The lost blog post.

Wrote a very long blog post chronicling the last month or so. Said blog post then got deleted. Anger ensued. I will write a much longer update but for now I have been reduced to outline format.

John's Lost Blog Post Outline.

A. Craftsbury Marathon. Skiing in -5 degrees for 3 hours produced a pretty nasty respiratory infection that I am just now getting over. Yes, I got very very sick, but it was worth it for this picture.

B. California Trip. After the marathon, Ben, Peter, Steve, and I travelled to Long Beach, CA where we were the guest of Long Beach Junior Crew. We rowed doubles in the morning and did a combination of rowing the 4x/erging with the juniors/helping coach in the afternoons. A highlight of the trip was having Ken Jurkowski down from the Bay Area hanging out with us. He is injured currently, so he could not row, but he came out in the launch with us every day and provided some great technical commentary. Any frequent reader of this blog knows how much I look up to Ken. It was a real privilege to have him down imparting wisdom on us. See: WWKD. He also made us waffles after practice everyday. I would estimate he served up over 100 waffles over the course of the week. Doubles felt great. Rowed with Ben mostly and we were clipping right along. 4x with Peter stroking continued to show promise. Ken thought so, too.

stretching.

Ken, Ben, and Steve chatting pre-row at Newport Aquatic Center. 

C. Return to Craftsbury/ Birkie.  I am no longer going to Wisconsin for the Bikie 50k this weekend. Dan and I made the decision that it would be more harmful than helpful this year. If I had been healthy for the last 3 weeks that would be one thing, but I have been struggling to get healthy and this would only put me further in the hole. Instead of racing another ski marathon, I have the chance to do everything I need to do to get as healthy and fit as possible before we leave for Clemson in a couple weeks. After almost three weeks of being sick, I feel like I am getting back to where I was fitness wise before the Marathon. The next two weeks will be full of erg and physio testing leading into our departure for on-water training in Clemson. We have a 10k test Friday, likely a couple bouts of race pace 1ks, a 2k, then finally another V02 step test.

D. Looking ahead. I get riled up thinking about going to Clemson and this upcoming racing season. We will have the LM2x group, Andrew, Josh, Austin, and Nick, down with us for the first three weeks so we will get a chance to put out some very fast crews to knock heads with each other. Also in Clemson we will be adding Willy Cowles and brother Tom to our group. That will add another double to our mix and spice things up a bit. We will be mixing it up in the single, double, and quad for six weeks, then putting crews together to race the first NSR in doubles. No doubt things are getting hotter as Olympic Qualification nears. Things will be more competitive than ever, domestically and internationally. There is no incumbency in the sport of rowing, I need to be doing it cleaner and faster than I've ever done it. As the old saying goes, it never gets easier, just faster. Time to get real comfortable outside of the comfort zone.