Olympic Final: Last One, Fast One!

First off--thank you for the tremendous support! We had our first race Sunday and the outpouring of good luck and go get 'ems that you sent to me and the women in the 8+ were so wonderful. It was awesome to go to the line knowing how many people we have pulling with us!

Mary Whipple, Caryn Davies, Caroline Lind, Elle Logan, Meghan Musnicki,
Taylor Ritzel, me, Susan Francia, and Erin Cafaro off the start!

Our race was a good starting point for us--our first race together in this lineup. Some good things and lots to improve on. We lined up against Germany, Great Britain, and Australia at 11:50am, just after some brewing thunderclouds had us wondering if racing would be delayed. We were called into the blocks pretty early, so there was a lot of time to sit there, get acclimated to the noise of the camera overhead, the 20 or so photographers on the dock, the spectators shouting, and the huge buoys that mark the starting line and the boot. The boot is a huge plastic guard that keeps the bow aligned as the boats sit ready; when the starting beep sounds, there's a huge WHOOSH as the boots drop into the water and the boats surge off the line.

We had a solid start and were able to get out of the blocks and into our rhythm. The cheering of the fans on the shore built as we went--especially cheering for the home town boat in our heat! We were very internal and focused on executing our race plan. The conditions seem to be craziest in the middle thousand, but everyone in our event handled them well. As we reached the last 500, the grandstands surrounded us, lessening the wind a bit but also enclosing us with the thunder of thousands and thousands of spectators. It was literally deafening and so awesome!!!

Natalie Dell, Kara Kohler, Megan Kalmoe, and Adrienne Martelli
showing off the hard-work hardware!

Today, we watched the first round of USA crews line up and race for Olympic gold. Our women's quad pulled out an awesome bronze finish, the first time the USA has medaled in the event since 1984! I'm so stoked for these women--the rockstars we train with every day--Adrienne "Hammer" Martelli, Megan Kalmoe, Kara Kohler, and my roommate Natalie Dell!

Sara Hendershot and Sarah Zelenka, two of the biggest rockstars I know.

Our women's pair had a heartbreaker of a fourth-place finish, just 0.2 seconds behind last year's World Champions New Zealand. Sarah Zelenka and Sara Hendershot have had an amazing year, building up to an incredible race that was literally stroke for stroke, surge for surge. Tough, gutsy, and so confident--we are so proud to have you representing the USA!

David Banks, Grant James, Ross James, Will Miller, Giuseppe Lanzone, Steve
Kaspyrzyk, Jake Cornelius, Brett Newlin, and Zach Vlahos gettin' after it.

Similarly, our men's eight nearly caught Great Britain at the line, and finished just 0.3 seconds outside the medals. After earning the last spot here just two months ago, our guys performed so well, and did our country proud. Zach Vlahos, Brett Newlin, Jake Cornelius, Steve Kaspyrzyk, Giuseppe Lanzone, Will Miller, Ross James, Grant James, and David Banks, you are All-American all-stars.

Tomorrow, at 12:30, we'll line up against five other crews we've raced before: Australia, The Netherlands, Canada, Romania, and Great Britain. It's the Olympic final. But it's still 2,000m from start to finish, four 500m quarters to make the most of. I'm so excited to build off Team USA's momentum from today and leave everything I can possibly give out there on the water tomorrow.

It's been a long journey here, but now that we are about to race, I am thankful for every up and down along the way that has prepared me to give my best here in London. I know how much work (and good luck, too) went into being here, being the most physically, mentally, and technically prepared I've been in my career. I remember watching the Opening Ceremonies four years ago from a TV at my friend's house in Berkeley, excited to see what promised to be the most incredible Olympics yet, but so incredibly devastated at falling short of making it there.

The last four years have been a fight to be the best rower I can be, to push myself past what others and what I thought my limits were, to, if nothing else, make sure that I had used each day as best I could to never feel that feeling again. And I would never have been able to do those things without your support. The teammates who pushed me, trained with me, talked rowing with me, and who have become my best friends. The people who encouraged me, who believed in me, who helped me believe that the things I dreamed about weren't impossible. The people who housed me and fed me and who talked me through that tough practice or the ups and downs of selection or erg testing, even if you didn't know exactly what I was talking about.

