Back to Work

It was an exciting but ultimately a disappointing night at Kertullan last Sunday night, loosing in 5 in a very exciting game against Lakkapää. With the Hall full, it was an dynamic night, as live and as energetic as a playoff match, showing once again, how great the Loimu supporters are. At, the end of the match, Lakkapää made a couple more plays then us and were able to seal the match.

What does that mean for us? Well, back to work.

While, all the Finnish players had established lifting schedules with our trainer, Tuomas, I was on my way back to America, to spend a Christmas with my family but also making sure that I came back, not only in good shape but in the best shape possible. Here's a day in my life, back in America.

Got Back Monday at 22:45 Monday evening, very tired from 15 hours of travel and 2 different stops but a great relief and happiness came over me to say not only my parents but my brothers at the airport to pick me up. Not only that but they had In 'N' Out with them, it didn't look this good but it didn't survive long.

Tuesday Morning comes along, waking up at 6:30 still on Finland time, so I'm up early. To my surprise, my dad already has breakfast ready, a spinach omelette, topped with slices of avocado (it's great to be home) I take a cup of coffee (black, of course) and I'm ready to go.

9:20 I jump on the road and its great to drive again, just one thing though, I didn't miss

The drive was refreshing, even with a little of traffic, can't but help feel like deja-vu knowing its only been 4 months, since taking this drive as my daily commute. Arrive at the training center at 9:45 and I'm quick to remember the privilege it is to represent and compete for my country, seeing tribute to the 2008 gold medal team.

The guys that did it, all of them have tremendous work ethic and its a privilege to be in the gym working

side by side to get back to the podium in 2012.

It's 12:00, just got done with a long, tough 2 hour lift, sitting in the ice bath, trying to speed up the recovery, only really thinking about how warm the water is, compared to back in Raisio.

Our weight room

It's 12:30 now, all done with the lift, ice bath and ready to move on, take my recovery shake and before I leave, had to get a picture with our trainer (Tim Pelot) one of the best and most committed trainers I have had the luxury to work with and a surprise co-athlete who happened to be working out too, Jake Gibb. The funny story about Jake, is he used to teach a speed footwork class to me when I was 16 and was just getting into the sport. Fast forward 9 years later, I'm with the indoor national team camp and he's preparing to qualify as the #2 beach team for the London Olympics. Here's a little video on Jake, he's a machine!

One of the greatest trainers in the world and one of most dominate blockers in the world.

Its 13:00 and finally, I am out of the training center and on to the White house. Not "the" White House but the White House of Anaheim. A Italian cuisine, 5 star diamond awarded restaurant, where we luckily get to eat lunch every day, after training. 

Today though, was not an official training day, so I texted the owner, Bruno and asked if he was there so I could stop by and luckily enough he was. 

Me and Bruno, with his CNN Heroes of 2011 Award.

A little back story on Bruno, besides feeding me and the giants of USA Volleyball every day, he donates a lot of his time, energy and money to feeding under privilege kids every night. He has done so much work and has helped so many kids that he was honored this year by CNN in a class of only 10 people as "Heroes" of the world. It was great to catch up with him and here about the recognition he has achieved this year with all the charity work he does, unfortunately for me, we had to cut our conversation short, because he had an interview to do. With a great workout completed and an even better meal devoured, I was ready to head home.

10oz fillet on the house, can't argue with that, Bruno is the best.

16:30. The Day went great, saw some old friends but most importantly I put in the work that needs to be done to get Loimu over the hump and make sure instead of providing thrilling 5 game loses, we turn those into 3 game, 4 game wins. 

To end the day, my mom organized a rental duffy boat, to tour around Naples Island in Long Beach with my family it was great, filled with some sushi on board a great end to a great day, spending it with the people that have helped me get to where I am in life.  

Until next time,

Dustin (Jenkki #1)

Lakkapää and Shoes

As many of you already know, next game against Lakkapää (18/12) the club will be raffling off my shoes! Kobe VI Sunsets to be correct. One of the little pleasures of being a professional for me and the rest of my American teammates on the National team, is we get to wear whatever shoes we want!

