Thursday

Thursday is a great day. Largely because we are now past the half-way point and Sunday is but a mere two and a half days, or five training sessions, away.  Sundays are our days of rest where, aside from the optional  60-90minute recovery spin on the bike, we are allowed to do as we please all day long. Which means that we sleep in until about 7:30 am (8:30 on a good day or after an extremely exhausting week) and then tend to our various aches and pains. Oh, and eat copious amounts of food in preparation for next weeks training. OK, Ill admit that I am exaggerating a tad. We also go grocery shopping, or window shop downtown with a frozen yogurt in hand, or even sometimes go see a matinee at the movie theater. Sundays are for recovery and team bonding.... and I love them!
I have managed to lose track of my original train of thought, and am unsure what I originally set out to write. I guess I'll finish this post with a little training summary an by clearing up some rowing jargon. Today we did some short 250m all out sprints in the 4-. The first six were a bit of a disaster, but we managed to get our stuff together for the last two. We've been struggling a little these past days to mesh as a crew, but hopefully a couple days of being split up into pairs will help us come together better in the 4- next week (given that we even go out in the same combination again). At this point, we are rowing in various combinations to essentially see who is fast and who isn't. I imagine that sometime in the near future our coaches will let us know what boat class they are looking to send oversees (2-, 4-, 1x etc) and then we will seat race for how ever many spots are available. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the notation in the previous sentence. The number (1,2,4,or 8 ) pertains to how many individuals are rowing in the boat and the - and x stand for how many oars each person has. An x means each person has two oars (sculling) and a - means that each person has one oar (sweeping). So, a 2- is a boat with two rowers, each with only one oar. It is called a pair. The - also means that there is no coxswain steering the boat. If there is a coxswain, the notation would be a + as in an 8+.
That is all for today.