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Racing: Day One v.2.0
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USA W4x



Megan Kalmoe

November 1, 2010
 1442
We finally got to take it down the course yesterday in our Heat for day one/two of racing.

This was a big day for us, as–true to US training tradition–we had yet to do a full 2k in our lineup.  What happened wasn’t ideal, but I think that we handled it as well as we could given the situation, and we ended up with a feisty, gutsy race.

Just past the 250m mark, Sarah caught a nasty bit of work with her port oar which actually launched the oar forward into the boat so the blade face was touching the oarlock and the handle was over my shoulder (I wish it would have been on camera!!).  I’m not really sure how it was physically possible, and I’ve definitely never seen a crab like that in action before, but the response was right on.  Natalie, bless her heart, did not see or hear this happen so she was content to keep rowing while the three of us wrestled with the equipment in the bow.  But then when we were set again, there was a moment of clarity and off we went, charging back in to the pack, open water down to Australia and Ukraine.  As Sarah said, later on our refocus: “I think we were able to get back in to it because part of us just realized: ‘well, we’re f*cked, we might as well just go for it.’”

And then we laid down a sweet middle thousand chasing after the leaders.  It was blisteringly aggressive and punched full of adrenaline, and the race just flew by with all four of us making calls all the way down.  I can’t recall another race I’ve had quite like it.

 

Obviously we have some work to do if we’re going to make it through to the A Final, but I think all four of us know what we need to do to improve on our performance and be ready for tomorrow’s Reps.The USA W4X is locked and loaded!

Long Live the Dream,

–MK

http://megankalmoe.com

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