2nd Race Day - 50M Breaststroke

 I slept really well last night and woke up about 7:30am.  Today Maria, Jim and I are meeting Chrissy to go for a typical Arabic breakfast at the Souq Waqif and then do some walking around the Souq.  Souq means Market and Waqif means Standing so we are going to the Standing Market.

I had a shower and got dressed before Jay woke up - he didn't sleep well again last night, slept from 9pm-midnight and then from about 4am to 8am.  

We're meeting Chrissy at Maria and Jim's hotel at 9am so I left and started to walk over, about a 10 min walk, to meet them about 10 mins early in the lobby.  Just Maria ended up coming, Jim decided to chill at the hotel after having breakfast.  I guess he wasn't sure about what the Arabic breakfast would entail so wanted to eat first, just in case.

Chrissy grabbed us and we drove over to the Souq while she pointed out interesting sites along the way. Jay doesn't swim until 3:30pm or so today but didn't want to wear himself out with anything so that he can focus on energy for the race.  It's the 50M Breaststroke today, which should be a good race for him but he's not anticipating medalling.  He's in the 2nd fastest Heat which means there are at least 10 swimmers in the fastest heat who have expectations or previously recorded faster times than he does in this event.

Chrissy said her daughter kept asking her who she was meeting again because she wanted to say "Katie's husband Doug's cousin's wife, Dana who you went to high school with" lol.  She said her daughter also was pretty impressed that Jay was all the way here to swim and asked if he was a Professional Swimmer but Chrissy told her "No, he's just a middle aged man with a hobby" OMG that's hilarious!

Chrissy has been to this restaurant before and they always had a fixed breakfast with a number of different dishes.  They don't have it anymore so she orders a variety of a la carte dishes for us to share.  It's all delicious!  I don't usually eat too much for breakfast when I'm at home and I eat entirely too much but it was too good to stop.  Chrissy treated us to breakfast which we didn't expect at all and was very kind and generous of her, we were expecting to take her out because she was meeting us and giving us a tour!

                                                            Maria had a Turkish Coffee

The darker pita has Zatar on it while the lighter has cheese.  I didn't try the cheese one but the zatar was delicious.

    

                                                     Fried Halloumi for Breakfast? Yes please!

After breakfast we went walking through the Souq, which Chrissy has been to many times obviously, because she gave us a great tour through all the different areas and all sorts of neat stores.  Photo credit goes to Maria for all the photos today!

The Animal Area has all sorts of birds, turtles, rabbits, etc in cages, pets for purchase.

They sell Falcons as well which are extremely expensive and are a status symbol.

Next we went through the Spice Area.

After the Souq we drove over to The Pearl area for a tour and got to see where Chrissy and her family live.  It's a beautiful area and their home is lovely.  The girls were at school and have activities after (Pilates and something I can't remember), a couple of days a week they have optional activities they can stay after school for.

Back at the hotel, I got dropped to Maria's because it's about 1:30pm and we have to leave to go to the swim event around 2:30pm to get there for 3pm and then into the event and seated by 3:15pm for his 3:30pm approx start.  Yesterday they were running 60 mins behind and today they're about 50 mins behind.  Brutal.

Jay's race is up, he's not feeling great because he feels like he didn't warm down enough yesterday after his 100M Free and his shitty sleep.  He's in the 2nd fastest Heat for his age group and in lane 5 (means he's got the 2nd fastest time in his Heat).  He wants to do better than 31.5s which is his target.

He has a GREAT start and holds strong for the whole race and finishes 1st in his heat with a 30.58!!! I have video but it won't share here.

As Jay was on the blocks I got a text from my Mom, she'd been to the hospital the night before and was there all night.  Because of that text I watched Jay's race and then focussed on reading it carefully to see what was up (nothing major but enough that they will come home early from their winter trip to the US) - but I missed the next Heat (the fastest Heat) to see what those times were because Jay's race was awesome and he might have a chance to medal.  

After what seemed like we waited FOREVER for him to come out from his warm down he checked the race results and he came 4th overall by 0.10s off Bronze.  Then that really 'chaffed his ass' because he didn't feel like he had a great touch and stretched into the touch which might have cost him the extra 0.10s.  But, from a psychology standpoint it was great because now he knows tomorrow, for his 50M Free, that even if he isn't feeling 100% he can still have a great race.

Jim and Maria headed out to go to the restaurant we missed out on yesterday and Jay and I came back to the hotel, he showered and changed and we went out to dinner.

