NSR 1: Day 1

Post #43

Princeton, New Jersey - Wow, what a day. Starting from the beginning:

I met all the other lightweights at 6:15 am for our weigh-in. Weigh-ins happen two hours before race time (at all US selection events and internationally), and everyone shows up on time so they can get right to hydrating and eating breakfast. At that point, the chop on the water looked manageable but not particularly fun. By the time we launched at around 7:45, the wind had picked up and it was white-capping. Not what you want to see when you're getting ready to race a single!

USRowing decided to continue running the time trials anyway, but it wasn't pretty. It was a 17 mph tailwind by the time I went down the course and waves were crashing behind my stern. Yuck. About six inches of water sat in the bottom of my boat at the end of the race.

Despite the craziness, I think everyone (in all events - about 110 single scullers) made it back to the dock in one piece. I put my boat down and saw my parents, who told me about the results. Turns out I posted the fastest time in the time trial, so I'll enter the heats with the top seed. It's difficult to read into a non-elimination time trial and even more difficult when the conditions are super crazy, so the heats will be much more telling.

Speaking of heats, we showed up this afternoon to race the heat only to learn that they were being postponed until tomorrow morning. Considering it was still white-capping, I think it was a good call! Here's the updated schedule (full version here):

Friday 4/22

7:48 am Heat 1 (this is the one I'll be racing in - lane 3)

7:56 am Heat 2

8:04 am Heat 3

The progression remains the same: top two in the heats go on to final A, next two to final B, and last two to final C. The finals will be tomorrow evening, probably around 5-6 pm. Stay tuned on this NSR 1 website to see results.

Tomorrow should be a fun (and long) day. Gotta rest up!