I may not have mentioned this, but I was pretty sleepy after our travels yesterday. In a period of 30 hours, I got all my sleep in two 45-minute naps. It was like being in back in college. I realize this isn't much of a feat for some people (particularly Navy SEALs and those who play World of Warcraft), but it was a lot for my sad little body by 8pm, GMT+1. Due to this lack of sleep I started to get a bit loopy around bedtime, and I miscalculated in setting my alarm. When I get super sleepy, I cannot do hard math like subtracting six hours. Thus, this morning, instead of waking at 6:30 as I had hoped, I was rousted by Tyler's alarm at 7:15. Disappointing, considering our bus departed at 7:30, and my hopes for breakfast were high based on dinner last night. After rushing to the dining hall, I found my expectations (and disappointment) justified.
With only small bowl of honey-nut Cheerios in my stomach, I boarded the bus and went to the course. At first glance, you can already tell it's not in the US because there is a large permanent grandstand installation. (Spectators? For rowing?! How queer.) The course, which is just over 2000m, has cement markers at each 500m and an aggressive color scheme: yellow, blue, and red. There are strange Jetson-inspired sculptures on the starting blocks. Upon arriving, someone commented that it looks like it was designed by McDonald's, and they are right. There's a lot of activity around the course itself. Along the banks are bike paths, a hotel or something, a beer garden, and a man-made hill that might be used for skiing or sledding in the winter. There is a small blue, yellow and red train that takes excited Poles in a loop through the park around the lake. This morning the venue hosted a swimming race. And this afternoon, there were actually PEOPLE walking, cycling, and inline skating along the banks! There isn'e a zombie problem here after all! People here just spend time in the park. A serious relief.
This morning, we arrived at the course at 7:45 and started rigging. Tim is very thorough with is rigging, which means that after we have adjusted the oars and warmed up, there is little to do except watch Tim change things about our boat that we didn't know were adjustable. Inspired by the track and field we have been watching, Holbrook showed us his speed walking. He was apparently very competitve on the US Under-18 Walking Circuit, and I now know why. He is a FAST WALKER. Hella.
A quick paddle to adjust the rig and we were back on the sweaty sweaty bus, back at the hotel, and watching summer ski-jumping on EuroSport. I didn't even know they have that in the summer. They land on some sort of green stuff until they slide onto grass and tip over. Lunch (delicious), some stretching and physical therapy, and then back on the bus for Practice #2. Another few rigging changes and we started feeling pretty comfortable. We ran through our usual drills, did a bit of steady state, and returned to the hotel. Dinner (delicious), Men's 100m final (insane), blog, bed. Where do the hours go? Days like today make me feel that we are all going to be dead before we know it. On that note, goodnight.
Jake
http://www.rowjakerow.blogspot.com/
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