The Torch

Apologies for the hiatus, I took a good chunk of time off after losing at Henley to collect my thoughts and make sure all systems were a go for a final push to trials on august 1. The european trip was amazing to say the least and it provided me some good objective data to improve upon while preparing for trials and world championships. I was fortunate to have great support this summer so far from friends and family who helped me make the experience possible...so if you are reading, thank you so much. There is no feeling better than knowing you have people who care about you and support your dreams-- I feel very privileged. At the moment, I am in Craftsbury, Vermont- perhaps the origin of the full experience. This place is very special to me and in my experience training thus far there is nothing like it...it offers everything an elite athlete needs to continually improve while maintaining freshness of purpose and mindset. It is very quiet, the water is calm, the food is great, and of course Larry ( Gluckman) is here! All year I felt like if I could just make it through the doldrums of training and spring racing without disaster, I would come up to Craftsbury and improve enough to have a shot at winning trials. Well, here I am, finally, and there is no place I'd rather be. Sure I miss friends and family, but , this is it. The entire year has been about improving little by little until I made it up here where I would really become something different entirely-- each summer I have been up here I have reached a new level in terms of fitness, technique, and mental preparation. Right now I am keeping my head down and putting the work in, but I can already feel subtle improvements. A major difference has been having some competition. Ben Dann, the u23 single sculler is up here training and we have become sparring partners-- it has been great. Ben recently went down to Princeton and made the "elite" heavyweights look pretty stupid, so he is moving right along. We enjoy the bouts on the water and each others company off it! In fact, our beds are about 2 feet away from each other!! Seriously, though, not a whole lot of space in our room...haha. Anyways, having competition on a daily basis pushes me to access a part of my fitness that is normally dormant when training on my own. In other news, Taylor Washburn( Princeton grad, 2009 lm4-) and I went out in a double yesterday for some race pieces against the u23 heavy and light doubles. After a hilariously small adjustment period we did 8', 5, 4, 2,1 min pieces and were moving....well. As Larry says, " doubles are divine" and they either work or they don't...this one worked right away, so it's cool and I think we are both excited to explore it a little further coming up on an Olympic year. Trials are a little soon for us to just jump in...but hey, it could happen...