row2k Olympics Blog
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posted by: USA LM4- (July 29, 2012)
On track in the rep
Generally, being in the reps isn't something you want, to understate it. You're left fighting to stay alive, and have to make weight and race again while the rest of the field is resting. This isn't a huge handicap because we still have 48 hours between our rep and semi due to scheduling, but is still a consideration. On the other hand though, to put a positive spin on it, we as a boat are young and have very little experience racing in an Olympic environment. We executed well qualifying in Lucerne, but the pressure is different, the stakes are higher, and the competition much much more experienced and skilled. To put things in perspective, the stroke of the Danish four that secured the final semi bid from our heat won his first Olympic gold medal when I was 7 years old. So by rowing in the reps today, we will have twice as much experience, as a crew, going into our semi Tuesday afternoon.
We knew, meeting together last night, that if we raced the way we did Saturday in the rep our regatta would be over at about 9:46 AM on the second day of the Olympics. It couldn't be helped that someone's would be, and we had to be ready to "go blind with effort," as our coach put it, if we didn't want that to be us. As a crew we looked at how we wanted to perform, how we've performed in the past, and got ready to race. We knew it would not take an extraordinary effort from the crew that won in Lucerne to proceed from the reps, but we had to be that crew. And we were not ready to go home.
After this morning's race, we're back on track. We haven't arrived yet by any means, nor have we proved anything. But we're ready to line up on Tuesday against the best in the world and put everything towards achieving our first goal of making the grand final. The draw is out, so Tuesday at 12:40 it will be, from lane 1 to 6, USA, Netherlands, Switzerland, Great Britain, Germany, Czech Republic. We'll try to post tomorrow about what to expect. For now, it's time to rest, rehydrate and recover.
That's all for today.
-Will
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posted by: USA LM4- (July 24, 2012)
With five days to go until the start of races, our taper has begun. For those non-rowers, a taper is when we workout less and rest a lot more. It’s the final stage in our preparation for the London games. Rowers are usually divided over whether they like tapers or not. Some people love the extra energy and downtown, others get restless and don’t like the feeling of training less. Personally I’m a big fan of the taper. I enjoy the extra free time, and it’s a signal that racing is about to begin.
Since we’re starting to rest more for our upcoming race, we only had one row at the course, and then the afternoon was a cross training session on the bike. Cross training is always nice because you give your mind a little break from rowing. One of the more difficult aspects of training isn’t just the physical but the mental as well. It’s tough mentally to go through the monotony of training so a little break from rowing is always appreciated.
It’s starting to get a lot busier at the course and at the village. We were one of the first teams to show up to London but now many of the other countries are starting to arrive. When everyone is trying to share only seven lanes on a 2,000 meter course it can get pretty hectic. To make things even more difficult, not all the countries speak English. It’s easy to get a little nervous seeing an eight bearing down on you when you’re trying to turn, and knowing that they have no idea what you’re saying to them.
The four of us have gotten a great response from everyone reading this blog and visiting the site. The United States Lightweight Rowing Association was created with two main objectives in mind. The first is to create a network of people who want to support lightweight rowing and keep in touch with other lightweight rowing supporters. We hope that everyone who reads this blog will create a profile on our site and check out other members. The second main goal is to help raise money for those training on the US National Team, with a special emphasis on those going for the Olympics in 2016. There is very little funding in rowing, especially in lightweight rowing, but it only takes a little amount to make a big difference. Anyone interested in supporting should check out the donate page on the site linked below.
And be sure to check out the pictures we’ve been uploading to get a behind the scenes look at life at the Olympics!
-Nick
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posted by: USA LM4- (July 23, 2012)
This evening and tomorrow morning will mark the first real 24 hour period of rest we've gotten in over a week. I could probably go back and figure out if we had 24 hours off from rowing or not between our last practice in the States and our first practice here in London, but the reality is that the travel and processing, while fun, was anything but restful!
Today was definitely the nicest day we've had here so far - I think the fact that this "summer" has been miserable even by English standards has been pretty well publicized, but to be honest we've really lucked out the past few days, with very little rain, and today was as nice as it's been. We even needed our sunglasses for our morning row, and Nick may have been spotted in a tank top. This morning was a good session, somewhat harder work than we've done yet over here (the exact nature of which won't be posted online but it isn't really that interesting anyway) with Volp's other children, the heavy pair. Then the afternoon off and tomorrow morning as well before we get back to it.
It's starting to become noticeably more crowded here, although the volunteers, police officers, and soldiers (paratroopers today with red berets and jump wings) still seem to far outnumber the athletes. However the morning bus to the course (they run hourly) is now not one but two, and both full. Additionally, we have a few new arrivals to our section of the boat storage area. All the smaller boats (1 and 2 people) are kept in one "forrest" of boat racks, to the left of the boathouse, and the 8's are stored in the boathouse itself. The 4 person boats (men's fours, heavy and light, and men's and women's quads) are stored to the right of the boathouse. Up until this morning, it had been just our hull with the USA women's quad to keep it company, but the Greek heavy four, Chinese light four and women's quad, and South African light four all showed up today. Maybe there will be a race here next week after all!
