights play out with Land, Ian, Lake and Mack. We got more chicken and I drank 3 glasses of Kvas, a fermented rye drink that tasted like cider and beer and honey, but has no alcohol content. Good thing it doesn’t because I was so tired I’m pretty sure just one glass would have knocked me out.

We took a walk down to a small lake behind the fort, and sat in the sand and played with fish for awhile as the sun went down. There’s acoustic guitar playing over the loud speakers, and I’m watching a horse riding competition from the stands right now.

To say today was a good day is a complete understatement.

It was incredible.

I’m heading to have a much needed shower and a few Advil before I crawl into bed early.

Round 2 tomorrow. Sword and shield here I come.

S

#yxygirlsgohereandthere