Sounds weird right? In America, we have no professional league, nor a semi professional league like here in Finland. Growing up, the goal is to have a strong enough youth career to be recruited to play volleyball in college. Even though I can't complain because I loved the 5 years I spent in college, the one thing that wasn't the greatest, is we have to wear our team issued shoes.

Fast forward to the National team, same rules apply, where we are given mizunos, still great shoes but everyone has the same pair.

Finally, summer is gone and all of us our off to our different professional teams but not without picking up a pair of Kobe VIs! (Nike Basketball shoe, named after the best basketball player in USA Kobe Bryant). 

And if your good enough to play in Korea, might as well get 3

For me, especially last year, it was a sort of a pat on the back for myself, having signed my first professional contract, I was so excited and had joked with my teammates that if and when I would sign a contract to play overseas, then of course my next move would have to buy a pair of Kobes. A little extrinsic reward for myself, kinda the "I made it". Rewarding myself for all the hard work and sweat I've put in over the years, by buying myself some over priced shiny basketball shoes and feel pretty darn good about it.

Anyways! Why am I mentioning all of this!? Well, its because Im giving the shoes pictured at the top,  to one lucky fan of Loimu. Hopefully most of you have already heard about the raffle but if not here is a link to the Loimu Facebook page, where you can enter.

http://www.facebook.com/RaisionLoimu (hint.. click on the shoes!)

I actually brought these shoes to play in this year but I spoke early with Jani and Jukka at the beginning of this year and offered to donate them to the club,  hoping they could serve as a platform to get even more people into our games and of course, give one lucky fan some Loimu Kobes, which will be presented 18/12 against Lakkapää. My small way of saying, I really appreciate all the support and kindness all the fans and in general all of Raisio has shown to me in my time in Finland.

And if your wondering, where are my Kobes? Well, there not in Finland now but they'll be on my feet when I get back from Christmas break!

Hope to see you all on Kertullan next Sunday 18/12.

Until next time,

Dustin (Jenkki #1)

Finnish Thanksgiving

The fourth Thursday of November every year in America, we celebrate Thanksgiving. Even though many people throughout America have different ways of celebrating it, the general theme is to celebrate family and give thanks for all the joys and privileges we may take for granted at times.

Unfortunately for American volleyball players, we do not have a league in America, which means we are always away for Thanksgiving,  missing out on the major theme of the holiday, which is family. Fortunately for us, we have a great bunch of Fins on Loimu, who make up our 2nd family, along with Steven Kehoe (American setter for Isku) we were able to pull off a great Thanksgiving. Surrounded with good food, good friends and of course American Football, we had a great day, giving thanks to the privilege it is to be out here playing professional volleyball and all the great people we have encountered, making Finland our home away from home.

Until next time,

Dustin (Jenkki #1)

Loimu 3. Sampo 0

That was the score from last night's exciting match at Kerttulan. It was great to play in front of our fans again, even though it was Finland's Independence day, it was exciting to have such a great turn out of fans, who were all energetic and loud, fueling us for the win.

It has been an interesting year so far, getting off on a rough start, loosing Kimmo and with the coaching change but after 2 weeks of the change, our confidence is very high and like everyone around the club, we know the great expectations that lie within our team this year and can't wait to fulfill them.

Last night was a great example of the new culture that was been brought into our team. High level play, great team spirit and exciting volleyball that will only get better for the fans of Loimu.

The excitement that lives at Kerttulan.

This is my first blog of many, my goal, being to keep fans excited and updated about the club as we push towards winning the Finnish Championship come spring. We will have 2 weeks of very hard training and eventually we will host Team Lakkapää 18-12 at 17:00. Until then, hopefully we will see many of you at our annual Loimun joulujuhlat, this coming Saturday.


Thanks again to all of our great fans, that were able to attend our match last night and we can't wait until Lakkapää comes into town, to give you another great win.

Until next time,

Dustin (Jenkki #1)