Chapter 491: Ann Arbor
This is my first post from my new home in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Those close to me have probably known for a while that I have been planning to move to Ann Arbor with Felice, but I have tip toed around the topic on this blog for the last couple of months. It wasn't a huge secret that there would be some transition up at Craftsbury after this quadrennial and I think that is good and natural. For me specifically, in order for me to continue on with a clear mind, things just had to be a little different.
While Craftsbury is a wonderful set up to limit the burden on an aspiring elite athlete, there is still a financial burden, and I am no longer willing to rely solely on others to support me. I am not saying I'm leaving Craftsbury forever, but its really important to me to be financially independent and I want to take the time now to work, earn some money, and be in the same place as Felice, while contuning to train. Although I am in a different place, nothing has changed about what gets me out of bed every day.
Since we lost in Lucerne in May, I have been exploring job opportunities and assessing what set up would be most effective for training. I gave some thought to rowing and working in Boston, especially after being inspired by Gevvie's result in Rio. Truthfully it wasn't until Felice said she was considering going back to school at Michigan that Ann Arbor came on my radar. We visited in the summer and I was in awe of the facilities, the feel of the town, and the wholesome feeling of being back in the midwest. I came back to Craftsbury after visiting and I felt excited about trying to make the move work. The big question mark however was how I was going to support myself. Searching and applying for jobs this summer and fall was a humbling experience. Pursuing the Olympic Team is cool to those who care about such things, but most employers just see a giant four year gap where you earned zero work experience. Needless to say, finding an employer that understands the delicate balance between work and training is very difficult. Enter John Chatzky. I met John for the first time while watching racing in Rio. I knew of him and he knew of me, mainly from his support of my two best friends and their company Foray. I told him about the last four years, our quad that missed qualifying, and how I felt like I had more to give this quadrennial but was struggling to support myself. Weeks went by, I got turned down from countless jobs, we stayed in touch, and then in mid October he offered me a position working for his Angel investment fund, Rowing Ventures LLC (www.rowingventuresllc.com). He said he wanted to create a position that would offer me meaningful and engaging work that would pay the bills and also allow me still to pursue rowing with everything I had. The best part being that I could do it from anywhere, all I needed was my computer, my work ethic, and a lot of enthusiasm. I was thrilled. Since I started, I have really enjoyed it. My main responsibilities involve writing content for the website and other publications, designing logos and other artwork, along with soliciting and reviewing applications to the fund. In Rio, I told John I was going to win a medal in Tokyo and he was one of the few that didn't laugh at me right away. He smiled and said, " Lets make it happen". That's why I am enjoying working with him. He seems to understand that drive that I have and he wants to not only help support it, but make sure I have something on my resume for life after rowing.
Right after the Head of the Charles weekend, I left for Ann Arbor. Upon arrival, both the women's coach Mark Rothstein and the men's coach Gregg Hartstuff were incredibly welcoming to me and offered to help however they can. Gregg's team is notorious for working extremely hard indoors through the winter and I am very excited to have a group like that to spar with on the erg. Wes Vear, a new member of the GRP and former Michigan rower joked with me that we are trading places for good reason. He needs to learn how to scull and I need to learn how to pull harder than I ever thought possible. He assured me Gregg could help with that. There will still be opportunity to cross country ski and I plan to incorporate it here and there, but I am planning on spending most of my time lifting heavy things, erging, and eating. Understanding more completely the way the quadrennial works, its the right time to unequivocally work my ass off and be very tired. I was told recently, " ...your training has just been putting icing on your cake time and time again. You have tasty icing, but your cake sucks. You need to take the time to bake the cake. Then you will have made a real cake. " Hahaha, I loved that. The main takeaway there is to take the time while I have it to really train properly. It's not to say I don't want to be fast this year, of course I do. Every year is important. But I am not willing to sacrifice my speed in 2019-2020 just to be fast over the next couple of years. Now is the time to go back into the studio and write a new album. Olympic Qualification in 2019 and Tokyo 2020 are the concerts that I'm aiming for.
No doubt I was sad to not race this weekend at Fall Speed Orders in Princeton. I had only planned to race the Charles this Fall, but watching the results roll in this weekend I was reminded of how much I enjoyed coming down to Princeton and racing with all the other scullers. I remember Coach Roock always thought it was important for us to show up to make an event out of it and help to raise the standard through competition. For that reason, I was really happy to see so many people entered this weekend and for guys like Justin Keen and Greg Ansolabehere to lay down really fast pieces. Its clear the guys training in Philly like Justin, Erik, Lenny, JP, etc, have a really good thing going. I will need to be sharp to keep up with those guys.
