World Cup II

Post #54

Hamburg, Germany - So here we are, the city where the most recent E. Coli outbreak began. With reports from German health officials that the infection threat has been removed, the second World Cup is all systems go.

Starting blocks at the Hamburg race course. Still that light out at 9:15 pm!

A quick look at the entry list for our event shows that we'll be lining up against many of the same crews that were in Munich, but also a bunch of new ones. There are sixteen crews entered, and the most notable addition is the German double. The Germans won a silver at last year's World Championships in New Zealand. Unfortunately, the E. Coli threat caused the entire British team to pull their entries, as well as the Dutch double that was supposed to race in our event. We were really looking forward to racing them again. Still, there will be some great competition here and we're excited to get back on the race course.

We'll be in a heat tomorrow morning with Norway, Korea, Sweden, and Switzerland at 11:18 am (5:18 am US Eastern time). Top 2 advance directly to semis and the rest go to the afternoon reps. Results are here, on World Rowing's website. Select class: "LW2x." Go USA!

Church Bells and Cowbells

Post #53

Switzerland - What a month it has been. Julie and I started rowing the double together in late April and within about five weeks, we've qualified the boat in the US, come overseas to Vienna, then gone to Munich, and qualified ourselves for the World Championships team. Phew!

We've been training in Switzerland since World Cup I. It has been the perfect place to unwind from the first batch of racing, get some training in, and figure out logistics for the rest of the summer. Switzerland is an incredible country and every day we talk about how lucky we are to be here. We're rowing on a aqua blue lake surrounded by perfectly groomed hillsides, cows with cowbells, and stunning snow-capped Alps in the distance. I could get used to this!

Looking down the buoyed course on the lake. I don't think I've ever rowed in a place this gorgeous.

Perfect hillsides

Alps at dusk

A few other impressions of Switzerland:

1. Everything is small, except for the mountains. Our "family size" milk is smaller than a half gallon, I haven't eaten off of a regular sized spoon (mini spoons only) since we arrived, and the washing machine only fits a few days worth of workout clothes. The smallness also applies to fruit, refrigerators, cars, docks, and - perhaps most alarming - the width of two-way streets.

Mini everything. Penny for scale.

2. Every town has at least one church whose bells chime every fifteen minutes. Our town's church also does a big bell song at 7 am and at noon. Up and at 'em!

3. Each town has one or two amazing bakeries. When we row by the town centers in our morning workouts, the fresh bread and pastry smells waft across the lake. Kind of nauseating during practice - and hard to resist afterwards!

4. Much to our occasional frustration, the Swiss actually take lunch breaks. Every store in town closes for a solid hour and a half in the middle of the day. We also tried to get some groceries on June 2, only to find out (after we were standing in front of the store's locked doors of course) that it's a national holiday. And if any national holiday falls on a Thursday, they just take that Friday off too and make it one big four-day weekend.

5. German is the main language spoken where we are, which means we're in the land of long words. They take a phrase like "central train station" and smoosh it all together to make one big word. Julie took a year and a half of German in high school, and (lucky for me and Ken), she actually remembers it. We'd be lost without her!

World Cup II starts next week in Hamburg, Germany. Much more info to come as we lead up to it, so check back to follow along.

Training in Switzerland

Report From Munich, Day 3: Bronze Medals!

Post #52

Munich, Germany - We took third in the final yesterday to earn bronze medals and an automatic berth to this year's World Championships. This means that no more selection within the US will take place this year for the Olympic class boat; Julie and I can put our heads down and start working on being as fast as we can be for the World Champs in August.

Yesterday's race was a great one. We got off the line even with the British crew (who placed 3rd at the 2009 Worlds and 5th at the 2010 Worlds) and stayed virtually stroke for stroke with them through the halfway mark. The second British crew made a big surge at the 1000, which made for an exciting race. A different crew was leading at each of the first three 500s of the 2,000 meter race, but only ever by fractions of a second. In the end, GB 1 took gold, GB 2 won silver, and we took home the bronze. To watch the race in its entirety (commentary included), click here and then hit Play on "Munich - LW2x" on the right side. Here's the full row2k write-up and full results sheet (we are event 178 at 12:03 pm) too.

Report from Munich, day 1: Heat win!

Post #51

Munich, Germany - Julie and I raced our first World Cup race this morning and won our heat in Germany! Since it was run in time trial format, we raced one at a time down the course. This meant that we had no idea during the race how we were doing; we found out only after everyone had finished and the times had been calculated. In rowing, it's rare to do 2,000 meter races one by one, so it felt strange to be in an international race and feel so lonely out there!

Winning the heat meant we could skip the repechage this afternoon and moved directly to tomorrow's semifinals. We have been hanging out at the hotel and getting pumped for the semi. Out of the 6 boats that will race in each of the two semis, the top 3 finishers will go to the A final and the bottom 3 will go to the B final.

Our semi will be tomorrow at 2:36 pm local time (8:36 am US eastern).

- Link to live results (with audio feed)

- Link to results page online (select LW2x under "class" at the top and then click the red arrow for semifinal #2 results)

Go USA!

