Post # 10
Princeton, New Jersey - Over the past three days, I have been racing at the USRowing Spring Speed Order. It's the first race of the season for us and a chance for everyone to get together after the long winter of training and see where we stack up. There were three races in the single - a time trial, a heat, and a final. For the heat race on Friday afternoon, I had to get either first or second place in order to move on to the "A" final. I was able to win that race, and moved on to the final race yesterday. In that race, we essentially had the top six lightweight scullers in the country competing so there was pressure all the way through. Out of the seventeen lightweight competitors, I placed fourth overall with a time of 8 minutes and 6 seconds. While I wish I could have gotten a couple places higher, I am fairly happy with how I placed. The final race was a great one. Lots of boats were making moves on each other and that made it extra exciting. It turned out that I didn't have enough speed at the end of the race to hold off the third place boat but it was awesome to be back on the race course.
The results can be found HERE and there's a picture of me racing HERE.
This is my first time attempting to post video, so my fingers are crossed that this actually works. The videos are from Friday afternoon when I was launching off the dock for my race in the heat. It might be hard to hear, but after I set the boat down into the water and got in, there was a big spider crawling around! I REALLY don't like spiders so I had to get out of the boat and make sure it was spider-free before I left the dock to race.
One final note - you'll notice that I have a pink weight taped inside the boat. That's because all of our boats are required to weigh at least 14 kilograms. Mine was just under that weight, so I had to add a little bit of weight to it!!
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Friday, April 9, 2010
Terrace Town!
Post # 9
Madison, Wisconsin - For the last few weeks, the third graders have been working hard on Terrace Town, a program that involves about fifteen Madison schools. Each class plans and builds an eco-friendly city, filled with government buildings, co-housing, schools, parks, businesses, and homes. Then, each class puts it on display for the public at the Monona Terrace, our local convention center. Today, the kids not only got to set up their town in the convention center, they got to do a bunch of other activities as well. They even got t-shirts and hard hats from the Monona Terrace to celebrate their accomplishment! Here are some pictures from yesterday and today.
Madison, Wisconsin - For the last few weeks, the third graders have been working hard on Terrace Town, a program that involves about fifteen Madison schools. Each class plans and builds an eco-friendly city, filled with government buildings, co-housing, schools, parks, businesses, and homes. Then, each class puts it on display for the public at the Monona Terrace, our local convention center. Today, the kids not only got to set up their town in the convention center, they got to do a bunch of other activities as well. They even got t-shirts and hard hats from the Monona Terrace to celebrate their accomplishment! Here are some pictures from yesterday and today.
Our town, set up yesterday in the Randall classroom
Our town, set up at the Monona Terrace. Here are the four boys with the Sports YMCA that we worked on this week!
Sadie and Jenny with their buildings
Me and Oscar after creating pictures to go in the Terrace Town art center
Juliana, Jenny, and Sadie tip their hats to a completed Terrace Town
Juliana is goofing around!
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Tennessee Photos
Getting ready for morning practice!
Amanda passes the time in the hotel between practices
Fog lingers during the middle of morning practice
Wisconsin lightweights warm up for their first race of the season
Crews launching off the docks
3/4 of the way through the race and Wisco is dominating!
Friday, April 2, 2010
Back in the Swing of Things
Post #8
Oak Ridge, Tennessee - This week we've been in Tennessee on our spring training trip. Usually, early spring means windy conditions but it has been perfectly calm water every morning that we've been here. It has been a rower's paradise! It's a little chilly in the mornings when we launch, but by the time we get moving and the sun gets higher in the sky, it warms up to a great rowing temperature: not too hot, not too cold. Pictures to come as soon as I get back home!
Two days ago, we launched off the dock at about 7:30 am and into dense fog. I was the first boat to launch and suddenly I found myself completely surrounded by fog! I couldn't see anything at all and had no idea where I was relative to the landmarks. Finally another boat of my teammates emerged so we stuck together and followed the shoreline (after we found it). Luckily, the sun broke through and the fog lifted after only twenty minutes, but that was an eerie rowing experience!
What I'm most excited about is that our lake in Madison, Lake Mendota, melted on Tuesday so we are *officially* back on the water full-time. The transition from the rowing machines (ergs) to rowing on water means that we get to take all of the strength training that we've been doing on the machines and add the on the water technical component to it. We have been doing lots of time trials on the sprint course in Tennessee and I'm happy with the times I've been posting so far. Exactly three weeks from today is the first race in New Jersey. I'm going out tomorrow morning to time trial with some bigger boats (4 people per boat) from UW and the University of Tennessee. My teammates are opening their season by racing in the eights tomorrow as well.
Finally, news on the classroom front. Just before spring break, the students had been busily preparing their latest stories for publication and the progress has been great. I'm anxious to get back on Tuesday and see how the editing is going!
Oak Ridge, Tennessee - This week we've been in Tennessee on our spring training trip. Usually, early spring means windy conditions but it has been perfectly calm water every morning that we've been here. It has been a rower's paradise! It's a little chilly in the mornings when we launch, but by the time we get moving and the sun gets higher in the sky, it warms up to a great rowing temperature: not too hot, not too cold. Pictures to come as soon as I get back home!
Two days ago, we launched off the dock at about 7:30 am and into dense fog. I was the first boat to launch and suddenly I found myself completely surrounded by fog! I couldn't see anything at all and had no idea where I was relative to the landmarks. Finally another boat of my teammates emerged so we stuck together and followed the shoreline (after we found it). Luckily, the sun broke through and the fog lifted after only twenty minutes, but that was an eerie rowing experience!
What I'm most excited about is that our lake in Madison, Lake Mendota, melted on Tuesday so we are *officially* back on the water full-time. The transition from the rowing machines (ergs) to rowing on water means that we get to take all of the strength training that we've been doing on the machines and add the on the water technical component to it. We have been doing lots of time trials on the sprint course in Tennessee and I'm happy with the times I've been posting so far. Exactly three weeks from today is the first race in New Jersey. I'm going out tomorrow morning to time trial with some bigger boats (4 people per boat) from UW and the University of Tennessee. My teammates are opening their season by racing in the eights tomorrow as well.
Finally, news on the classroom front. Just before spring break, the students had been busily preparing their latest stories for publication and the progress has been great. I'm anxious to get back on Tuesday and see how the editing is going!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)