The Care Package

   I knew when I decided to pursue training full-time that my life would be a nomadic one. We spend somewhere between three and seven months each year away from Princeton at training camps and races, and in Princeton, "home" is the (admittedly amazing) guest room of my host family. If I'm lucky, I make it to my parents' house in southern California a few scattered days each year.

   However, one of the great things about being a nomad is receiving care packages from home. This Thursday I came home to a big box waiting on the porch. In it? Nothing spectacular: a bunch of clothes I'd sent home with my parents from the World Championships, some mail, and a note. But what was so special about it was that it was from home--a little link to the parents and brother that I don't get to see often.

   It's interesting, though--talking to athletes from other countries and reading interviews, we actually are "home" quite a bit. Many rowers from Asia, Australia, and New Zealand are abroad from May to September every year, and also travel to training camps. I''ve read that Chinese rowers often leave home to train in their teens and may not get to go home until they meet with success in their rowing careers or else after they've ended. And some rowers from Sweden and Norway live and race abroad for nearly the entire year.

   So there are quite a few of us out there who've lived out of our cars, who've moved somewhere far away, who travel across the country and around the world in pursuit of our racing dreams. I have no second thoughts about living the life of a nomad: I get to go to some truly amazing places and the whole time, I have the luxury of doing something that I love and that is an incredibly rewarding journey. But man, do I love those care packages and the little glimpse of home they give!

Bled WRCs 2011: In the Books and On to 2012!

 
  After some post-race globe-trotting, I'm finally back home. Back to work on the water — and back to my blog-compatible laptop, hooray!

20 meters to go!   Photo courtesy row2k.com.

  Our last race in Bled was everything a final should be: exciting for the fans, but internally deliberate, aggressive, and full of heart. We had a bit of a delay at the start due to swans in the lanes earlier...so there were 15 minutes of all crews sitting there patiently, with dozens of spectators milling around and Guns'N'Roses' "Welcome to the Jungle" playing on repeat.

  The buildup was effective, though: everyone came out of the blocks blazing, and there was no settle or shift in the field's pace as we all went into the middle thousand. Staying internal and focusing on our race plan, we kept pushing. For a bit, we were going stroke-for-stroke with Canada, but we dialed in and listened to Mary, and kept moving. Beep...beep! The race was over so quickly, but there we were, holding hard after the finish line, the world champions by 3/4 of a second.

6:03.65. Feeling spent and glorious.  Photo courtesy Igor Meijer.

  Music boomed through the grandstands — appropriately (?), "American Woman" by the Guess Who. Finally, as the W8+ medal ceremony was beginning, we were able to squeeze onto the dock! It was wonderful to finally get to hug my teammates after such a great race. You work with these same women all year. You know how tough they are and how much you have all worked to prepare for this race and to be the best crew you can be. So to put all that work and energy into one race and have it be what you all hoped and trained for it to be — it's a really special moment.

Elle, Moose, Taylor, me, Jamie, Caroline, Amanda, Don, Mary, and Susan!

  The medal ceremony was a wonderful blur. Receiving my medal from the inimitable Anita DeFrantz. All of us having to drop an octave while singing along with the oddly-high-pitched national anthem. Hugging a dripping Whipple after we did the cox toss. I got to run up to the stands and hug my family. And then we were rowing off — to celebrate and share the moment with each other and with the people who had helped us get there!

Photo courtesy row2k.com

  After racing, I had some great travels both in Europe and back in the U.S. My boyfriend and I went down to  Portorož (near Piran) on the coast of Slovenia, a gorgeous little Adriatic fishing village, for a few days. Then it was off to Interlaken in Switzerland, where incredibly beautiful mountains intermingle with waterfalls, lakes, alpine flowers, and cows. Moo!

Stepping off the train in Lauterbrunnen (Interlaken).

  Then it was off to Colorado to get my butt kicked by the unintentional altitude training. My "favorites" were running hills at 8,000+ ft. and doing "The Incline" in Manitou Springs.

Nothing says fun like gaining 1200 ft of elevation in one mile, AFAP.

  We're back in Princeton now, settling right back into the rhythm of training. Besides training, our big focus at the moment is promoting our 2012 USA Women's Rowing Team Calendar, the proceeds of which go directly to the amateur athletes working here towards the goal of London 2012. If you saw these last year, they were amazing, and this year's are even better! Click here to order — you'll receive a pre-sale discount if you order by Oct. 1!

