First 24: Ralph Lauren, the Rowing Village, and a Letter

Me and my rowing blankie! Home for the next two weeks...

Wow. The past 24 hours have already been amazing, and we've only just arrived in London! I'm about to shut my eyes after an action-packed but thoroughly awesome day that started in New Jersey and is ending here under my beautiful Olympic-sport comforter here at the Rowing Olympic Village.

Me and Saida, Team USA's #1 Fan!

We hopped on a red-eye at Newark last night, and before I got a great (if short) sleep, I met Saida, a huge fan of the Olympics and, hopefully, a future rower (I'm always recruiting!) Talking with her reminded me how huge our support is here in the USA, and it was neat to share my goals and journey with her just as I am starting this final step for all of our training with my team.

Accreditation-bound!

Rowing dorms--outside view!

Home sweet home!

As soon as we landed, oodles of friendly and helpful London 2012 volunteers shuttled us to our accreditation, where we got the passes "our lives depend on". Then it was off to grab our luggage and head to the Rowing Olympic Village, one of the satellite Olympic Villages near to Dorney Lake. We'll be staying here through the end of racing, and it's a beautiful place to be living with Team USA and focusing on our job at hand: getting ready to have the best races of our lives!

Yes--there is a lane just for us!

Just before heading in to the awesome craziness!

Just minutes later, it was time to head into the city and get "processed". Even after hearing stories from the women in Athens and Beijing about this crazy building where awesome sponsors bedeck you with bags and boxes of gear and goodies, I was totally unprepared for how almost overwhelmingly amazing it was! We started at Ralph Lauren, where we were fitted for our Opening and Closing Ceremony kit. The video crew asked me to say a few words about the gear, and it was really neat to have the opportunity to say how elegant and athletic our whole team looked in the outfits.

Susan & I modeling closing and opening ceremony kit!

Then we went through the other stations--our headshots, ring fittings (Hamilton Jewelers gives every Olympian a beautiful watch and ring!), Proctor & Gamble Welcome Kit pick-up (everything I could have possibly needed to pack--thank you!), and Oakley (so excited to race in my Olympic-Edition Miss Conducts!)

A small fraction of the tons of awesome gear we received today! (photo credit Sarah Zelenka)

And then--the huge dressing room and what seemed like 8,000 things to try on from Nike and Ralph Lauren, each cooler than the next! Nike designed a whole slew of really sharp outfits, and I couldn't even wait until tomorrow to wear some of it to the dining hall tonight. Our team left looking great and ready to get out on the water and race!

A wave from the Queen during our tour-bus ride home.

We took a tiny tour of the major London sights on the way home--Westminister Abbey (sadly, no Princess Kate sighting!), the Gherkin building, the London Eye, the Tate, and many more. It will be great to explore the city more after racing--but first, it's time to race! So then home for dinner, posting this blog, and now, bed.

USA team table at the dining hall.

One of the other amazing things about today was a letter that was waiting for me when I got back to my room tonight. At our Olympic Ambassador training several months ago, we were asked to write a letter to ourselves, one that we'd open if we made it to the Olympics. I had completely forgotten about it, and opened the letter to find a huge reminder of the work that we've put in as a team over the last four years and the tons of support that are beaming over here from everyone we know in the USA. It was so moving and it really sunk in--this is it. I'm here. At the Olympics. Ready to have the best races of my life and find an entirely new gear to go to in our racing. I cannot wait! This has been unlike anything I've ever done before, and I've only been in the country for just over 12 hours. Just--amazing. I can't wait for what the next three weeks will bring! Go USA!

A reminder to be all that I can be.

One Down, One to Go in Bled!

USA W8+ out of the blocks!   Photo courtesy Allison Frederick, USRowing

Yesterday, we had our first race, and it was both a solid piece and a good starting point for us to build on. We lined up against Great Britain (who we raced a month or two ago at Henley, and who a few of the women in the boat had raced against in Lucerne), Germany, and Ukraine. It's funny that racing at Henley was on my mind, because the starting area here is also packed with spectators--something very rare at a World Championships (usually the coaching bike peloton are the only spectators!) But just like at Henley, it doesn't matter what's happening around you as soon as you're locked into the blocks and ready to race.

The racing switched to eight-minute centers yesterday to try to alleviate some of the launch wakes, but there was still a lot to do back in bow pair as we went through some bumps in the first 500 meters. However, we were all focused in on our race plan, and executed it from start to finish. It's great to be dialed in to one another, and I think we're all looking forward to building off of this race and finding another gear.

We also had a lot of fun yesterday on the bus playing with stickers. (Yes, we were a bit loopy when we came down for our second row!) My mom brought some obnoxiously American stickers--sparkly, patriotic, and purchased at Walmart--and we decided to see if we could "tag" other rowers on the overcrowded bus without them noticing. At first, it was just our fellow teammates, but then we got bold and moved on to the Greek lightweights sitting next to us. They really got into it--one of the women gave her (male) teammate sitting in front of her a big hug, surprising him enough to sneakily stick one on the back of his shirt. Susan did well too, putting a "Happy 4th of July" sticker on a cheerfully oblivious Danish lightweight guy. I also tagged a Chinese rower from the men's eight, who tried to tag me back for the rest of the bus ride. It's great how silliness doesn't have any language barriers!

The best, though, was our ride back, when we were on a much emptier bus. We tried to tag the Australian men's eight, but they were not amused. So instead, Susan and I launched a sticker attack against the guy sitting behind us--Matthew Pinsent! Unbeknownst to us, he put all of those stickers on my back, which we didn't realize until we were off the bus and headed back to the hotel! However, we did run into him in the mini-mart a few minutes later, and luckily had a few stickers left...although he was very careful to get in a different check-out line, we managed to make the last tag of the day a good one.

This morning, we got to sleep in, and get to cheer on our teammates racing today in reps. On the adaptive side, we're pulling for ASW1x Tricia Downing, ASM1x Ron Harvey, TAMix2x Anthony Davis and Jacqui Kapinowski, and LTAMix4+ Alex Stein, Eleni Englert, Emma Preuschl, Andrew Johnson and Eric McDaniel. After that, it's M2x Tom and Pete Graves, LM4- Will Daly, Ryan Fox, Robin Prendes and Anthony Fahden, W4x Megan Kalmoe, Adrienne Martelli, Natalie Dell and Stesha Carle, M2- Tom Peszek and Justin Stangel, and W2x Kate Bertko and Sarah Trowbridge.

Go USA!