Sunday 25 August 2013

Heat recap

For results check out the results page on the world rowing website. We had a pretty exciting race, finishing first in our heat and moving straight through to the A-final on Saturday. Time to get some solid recovery in!

Saturday 24 August 2013

Heat tomorrow at 1:09pm Korea time (9:09pm BC time). We are in a five boat heat with Belarus, Australia, United States, and Poland. Check out worldrowing.com for results etc.

Thursday 22 August 2013

It's hard to believe that racing begins in two days! I can definitely feel the racing bug starting to set in; that little bit of nervous excitement every time we pull up to the race course. It feels like just last week that I was pushing out very lonely 2-3h bikes on the stationary bike up in the Spracklen room at 5:30am. As much as I miss Victoria, it is nice to finally belong to a team again. Pushing yourself on a day where you are mentally struggling is so much easier when you have team mates to push you! I believe that training alone for a year was both the toughest and most rewarding training period I have experienced. My decision to stop training with the varsity team at the University of Victoria mostly stemmed from the fact that I had national team aspirations and felt I had gotten as much out of the program as I could. I realize it sounds a little selfish..... but then again, name a successful athlete who has not been selfish at some point in his or her career. I was simply trying to find a way to squeeze the most speed and technical gains out of the little time I had outside of class at Uvic. This is why I approached Scott Feddery and asked if he would coach me a couple times a week. Scott was the lightweight women's coach at Uvic and had a very unique coaching style (because he didn't follow the typical Canadian coaching style of most other coaches). It was in this time working with Scott that I learned about rhythm and boat feel... and perhaps most importantly, to think for myself and always ask "why".  This is both a blessing and a curse because I have learned so much from asking these questions, but have also gotten myself in a bit of trouble with coaches who think I am questioning their authority or over complicating things.  Regardless, I am so thankful for the lessons I learned that year because they enable me take a little more control of my own development.
I originally meant to write about Korea and world Champs, but as you can see.... I got a little side tracked. Things here are going well. The four of us are settling into our brand new bow mounted Hudson 4x, and are still making small technical gains to improve our efficiency. Taper feels so good on the body! I have forgotten what it feels like to have extra energy.
Time to get some lunch!

Friday 16 August 2013

Korea

Where to start? I am currently in South Korea, preparing for the 2013 World Rowing Championships. The crew now consists of (from bow to stern) Emily Cameron, Kate Goodfellow, Carling Zeeman, and myself. I believe the last post mentioned the race-off in singles- the results were exciting for me because I finished first out of the quad and moved up the ranks from the beginning of the summer (it was no secret that I was the last person to make the boat and the lowest ranked from the spring trials regatta). I still have a way to go, but it felt good to see some progress.
There are so many great things to say about Korea: It all started with the warm welcome from the hotel staff and a number of people who I believe were surrounding villagers. We were greeted by a small crowd of cheering people wearing Canada colours and waving the Canadian flag. Once we got off the bus we were shuttled into the lobby where we were given grapes ( a Korean tradition) and lined up for a photo shoot.
 The course and venue are also top notch ( in my opinion) and I will try to get some photos before going back to Canada. 
It is almost time for second practice so I will have to continue the update another day. The heat is taking its toll, but our bodies are slowly adapting. Rowing Canada brought a slushie machine to help with body temperature regulation, and I am counting down the hours until we get to use it. We have to wait three days in order to force our bodies to adapt to the climate better.
Let's hope this theory works!
Until next time...