Ed, Been a little backed up with school, but here is what I got from Camp Nash 1998. Actually I think we should rename the camp El Nino 1998, the first five days we were only able to get on the water three times. Even the three water practices had some El Nino monkey wrenches. Us male types got lucky and were sent out in an eight, but the women had to fend for themselves in singles. I'd swear coming back into the headwind they'd actually loose ground on the recovery. It all culminated with Sara Field doing the tango with a piling and snapping a blade in the process. Amazingly enough she stayed upright making the piling her new best buddy. Eventually everyone made it in, but it was another three days before we could hit the water again.
In the meantime we had our fill of the erg, running and lifting at Ted's free gym connection, that by all accounts was where Schwarzenager trained. Ben Sell got the cross training award for jumping a good ten feet down into the bay during a run. It was a good 200 meters plus before he found a way back out. Something about he wanted to swim with hammerhead sharks. There were plenty of diversions in between; not the least of which was the plush Economy Inn on Kennedy Blvd. You had your choice of vagrants, prostitutes, derelicts, etc. It got close to being ugly when one of the strung out locals decided to push Ted on what his IQ was, Curt should have never started singing "Freebird", but even in a chemically altered state Mr. Congeniality knew better than to mess with Ted. Add in the rooms that had been scent marked by the last guests and you had a regular Four Seasons.
Once the weather broke is back out on the water, but the fun was just beginning. Not wanting to be upstaged by the women we decided it would be great fun to flip a pair with, and see how long the coxswain could hold his breath. Playing slalom games through the bridges is not the easiest in the floating leg press. John McKorkle managed to save the coxswain before he turned entirely blue, and I had the honor of now having flipped two pair withs, one Vespo one Empacher. Once back to the boathouse Ted and Joe Sweeney performed various miracles to rebuild a straight four with special helio arch welded gadgets created by an East European welder Ted had enlisted just for the boat. End result was we had two straight fours to do some racing in for the afternoon practice, after the mid day erg pieces. For the afternoon racing we had special guest appearances from Nick "The Quick" McQuaid and Mike Furry I mean Ferry straight from having fun with Igor in Augusta. After wrecking all the rating caps it was back to Gainesville to recover, I mean to get back to classes. The rest of the time it was commuting back and forth trying to fit in practices in between Tornadoes. A word to the wise when training in Tampa, stay away from the Economy Inn *(or at least bring lots of Lysol), don't bother with University of Tampa's version of Singled Out (its all rigged Tom by far has the best pose on the Abdominzer 2000), definitely go during Gasparilla (bring lots of beads), and make sure McKorkle checks the back of the we'll miss you card for the Hallmark (Cleveland Steamer) sign.
Check out the photos closely and you'll see Ted learned his lesson from Cuba, not a full facial shot in there.
The Evidence: