USA Women's Beach Team bond at Lei Out
Fun fact: laser pointers are listed alongside drugs and pornographic material as items not to be brought into the UAE.
My flight leaves for Dubai on Friday at 3:30pm, non-stop from San Francisco, with the chance to wave to Santa as we fly over the North Pole. I’ve only tangentially thought about packing, but I figure as long as I remember all of my USA jerseys and a passport I’ll probably be okay. I guess my phone is good thing to remember as well since I’ll be posting photos and daily blogs (internet situation permitting) from the tournament to give you guys a little insight into the Women’s National Team.
USA Beach Team Kit from Five Ultimate
Here we are:
| Name | City, ST | Current/Most Recent Team |
| Anna Nazarov | San Francisco, CA | Fury |
| Becky Malinowski | Somerville, MA | Brute Squad |
| Claire Chastain | Boulder, CO | Molly Brown |
| Claudia Tajima | Medford, MA | Brute Squad |
| Cree Howard | Oakland, CA | Fury |
| Jessi Jones | Raleigh, NC | Phoenix |
| Kristin Franke | Princeton, NJ | Scandal |
| Liza Minor | Iowa City, IA | Heist |
| Nora Carr | Seattle, WA | Riot |
| Qxhna Titcomb | Medford, MA | Brute Squad |
| Rohre Titcomb | Seattle, WA | Riot |
| Sally Mimms | San Francisco, CA | Nightlock |
| Sara Miller | Chicago, IL | Nemesis |
| Ness Fajardo | San Francisco, CA | Fury |
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We all knew of each other, but a lot of us met for the first time at Lei Out. We were scattered across several different teams, and we had two scrimmages/practices that weekend plus a Saturday night team meeting.
We spent the months leading up to that Santa Monica weekend planning logistics — electing captains (Claire, Claudia, Nora), locking down housing (Airbnb!), buying our tickets (I hear Emirates is lovely, will confirm soon), and (probably) signing our lives away to USAU. (Okay, probably not, but it felt like I signed a lot of things).
Team USA training in San Francisco
Since we’re all spread so far across the country, we’ve been keeping each other motivated by sending workout selfies via GroupMe. The four of us in San Fran (Sally, Ness, Cree, and me) have been able to play beach (women’s beach!) almost every weekend. Our friends who aren’t on the West Coast are… not quite so lucky. I was going to say East Coast, but the entire rest of the country got the shaft this winter. They’ve had to improvise.
For our workouts, the emphasis has been on working out all of the little stability muscles that are going to be very confused a couple days into the tourney.
Training for WCBU 2015 in the long-jump pit
Our buddies are set, the playbook (yep, we have one) is printed out and memorized, and we’re on our way shortly. Stay tuned for an update when I land, and hopefully every day after that. Let me know in the comments if there’s something specific you’d like to know about (what do camel milkshakes taste like? how tall is the tallest building?) and wake up early (really early) to watch us take on Germany in the hopefully-livestreamed showcase game on Women’s Day! Word on the street is that The Voice of Ultimate is making trek.
Training for WCBU 2015 when you don’t live in San Francisco
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