Arrival in Long Beach

Tunnel Vision in the Long Beach boat bay.  Alex sets up our 2x...
I eat snacks and watch.

Breakfasts.  Too typical not to capture.

Two days ago my doubles partner Alex Twist and I boarded a plane California-bound, along with our sets of sculling oars.  It's excellent to be training in the sunshine, at our pace, with no other real commitments to our time than tuning up for a week before leaving for Non-Qualified Olympic Trials in Chula Vista, CA this Friday.  We're racing in the Lightweight Men's Double Sculls there, against 9 other crews entered, all of them good.  Things are going well in our boat, and we both trust in the process that has brought us to this point.  Our fitness is good, our mentality is good, and our execution in practice has been consistently improving over the time we've been rowing the double together.  Now it's time for the fun part, the part of rowing we almost never get to actually do... racing!  The work, for the most part, has been done.  Now it's time to show what we've been working on.  Having already checked out the course at NSR I a few weeks ago, this regatta will bring (hopefully) few surprises.  Thanks to Alex's wonderful mom we have a place to stay in Long Beach only 5' from the rowing club.  And thanks to the wonderful people at Long Beach Rowing Association we have a near-pristine Filippi rowing shell to train and race in.  Yesterday it was a little too windy on the water to get an effective practice in (so we were on the static ergs) but this morning the conditions were perfect, the water flat and the sun shining.  With things going as they are... I can safely say we are both looking forward to racing our boat and seeing what we can do.  I have no predictions to make, other than the level of competition will be high and everyone will be bringing their A-game.  It is, after all, the Olympics.  Joining us in Chula Vista will be several other crews representing Seattle Rowing Center: Emily Gade and Liz Robinson in the Lightweight Women's Double Sculls, Lindsay Meyer and Helen Tomkins both in the Women's Single Sculls, Jon Greer and James Dietz Jr in the Men's Double Sculls.  They'll be as excited to escape the Seattle 35 degree and raining weather we'd been having as well. Can't wait to see those kids in a couple days... it's one thing to compete in a regatta as a crew, another thing to compete as a team.  Let's Go, team.