So...thank you. Thank you so much for helping me get to the start line here in London, knowing that I am here in this boat with eight amazing women, that together we are ready to take on whomever we find ourselves lined up against. I am so proud to be representing my country, and I know that when we take that first stroke, we are each going to feel the hundreds of legs of everyone who has helped us get there pushing right with ours.

Thank you for giving us this opportunity. I am so excited to see what we can do with it tomorrow.

GO USA!!!

Bled 2011: Ready for the Final!

Out of the blocks in our heat.   Photo courtesy of Igor Meijer.

Tomorrow is the big day for us: lining up against Canada, Great Britain, Romania, the Netherlands, and China for the World Championships final. We go off the line at 1:24pm here in Bled (that's 7:24am Eastern and 4:24am Pacific); you can watch the racing live on TV (Eurosport) if you're on this side of the pond, and live on Universal Sports here. There is also a live race tracker with audio commentary here.

It's always a bit funny to me to have a year of work boiled down to a single race, but I am nothing but excited for tomorrow's final. We have done a lot of solid work, have prepared for this, and have really come together as a crew. We are ready to test ourselves, and I can't wait for our race tomorrow.

Today's racing by USA crews both buoyed and inspired us to go to a new level in our final tomorrow. The women's quad had an incredible final, never letting up the pressure on Germany even when both crews had miles of open water on the field, and took silver, notching the first medal of the regatta for USA crews.

Megan Kalmoe, Adrienne Martelli, Natalie Dell, and Stesha Carlé: 
the USA W4x killing it!  Photo: Allison Frederick 

The men's eight never quite hit their stride in the B-final. In spite of having a solid piece, the guys finished a few seats down to Ukraine, yielding the final Olympic qualification spot. It is really tough to see your friends and teammates come that close to the mark, but the guys already have their heads in the game as to getting back on track for qualification next year, and I know they'll make it happen.

USA M8+ at the starting line.  Photo: Allison Frederick.

And in action earlier today, our teammates in the women's pair held off a late-charging Canada to qualify the hull for the Olympics by 0.06 seconds. Way to make it exciting for the folks watching back home, Kady and Caryn!

USA W2- out of the blocks.  Photo: Allison Frederick.

For now, it's an early bedtime and getting ready for our race. So much training, tapering, and now...racing is here! I can't wait to sit on the starting line with my boatmates tomorrow and feel all this energy ready to unleash. So ready to race!

We've had an incredible outpouring of support here in Bled and from messages coming in from overseas. It means so much to me and to all of us to know that you are cheering us on from the grandstands, from your living rooms, from in front of your computer! Thanks for all of your support, and Go USA!

One Down, One to Go in Essen

R to L: me, Sarah Zelenka, Jen Kaido, and Sara Hendershot accepting our medals!

Yesterday was the first sculling race for half of our boat--and the first win for them, too! After having our exhibition race/race for lanes cancelled in the morning, we had a straight final in the afternoon. International races are always a bit touch-and-go in the warm-up area, and yesterday was no exception, especially with about half the crews competing here being Under-23 and almost entirely without coxswains. We made it to the line feeling ready to race, at which point we were told we were moving lanes because one boat had scratched--and because an EIGHT would also be racing in our event! The official's racing instructions included: "In the eight: pay no attention to the starting command or lights. You will be started ten seconds after the quads."

It was a bit crazy, and we couldn't help but relax a bit in our boat--your coach always says, "Be ready for anything out there!", but I'd never have guessed that would include racing an 8+ while in quads. Anyhow, we executed our race plan well, especially in some choppy cross-tail to cross-head conditions, and ended up with a 3.4 second win over the other USA boat. We were both well ahead of the third quad, a Swiss U-23 boat that was a little over 16 seconds back. All in all, it was a good first race for both boats--we were excited to finally be racing!--and fired us both up to come back this afternoon and race each other again.