Stickers on the Japanese boats in light of the earthquake disaster earlier this year

Munich rain: looking down the course from the finish line.

World Cup I: Summer Racing Begins!

Post #50

Munich, Germany - Since the last time I posted (about a week ago), so much has happened. Julie and I went to Vienna, Austria for a few days to train for the World Cup. I had never been to Vienna before so it was simply amazing to see the downtown buildings, which were only a few subway stops from where we were staying. Photos to come when I have a better internet connection and can actually upload them!

Now we're in Munich and races for the first regatta of the summer World Cup season start tomorrow. The heat draw was just posted and we race tomorrow at 11:50 am local time (5:50 am US eastern). They are running heats in time trial format, which, from what I understand, is a new format for international racing. Regatta organizers are running it this way to practice an adverse weather contingency plan for the Olympics. Translation: if the weather is too bad to run races in normal, six-boats-across format, they'll switch to the time trial in which crews race one by one down a single lane. The good news is that we race the time trial format all the time at the National Selection Regattas in the US, so we're used to it.

The boat with the fastest time from each heat will advance directly to Friday's semifinals, and everyone else will go to repechage race tomorrow afternoon. There were a couple of boats that scratched from our event, so now there are only 23 entries. These were seeded into four heats; ours has us, Greece, Austria 1, Poland 1, and France. We have the only heat with five boats instead of six. Countries are allowed to enter more than one boat in each event for the World Cups (hence Poland 1 and 2, Great Britain 1 and 2, etc.) but only one boat per country per event is allowed at the World Championships.

I have never raced in Munich before, but the setup reminds me a lot of racing in Poland in 2009. It's a very well marked course with a huge boathouse (we're talking about 30 boat bays) near the finish line. The start of the 2,000 meter course is at one end of the lake and there are only about 200 meters beyond the finish line at the other end. It's perfectly rectangular and the water is clear with a bright green color. I feel like I'm rowing in a giant swimming pool!

The greatest challenge in Europe so far is understanding the language. Julie took a year and a half of German in high school so she can understand a few words here and there. I'm completely lost though. The other ever present challenge is adapting to the food in a foreign country. As lightweight rowers, not only do we want to hit our 57 kilogram average right on, we also want to feel as fueled and ready as possible when we line up at the start. In the US, we know the foods that settle easily in our pre-race stomachs and make us feel good to go. So you can imagine how problems arise when they don't have things like peanut butter in European grocery stores! I'm glad we've been here for a few days to get used to all the food and find out what works and what doesn't.

You can follow the results on World Rowing. I don't have a specific link since the homepage won't load for me right now. The results will also likely be linked to Row2k's results page.

World Cups: What are they, anyway?

Post #49

Small town, Connecticut - The next event for Julie and me is to race at World Cup I in Munich, Germany. There are three World Cups every summer, held in May, June, and July in Europe. World Cups are a great opportunity for countries to see where they stand and make changes leading up to the World Championships in August. In terms of results, the World Cups matter for our US qualification process for the World Championships. If we get top four at any of the three World Cups, we qualify ourselves in the lightweight double for the World Championships. If we don't, then the event will be contested at US Trials in early August.

It's a quick turnaround from NSR 2 to the first World Cup; time trials and heats begin a week from Friday. Entries were posted today and there are 26 boats in our event, the LW2x. Looking at who we'll be seeing on the racecourse, it's about an even split of familiar and unfamiliar names. Among the familiar lineups are the British double that placed fourth at the 2010 Worlds, one of the women from the Greek double who won gold at the 2009 Worlds, and both members of the 2009 silver medal Polish double (albeit in different doubles at this World Cup). There's also a Belgian double that I lined up next to at the Lucerne World Cup in '09. You'll notice that several of the countries have multiple entries. FISA allows this for World Cups, but not for World Championships or the Olympics.

Julie and I have our hands full with planning, packing, and practices. We'll fly over on Saturday and train in Vienna for a few days before heading to Munich. I'm not sure what our internet situation will be right away, so if you're following races, results will likely be posted here once racing starts. I think I'll be able to get more info out before then though!

NSR 2: Day 3

Post #48

Princeton, NJ - Wow, on my 25th birthday (today!) I got to do one of my most favorite things in the world: win a race. Julie and I came down the course in 7 minutes, 14 seconds to take first place at NSR 2. This qualified us to race at any or all of the World Cups in Europe that happen May-July. We are trying to work out equipment and other logistics so we're not sure how many/which ones we're going to race at, but I will get figured out in due time. For now, I'm just enjoying a great birthday.

A few links:

- Full results

- USRowing's press release about the finals

- There are some photos of the racing posted online, taken by the wonderful photographer Igor.

- Follow Wisco at Eastern Sprints

NSR 2: Day 2

Post #47

Princeton, New Jersey – So here we go with the A final. Julie and I took first place in a three-to-advance semifinal this morning so we’ll be in the middle lane tomorrow. The final will no doubt be exciting since only the winner earns the opportunity to go to the World Cups.

The race will be at 7:50 am eastern and if you’re interested, there will be a live video feed. From what I’ve heard, it’s not great quality but good enough to know what’s happening. If they are announcing the crews based on lanes, listen for lane 3. That’ll be us.

Results will be posted here. Scroll to the bottom and click on WL2x Final A.

For those of you new to rowing, these races are 2,000 meters long, and sometimes they pick up the race at the halfway mark for the video feed. This course has a white gazebo at the 1500 meter mark, so there will only be 500 meters (about 2 minutes) to go after that.

Thanks for the support thus far; we are really looking forward to the final and will be ready to go!

p.s. Blogger was down for a while, so the previous post (NSR 2: Day 1) will be back up once they get everything fixed.

NSR 2: Day 1

Post #46

Princeton, New Jersey - Julie and I raced the time trial this morning and placed second behind the USTC - Oklahoma entry of Abby and Ursula. We had a great time going down the course and the water was glassy, which always makes me happy. It's always hard to read the results because you don't know what everyone's effort level is in the time trial. That's especially true for this one, where no one was eliminated in the progression. The time trial results function as a seeding for tomorrow's semifinals.

(thank you to the excellent photographers at Row2k for these!)

The schedule is as follows:

Friday May 13 - 8:04 am semifinal 1, 8:12 am semifinal 2. Top 3 finishers from each semifinal advance to A final, last 2 finishers to B final.

Saturday May 14 - 7:50 am Final A, 8:28 am Final B. Winner of Final A qualifies to race at any/all of the 3 World Cups.

Results can be found here (WL2x on that page). The weather looks to be excellent for racing over the next few days - 4 mph winds and warm. Better than NSR 1!

It is always great to see the other Wisco alums at these National Selection Regattas. Seeing their familiar faces makes me feel right at home. They're the ones who I raced with, trained with, and had great times with in college. Plus it's always nice to feel like you have a team. Sometimes during the training rows in the days leading up to an NSR, you'll hear a little "Go Badgers!" from a fellow alum going the opposite way. One of the Wisco alums at this NSR is Claire Wallace, racing in the light double for Riverside. Claire's not only a talented rower, she's also a marathoner extraordinare. She ran Boston just a few weeks ago. She and I rowed together in the Wisco Varsity 8 together back in '06.

Claire and me after winning Eastern Sprints in 2006 in the Wisco Lightweight 8. We had matching golden race socks!

Claire (second from right) and me (fourth from left) after winning the National Championship in 2006.

Speaking of Eastern Sprints and the Wisco Lights, it looks like it'll be an exciting race on Sunday for them. From the Row2k preview:

"In the lightweight racing, the regular season has seen a shakeup atop the rankings, with Princeton supplanting Wisconsin atop the poll first the first time in about half a decade. The Tigers beat the Badgers at the PAC-10 Invitational by a sizeable margin in late March, but it’s been also been shown historically that it’s pretty tough to beat the Badgers in May."

Next update to come tomorrow. Thanks for the support and for watching!

Ramping up to NSR 2

Post #45

Small town, Connecticut - After NSR 1, Julie Nichols and I decided to train and race the double together for NSR 2. For the lightweight women, NSR 2, which starts on Thursday, means a lot more than NSR 1. The first one is in singles and tells you where you stack up against others in the country. The second one is in doubles (our only Olympic event - and therefore our priority boat) and winning it qualifies you and your doubles partner to race at any or all of the three World Cups in Europe. But more on those later.

Julie and I decided that since there were only two and a half weeks between the NSRs (both held in Princeton, NJ), we'd stay on the east coast to train. We came up to a small lake in a small town in Connecticut and set up shop. It's nice and quiet here so we've been able to put in good work on the water, eat well, and rest well - all with few distractions.

The life of nomadic rowers: cars with boats on top

Our temporary training spot at dusk. Not too shabby!

In a few days, we'll drive back down to Princeton for racing. There are ten entries in our event, so our progression will likely be a time trial on Thursday, heats on Friday, and finals on Saturday (my birthday!). USRowing will be adding specific times and information to their website for the event as it gets closer, and I'll also be posting updates here.

Based on the entries in our event (LW2x), it looks to be some great racing. Abby and Ursula (the USTC-Oklahoma entry) won this event last year and will be racing together again. They were last year's Worlds double and were also my teammates in the 2010 Worlds quad. We'll also be lining up against Victoria, another member of the quad (who I shared an altitude tent with all of last summer, good times!). Both of the Pocock Rowing Center doubles have national team athletes in them, with multiple Worlds medals among them. There are also some doubles on the list whose names I'm not familiar with...but you can't ever count them out.

Not only will this be a big weekend of racing for us in Princeton, it's a big weekend all over the US. Virtually all of the colleges and high schools have their regional championships on either Saturday or Sunday. Fast thoughts to everyone else ramping up to racing this weekend - I know I'll be at Eastern Sprints cheering on the Wisco Lights on Sunday afternoon!

Stay tuned, more to come!