A day in the life.....Wed. July 30, 2008

Wednesdays are both hectic and relief for Catherine and the other athletes that live in Norristown and train in Valley Forge. They train in the mornings but instead of being able to relax and rest up for their evening training session, they go for a session of a different type. They go to Advanced Health and Performance Center which is a Sports Medicine and Chiropractic center that specializes in the care of athletes. It is a 45 minute ride from where the athletes live so Lisa picked everyone up and drove everyone there. Right now there are 5 Kenyan athletes in town:
(from right to left) Catherine, Hosea Kiprop Rotich, Irene Limika, Caroline Chepkorir and Jane Murage,
then there was El-Mostafa Nechchadi, Catherine's coach and our crew! We filmed in the van as well as at Advanced Health. It is there that the athletes get adjustments and also work on preventative exercises to keep their bodies and muscles in top shape!

(Dr. Dan-Advanced Health and Performance Center)
Catherine also gets a deep tissue massage which is extremely important in helping her muscles in between training runs. Now when I say deep tissue, she gets a deep tissue massage that not many others would even consider a massage! Some would even call it torture! According to the founder of the practice, Dr. Johnny King-Marino, Catherine's pain tolerance is like that of no one he has ever seen! While observing Catherine's massage, I noticed the therapist putting all of his might into her muscles and she did not even flinch! You could actually see this man manipulating the muscles in her legs. I found it quite fascinating however, the sound guy didn't exactly feel the same way! He got a bit queasy watching this! (We got to film some of the massage).

After the visit to Advanced Health, the next stop on Wednesdays is to Costco. A few of the girls got very excited when we talked about Costco because they love the food samples! (And here I thought it was just me and my kids that loved that!) We had permission to film there so we followed on their weekly shopping trip as they stocked up on eggs and milk and other items. It was a very long day and everyone was very patient as it did take more time than their usual trip because we had to set up for the interviews. I am very grateful to all of the athletes and Mostafa and Lisa as well for bearing with us while we captured this "day in the life". We got back to Norristown a bit after 6pm and everyone was exhausted.

Back at their house, the athletes had some tea and a short time to relax before heading out for their evening runs!

It is getting very close to Olympic time so there is not much time left for filming here! We have two shooting days next week and then it will be time to put the business plan together and start raising the money for this project!