B to S: Adrienne Martelli, Ashley Kroll, Desiree Burns, and Mara Allen.
Photos courtesy of Mara Allen.

This afternoon, we're racing another straight final, this one at 3:28 (9:28am EST). Results will be available soon after via the regatta website here. We are event #66: SF 4x- A. As of now, we will be lining up against a senior Swiss quad and the U-23 German quad. And, who knows, maybe even another eight or two!

Exploring Essen and Racing Updates!

Yesterday, we practiced twice in the morning--some good hard pieces and a circuit--and had the afternoon off. Since we're in lovely Essen, we decided to take a short jaunt to the downtown and look around before heading back for an early dinner and bedtime to get some pre-race resting in!

I thought I'd put up some photos to introduce the crews...unfortunately, intermittent launch availability has made it a bit tricky to get photos of us rowing, but here are some from our trip to downtown Essen!

The Mostly Mercer 4x: Adrienne Martelli, Ashley Kroll, Desiree Burns, and Mara Allen.

The Pretty Much Princeton 4x: me, Sarah Zelenka, Jen Kaido, and Sara Hendershot.

We didn't get a chance to see too many of the sights, but we did get to check out the Essen Cathedral, which was lovely! It was rebuilt after it was bombed out in WWII, but Gothic cathedrals are always beautiful, even if they're mostly from 1958!

Visit to the Essen Cathedral

 We also managed to get a few rowing-related photos (credit to Mara Allen and Jen Kaido):

The whole crew, at our first practice in Essen!

Jen Kaido, Sarah Zelenka and I fiddling with rigging and hanging out...

Our boat (almost) in action!

Our fearless leader, Annie Kakela. Andreas working his magic.

We have a few updates on our races. We were originally supposed to have heats Saturday and Sunday morning and finals in the afternoons of both days, as we were entered in two separate events. It now looks like we will have a straight final Saturday afternoon, and possibly also on Sunday. We are still not sure of our competition...our coaches have said that it will be some of the teams that were originally entered on the Entry List, and possibly some new ones. As of now, here are our race sheets:

That's all the news thus far from Essen...more to come tomorrow!

Grüße aus Essen!

Essen Slideshow

We arrived in Essen on Monday, and we're absolutely loving it. We took a quick red-eye flight from JFK to Düsseldorf, and then had about a 45-minute drive, mostly through gorgeous German countryside, to Essen. It's an industrial city, but most of what we've been able to see--the area around our hotel and the racecourse--is beautiful.

Essen racecourse, looking towards the starting line

There are eight of us here, comprising two quads. We are racing this weekend in what will be the first national or international sculling races for many of the group--two elite sculling events here that each have a heat and a final. I've never raced on an eight-lane course before where all eight lanes are being used, so there are some firsts here for me, too!

My quad's lineup is, from bow, Sara Hendershot, Jen Kaido, Sarah Zelenka, and myself. Our teammates are racing with the lineup of, from bow, Adrienne Martelli, Ashley Kroll, Desiree Burns, and Mara Allen. We're being coached by Annie Kakela and Katie Bitz, and assisted by the always awesome Andreas. We'll get some photos together today and put them up so you can see our smiling faces! In the meantime, please 
check out the photo slideshow above to see our travel and training adventures so far.

Everyone loves a red-eye!

We have been training a lot--building back up to our training volume from Princeton while also getting ready to race this weekend. I don't know exactly how our event names are translated, but we will be racing four times on Saturday and Sunday, which I'm very excited about! It seems early in the season to be doing so many 2K races, but then again, NSR1 has already happened and NSR2 is next week, so we are ready!

Today we had amazing water--it's been a bit windy so far this week--and were able to get in some good work, 2K pieces that I think helped us very much with getting ready to race. We will do a bit more race prep tomorrow before fine-tuning Friday and then putting it on the line on Saturday!


I'll be putting up photos and another post tonight from our adventures around Essen today (afternoon off!), so check back soon! You can also find out more about the Hügelregatta here: http://www.errv.com/10Regatta/regatta.php