Heats Tomorrow - It's finally here!

We returned to the hotel after a great dinner at the Fashion Valley mall - beautiful area and a great atmosphere. Some of the athletes who have family in the area or who traveled out to watch the races went out to dinner with them - I was really happy that they get to spend some time together. Chicken piccata for dinner...great flavor, tender chicken, but a little on the cool side. Very fast service...

The practices this afternoon were solid and both crews felt like they gained some familiarity with their new shells and the conditions. In my mind, it's really important for us to remain focused on the mechanics of what we do and not get too caught up in evaluating our results as they happen. We have a lot to learn on both the 1V and 2V levels and so I hope we can use this race experience to identify some of our reactions, strengths, and weaknesses. Good luck to all of the competitors racing tomorrow!

In Between Rows...

What are the quintessential California trip stops? The 2V rowed this morning right away and had a solid practice where they began to feel the length that should serve them well as we get into racing. They were smart about bringing their own shoes and were logistically very quick to get things finished. We had a little bit of trouble getting the rigging correct on the 1V shell and so they didn't launch until quite a bit later but many thanks to John Tytus of Pocock Racing Shells for helping get everything in order. The conditions (stiff crosswind) are a little bit challenging but aren't anything that we should be surprised by tomorrow. A quick lunch from In N Out and back to the hotel for a little rest before this afternoon's paddle...Even though everyone knows about the secret menu at In N Out I thought I would link to it here just so you have it when you want customized food. Check out the Five Guys versus In N Out discussion thread on chowhound.com - people REALLY care about their burgers.

Sunset Pizza

It turns out that we had a very short stopover in Baltimore and flew right out to San Diego arriving nearly 20 minutes early! Fantastic because it did allow us to get our gear and over to the ZLAC boathouse (the oldest women's rowing club originally founded in 1892 www.zlac.org)

We did a trip of Mission Bay just to get sorted out in our new shells and we have a few adjustments to make for tomorrow but that's to be totally expected. In one of those "this is really awesome I can't believe it's true" moments, the team ended up having a bonfire hosted by the Pool family on Kellogg Beach in La Jolla and enjoyed the sunset, pizza, and a whole lot of digital photography.

Regular start time today to let the bodies rest a little more and then we'll do two short rows to get reacclimitized for tomorrow's racing. The venue looks well set up with enclosures, organized boat areas, and it will likely be packed by midday today.

Flying to San Diego

Through security and about ready to board our flight to San Diego with two eights of athletes ready to race it up for the first time in 2010. The selection process was long and I thought the group handled the pressure well...and while we've been able to get a fair amount of water time the conditions on the river have made gauging speed challenging. We've tried to give the athletes a nice mix of consistency and variety and the mechanics of the stroke have been steadily improving.

The varsity will be racing in the Women's Varsity Cal Cup and they are in heat 3 at 8:20 AM on Saturday morning while the second varsity will be racing in the Open 8+ event and will be in heat 1 at 1:30 PM in the afternoon.

It's particularly exciting because the team has a great mix of youth and experience. Six of the nine current varsity eight athletes have been to the NCAAs on multiple occasions while seven of the nine second varsity eight athletes have raced or been spares at the NCAAs. And from a youth standpoint we will have two seniors coxswains and three senior rowers in between the two hulls...

More to come from Baltimore and hopefully I'll be able to upload pictures from my Blackberry.

Top 5 sports stories right now...

Congratulations to all of the competitors at the CRASH Bs and I hope that every rower from junior to masters is looking forward to getting back out on the water as soon as possible.

So many things in sports are happening right now...Vancouver Winter Olympics (amazing mogul run by Canadian Alexander Bilodeau), pitchers and catchers reporting to spring training soon, along with college and pro hoops.

My top five interesting sport stories RIGHT NOW:
5. UConn Women's Basketball currently on an amazing winning streak and simply crushing their opponents.
4. Trinity Men's Squash sweeps Princeton to go undefeated in the regular season and readies themselves to go for their 12th! straight National Championship this weekend.
3. Short track speed skater Apolo Anton Ohno tying the record for most decorated winter Olympic athlete with a couple of events to go...
2. Alexandre Bilodeau winning Canada's 1st home gold medal with a stunning display of speed and aerial confidence.

AND NUMBER ONE!
1. Trinity Women's Rowing gearing up to go in-season and getting excited and prepared for the San Diego Crew Classic on March 28th

Need some work...and an amazingly generous gift

Worked on dead lifting today (you would be amazed at the number of different images there are of people dead lifting...) - Maxed out at 310 which isn't too bad considering what type of training I've been able to do. Felt good to go after some heavier weights though. Short term goal would be to do at least twice my body weight (definitely within striking distance given the previous day's workouts) and then to hit 400 lbs by the end of the season. I think it's simply going to take regular practice. Go figure.

On another fantastic note - a phenomenal gift has been pledged towards the naming of an eight in our fleet. It's really fantastic to know that our alumnae are supporting the program and the College

Great workouts

Have done a couple of solid workouts in the past couple of days - yesterday I played around with side press and some dumbbell snatches as well as some kettlebell work with some new moves introduced by Coach MacDermott - today we did three rounds of 2' of box jumps, wall ball, and ring push ups with 2' of ergometer work. I found it pretty interesting to catalog the different ways I tried to improve over each round and how I would change my approach if I was to do the workout again.

Taking the approach of "figuring out" the workout may not be the most competitive or intense but it definitely made the time go quicker and made the work manageable. For early fitness preparation I think that focusing on the 'how' rather than the 'how many' made it easier...but I can see how it will be fun to compete VERY soon.

Here are a couple of videos I found online of ridiculous athleticism and hand eye coordination... and then an athlete who gets simply worn down by his opponent. Fitness anyone?