Killing time til raceday

So we are in Switzerland, and I gotta say, it's SOOOO good to be out of New Jersey. The weather here is awesome, and the scenery is great with the snowcapped mountains and the attractive locals. We've been here since Sunday AM and are trying to get our bodies adjusted to the European time zones in time for racing.... we did our standard World Cup travel itinerary - flew in 6 days before racing starts on a red-eye, and took a few days to get our bodies in whack. It's super important we don't mess around with the jetlag, so we stay hydrated and don't let ourselves sleep unless it's at night. With the pre-race nerves and a body still on a North American clock, it can be tough for a rower to get a good night's sleep. I'm still not able to get to sleep when I go to bed, but am feeling relatively adjusted at this point (Wed). After a really, really bad experience with Ambien while racing in Germany four years ago, I force myself to do it all without any drugs or sleep aids.

Lucerne is a great place for racing because the course is one of the best in the world with great protection from wind and the town is really easy to get around. The food here is AWESOME, especially the candy. While I've given up candy due to two root canals last year, I am caving and eating a decent amount of Swiss chocolate and gummi candy to satisfy my sweet tooth while I am getting to weight. Fortunately with the crew we have here weight should not be an issue, which is good and allows me to walk around with less stomach growling during my stay. Looking forward to some greasy Swiss food after the racing, as well as hopefully getting to the top of the local mountain peak (Mt. Pilatus).

Heading to town on my afternoon off to shop for Swiss Army knives and a watch.... they are everywhere in this town... then I'll probably watch about four hours of French Open tennis with German commentating on Eurosport before heading to bed (and I don't speak any German). Will try to enjoy this week and race hard, because as soon as we get back to the states the intensity ramps up again right away as we get right back into seatracing....

Headed to Europe

Leaving for Europe tonight to race in Switzerland next weekend. It's a Friday, Saturday, Sunday race. You can check results at www.fisa.org (Lucerne World Cup, LM4-) or www.wcsn.com.

Not really sure what to expect. We are not peaked for this race, meaning we are still on a working efficiency at lower intensity before really winding things up for the summer. But I haven't raced internationally in three years so it'll be good to get under my belt. It's going to be a bit of shock to the system -but it's good for me. I know from past experience once the starting command goes all hell breaks loose and the ferocity that gets unleashed is pretty indescribable. It's one thing to say, hear it, and remember it, but it's another thing to experience it. I wouldn't count on us winning this one, but if we can be competitive and show signs that we are on the same level as the other crews at this stage of our preparation we will be in good shape later on.

Gotta run and take a red-eye and wake up in the land of chocolate...

The waiting is the hardest part....

That Tom Petty song is really the truth. We are in the final stages of selecting the team. Since I've come back to rowing last June (2007), I realized I had exactly 12 months until the Olympic team would be selected. I've made it through 11 of those 12 months, and the last one is without question going to be the toughest. We've got 8 guys in contention for the four that's going to race in China. The 8 guys we had in the fall and winter have changed slightly in terms of personnel, and we are all a lot better than we were... we all have our own strengths and weaknesses, and it's unfortunately not entirely clear yet what the best combination of four guys is going to be. So we are going and racing - a lot. And making line-up changes - a lot. Bottom line is we have to all bring our 'A' game everday. One bad day won't eliminate anyone, as we've all got a solid record from various points of the year - but a series of bad days right now would be pretty tough to recover from by the naming date, June 25, just over a month away.

We actually have a group going to Switzerland on Saturday - it's not the final group, but four guys are going to race at the World Cup to get us a data point. We are not primed to have our top performance at this race, but that's all part of the plan as we get ready to peak in August. But here's the kicker - we leave in four days and we don't actually know who is going yet. We were supposed to find out tomorrow, Wednesday, but it sounds like that won't be finalized. So we may not know until Friday....

Suffice to say there is a lot of uncertainty, but you learn to live with it and do your best everyday. I tell myself it builds character.

So my HUGE acquisition today was a few new belts. Since I am 'at weight', meaning I'm about 20 pounds lighter than I was in grad school a year ago, my clothes don't fit me anymore. I finally realized how annoying it was to walk around having to yank my jeans back up my waist constantly and that it wasn't really a good look to seem like you are wearing your older brother's clothes. So I picked up a few smaller belts and amazingly, my pants are staying up! It makes such a big difference after almost six months of being too preoccupied to address sagging clothing... Also, I broke down and bought a pair of jeans that I'll never fit into after I'm done training (waist 30), but it's satisfying to know that don't have to walk around looking like a clown in my clothes just because I'm training... really, I think this is most excited I've been in weeks - and I know that's really sad.

All right, going to try to head to bed - but it's going to be really tough tonight because we just had a racing workout this evening. It sucks having the hard workouts at night because we get so amped up and have so many endorphins flowing that it's really hard to get to sleep... so I'm preparing myself for tossing and turning until at least midnight, and might have to watch some pointless TV shows as I'm letting my brain settle in from a brutal session (for those of you who know your rowing, it was 2 * (3*750) w/2 minutes rest at 36 SPM, 5 min rest between sets).