This year has been different in many ways. Coming off the Olympics last summer, I really had no idea how it would shape up. I didn't know if I'd want to row anymore and if I did, how often I'd want to be out there. I also wondered whether I'd find the same passion for it that I'd had before or just feel burned out on it all. For the first year in my 13-year rowing career, I've had a chance to step back, train less, and finally take a deep breath (not literally speaking, of course). I took things easier than normal (which is all relative) but I left my options open so that if I wanted to race. Slowly, over the course of the year, I realized that I can't not race. I love to have a goal and train hard for it. That's why in the fall, it wasn't hard to "convince" me to race at the Head of the Charles - it in fact took very little egging me on. And it's also how the National Selection Regatta (NSR) 1 entry list ended up having my name on it.
This first NSR of the spring starts on Thursday in Princeton, New Jersey and for the lightweight women, it serves to show us where we stand compared to each other. We all train in different locations - there are entries from southern CA, northern CA, Seattle, Oklahoma, Philly, Boston, and more - so we meet up at this first race to get an idea of our rank.
USRowing's preliminary schedule for the lightweight women is as follows:
Thursday morning: time trial (to seed the heats)
Thursday evening: heats
Friday morning: semifinals
Saturday morning: finals
One very exciting update from the past two weeks is that I got a new boat! It's made by Hudson Boat Works and it is gorgeous. Julie and I have trained and raced in a Hudson double for the past two years, so it's great for me to be able to rep them in the single as well. Unzipping the cover on a brand new boat isn't something you get to do a lot of times in your life, and you feel just like a kid on Christmas morning. I got to see it for the first time on a Monday morning, and it totally made my week.
As usual, I'll be keeping the blog updated throughout the racing. Until then, here are a few photos of training over the past week or so:
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