Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Video



This one piece of a 4x500m workout from this morning.

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Training video

After many trials and tribulations, I finally learned how to use the video program down at the boathouse that allows me to take clips from every practice, put them on my memory stick, tote them up the hill to my apartment, load them onto my computer, post them on youtube, and share them here!

This is one 500m piece of a 8x500m L4 workout from this morning. In the foreground (white boat) is Sofia Paldanius, a Swedish Olympian, and the rest of the clip shows Emily Mickle (navy boat, closest to you) and me (red/blue boat, on the far side) hanging on to Olympian Carrie Johnson's wash.

Friday, July 18, 2008

I'm a "true action hero"

Today I met Arnold Schwarzenegger when he toured the Olympic Training Center. You can find video of his speech here. We all got to shake his hand... but Carrie Johnson got to flex, too... upon Arnold's request. Yeah!! It pays off to be big and strong.

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

School!

I am officially a student at University of California, San Diego. I will be taking classes there later this summer (after nationals). And I'll be a real student there, too, as soon as I finish my transfer paperwork... maybe for the spring semester.

The better question is... what will I study?

Friday, July 11, 2008

Welcome to Chula Vista

Where the sun always shines, the rain never falls, there are far FAR too many shopping centers...


and where dreams are made into realities.

teehe.

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Head west, young man

Tonight is my last night at home in Rochester. As there is absolutely no place I'd rather be, my sadness upon leaving comes as no surprise.

To cheer myself up, I have made a list of all the things to which I am looking forward about this fall semester of school/training in California.


Setting up my cute apartment, planting a garden, adjusting, living the dream, beautiful mountains (even if they are brown), empty deserts with cacti, biking everywhere, going to school near the ocean, finding a cool job that I love, running a lot more, being the only person on rollerskis, learning how to surf, joining a bluegrass group, getting more tan, never tying boats to cars, new places to explore, new people to meet...


...and the thought of coming home to the smell of snow in the air!!!!!!!

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Cliff Meidl Olympic Blog

Cliff Meidl, a US Olympian-turned-motivational-speaker, is the team leader for the 2008 US Olympic Flatwater Sprint Kayak Team. He has just launched a new blog which will detail his Olympic experience. It can be found here.

Additionally, I'd recommend checking out Cliff's website. His is a very inspirational story.

Monday, July 7, 2008

Days Off:

I hate them.

LPI Regatta: Day 2

We started off the day with 500m heats in the morning. I came in 4th in my heat with a 2:06 which actually isn't very good... but we had the fast heat so I made it into the final. Phew. We had k2 heats 2 hours later and Vinson and I won easily for a spot in the final.

Then it off to High Peaks to hang out with my [best] friend Kelly.

And then back to the lake for k4 500m direct final at 2. This, just as yesterday, didn't go well. I'm not sure why our k4 felt so much worse than it did in Ottowa. Fatigue, perhaps? So we were admittedly disappointed to come away with silver.

The k1 500m final was a few hours later. I was gunning for this one. There was a strong side/headwind- which I love- and a stacked final. My only goal was to just get off the line. Not training for sprints means my starts are slow as hell, and sometimes 500m is not enough time to catch back up. But my start was alright, I dropped people in the middle, and my finishing kick was just barely too slow to catch Emily Vinson... so she edged me out by less than a second. Bummer... but at least the Emilys still went 1-2-3.

1. Emily Raymond
2. Emily Vinson
3. Emily Wright

That's sweet. If Emily Mickle had come we'd have gone 1-2-3-4. Man. And that's almost 50% of the final.

Vinson and I won the k2 500m: the last event of the day. We were behind until the 250m, when we kicked it up a gear and passed the girls from Rideau. It was well-fought.

My little sister was on the verge of heat stroke and tears by the end of the day so we tried to leave before dark so we could make it home at a decent hour. (Nope... 1:30am) I am very tired and I am taking the day off today!!

Saturday, July 5, 2008

LPI Regatta: Day 1

It was, say... satisfactory at best.

In the morning I had my k1 1000m heat: a draw with some fast Canadians. I came 2nd with a fast enough time to progress to the final, so it was back to the training center to kill an entire five hours before our next race. (The entire day of racing was 12 hours long!) I ate some okra and chicken for lunch and took a nap. I biked back to the course for our 3:10 k4 1000m final, which we basically just bombed (read: didn't win.) I'd be happy with our silver medal if we'd raced well, but we did not. And it was obvious because we beat the Ontario crew in Ottowa 4 days ago and they got us easily today.

The k1 1000m final was about 1 hour later. I'm not exactly thrilled with this one, either, because despite a good first 500m spent basking in our Three-Emily Break-Away, I was edged out at the finish for second place by less than .3 seconds. (Final results: Emily Vinson, Emily Raymond, Emily Wright.) I should have started my kick 50 meters earlier... hell, I should have started my kick 5 meters earlier. Oh well. Live and learn. You have to train in a kayak in order to race it fast. Proven theory. You heard it here!

The k2 1000m was the last race of the day and, after our k4 loss earlier, Vinson and I were fired up for the win. We came off the start line riding even with Emily Raymond's k2 and kept it cool until our Sweet Breakaway, which we staged at the 500m mark and carried all the way through the finish line for the win. Nice.




Funny small-world story: the Mangans are here for the weekend!!

Time for bed. 500 meter races tomorrow: totally the bomb.

Friday, July 4, 2008

Happy 4th of July!

and also Happy 19th birthday to Emily Vinson!

U-23 Camp

USA Canoe/kayak doesn't always do something special for the Under-23 team; that is, for racing and training camps, there isn't always differentiation between we 18-23 year-olds and the rest of the seniors who are older. Although Vinson, Maia, and I aren't necessarily slower than all of the senior women, it's still nice to have a separate team for this camp. It gives us a chance to bond with the jr. team and also to race against the Canadians our own age. For me, it also serves as a good reminder of the big picture: I'm only 20 years old.

We've been doing some paddling sessions with the jr. national team and the club development teams that are here. That sort of Team USA cohesion is something I wish we had 3 years ago when I was 17. Yesterday, we (the 3 of us U-23 girls) met with the younger girls and talked with them about taking care of themselves, not over-training, and keeping their end goals in mind. I told them that they are the future Olympians of 2012, 2016, 2020. They are a talented group and we are all very excited to be a part team USA during the next quads.

This camp rocks.

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Canada Day Regatta

Happy Canada Day!!

We woke up at 3am this morning, crossed the border around 4:30, and arrived in Ottawa two hours later. That was the worst part of the day.

Vinson and I raced a smokin' k2 500m soon afterwards and won. The k1 500m was a few hours later. For this regatta- which is far less official than others- the heats don't have progressions; they just combine times from all the heats and rank you accordingly. So, Vinson and Maia went 1-2 in heat A and I came second to Emily Raymond (from the Canadian team) in heat B and so the overall result turned out:

1. Emily Raymond
2. Emily Vinson
3. Emily Wright

HA!

They run 100m races here too... which are notorious for being a contest of who has the best false start. They also don't count any results except first place.

And the last race of the day was the k4 500m. Because there are only 3 girls here on the U-23 team, we borrowed Nicole Mallory of the junior team (and also from Rochester like me!) for the k4. The four of us went great together. We had a decent start (second off the line) and came down the course even with the girls from Ontario. At the 250m mark, we did a bit of a pickup and dropped them pretty easily for the win.

USA!

We just got home now so I'm off to sleep. I'll be happily back to training in the morning... and hopefully sneaking in a trail run or a ride before our morning paddling session.