Oh yeah. The Charles!
A lot of people have congratulated me on a solid showing and I wouldn't totally disagree with that, but I look back at it with mixed emotions. Starting first, I had a wonderful advantage to carve my own line and just race my own race. Very quickly, in fact, as quickly as possible, I struggled. As anyone knows who rowed on Saturday evening, there was a pretty gnarly cross headwind in the basin and on the magazine beach turn. As I built through the line, I was just focusing on rowing long, clean, and composed. But it seemed like immediately I was pointed to my port side and in danger of going off course. I quickly corrected and snuck under BU bridge, only to go too close to the buoys and miss the second possible buoy on the turn. I saw it before I missed it, corrected as hard as I could, and still missed it. Haha. I think I literally laughed because I knew I had probably just lost the race for myself. I distinctly remember having the thought " I can't beat Kjetil and Damir with a buoy penalty." Regardless, I tried to regain my composure and just row my rhythm. It was hard not to notice that Damir was coming up quickly and I hadn't helped things by rowing like a butthead for the first few minutes. By the time I got to Weeks bridge, Damir had pulled to about a length of open behind me. We came around the turn together and I held that margin until Weld Boathouse. Everything up to this point was sloppy and lukewarm. Everything after this point, I am extremely proud of. As we passed Newell boathouse, I felt Damir continuing to close the gap, so I decided to go to 32 spm and hold him off as long as possible. My boat lightened up and I began to move away little from Damir. As we came to the buoy line on the Cambridge turn, I could tell Damir was getting antsy to pass me, so I went again. I thought about just holding him off another 20 strokes, then another 10 strokes, then another 10, until finally I turned and saw Eliot bridge. I livened up again, put my bow ball on the corner of the Belmont Hill dock and went. What had started as just a last ditch effort to hold him off turned into a long range cruise missile to the finish line. As I passed under the bridge I could hear the echoes of friends yelling on the bridge. When I came out into the light again I gave a yell and I could feel myself moving away from Damir. What I couldn't see was Kjetil moving up on both of us.
After we crossed the line and had caught our breath , it was cool talking to Damir and hearing the Olympic silver medalist tell me " You have great last 2k!" No doubt part of being able to hold him off was the fact that A. he went out too hard early B. He's not in his best shape. Although, neither am I. At the end of the day, it really doesn't matter, It was an amazing experience getting to compete with him for 18 and a half minutes! Now the goal is to be able to hold him off for 7 min.
While Craftsbury is a wonderful set up to limit the burden on an aspiring elite athlete, there is still a financial burden, and I am no longer willing to rely solely on others to support me. I am not saying I'm leaving Craftsbury forever, but its really important to me to be financially independent and I want to take the time now to work, earn some money, and be in the same place as Felice, while contuning to train. Although I am in a different place, nothing has changed about what gets me out of bed every day.
Since we lost in Lucerne in May, I have been exploring job opportunities and assessing what set up would be most effective for training. I gave some thought to rowing and working in Boston, especially after being inspired by Gevvie's result in Rio. Truthfully it wasn't until Felice said she was considering going back to school at Michigan that Ann Arbor came on my radar. We visited in the summer and I was in awe of the facilities, the feel of the town, and the wholesome feeling of being back in the midwest. I came back to Craftsbury after visiting and I felt excited about trying to make the move work. The big question mark however was how I was going to support myself. Searching and applying for jobs this summer and fall was a humbling experience. Pursuing the Olympic Team is cool to those who care about such things, but most employers just see a giant four year gap where you earned zero work experience. Needless to say, finding an employer that understands the delicate balance between work and training is very difficult. Enter John Chatzky. I met John for the first time while watching racing in Rio. I knew of him and he knew of me, mainly from his support of my two best friends and their company Foray. I told him about the last four years, our quad that missed qualifying, and how I felt like I had more to give this quadrennial but was struggling to support myself. Weeks went by, I got turned down from countless jobs, we stayed in touch, and then in mid October he offered me a position working for his Angel investment fund, Rowing Ventures LLC (www.rowingventuresllc.com). He said he wanted to create a position that would offer me meaningful and engaging work that would pay the bills and also allow me still to pursue rowing with everything I had. The best part being that I could do it from anywhere, all I needed was my computer, my work ethic, and a lot of enthusiasm. I was thrilled. Since I started, I have really enjoyed it. My main responsibilities involve writing content for the website and other publications, designing logos and other artwork, along with soliciting and reviewing applications to the fund. In Rio, I told John I was going to win a medal in Tokyo and he was one of the few that didn't laugh at me right away. He smiled and said, " Lets make it happen". That's why I am enjoying working with him. He seems to understand that drive that I have and he wants to not only help support it, but make sure I have something on my resume for life after rowing.
