Feb. 11, 2008

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While traveling the world with the Canadian National Team to prepare for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, junior All-American pitcher Robin Mackin is redshirting this season and will return to the Bulldog lineup in 2009. Though she won't don a Fresno State uniform this season, Mackin wanted a way to keep in touch with her teammates and the Bulldog faithful.

Every Monday, Mackin will post a new blog at www.gobulldogs.com. She will tell stories of her previous week on the road with the Canadian National Team, the places she has been, people she has met, and things she has learned along the way. Below is Mackin's second entry.

Mackin's blog will also be carried by the NCAA official blog site, Double-a Zone. Fans can view Mackin's blog along with other NCAA Student-Athletes blogs and post comments at: http://www.doubleazone.com/2008/02/gearing_up_for_the_olympics.html

Robin Mackin Blog Entry No. 2

We have now completed week 2 of our first team tour. Outside of the softball field, this week consisted of several other fun team activities. On Monday and Tuesday evening, the team split in half to shop, prepare and serve dinner for everyone under the supervision of our nutritionist. Not only was it fun to enjoy the delicious food, but cooking for 25 people presented some very interesting challenges.

In addition to our team dinner, Mizuno came to size us for our gear..and as every athlete knows receiving new equipment and apparel is like Christmas all over again!

The highlight of the week, outside of getting some games under our belt, was the team martial arts session. On Thursday night instead of doing our regular conditioning, the team met at a local karate school. We were encouraged to explore the power of our mind, as well as become aware of our 'chi'. It was an eye opening experience, and it will be interesting to try and incorporate those concepts in the softball environment. My room mates were so fascinated with the idea, that once we arrived home we did our own rendition of practicing our chi. Needless to say, we shared a lot of good laughs.

On Saturday and Sunday we got to play our first games! We played Washington Saturday night, and Texas Tech on Sunday morning. As with most team's first games, we gradually got back into game mode, and got rid of some of the 'first game rust'. It was fun to see our team in action! We leave for Utah early tomorrow morning, to play a two game series against Dixie State and then Southern Utah.