Final post

As most of you know, we were not able to race the germans on saturday due to thunderstorms. Everyone was disappointed but I truly believe that it is safe to say we all had the time of our lives. The plan for saturday was to be up early, go to the course for the races, and then go back to R.a.W. Once we got there however, it was obvious that sticking to those plans was going to be a problem. The clouds were dark and ominous, and they stretched on forever in all directions. At first the racing was delayed and hour. Then another hour. Then another. Finally someone called it and said no one would race. We went back to R.a.W disappointingly joking about how "we didn't lose to the germans".

Although the racing was cancelled, one oarsmen got to have his own german rowing experience. This is Austen "The Bolverine" Bolves's story:

On the evening before we left I was given a very unique opportunity. While looking for my water bottle at the boathouse which the HP group was staying, Cass (the girls HP team coach) asked me if I would like to go for a row. Not just any row though. I would be rowing in a new Empacher 8+ with an Olympian/world record holder, a Silver Medalist from the World Championships, and many other accomplished German rowers. I had to say yes. First thing off, I’m told I will be rowing port, which is not my usual side of the boat; this just adds on to the immense fear which is now gripping me. I timidly meet all the rowers and they happily greet me into their boat as if I am equally as accomplished as them. From hands on I was lost in German commands and a very different way of doing things. Soon though, as I rowed more with these guys, the relaxed and focused feel of the boat made it easy for me to fit right in to the line-up. I began to pick up on what certain commands meant and how they expected the drills to be done. A couple of them tried to give me some pointers in what broken English they knew and I almost didn’t feel foreign anymore. It was just eight guys rowing a boat together. Their style of rowing was different than mine and occasionally on a power piece I was overwhelmed by the power of the boat but I kept up and held my own and made it through the practice. Afterwards all the guys thanked me for helping them as if the pleasure was theirs. It was remarkable. All of these guys were just there to row because they love it and they were happy to share their love of the sport with me, the junior rower from America. Rowing with these guys showed me so much but above all I realized that when a boat has a combination of passion and focus, it doesn’t matter who is in it, that crew will move as one.

I think the Bolverine would agree with me if I said that I wished camp lasted longer, I'm sure a lot of kids would. However right now I'm at home. And after sleeping for about twelve hours, I can honestly say there is no where else I'd rather be.

This was the last Blog entry. I hope everyone has a great summer. Good luck to the men's and women's Junior national team. USA!!

Today

Lets go race some Germans.

The race day cometh

As the weekend quickly approaches the rowing has gotten more intense. Not so much the actual work, but the attitude behind it. Coach Hargis rode the launch with Boris yesterday. We did five by six minutes at different rates, not exactly the hardest workout but the fact that both coaches were watching made us think a little bit harder about how we rowed. I like to think the pieces went well minus the buoy incident, but those things happen when you row a straight four.

After the workout Coach Hargis gave us a talk about this teams goal for next year and everyone realized that next years Junior World Championship isn't as far off as we thought. It's kind of exciting to hear that you are the future of the national team.

Yesterday we took the train to Berlin to walk around the city and do some sight seeing. As we got off the train in our respected groups, we wondered why Boris's rule about always staying with him was suddenly so lax. After making it about one hundred yards from the train station entrance we realized why. If you take eight jet lagged teenaged boys, make them work out twice a day, and then set them free in the city. A. They can only go so far before they have to stop. And B. all they want to do is find a pizza place with free drink refills.

The boats are coming along. Set is starting to come a lot easier and it seems like people are able to focus a little bit better. Everyone for the most part has an assigned seat, now we need to figure out who goes in which boat. Hopefully we get that figured out pretty quick.

FInally in Germany!

We started our expedition on thursday. At 6:00 am we drove from the dorms to Niagara airport and flew to JFK. Once we landed we drove to Newark, met up with the women's team, got on the longest seven hour red eye flight that the airline had to offer, and flew to Berlin.

I would imagine the people at the Berlin airport thought the inevitable zombie invasion had made it's way to Germany. Even though most of us slept for quite a bit of the flight, we were still very..... Zombie-esque. For lack of a better word.

After going through security and baggage claim, we were herded into yet another vehicle and driven to the boat house where we are staying. It's an older boat house but it's extremely nice. It's well kept, and has a dormitory in the upstairs portion. It's what you would expect to see at any American college rowing facility, minus the eleven types of beer that they have on tap.

Our practice schedule has been pretty crazy so far. Yesterday we practiced twice: the first one was eight to ten in the morning and the second was from four to six. Today however, we went from eight to ten, and then eleven to twelve fifteen with an hour long run at six in the evening.

The first day of rowing here was just like the first day of rowing in Buffalo. The set was essentially a unicorn that a couple of people supposedly found, but everyone knew they were lying.

Today was a little bit better, we just need to make some more changes in technique before we race the German team.

Nap time.

Pre Germany!

This is probably the latest we've stayed up in quite some time. We have around eight hours until we leave for the airport and we are all up and packing, and of course trying on all of our sick new gear. The boats have come together very quickly in the last couple of days so that's a real confidence booster. Although the line-ups are still shifting, we are learning to row comfortably in all positions. We're steadily developing a feel for boats that we've never rowed before and, while there are definitely practices we come in soaked from backsplash, more often than not we end the day on a good note.

Tomorrow is a travel day. It should take us until Friday to get there. While no one is really looking forward to traveling for that long, we are all very anxious to get there and start training for our skirmish with the Germans!

Progress

When we first arrived in Buffalo we were all eager to row the straight fours. It was a new experience, and most of us had never rowed them before so we were eager to test them out. Colin had told us all that the straight fours would be difficult to row at first, but I really don't think anyone believed him until we started rowing them. The first week was basically all drills, which was fine when we rowed by pairs, but as soon as we switched to all fours it was like we were all novices again. Since then we have managed to pull things together, everyone is making changes and the two boats are getting progressively faster.

In terms of speed everyone is pretty evenly matched so seat race results have been very inconsistent, but hopefully we can get the boats chosen soon, giving us as much time in our boats as possible. We have our 2k test this afternoon which hopefully will produce some fast times. More updates to come, most likely on wednesday.