This afternoon we ventured on the bus to near-by Staines, 2.5 miles east of the village, to go see the most recent Batman film. It was a bit pricey (11 GBP for a ticket? In Oklahoma they go for $4...) but definitely worth it to just get out of the village and relax a little bit. Reviews were generally positive, though not ecstatic. Most criticism was directed at the opening ads - the 4:20 movie didn't start til 5:00, and there were only 4 trailers. The rest was other advertising. Then a bus ride back to the village (the driver must have thought he was Mario Andretti) for a late dinner. We're all looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow.
That's all from London - enjoy your afternoons!
-Will
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posted by: USA LM4- (July 21, 2012)
When we arrived two days ago we were dumped head first into the cold pool that is the Olympic experience. The plunge was especially shocking because of how tired we were from the red eye over the Atlantic. Looking back, the whole landing, welcoming, registration and driving around London seems like a distant memory or a very vividly remembered dream. It was all very exciting and unbelievable luckily, we still have a ton of shirts, slew of hats and multiple pairs of sneakers and sunglasses to remind us of our first taste of the 2012 Olympic Games.
The last two days have been slightly calmer. After a good night's rest, we drove down to the racecourse and rigged up our newly molded Lucerne boat. (For those of you who don't know, our original boat at the Final Olympic Qualification Regatta was knocked down from the rack by a crazy gust of wind. It literally broke in half so we had to borrow another boat from the very generous Australian team in order to race. Our original Lucerne boat was taken back to the factory in Germany and remolded like a Phoenix, to this one we have now.) After a quick paddle around the racecourse, everything except a few loose bolts here and there, the boat was good to go and we were ready to begin our final stage of preparation before the games.
The training we will be doing for the next couple of days will not be much different than the training we have done over the past year. The training usually goes is that we have 3-4 week periods of training with pretty much identical workouts where the only thing that changes is the volume of work and the intensity. We peak with both volume and intensity at the end of the cycle, have a few days off and start at it again. We have just been through one of those 4 week periods while training at Princeton and now all that is left is the finishing touches. As the racing approaches, we taper off on the intensity and volume and get ready to race.
One thing that has stood out over the last couple of days is the small number of countries that are currently training at the racecourse with us. The main reason is that most of our competitors are European and stay home for as long as possible since they don't have to worry about things like jet-lag or new equipment. I think this extra time will benefit us though, not only to get over the jet-lag and adjusted to the new equipment but also because it will give us an opportunity to get acquainted with the racecourse and its surroundings with-out any of the distractions or the 250 meters of filled grandstands.
The satellite Olympic Village in which we are staying is about a 40 minute bus ride from the racecourse and is very scenic. The campus is surrounded by trees and full of green areas. I've even noticed that the roofs of most of the buildings are covered in grass, for better insulation maybe? Perhaps an architect can correct me but I do know that many of the new Princeton University buildings have that same feature in order to reduce the urban heat island effect. These London games are expected to revolutionize the Olympic experience in two ways; the first is with the proliferation of social media as a major source of information (hey! We’re doing that!), the second is that the London games are going to be the “greenest” games in history. Other than the ample supply of compostable and recyclable products and trash cans to throw them in, many of the recently built sites are not permanent at all and so there will be a very low impact on the country after the games are done.
Other than the color green, the final thing that has stood out is the heavy security. Upon entering any Olympic site, all vehicles are thoroughly checked by armed guards, bomb sniffing dogs and more armed guards. Everyone who enters also has to go through a screening very much like the one at airports. Luckily, they have the same security at the racecourse as they do at the village and we only travel from between those two so we don't have to be screened through the metal detectors every time we come in.
-Robin
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posted by: USA LM4- (July 19, 2012)
Our coach gave us a sleep in this morning and we didn’t head down to the course until 9 a.m. for our first morning row. The bus ride to and from the course went quicker than I expected. It took us about forty minutes door to door. When we arrived at Eton Dorney Lake, we finished rigging our boat and went out for a short row. It was cold, windy, and rainy (who would have thought in England?) but it was nice getting over the stiffness from the long traveling day before.
Since we don’t want to travel to the course more than once per day, (three hours on a bus a day would be a little too much) we ate lunch at the course. After a quick bite to eat and a little relaxation in the athlete’s lounge, we were back on the water for a second practice. The weather was more of the same, but both practices went well and it feels good to be back in a somewhat normal routine.
Back at the satellite village we got some physical therapy, dinner, and just relaxed a little. I’m hoping that I’ll be able to go to bed at a reasonable hour tonight and not have to worry about jet lag. Things are pretty low key around here, not many athletes have moved in yet, and there aren’t too many good stories to tell. Sometimes that’s a good thing though, it’s great to avoid any distraction and stay focused for our upcoming races!
-Nick
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posted by: USA LM4- (July 18, 2012)
Welcome to London
From there, it was a 30 minute busride to the satellite village we'll be staying in through the end of competition, since the regular village is too far from the course. It's a college campus that's been locked down by the military - our areas are surrounded with 8 foot high portable blue fencing, all the entrances are manned by soldiers with assault rifles, they check the buses coming in for bombs, and we have to go basically through airport security to get in. Once we're in though, it's quite nice. Each team get's its own wing of a building, and each athlete has their own room with shower, wifi, and special Olympic duvets. There are workout rooms, a dining hall open 24/7, entertainment centers with computers and video games, and a medical center. It's crazy to think all of this is set up just for us and that we're at the center of it - the scale is so big, and the departure from reality so complete, that it really doesn't register.
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