The Marseille Mistral
On Thursday I wrapped up my eleven-day long training camp in Marseille! I started my time off in Marseille with two rest days since we were coming straight from Palma and Adrien (the US Sailing iQ Women’s Coach) wasn’t arriving right away. We filled the first day by going to the city and exploring the gorgeous streets and cathedrals there. We biked all the way along the coast to the city from Pointe Rouge, which is where the training center is located. The next day we went to the Calanques, a national park just a twenty-minute drive from Pointe Rouge! We hiked down to a beautiful beach where we had a picnic and swam.
After our two days of being tourists in Marseille, we started training. For the first day, we sailed in a light sea breeze and sailed super close to the Friole Islands which are in the middle of the bay. The next five days of training we got to sail in the iconic Mistral wind. Caused by two pressure systems in mainland Europe and a sort of funnel effect between the Alps and the Cevennes, the Mistral wind is notorious for its strength. A fun fact about windsurfing history is that from 1996-2004, the Olympic windsurfing class was called the Mistral! Anyways, the training was great; it’s such an incredible opportunity to sail in big breeze and big waves as the only way to improve in these conditions is to put the hours in! We did lots of speed testing and just trying to survive in the crazy conditions. The last day of the Mistral, we did two races in each of the places where races will be held at the Olympics. This allows us to gather information about how geographic features affect the wind and hence, the racing. We did these races with the Kiwi iQ team which was super fun!
After the Mistral wind, we had two more rest days. Sailing five days in a row is much longer than we would typically do but we wanted to take advantage of all the Mistral had to offer! These rest days were much more chill as we were pretty exhausted from the big breeze training. A bit more exploring of the city and some hanging out filled our days!
The last two days of training in Marseille were lighter but still offered great training. We trained both days with the Kiwi team and on the first day did some slalom pumping drills and on the second did some more racing! It was nice to see two other wind directions in Marseille to understand more about the venue and racing there. After the last day of sailing, we packed all of our gear, packed it all into the coach boat, and drove the trailer to Hyeres. Now onto a few days of training before the French Olympic Week Regatta!