Right after the Head of the Charles weekend, I left for Ann Arbor. Upon arrival, both the women's coach Mark Rothstein and the men's coach Gregg Hartstuff were incredibly welcoming to me and offered to help however they can. Gregg's team is notorious for working extremely hard indoors through the winter and I am very excited to have a group like that to spar with on the erg. Wes Vear, a new member of the GRP and former Michigan rower joked with me that we are trading places for good reason. He needs to learn how to scull and I need to learn how to pull harder than I ever thought possible. He assured me Gregg could help with that. There will still be opportunity to cross country ski and I plan to incorporate it here and there, but I am planning on spending most of my time lifting heavy things, erging, and eating. Understanding more completely the way the quadrennial works, its the right time to unequivocally work my ass off and be very tired. I was told recently, " ...your training has just been putting icing on your cake time and time again. You have tasty icing, but your cake sucks. You need to take the time to bake the cake. Then you will have made a real cake. " Hahaha, I loved that. The main takeaway there is to take the time while I have it to really train properly. It's not to say I don't want to be fast this year, of course I do. Every year is important. But I am not willing to sacrifice my speed in 2019-2020 just to be fast over the next couple of years. Now is the time to go back into the studio and write a new album. Olympic Qualification in 2019 and Tokyo 2020 are the concerts that I'm aiming for.
No doubt I was sad to not race this weekend at Fall Speed Orders in Princeton. I had only planned to race the Charles this Fall, but watching the results roll in this weekend I was reminded of how much I enjoyed coming down to Princeton and racing with all the other scullers. I remember Coach Roock always thought it was important for us to show up to make an event out of it and help to raise the standard through competition. For that reason, I was really happy to see so many people entered this weekend and for guys like Justin Keen and Greg Ansolabehere to lay down really fast pieces. Its clear the guys training in Philly like Justin, Erik, Lenny, JP, etc, have a really good thing going. I will need to be sharp to keep up with those guys.
Oh yeah. The Charles!
A lot of people have congratulated me on a solid showing and I wouldn't totally disagree with that, but I look back at it with mixed emotions. Starting first, I had a wonderful advantage to carve my own line and just race my own race. Very quickly, in fact, as quickly as possible, I struggled. As anyone knows who rowed on Saturday evening, there was a pretty gnarly cross headwind in the basin and on the magazine beach turn. As I built through the line, I was just focusing on rowing long, clean, and composed. But it seemed like immediately I was pointed to my port side and in danger of going off course. I quickly corrected and snuck under BU bridge, only to go too close to the buoys and miss the second possible buoy on the turn. I saw it before I missed it, corrected as hard as I could, and still missed it. Haha. I think I literally laughed because I knew I had probably just lost the race for myself. I distinctly remember having the thought " I can't beat Kjetil and Damir with a buoy penalty." Regardless, I tried to regain my composure and just row my rhythm. It was hard not to notice that Damir was coming up quickly and I hadn't helped things by rowing like a butthead for the first few minutes. By the time I got to Weeks bridge, Damir had pulled to about a length of open behind me. We came around the turn together and I held that margin until Weld Boathouse. Everything up to this point was sloppy and lukewarm. Everything after this point, I am extremely proud of. As we passed Newell boathouse, I felt Damir continuing to close the gap, so I decided to go to 32 spm and hold him off as long as possible. My boat lightened up and I began to move away little from Damir. As we came to the buoy line on the Cambridge turn, I could tell Damir was getting antsy to pass me, so I went again. I thought about just holding him off another 20 strokes, then another 10 strokes, then another 10, until finally I turned and saw Eliot bridge. I livened up again, put my bow ball on the corner of the Belmont Hill dock and went. What had started as just a last ditch effort to hold him off turned into a long range cruise missile to the finish line. As I passed under the bridge I could hear the echoes of friends yelling on the bridge. When I came out into the light again I gave a yell and I could feel myself moving away from Damir. What I couldn't see was Kjetil moving up on both of us.
After we crossed the line and had caught our breath , it was cool talking to Damir and hearing the Olympic silver medalist tell me " You have great last 2k!" No doubt part of being able to hold him off was the fact that A. he went out too hard early B. He's not in his best shape. Although, neither am I. At the end of the day, it really doesn't matter, It was an amazing experience getting to compete with him for 18 and a half minutes! Now the goal is to be able to hold him off for 7 min.
 |
| The yell. |
 |
| ITS EVERY DAY!! |
 |
| Argo Pond. |
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| Tokyo 1964 poster in our apartment. |
Congrats on all the life stuff! VT will miss you...
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