Elite Nationals Photos

Lightweight single race (I'm in the yellow boat!)

Lightweight single, medals dock

Lightweight double (I'm on the far right)

Lightweight double, medals dock

Wisco athletes - Lightweight quad, medals dock

End of the day group shot with our coach, Erik, and Piper, the puppy!

Double Gold!

Post # 15

Princeton, New Jersey - I am about to leave NJ with my dad and drive 4 hours up the east coast to Rhode Island but I wanted to do a quick update to let all the fans in Madison (and beyond maybe!) know how it went.

I WON both of the events I raced in at this year's USRowing Elite National Championships: the lightweight single and the lightweight double! In the singles race at 8:20 am today, I posted the fastest time I've ever gone, 7 minutes, 42 seconds. I received my gold medal and put my single on land before grabbing the double about 20 minutes later and launching for that race. We didn't really know how we were going to do in the double since me and my partner had only ever practiced together twice. We led the race the whole way down and even though it was a closer race than in the single, we still took home the gold medal.

Results from the single are HERE....results from the double are HERE.

A lightweight quad (four people) with the Wisconsin athletes that Mrs. Feingold's class met at the boathouse a couple weeks ago raced this morning as well. They won their race as well, and that was a really exciting one to watch because they were in second place until the last couple of meters. Their results are HERE.

I'll upload pictures when I get back to Madison. For now, it's time for a 3-day vacation at the beach while I visit with my family.

Field Trip!

Post #14

Madison, Wisconsin - Today I took my third grade class to the boathouse on a field trip! We just got back a couple of hours ago but I wanted to post pictures as soon as I could because I know some of you kids (and parents) wanted to check them out. Here they are:

Peeking at the Olympic trophy case

Looking out on Lake Mendota

Showing pictures to Drake and Otto

Walking through the boat bays downstairs

Checking out the eights

Getting to touch the double scull and ask questions

Seeing how heavy an oar is

Sharing my 2008 National Champion gold medal

The girls getting a turn on the rowing machine. Bryn won the 100 meter race for the girls!

Drake won the 100 meter race for the boys!

Ms. Feingold's third grade class

Flexing our muscles!!

Enjoying Babcock Hall ice cream, made right here on the UW campus

Big thanks go out to Mia, Amanda, and Dani, my teammates who helped answer questions and teach the kids how to use a rowing machine. I'm glad all you kids had fun - I know I did!

"Can Anyone Beat Wisconsin?"

Post #13

Madison, Wisconsin - Yes, it's the end of the school year, and that means it's field trip time! All of the third graders at Randall spent yesterday at Folklore Village in rural Wisconsin. We had a great time working in teams to learn how to square dance, making felt balls from scratch, and understanding how to learn through watching, listening, and copying.

On a different note, for all of you Wisco Lights (Wisconsin Lightweight) fans out there, the headline going into the season-ending IRA National Championship was "Women's Lightweights: Can Anyone Beat Wisconsin?" An impressive Stanford eight and Loyola four answered that question and walked away with gold medals, leaving silver for Wisco in both events. It's not easy to get second after an undefeated 2010 regular season and winning 5 of the past 6 national championships and today painfully showed that. The Stanford crew beat the course record (wow!) in a blazing fast 6 minutes, 28 seconds and Wisconsin was 3.5 seconds behind that. Like true competitors, everything that the Wisconsin rowers had to say in their post-race reflections via phone calls and IMs showed their respect for the Stanford crew. As my dad put it, if you're going to get second, probably the best way to do it is to have lost to the new course record holders and to know you did the best you could. The full race recap can be found here.