  Thank you for another year of support and sharing the journey with me. This coming year promises to be both the toughest and the most rewarding one yet. And I can't wait!

  Go USA!
    -Esther

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 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!

It's Time for Bled!

Racing is finally underway this morning here in Bled! The whole city is literally abuzz with the regatta. The announcer's booming voice can be heard over the whole lake. The starting line is just feet away from our hotel window. And the racing is on every TV and computer screen! It feels a bit like waiting to start your race at C.R.A.S.H.-B.'s...you're ready to race, but you're also never able to stop thinking about the fact that you're going to be racing!

We've seen nearly the full spectrum of weather since we've been here--the week started out HOT and sunny, then warm and windy, and then a huge thunderstorm yesterday, perhaps trying to give us a small dose of Hurricane Irene? It's calmed down a lot, but more weather will be rolling in by the end of the day--more challenges for all the small boats starting racing today!

The view from my office...

The course, town, and buses have all filled up in the last two days. This morning, we were joking that our odd-fitting USA team jerseys were the reason we were almost run over by crews at both ends of the course--they must have wanted to see them up close for themselves! We finally escaped the ITA LM8+ that seemed intent on clashing oars. The bus ride back had a bit more breathing room than this morning's: we were so jammed in that the doors wouldn't close, when the UKR W4x decided that that was the sign to also get on!

On the bus, everyone gets a bit of the your elbow-to-my head move...

We haven't had too many adventures here--we're in racing mode, so it's mostly just lounging around our hotel rooms...or around the hotel lobby...or eating...or sleeping. We're sharing a hotel with the Kiwis and Aussies, and even though the seating in the dining room is separated by country, we at least have the "DMZ" of the lobby to catch up with each other. The lobby has also been the source of nightly entertainment--from the "A Minute to Win It"-style show shooting a nail-driving contest to Slovenian folk dancers performing--which makes up for the consistently terrible lounge music playing on repeat. (I love Whitney Houston, but I don't know how many more times I can listen to "I Will Always Love You"!)

Slovenian folk dancers invading the lobby!

I'm rooming with Elle Logan, whom I've had the pleasure of rooming with since 2007. One of our favorite things to do is to watch bizarre Euro MTV music videos; this year's top find has been the slightly scandalous "Love Banana". We may have also watched a bit of the "William and Kate" movie, which was on TV *in English* last night!

Today, it's just watching racing, and our last practice before we start racing tomorrow! We are on tomorrow (Monday) at 11:06am (that's 5:06am Eastern); you can listen to live race audio and follow the live race tracker at http://www.worldrowing.com/live-results, or check results for all races here.

Keep cheering for the USA crews--great racing so far today from everyone, with props to our LM1x, W2-, M8+, and M4x, who all qualified for their respective A/B semifinals!

I also put together a slideshow of our trip from Munich to Slovenia and the goings-on so far in Bled:

View all

Get your own

That's all from Bled for now. Go USA!

Allo! Wir sind in München!

We arrived this morning bright and early in Munich, greeted by cool temperatures, much-needed coffee, and perhaps the best "Welcome" sign I've ever seen!

yes, those are real pretzels!

 So maybe that sign wasn't for us, but we were greeted enthusiastically by team boatman Andreas (sadly, sans German-style Bieber-lookalike assistant Marcel.) After a quick stop by our hotel, we were off to the racecourse to rig our boats and go for a quick paddle.

Look out, Susan! I think that's a shark...

Most of our men's team has been here for a few days already, and the non-camp boats will be joining us soon. One of the really fun things about Worlds is getting to catch up with teammates and coaches who've been training across the country. By the time racing starts, the USA will have over 100 athletes, coaches, and staff in town...the evening "training table" with everyone is always filled with great conversation and antics.

Poster from the '72 Olympic Games...no women rowing yet!

Our first rows over here have been pretty solid--we've made a few minor tweaks to the equipment and the lineup, and practices have been going well. The course here (the Rowing venue from the 1972 Munich Olympics) is very blocky and utilitarian, but the water is also crystal clear, and the weather has been sunny and calm. We even got to cool off a bit after practice--a little dip is the anti-jet lag!

ice baths can be fun!

We'll keep settling into the rhythm here and getting adjusted to everything. Yesterday we also enjoyed watching the live video of the Pan American Games trials-congrats to Margot, Meg, Ken, and everyone else on their wins yesterday! That's all from Munich for now...off to dinner!

Oh, and you can see a slideshow from our first few days in Germany here: