First Wins of the Season

Post # 125

What's so bad about being at the boathouse at 6:15 am on a Sunday? Not much, when you have flat water, a rising sun, and you're launching for a rowing race on your home water. Artemis had just that this morning for their second race of the season. The boys' quad, single, and four all logged their first wins of the season, and it was awesome! The girls won a whole bunch of events too. There is a real feeling of excitement and improvement building at this club, and today showed that. We're slowly coming together even more as a team and the tough practices are starting to pay off on race day.

Boys quad with a dominating lead

Boys four after their win

Girls quad

I couldn't be more proud of the entire team - boys and girls - on their performances today. They were really aggressive on the water and so supportive of each other and helpful off the water.

Go Artemis!

Racing Begins for Artemis

Post # 124

Last Saturday marked the first race of the season for Artemis Rowing, and our team did great. The guys raced in lots of different events and many of them raced twice. By the end of the day, everyone was exhausted and we had some awesome results: the 8th grade/frosh 8 notched a 3rd place finish in a field of 11 boats and the quad also got 3rd.

Love this shot of my 8th grade/frosh 8. Such characters!

The quad launching for their race

My favorite part of the day was watching each one of them come off the water after each race. They were ecstatic. Nothin' like the nerves and thrill of racing to make you feel alive.

The team is really starting to come into their own and we're bonding more and more as racing kicks into gear. We're working harder than ever at practice to prep for the rest of the spring season, which culminates in the regional championship in early May. It's so fun and rewarding for me to see these kids learn to love a sport that I also love so much.

Inspiring and Being Inspired

Post # 123

I'm all about inspiring others to reach higher and understand their sport better, whether that's in terms of training, racing, nutrition, or mental preparation. One new way for me to make that happen is through an online Athlete Network I'm now part of. It's a group of 20+ elite rowers from the US and Canada that are creating a virtual community to inspire the rest of the rowing/athletic world. Each of us is sharing information, best practices, and stories about the sport and life as a full-time athlete. We're also going to be doing workshops, where people get to talk to us and ask questions face-to-face on a Google Hangout. I'm really excited to learn from my teammates and see what we can all create individually and as a whole. To get access to all of it, just sign up to be an "insider" on the site.

The flip side to inspiring others is having others inspire me. Often times when I speak at events, like the one I went to yesterday at a Running for a Better Oakland, I am so impressed by young, up-and-coming athletes. RBO is a free, nonprofit club in Oakland that trains kids for 5ks, half marathons, and marathons. I'd heard a lot about the program from its director, who I've known for some time now, but I'd never seen the whole thing in action. The club draws over 300 kids in Oakland, regardless of background, motive, age, or socioeconomic status down to the lake on a Saturday mornings to run. I felt the excitement and positivity of the morning as kids got ready for their runs and saw the incredible support of the volunteers organizing and motivating the kids. But some of them didn't need motivation; I heard numerous first graders saying in the most normal and nonchalant way that they were about to run ten miles. Awesome!

I'm inspired by these girls for so many reasons - one of which is that they ran 10 miles yesterday! 

5k kids warming up with some leg swings 

Snow and Sun

Post # 122

My parents live in the Boston area so I've been getting daily updates on the damage that Nemo has wreaked on the area. Several feet of snow fell the other day so they've been out shoveling constantly and keeping the wood stove cranked. As much as I like living in CA right now, I do miss those huge New England snow storms. As a kid, it was the best to wake up, look out the window, and have everything blanketed in freshly fallen snow.

Out here in California, we've had some really nice weather over the past couple weeks. I've been training with the California Rowing Club a fair amount and they are a great group of people. It's been fun to do some racing with them here and there too. Even though we're span all categories in rowing (lightweight and heavyweight, men and women) we're able to compete against each other using percentages. Our race times get compared against the world record time in our event and then we get ranked by our percentage of that time. So even though I'm a little lightweight girl, I still have a way to compete against the guys who are much taller and stronger than me. The best part about all of it is that it's an easygoing, casual group of athletes who are still serious about training. It's a great combination, especially for where I'm at in my training right now. Working out with them is always a good time.

Head racing in Oakland 

The best way to spend a February morning

Presenting: Artemis Rowing

Post # 121

Artemis Rowing is Oakland Youth Rowing's new name. Though nothing else has changed about the program or its mission, we're welcoming the new name and making the transition to fully adopt it.

I'm still coaching the boys' team and practices have been going great. Winter is the season without regattas so things slow down a bit. That gives us time to work on technical changes and fitness that will prepare us for the spring season. Last week we had an incredible few days of flat water and gorgeous sunsets. The pictures below were taken on three separate nights, each of which was amazing.

As for my own training, I'm definitely getting back into it. My primary focus this post-Olympic year was always to earn back some money that I spent in the past four years for training, and I'm trying to follow through on that. I had to go into pretty significant debt to compete in the regattas I did and to reach my goal of competing at the Olympics, so now I'm tackling the task of recovering financially. It's still important to me to get on the water and keep my fitness up, so I'm at the boathouse most mornings. Last week, a couple U-23 lightweight girls were in town and we got together and did some work in a quad. I'm all for helping the next generation of lightweights develop, and plus it was fun for me to have some time in a big boat. (Though I will say it was strange for me to be the "old" person in the boat - I was always the youngest one around. since when did that happen?!)

Photo credit: California Rowing Club

I've got some exciting things on tap for early 2013 - stay tuned to hear more!

A Different Kind of Workout

Post # 120

Salt Lake City, Utah - I've been out in Utah for a few days visiting my family for the holidays. My brother lives out here now and is a champ downhill skier (he doesn't race, but he's got serious skills). We had planned to do a bunch of downhill skiing while we were here, but I rallied my parents to go cross-country skiing with me as well. The post-Olympic period is a better time than any to try out new activities and I had always wanted to try my hand at a sport I've heard so much about. I was excited when there was no parental resistance to my idea, and we headed up to a nearby ski track the next morning.

Things I didn't know before we strapped on our skis: 1. My parents were both certified nordic ski instructors back in the day (how was this left out of the original discussion?). 2. They both still have a knack for teaching beginners (read: me).

I learned pretty quickly that similar to my main sport, nordic skiing is very repetitive and requires a lot of strength, technique, and balance. The former, I'm pretty good with. The latter two, not so much. Actually, not at all. Cross-country skiing is a different kind of motion on a different kind of surface than I'm used to. I had no idea what I was doing, but I kind of picked it up as I logged some km's. Still, I couldn't help but spend the whole time thinking about the efficiency of the motion, trying to understand how the skis moved, and figuring out how this crazy motion is supposed to look (and then asking my parents how closely I compared - they were forgiving in their assessments). What can I say, my brain is wired for efficiency.

The only picture of me skiing, and it doesn't even look like I'm wearing skis.

By the end of the day, I had gotten a great workout in and had gained huge respect for my ITA teammates Brian, Torin, and Sylvan. Major props to them. Cross-country skiing requires a lot of skill and cardiovascular fitness - not that I ever doubted them, but now I know for sure. For you three, good luck at US Nationals next week. I'll be watching and cheering from afar.

The Teammate Bond

Post # 119

I recently found myself in a seemingly unlikely situation: I was hiking near San Francisco with three girls I had rowed with in high school. We were 3,000 miles away from Boston, where we grew up, and it had been over eight years since we sat at a starting line together. We had only kept in touch here and there during college, but once we realized that half of our high school 8 lived in the bay area, we starting hanging out again, having adventures, and reminiscing about our days at Community Rowing. Sure, we'd had different college experiences and a lot of things had happened between 2004 and 2012, but it didn't matter. We picked up right where we had left off because we had bonded in our years as teammates.

Hiking in SF the other week. We competed together over eight years ago. 

The bonds developed steadily over the years, both in high school and in college. They developed each morning when we woke up early, came down to the boathouse for practice, and tried to squeeze the best performances out of each other. They developed during the hours on the water together, in practices with extreme cold/ice/snow, humidity, torrential downpours, thick fog, or insane wind. They developed during the annual fifteen hour van ride from Boston to South Carolina for winter training in high school. In college, they developed when our flights would be hours delayed on the east coast on a Sunday night and we'd play games to pass the time. 

The bonds got even stronger when we raced together. I remember the final sprint of many regional and national championships. Sometimes we were ahead of the field and other times we had to make up ground on our rivals in the final strokes of the race. Regardless of the situation, everyone had each others' back and we were doing everything we could to get our team across the line first. We wanted to work hard for each other and the team. 

With Wisco teammates Margot and Adrienne racing for the Badgers in New Jersey (left) and hanging out in California the night before I left for London (right). Adrienne also visited over the weekend (and came pounding on my door on Sunday morning as a surprise!). 

Over the years, we learned to have each others' backs in all sorts of situations, not just during practices or races. We became each others' family, and because of that, it's not really unlikely at all that we picked up right where we left off. Even though we're not competing together anymore, we'll always be there for each other, back each other up, and be on each others' team. 

GOTR Final 5k

Post # 118

Yesterday was the fall season Final 5k for the Girls on the Run of the Bay Area. I'm no longer a coach for GOTR but I volunteer with them every so often. Yesterday I was a Running Buddy for Mia, a speedster from Oakland. Running buddies are assigned to each girl who runs the 5k and their job is to help encourage them. It's great because the entire community of runners gets pulled together through the Running Buddy program; it's not just the girls running the 5k.

The morning of the 5k, it was pouring rain. As we gathered pre-race, it was coming down in sheets and we were all huddled underneath our umbrellas. The race went off anyway and despite the weather, it was such a fun time. I couldn't believe how positive Mia and the girls around her were. Even though we were splashing through big puddles, she kept on running, hitting her landmarks, and encouraging girls around her that she didn't even know before the race. I love how sports can teach you to band together as a team and help each other stay positive even if the situation isn't perfect. There were a lot of soggy clothes, tired girls, and big smiles after the race.

Luckily after a week of rain, the blue sky returned this afternoon. I'm excited to get back out on the water tomorrow morning. With last week's gusts of 50 mph, it's been too windy to row for an entire week now!

Finishing Off a Great Fall Season

Post #117

Today's race in San Mateo marked the end of the fall 2012 season for Oakland Youth Rowing. The boys raced in quads, doubles, and singles. The course was the curviest I've ever seen and had three bridges, but they handled it like pros. All of the kids came off the water with big smiles on their faces and stories of crazy, hard fought races.

The highlight of the day for me was when I was approached by a coach of another team asking if we had kids who would do a last minute race in a double. Their team was going to be uncontested in the event and they wanted a competitor. The hitch? It was starting in less than an hour and it was a mixed double (meaning one boy and one girl). The Oakland athletes were all exhausted from racing once already, but I approached two of them about doing it anyway. Before I even finished my sentence, they were jumping up and down and screaming "YES! YES WE'LL DO IT!" As we speed-rigged one of the doubles to get it ready to go, they couldn't stop talking about how amazed they were that the opportunity had come up. How great is that attitude?

In our post-race team meeting, I thought back on the last few months and all of our experiences as a team. When I first came to OYR in September, the boys team was about half the size it is now. By the end of the season, we've drawn so many more people to the sport of rowing and made tons of progress with fitness, technique, and race experience as a team. I am so impressed with how far we've come in only a couple months.

Congrats to the entire OYR family for a fantastic fall season. Can't wait to get the winter started.

Charles Wrap-Up

Post # 116

I'm back in Cali after racing at Head of the Charles in Boston. The Oakland Youth doubles and I all raced on Sunday, which was a gorgeous sunny day. We had close enough start times that as I warmed up, I saw each of them power by in their races and cheered extremely loud for each of them. The boys placed 40th and the girls placed 10th. Now we have an idea of where we stand and a platform to improve on for this weekend.

(photos by row2k.com)

My race, which started right after theirs, was really, really difficult. No races are easy, but when you have a strong headwind pushing against you nearly the whole way down the course, it feels like a constant battle with the elements. Add to that the fact that I haven't trained as hard as I normally do in this post-Olympic "break" and it was pretty brutal. I know what it feels like to race when I'm in peak fitness and now I know that it feels a lot worse when I'm not. Ouch!

It's a good thing I had the help of everyone cheering. Being from Boston, I had a lot of fans along the river: Amory of In the Arena, her whole family, my parents, uncle, and cousins, my college team, a huge Wisconsin alumni tent, my Oakland rowers, and friends scattered along the whole course. There are so many bridges and riverbanks along the course that you can really hear everyone. It was great. I got back on land and learned that I had successfully defended my title and won my event!

The doubles and I are back in action, along with about 50 other Oakland Youth rowers, in Sacramento this weekend for Head of the American.