Now we're back in the room and he's resting (it's 8pm so hopefully he doesn't go to sleep too early but he said he'll just go to sleep whenever he goes to sleep).

Doha Day 4 - Race Day

Jay didn't sleep super well last night - overall I think he got a good amount of sleep but it was broken up.  9pm to midnight, 2am to 6am, 7am to 8:45am so 8+ hours but he's not feeling rested this morning.  Maybe try no nap mid-day today, he's used to being active and working so likely just not expending enough energy to be tired.

I was up until a little after midnight reading, took a little while to get to sleep and woke up at 9am when I hear Jay go out to get breakfast so I'm feeling fresh as a daisy.

While he's getting ready to head out at 10:15am I do a little work, upload some mortgage docs to the portal, answer some emails and get ready to meet Jim and Maria at their hotel at 11:30am to take an Uber over to the Aspire Dome.  Getting into the events is free so we'll go over and watch a little bit before Jay's event starts at 12:30pm he figures his age group heats will be somewhere in the middle so around 1:10pm or so.  I didn't want to go down and eat by myself (because I HATE it) and figured if he swims at 1:10 we'll go out and grab something afterwards..big mistage.  HUGE.

Jim, Maria and I got in an Uber at their hotel and got dropped in exactly the wrong spot, the furthest distance and closest distance to our destination possible.  Furthest because they wouldn't let us walk the 150 meters through a restricted area to the entrance so we had to walk all the way around the complex to and find our way to the entrance that we were allowed to use.  Good thing we gave ourselves extra time!

As soon as we walked in look who I found!?

Well, really the first thing we found was when we went in was a bathroom, but if I put that picture first it shows as the intro picture on the blog when I post it on FB or IG and I didn't want the bathroom pic first...there is no toilet.  I wasn't prepared for a leg workout today in order to use the facilities but I did fine.

When we went in I looked for Bob who said that he would be sitting at the end near the smaller Board where there were fewer people.  I found Jay first and he had seen his Dad so pointed him out so I left Jay and Grey (in case he had some pre-swim ritual to perform or just had to get 'in the zone') and sat with Bob and called Jim and Maria over from where they had sat down.  Jay came over a little while later and sat with us too - he was complaining about how tight his race suit is and sitting in it for so long - I said "It is after 1pm and you were supposed to start at 12:30pm and it's still the Women's 100M so you're going to be a while longer".  He had no idea what time it was and was a little anxious about the race and super not happy he had to keep wearing the race suit for longer than was necessary!  He was still complaining about the suit and how he was going to come last in his heat so we did a little incentivizing to not come last and pretty soon it was time for them to take off to the staging area for the Men's event.

During the 65-69 year old Women's Freestyle someone was doing Backstroke..so then I looked up "Does Freestyle mean you can do any stroke you want" and it does..don't know why I didn't realize that - apparently because Front Crawl is the fastest stroke 99% of people choose to compete using it so Freestyle has become synonymous with Front Crawl.

Finally it's time for Men's 100M - there are 38 heats and Grey is in 23 and Jay is in 25.  As you go on it goes from Oldest to Youngest and Slowest to Fastest.  So Jay was in the Fastest Heat for the 45-49 year olds.  Grey just turned 45 recently and he was in the 3rd fastest heat for the 45-49 year olds.

Grey swam an amazing 100M, 57.79m which was a Personal Best by 2 seconds off a time he did last year in Australia at the World Transplant Games.  He's a liver transplant survivor and a teammate of Jay's who swims in Aurora.  At the last Transplant Games he won 5 Gold Metals and got 5 World Transplant Games Records - today he finished 13th overall in the Mens 100M (but a huge 1st in his own Heat!)

Jay was up next, he was motivated to not come last in his Heat even though that's where his time put him in the outside lane number 0.  1 person no showed for the event so only 9 swam and he came 7th with a time of 56.63 - since this was the fastest heat he came 7th overall as well. There were multiple Heats for Jay's age group, a total of 43 swimmers.

Jay and I had agreed that I'd take his bag after and meet him out by the Spectator Entrance..which meant something different to me than to him because his bag had his clothes in it and he thought I would meet him just outside the Athlete entrance where the Spectator and Athlete areas converge and I thought he would come out to the actual facility entrance (I didn't realize he didn't have a towel and that was in the bag as well).  While I was waiting in the wrong spot I bought him a World Aquatics T-Shirt and we tried to figure out where we would go for dinner/lunch since now it was after 3pm (and circling back to the fact that I hadn't had breakfast like a chump).

