A rest day before the World Championships begin.

Rest day for us today to recharge the batteries in Santander before the ISAF World Championships begin.

I usually get pretty bored on these days but today has actually felt quite needed, or more to the point, in a few days time I’ll be grateful for having had it! Half the day today was spent exploring further the city of Santander (in particular the shops!). timid really impressive and exciting quite how much the city is getting I to the event with a fantastic atmosphere right the way through. The sun has been quite vicious the past few days so second half of the day was spent hiding from it a watching a mixture of Froome securing second at the Vuelta and balling my eyes out watching ‘My Sister’s Keeper’ (it gets me every time!).

So here it is, on Monday Walshy and I will start our first World Championships together and the event we having been aiming towards all year. We have been training in Santander on and off since June and have both really enjoyed our time here both on and off the water. The sailing here can be fantastic, a mixture of flat water sailing inside the harbour and them potential for huge swell and wicked sailing out in the bay. The forecast for the week ahead looks a little sketchy in places but it will be what it will be and I’m pleased to say we seem to have good all round pace so feel confident in any breeze and sea state.

Tomorrow (Sunday) we plan to head out for a final sail for an hour or two just to check our setup after taking the boat apart for measurement. Racing then begins for the Nacras at 1300 on Monday and we continue with 2 or 3 races per day to Sunday.

The Lasers and RSXs are already in action out here so the buzz around the venue has already started. This event is really important for every Nation as it is the first opportunity for the athletes to qualify the country for the 2016 Olympics and you can really tell from the vibe of the athletes on and off the water that there is that extra importance on the event.

Walshy and I are really looking forward to this week racing. The competition we are up against is really tough but this is the event we have been aiming towards the whole year and we really hope to put in a great performance and be fighting it out at the top. Because it is still less than a year we have been sailing together, it will be the first time we have really put ourselves under pressure as a team to perform at our absolute best. It will be a big learning experience to see how we deal with the pressure we put on ourselves but we can’t wait to get started!

Kate, Kat and us will keep you posted as the week progresses, wish us luck! Lucy