We've been in Germany for about a day now. We have the boat pretty close to the way we'd like it but there's still some rigging fine tuning to do. The good news is our boat is almost identical to home and everything feels really familiar. That being said, there's a decent amount of current on the Neckar River and we have had to reduce our expectations slightly of how the boat should feel. Right now we are just putting in modest mileage to get the trip out so we can have all systems go by the time we hit the water in Lucerne on Monday afternoon. All in all, the travel went smoothly and we are happy to be back to the business of moving the boat.
As we packed up and prepared to leave Craftsbury over the last couple of days I was not without a great deal of emotion. I had a current of nostalgia flowing through me remembering and appreciating the journey of the last four years. I remembered back to driving up to Vermont in the summer of 2012 and thinking what I wanted to do this quadrennial, how I wanted to go about doing it, the possibilities for the GRP, and the potential to build something bigger than me or any one athlete. There are no plans after this race or this year, this is the end of my timeline of planning, so this is a culmination of a great deal of concentrated effort and I can really feel that. The goal is obviously to continue on to Olympics, but that is no guarantee. This race is all we have right now and we must treat it like the Olympic Final. This will be everything the four of us can do as rowers. There is no more dreaming of what the best version of myself would look like racing in the Olympic year. It is here and I am it. Yes, over the last four years there have been ebbs and flows, high highs and low lows,but I would not have changed a thing. Every experience and lesson has led us to where we are now. Finishing our last set of pieces on Hosmer, I had the feeling that this little experiment in Vermont had worked. I didn't need to know the results of the M4x Final at the Final Qualification Regatta to know that. Not only am I proud of what the GRP has achieved and what it will achieve, I'm deeply proud of the way in which we have done it. A group of athletes and coaches that were willing to work together to create an environment in which a quad could thrive. Dick Dreissigacker and Judy Geer provided the coaches and athletes the canvas and materials to work uninterrupted and uninfluenced on their masterpiece. We have no idea what speed our competition will bring on race day and where we will stack up but I am so thankful to have had the opportunity to pursue this dream with the freedom to do it our way, to fully own our process, and fully accept responsibility for the outcome. It has been a true collaboration of talents that was built on the foundation of mutual trust between athletes and coaches. If we leave Lucerne not having qualified for the Olympics, it will not have all been for nothing. We left Vermont as prepared as we possibly could be and that is a success in itself. We have dreamed big, prepared big, and we will race big. If someone gets their bow ahead of us, I will smile and tip my cap to them because I know how special the guys in my boat are and I know how hard and relentlessly we have worked to get to this speed. This race is less about qualifying for the Olympics then it is about celebrating our preparation and our speed. When we return to Craftsbury either to begin our Pre- Olympic Camp or to begin the next adventure, I will be so proud of everyone who was involved in building this boat. So proud of the integrity of our process. When we laid out of goals this Fall, I will never forget that Peter told a room full of athletes and coaches that his goal was to win an Olympic Gold Medal in the quad. That statement didn't add a level of pressure to our pursuit but it did raise the level of speed that was going to be expected from anyone rowing in this boat and anyone helping coach it. Maybe that result could be achieved maybe it couldn't, but it forced us to change our perception of what was good. I'm speaking for everyone in our boat but I think we are all so excited to race the best and create an atmosphere on the race course that could pull the very best out of us and see how close we have come to Peter's goal.
As we packed up and prepared to leave Craftsbury over the last couple of days I was not without a great deal of emotion. I had a current of nostalgia flowing through me remembering and appreciating the journey of the last four years. I remembered back to driving up to Vermont in the summer of 2012 and thinking what I wanted to do this quadrennial, how I wanted to go about doing it, the possibilities for the GRP, and the potential to build something bigger than me or any one athlete. There are no plans after this race or this year, this is the end of my timeline of planning, so this is a culmination of a great deal of concentrated effort and I can really feel that. The goal is obviously to continue on to Olympics, but that is no guarantee. This race is all we have right now and we must treat it like the Olympic Final. This will be everything the four of us can do as rowers. There is no more dreaming of what the best version of myself would look like racing in the Olympic year. It is here and I am it. Yes, over the last four years there have been ebbs and flows, high highs and low lows,but I would not have changed a thing. Every experience and lesson has led us to where we are now. Finishing our last set of pieces on Hosmer, I had the feeling that this little experiment in Vermont had worked. I didn't need to know the results of the M4x Final at the Final Qualification Regatta to know that. Not only am I proud of what the GRP has achieved and what it will achieve, I'm deeply proud of the way in which we have done it. A group of athletes and coaches that were willing to work together to create an environment in which a quad could thrive. Dick Dreissigacker and Judy Geer provided the coaches and athletes the canvas and materials to work uninterrupted and uninfluenced on their masterpiece. We have no idea what speed our competition will bring on race day and where we will stack up but I am so thankful to have had the opportunity to pursue this dream with the freedom to do it our way, to fully own our process, and fully accept responsibility for the outcome. It has been a true collaboration of talents that was built on the foundation of mutual trust between athletes and coaches. If we leave Lucerne not having qualified for the Olympics, it will not have all been for nothing. We left Vermont as prepared as we possibly could be and that is a success in itself. We have dreamed big, prepared big, and we will race big. If someone gets their bow ahead of us, I will smile and tip my cap to them because I know how special the guys in my boat are and I know how hard and relentlessly we have worked to get to this speed. This race is less about qualifying for the Olympics then it is about celebrating our preparation and our speed. When we return to Craftsbury either to begin our Pre- Olympic Camp or to begin the next adventure, I will be so proud of everyone who was involved in building this boat. So proud of the integrity of our process. When we laid out of goals this Fall, I will never forget that Peter told a room full of athletes and coaches that his goal was to win an Olympic Gold Medal in the quad. That statement didn't add a level of pressure to our pursuit but it did raise the level of speed that was going to be expected from anyone rowing in this boat and anyone helping coach it. Maybe that result could be achieved maybe it couldn't, but it forced us to change our perception of what was good. I'm speaking for everyone in our boat but I think we are all so excited to race the best and create an atmosphere on the race course that could pull the very best out of us and see how close we have come to Peter's goal.
Snap back to the present. I'm sipping on coffee and about to walk down to the water to begin warming up. Then we will have the distinct pleasure of ripping off some 500's.
I very much admire your perception of success. My guess is as good as yours as to how you'll stack up, but I will say this: the four of you are the cleanest, most synchronized quad I've ever seen. Good luck.
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