Jay spent the next 20 mins or so analyzing his swim.  He was 2nd at the turn but had gone about 80% on his first 50M because he's really using this as a warm up for his 50M event on Thursday.  He said he "died" on the last 15M but also didn't train for the 100M event.  Tomorrow is 50M Breaststroke and Thurs is his big event he wants to do well at the 50M Freestyle.

We decided on a place that Chrissy had recommended in Katara up at the top of a hill, a Lebanese place with a great view - Jim, Maria, Jay, Bob and I.  So we walked until we found a place to order an Uber and got to The Torch Hotel.  

Maria ordered the Uber, Jay and his Dad sat on the fountain edge in the middle of the roundabout and we waited.  We ordered an Uber XL to fit 6 people and a little Toyota pulled up with 2 seats in the back that can pop up - not the XL we were thinking.  Not XL at all.  Total size misrepresentation.

Almost to the restaurant, literally 3 minutes, and Jay asked Jim to pull his bag out of the back and look for his phone, he thought he put it in his pocket but it's not there and it's not in his bag.  I'm like "we are literally 3 mins from our destination so let's just do a thorough look through the bag when we get there" - well we stop, we look, the phone is no where to be found.  We just had a talk yesterday about how safe Dubai and Doha are and figure we'll call The Torch because it might have been turned in.  It has been and so Jay and I hop back in the not XL Uber that is totally acceptable for 2 people (except you're paying for an XL now when we don't need it) and go back and pick it up.

The person I spoke to failed to mention that the screen was all smashed up when it was returned (maybe she thought it was like that when we lost it but it wasn't).  But, a new screen is WAY less expensive than a new phone so it's still a win.  And, Jay figured out he still has AppleCare protection on it so is going to wait until we get home to get the screen replaced so it doesn't void his warranty.

Did I mention that it's now 5pm and I still haven't eaten today?  It is 5pm and I still haven't eaten today so I'm actually at this point beyond hungry and just have a little headache.  I text Maria to see what they ended up doing because dinner at our Hotel doesn't start until 6pm and I can wait the hour but should probably get something to drink, maybe a smoothie - they were considering coming to one of the restaurants in our hotel - Cucina, it's Italian so we just decide to join them.  We drop our stuff off at our room, use the facilities and head down to Cucina to meet them.

Dinner is delish.  I had a glass of Rose that I could have done without.  Jay and I shared a Burrata and Arancini (with no sauce which I found odd but it was still cheese and rice deep fried so how can you go wrong) and then we each got a pizza (we could have shared, I only had 2 pc of mine).

Everything that you would normally have as pork is beef here.  So this is pizza with burrata and parmesan and a cured beef instead of proscuitto which was beautiful, the pepperoni on Jay's pizza was a beef pepperoni and the other day at breakfast I had turkey bacon, which I actually like anyway and prefer when it's at a buffet.

The Hostess explained that wine is hard to come by and recommended a white to Jim and Maria - turns out it was $100 for the bottle (I had to google it...Maria if you don't want to know skip reading the next line).

                                                                $14.95 at the LCBO!

She said that it hit the spot though so it was worth it when I did the math after we left on the cost of the bottle at 260QAT to CAD.

When we got back to the room we had a notice that our laundry hadn't been delivered because I had the Do Not Disturb on the room so we requested the laundry and a new laundry bag (because of course I spilled oil on my boob..every. time.) for our 6 items of the day.

Now we're just chilling, it's 8pm and we'll probably try to go to bed a little early.  Tomorrow Jay will chill at the hotel with Grey and Ashley in the morning  and I'm going with Jim and Maria to breakfast and the Souq with Chrissy - can't wait!

Race at 3:13pm tomorrow (if it's running on time).

Doha - Day 3

 Jay was up earlier than me again this morning, I heard him leave the room around 8am to go get breakfast with Grey and then they're going to go to the training pool again.  I slowly woke up until at 8:30am I remembered the girls had a hockey game yesterday and because we're 8 hours ahead it was in the middle of the night here - then I hopped right out of bed and grabbed my phone to check the score.  While we're gone we're missing 7 Play Off (Finals for our Division to go to the next round and then a Finals Tournament) and Play Down games (Finals for our Region to go to the Provincials tournament) and it's eating me up inside!  As the Manager for the Team I book all the games, 10 in total and was able to book 3 before we left but we're still missing a lot, which sucks.  They were in Napanee yesterday for a Play Off game - during the season we lost to them twice but we won the first game of the series -  this game they tied 0-0 when I checked Team Snap.  So, this means with 4 games down as we have 6 points as we've won 2 and tied 2 and we have 2 games to go.  We have a chance of going to round 2 which starts March 11th (we're home on March 8th) - YES!, but no celebrating until we've got the last 2 games under our skates and see what the other teams pull off.  Jim is the girls amazing coach and he's taking the girls to most games and practices because as much as Lindsay wants them to like her I'm not sure she's ready for this much hockey in the next 2 weeks.

