Tuesday, September 5th:
My name is Catarina Albuquerque, Cat for short, and I am on the Rice women’s soccer team. Keep reading to see what one of my busier days looks like!
07:30 am - Inbody testing at Tudor Fieldhouse
I started my day off with an Inbody test at Tudor Fieldhouse. This is a non-invasive, quick body composition test that players on our team complete multiple times throughout the year. It measures your weight, how much of that weight is muscle, fat and water, and your body fat percentage. This is something that our trainers can use to keep track of how our bodies are changing throughout different parts of the season.
08:00 am - Research Methods with Dr. Rodriguez
09:00 am - Quick breakfast
09:25 am - Nutrition with the sports dietician, Roberta Anding
After testing I headed to my first class of the day: Research Methods with Dr. Rodriguez. In class we covered how to read, evaluate, and summarize research reports, and also did an in-class partner assignment. We completed our assignment before the end of class and therefore were let out early. This gave me more time to stop by our soccer lounge and grab breakfast before my second and final class of the day: Nutrition with Roberta Anding. Roberta is our sports dietician and has taught this class for many years now. Today we were learning about the Mediterranean diet and touched on dietary supplements. This class is very beneficial for athletes as many topics covered here have a direct correlation to our sports. Therefore, I try to take as much as I can from class, and implement it into my daily life as a student-athlete.
11:00 am - Coffeehouse and Homework
After classes I headed to our student-run coffee shop: Coffeehouse. It is located inside our Student Center and is one of my favorite places to study on campus. Here I worked on some homework for about an hour before heading to lunch around noon.
12:00 pm - Lunch at South Servery
02:00 pm - Hydration testing at Tudor Fieldhouse
I had lunch at South Servery with a few of my friends before walking over to Tudor Fieldhouse for hydration testing. Hydration testing is something new that we have started doing this season before practices and games. It is very important to be as hydrated as possible before working out in the Houston heat!
02:45 pm - Soccer practice at Holloway Field
04:00 pm - Weightlifting at Tudor Fieldhouse
Next, we headed over to our locker room to get ready for practice. We just had a game against Loyola on Sunday; therefore, we had a game video review with our coaches before going out to the field for practice. Typically in these video reviews, we analyze a few instances in the game where the team did not do as well and discuss how we need to improve collectively and individually as players. After this session, we went over our practice plan for the day and headed out to Holloway Field for practice. During practice, our focus was to get our legs moving after the off-day to stay as competitive as possible in small-sided and bigger-sided games. Practice can vary for everyone on our team depending on our readiness score for the day. This is a number that is calculated from an app called “Fit For 90” and is based on our sleep, soreness, stress, and fatigue levels for a specific day. This keeps our coaches aware of how everyone is feeling and means that they can adjust training for specific individuals if necessary. After practice we headed over to our lifting session with Bailey (S&C coach). Generally, our lifts are not too heavy in season and can also be modified for people with lower readiness scores. Today we had a very light lift where we focused on movements over heavy weights.
06:00 pm - Rice vs. Stanford - Women’s Volleyball at Tudor Fieldhouse
It always feels good to go and support some of our fellow Rice student-athletes in their sports. Today the women’s volleyball team played Stanford, and so a few of us went out to show our support. Sitting in the student section with other Rice students and cheering on the team is so much fun and is something that we try to do as much as possible whilst in-season.
08:00 pm - Dinner at home
09:00 pm - Homework
11:00 pm - Bedtime
I went home after the game and made myself some dinner around 8pm before finishing up some homework. I then headed to bed at 11 pm and got some well needed rest.
- Catarina A., Jones College '25
