Laura Tomes USA Journal No. 3

NORMAN, Okla. - Former Sooner volleyball player Laura Tomes led the Sooners to their best season in school history in 2006 as they advanced to the NCAA Sweet 16 and finished with a final ranking of No. 12 in the country.

Now that Tomes has finished her collegiate career, she has begun a new journey with the U.S. Women's National Volleyball Training Team. Tomes was one of 11 members that were selected for the squad and has been training with the team since March 9. The team is training in the impressive Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo.

The Sioux City, Iowa native will periodically write a journal for SoonerSports.com describing her experiences in Colorado Springs.
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Hey everyone!

Last week was a great week. Two-a-days were still going on, as they will be until our week off from the 22nd to the 28th, but we got to do a lot of 6-on-6 work last week. Statistics were kept and tracked all week as to properly evaluate us before any cuts are made, and we gradually increased the time each day that was spent scrimmaging. For middles, we are evaluated on three tiers.

The first is wins to losses, second tier includes blocks per game and hitting percentage, and the third consists of serving efficiency, digs per game, and the other “intangibles” (as Santiago used to call them). It is great to be able to scrimmage so much. When scores are kept and people are being constantly evaluated, the intensity and level of competition automatically rise. Therefore, the play gets even better which makes it even more fun!

Because of the intense practices, and of how often we practice, our recovery is really important so that we can play to the best of our abilities every practice. Of course, you have to be able to push yourself when you are tired, as a previously intense practice does not mean that the next one will be easier. It also does not mean that it is an excuse for a poor practice to follow.

This makes me happy every day that I played for Coach Restrepo. As soon as he got to Oklahoma, he taught us these things. Coach took me out of my comfort zone and made me perform well once out there. Among the many other things that I learned from him, I am very grateful that I am so mentally tough now. It doesn't get much more intense than his practices, and I am so much better for that. Playing in his program, I learned how to push myself beyond where I ever thought I could go. That is one of the many reasons why Oklahoma volleyball is succeeding and will continue to.

Volleyball Begins Spring Season | Tomes Added to USA Roster

However, in order to work as well as possible, there is a training room for anyone who is injured, as well as a recovery center. They are both very close to our gym and our team uses them a lot. The recovery center is great. In it are sports massage therapists, a hot tub, a cold tub, and a sauna. Because of our intense training schedule, we get scheduled for an hour and a half sports massage each week. There are specific recoveries catered to us that we are to do at the end of every day. We meet as a team with a sports psychologist weekly and we meet individually with him every couple of weeks. It is really important that we take care of our minds and bodies so that we can perform at the highest level.

This leads me to a great discovery that I made last week. On the complex's campus, there lives a fox. He is apparently a very friendly little fox I love animals, so I was a little upset that I hadn't met him yet. However, at the end of last week, Sheila Shaw (University of Wisconsin) and I were leaving the recovery center. It was snowing pretty heavily, so I was zipping up my coat when Sheila told me to look up. There he was! He's the cutest little thing, and was just running down the sidewalk, looked up at us and kept going. I'm pretty excited about it, but now I want him to have babies so that I can see them. I've heard that they are really cute. The squirrels are also a little different here. They're not at all afraid and apparently will get into your hand if you extend it with some food that they like. I think I will have to try that this week.

However, none of you are reading this to hear about the animals on the campus of the Olympic Training Center. Back to volleyball. We had a scrimmage on Saturday with Colorado State and the University of Colorado, playing against both teams in a junior high school in Fort Collins. It was really fun to play against people other than ourselves, but we didn't have enough people in the right positions to fill a complete team.

Therefore, we had liberos playing on the right side (yes, front and back row) and we had to get a girl who used to play for Colorado State to play at the O2 position for us. That made it a little bit interesting. We played Colorado first, winning in three. It was a lot of fun, and things flowed pretty nicely. The Colorado State game, however, I'm not even going to write about. But, it was good to get out and play different people, instead of each other.

Well, I've got to get back to the gym but just wanted to keep you all updated on how much fun I'm having up here! Talk to you next week!

Journal History
No. 1 (March 22)
No. 2 (April 3)
No. 3 (April 12)

University of Oklahoma Athletics

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