Jay came back to the room for a few mins after breakfast while Grey got ready to leave, Grey said he didn't sleep well last night, only a couple of hours, so I hope that he can rest today because, like Jay, his first event is tomorrow.

They took off and I put on my big girl panties and went to the restaurant to eat.  Alone.  I did it, I hated every minute of it and I came back to the room to read (and write).  Housekeeping came in to clean the room so I went down to the lobby and read for a bit and came back up.

Jay had told me yesterday that the little logo for the World Aquatics was a Whale Shark because apparently there is often a pod of them out in the Sea..I hadn't seen the logo yet so he sent me a picture.

Jay's back and stretching, rolling and using his massage gun and we'll head to lunch.  The buffet for the athletes is great, full of fresh salads and hummus and today there was babaganoush, which I love the smoky flavour. BUT to get to the restaurant (which actually isn't just for athletes it also has guests there) you have to walk through a lounge..a smoking lounge - so gross.  People just sitting in it having a drink and watching TVs and smoking - ugh.

We came back to the room after and I did some work while Jay rested and then we headed over to Jim and Maria's hotel because they just arrived from Dubai and we're going to go to a mall I found on TripAdvisor (not usually my idea of a good time but something to get us out of the hotel that doesn't involve too much) - our hotel is literally attached to a mall but instead of going there we're going to drive 25 mins to this one because it has an indoor river with gondolas!

Jim and Maria when they got to their hotel (which is attached to our hotel through the other side of the mall but we don't use the mall access to get there we walk around) were upgraded, but their upgraded room wasn't ready yet so we planned to meet them for 4:30pm.  When we got to their hotel to meet them it still wasn't ready so we went up to the lounge with them and killed time for 30 mins until it was ready and then accompanied them to their room which was another 30 mins..by then Jay was done with his 'out of the hotel adventure' and decided to go back to the hotel to assume the position (laying in bed) and the 3 of us took an Uber to the mall.  Turns out the mall is right beside the pool where Jay is swimming tomorrow and as we pull up I say "We probably could have come here tomorrow after Jay's race, since, you know, it's right here".  Oh well, the Uber was $13 and got us out and about.  We did have a hiccup when Maria's app didn't pay for the fare and none of us came to Qatar with any currency (literally Jay and I have zero dollars of any kind), Maria thankfully had $10 USD to pay with.  38 QAR was $10.30USD so the driver was fine accepting it.

Walking around the mall, which is very cool by the way, every store front is stucco and painted and fake vines with a painted blue bird sky with fluffy white clouds.  We followed the river which ended near a food area with lots of different restaurants and kept joking because there was Applebees and Krispy Kreme and were like "why are there so many American chains" until we saw it - it was like the fluffy clouds parted and angels heralded as Jim said "Hey, PF Changs" - well, when in Rome...PF Changs it is, what a delightful surprise!

Jay sent me a text with a picture of our laundry returned to us, they individually wrap your undergarments in dark tissue for privacy (inside the solid bag they were returned in).

After supper we walked around some more, Maria got Baskin Robbins and took some photos - sent a few to the girls and some to share.

Yes, this is an ice rink and there are kids playing hockey!

Little cafe.

 A hop on hop off mini-bus at the mall! Ridiculous but also super cute.

We Ubered back to the hotel (app paid fine this time), parted ways while setting up a time to meet tomorrow to go watch Jay's first race, the 100M Freestyle.  He's not super excited about tomorrow because he's only raced the 100M twice and he's 10th fastest in his heat which means he's going to be in the outside lane and he's likely to come in about 3 body lengths behind the leader (which is fine I guess because that guy will be in a centre lane so Jay won't be able to see him anyway!).

Back at the hotel Jay has selected our 6 items for laundry and they're out in the hall, I'm a little suspect that anything of mine is in there but we shall see. I went in the room and said "Hello" and don't see him so I'm taking off my purse and wrap and he jumps up between the beds and scares the freakin' bejesus out of me.  He's such a child...but makes me laugh.

It's 8:44pm and he's gone to bed now.  Hopefully he gets a good nights sleep!