Trials Week

Post #21

Princeton, New Jersey - I'm back in Princeton after not having raced for three months and I'm excited to get back on the course! I flew in with my teammates yesterday with big oar cases in hand since we brought all of our oars with us across the country. We loaded them all on the truck when our coach picked us up at the airport.

After rigging and going out for a spin on the water today, we have adjusted well to being here. I guess the fact that we brought the typical Northwest weather with us (rain...all day long!) helped.

Rigging the quad

Racing for our group starts tomorrow with Ursula in the single at 10:10 am. We'll team up to race the quad starting on Thursday. Race results can be found HERE. The quad is listed as "Women's Ltwt 4x." You'll notice that there are two finals listed for each boat class. That's because at trials, you have to win two out of three finals to qualify for the World Championships. We're ready to go and excited to race!

Countdown to U.S. Trials

Post #20

Bellingham, Washington - It's 9:30 am here on the west coast and my quad got off the water about an hour ago from a thirteen mile row. The weather in the Pacific Northwest is not what I'm used to. There are lots of foggy, rainy days which means that often times, we'll be on the water and find ourselves completely engulfed in fog. It can be a little scary until you find the land and get your bearings! Below are some photos from this morning's workout.

Training here has been going well. We are working very hard and putting in our miles on Lake Samish. Things are beginning to ramp up as as we head into racing. We leave for U.S. Trials in Princeton, New Jersey in eleven days and begin racing in fifteen. Trials is a best-two-out-of-three format, so the team that wins two of the three trials races qualifies to represent the USA at the World Championships.

This year's Worlds are particularly special because they are in the southern hemisphere meaning that the seasons are switched. It is currently late winter/early spring in New Zealand, so Worlds have been pushed back until November to ensure that it is warm enough to hold a World Championship regatta. This has significantly changed everyone's training because we are used to having Worlds in late August! The website for the regatta, which I've heard is supposed to be an amazing event, is HERE.

It has been a while since I last updated my ITA blog as I've been busy with my quad's blog. Now I'm back at it with this one, so check back on the usual two-week intervals and, for your super fans out there, I'll still be keeping up with the Bellingham Quad's blog HERE.

Bellingham Quad Blog

Post #19

Bellingham, Washington - My teammates, coach, and I have started a new blog chronicling our adventures leading up to U.S. Trials at the end of September and, if we win that, the World Championships in early November. Between the five of us, we are attempting to update it DAILY so I'm sending you over to that blog site for updates over the next couple of months.

You can find it HERE. (http://bellinghamquad.blogspot.com)

Hope you enjoy the overload of pictures/video/information!

Hiking in the Northwest

Post #18

Bellingham, Washington - Though the ITA athletes are taking a break from our normal two-week blog posts, I couldn't help but post these pictures. It has been a great couple of weeks and my team out here has hiked two mountains. Hiking is a really fun way to get away from the water and rowing machine and do some cross training. The views were amazing!

Hiking up Church Mountain

Church Mountain Summit! Mt. Baker in the background.

Hiking up Mt. Baker

All four of us with the Mt. Baker glacier in the background. It was so cloudy when we hiked...

...but beautiful when we got back down. Here's the view from the bottom.

On the Road Again...Again

Post #17

Bellingham, Washington - Yes, it really is the time of year when I travel a lot! I was at a training camp in Oklahoma City for ten days before going back home to Madison. I had two solid weeks of training in the single in Madison before I packed up my apartment, put it all in a U-Haul truck, and moved out. The next day (yesterday), I was flying over the snow-capped mountains of Washington before landing in Seattle. I'll be spending the next few months in Bellingham, a city about an hour and a half north of Seattle. It was sad to say goodbye to my cute apartment, great friends, and amazing community in Madison, but I am excited about being here. I am going to be training with two women who have already been named to the U.S. National team in the lightweight double for this year's World Championships in New Zealand. After trials in September, I'll know whether I'll be joining them on that trip. Bellingham is a gorgeous place to live and train and I feel really lucky to be here. Considering I grew up doing lots of hiking and romping in the mountains, it's great to be around them after being in the Midwest for such a long time! After settling in and getting over my jet lag, I look forward to starting an ITA project with the youth in the area.

On the Road Again

Post #16

Oklahoma City, OK - Well, as usual for this time of year, I have been doing lots of traveling. After racing at Elite Nationals, I took a mini-vacation in Rhode Island with my family. Without a doubt, Rhode Island tops my list of favorite places to be in the summer. Every time I come back (my family has been going there every summer for 18 years now!), everything slows down and I’m able to relax. I continued my workouts by going on some long runs, one of which I planned so that it ended at the beach and I could jump in the ocean!

After a couple days in Rhode Island, I said goodbye to my family (puppy included!) and went right back into training in Madison. I got to celebrate the fourth of July in Madison for the first time ever (goes to show how much I usually travel in July!) and had a great BBQ with friends. Just a week later, I packed my bags again and flew to Oklahoma City for a selection camp for the U.S. lightweight quad. Oklahoma City is beginning to build a U.S. Olympic Training site and we are some of the first athletes to train here.

I’m fortunate enough to stay with a host family here and they live in an apartment on the 22^nd floor of a downtown building. The views are cool, especially since the land is so flat here. Last night, there was a big storm that rolled through and I went out on the balcony to grab a quick video.

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.