Our boat is moving very well, as well as it ever has, at times a little faster. Sam and I are relaxing by the pool at our hotel right now in the shade, and this update will have to be a quick one. The team manager Nick who is taking care of our lightweight senior team and the whole junior team, is doing an outstanding job. The meals at the hotel have been healthy and top notch delicious, and the transportation, accreditation, and general flow of our big noisy group around Bulgaria has been smooth, thanks to him. Our Coach Craig Hoffman has also gone above and beyond to set us up for success in racing. We have bikes to ride to and from the course, some good massages, and a lightening quick boat from Filippi identical to our hull back in the states. Croker has re-sleeved our oars and the paint on them looks bright and bold.
Biggest surprise so far has been yesterday, watching the boats row over the course during practice. When we take to the water there's no spectating going on, so it was interested to have a morning off to sit in the shade and watch the juniors and senior lightweights paddle around. You'd think at this level everyone would look like a demonstration of technically perfect sculling. Not so. What every crew thats doing well is doing is getting from the catch to the finish together, fast and hard, just sending the boat forward through the water. On the recovery, every crew hits water with the blades and kindof flops around, bodies left and right, little things going this way and that, late and early roll ups, late to square, different heights etc. but the drives are ON.
We've been having really sharp and speedy practices, and all of us are eager to race tomorrow. With 15 crews in our event, I think it's 3 to advance out of 5 in each heat, directly to the semifinal on Friday. Our final will be Saturday.
It's very cool to be here, but even as the novice in our crew I do not feel at all nervous or overwhelmed by the task ahead. We've prepared for these races as best we can, and when the gun goes off we just have to race. And racing is fun.
It feels good to bend the oars together. Getting that first trip down the course together under our belts will be a good confidence builder, and show us a little preview of what we can achieve here. Thank you to my family, my mom and dad, for coming to Bulgaria to cheer us on! I cannot wait to see them tomorrow after racing. We'll race tomorrow night then eat at the course.
The course is so cool. I'll let the pictures explain further, but it feels... Short. Its one of those places where the markers every 250m seem to come every 100m. The lanes are all buoyed, 1-7, 0 and 00, and we warm up going down from the finish to the start in lane 00, back up in lane 7 which passes within feet of the crowd watching from the plastic tables umbrellas and deck chairs along the front side of the finish line area. Both sides of the course are lined with bicycle paths and walking paths, the body of water was built specifically to be a race course and it's in the middle of a park.
Just had our pre-race meeting for tomorrow, and we're rowing again this afternoon then dining back at the hotel. That's all for now.. The draw comes out this afternoon and we'll see who we are racing in our heat. And I won't be able to post pictures here, but I'll figure out how to soon when I get my computer working.
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