As he walked from the boatyard toward the athlete area Sunday after finishing fifth in the opening heat of the men's single, Kevin Meador was clearly down and wondering if the decisions he had made during his race were the right ones.
"I looked back and I saw there was no way I was going to catch up," Meador said Sunday. "So I started thinking about tomorrow, and the rep, and just shutdown. I don't know if that was the right thought," he said.
Later, back in the team hotel, Medaor concluded that there was no reason to even dwell on the question. He was going to row in the rep on Monday and there was not going to be any opportunity for second thoughts later.
"I came off the water yesterday feeling a little shaken, a little scared. But I knew that wasn't going to help me today. So, I just tried to get in the right headspace."
The right head space meant accepting that the rep was a win or forget it moment for a guy who said he has worked all winter to get a second chance at improving on last year's 20th place finish and trying to stay alive, and if possible, qualify the men's single for the 2020 Olympics with a top nine finish here in the 2019 World Rowing Championships.
So, Monday afternoon, when Meador again looked over his should and saw he was down big to Finnish sculler Robert Ven, several lengths, a seemingly unrecoverable amount down, Meador had a different thought.
"I didn't really have a choice at this point, there is no point saving yourself in the rep, where you have to win to go on, so I basically had to change the thought in my mind from it's unlikely to win, to thinking it's possible to win.
"I knew every time I looked over my shoulder I had a thought like, 'I very well might not catch him by the next stroke,' so I just sought to try and go back to what I was preparing myself for. I was never going to catch him by the 1K, if I was going to catch him it was going to be at the end."
So he went, and every few meters, Meador inched forward, pushing into the Finn until just as the two reached the grandstands, Meador met him, bow-to-bow, and then rowed into first and onto the quarterfinals.
"I spent a lot of time ahead of the race preparing myself, I thought I was probably going to be down at the 1K, and I was preparing myself for a third and fourth 500 race, so I basically prepared myself to do whatever it was that I could, whatever was necessary. I raced to win.
"I knew it was going to be a tough race, he was very fast in his heat, but he had to race all the way to the line and there was a head wind, and it was a hot day and I was just going to put pressure on him to the end.
"I knew eventually one of the two of us would have to call it. It took until the red buoys , I know. But, I managed to get him in the end."
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