What procrastination?

After much trial and error, I think I may have nailed down this year's competition hairstyle!  Upside: my hair will no longer stop the jump rope every few double- unders, or mop the floor during push ups and burpees. Downside: the forearm pump I have from 45 minutes of braiding would not exactly give me a competitive edge.  Hmmm....

Blogging> writing papers

This is what my dashboard counting widgets are telling me. Do you see that!?!? Less than 5 days until freedom!!!

I have 2 finals tomorrow, 2 finals on Monday, and a project and a big paper due Monday. At 3pm on Monday afternoon, I will walk out of the classroom and thank the universe for getting me through this hard semester. And then maybe stick my head in a bucket of ice water and scream. Or take off my shoes and run through campus screaming "NEVER AGAIN." One of those.

As you can see, my widgets are also counting down to Crossfit Regionals. Crossfit Rochester qualified for the Northeast Regionals by placing 15th among all Northeast US gyms at the Crossfit Open held this spring. I am currently the female alternate on our team, which means the remainder of May will be spent training hard in case I am needed! I'm psyched for the event because Matt is also on the team. This is the first time either of us has competed at such a high-level Crossfit competition, and we are already planning on making a habit of it. You can read about our team members here.

Now it's time for me to stop procrastinating and start writing my final paper, which happens to be about the Haitian diaspora viewed through the lens of a short story by Kettly Mars.

Spring Update

So I've been holding off on writing this post for, oh about 5 weeks now. Not because it's a secret, but frankly I just haven't wanted to put it into writing.

But many of you already know: I'm not going to Olympic Trials. It was a very tough decision that went something like this:

In January, I started at Geneseo and MCC simultaneously with the goal of completing my undergraduate degree by December. I planned to hurry through my senior year because I'm 24, I'm sick of school, and I want to get back to full-time kayaking. School, for me, [perhaps unfortunately] has always felt like a means to eventually fund my athletic endeavors. I get annoyed that, in the meantime, it gets in the way of what I like to do.

A thousand assignments piled on top of my other responsibilities sent me into Total Stress Overload. I knew I had to make a decision. Focus on school, or focus on training?

A major factor in that decision was the reality of the situation: I was 7th at July's World Championships Team Trials, and there are only 2 potential Olympic spots qualified for US women. Will I get better? Of course, but probably not in 6 months. And although I'm in good shape, school was preventing me from getting on the water every day. In fact, school was preventing me from getting on the water more than twice a week. You can't go to Olympic Trials if you only kayak twice a week.

I know it was the right choice.

So what have I been doing the past 5 weeks instead of blogging? Mostly homework. A ^&$^#ton of homework: reading 3 books a week and cranking out papers like it's my job.

I also have been doing my best to get out with Nicole for a few workouts per week. She kicks my butt and reminds me how it's impossible to paddle fast in a boat unless you spend a lot of time in a boat. Nicole is my hometown girl. As I've said before, we started paddling at the same time, and paddled k2 together often. I'm really excited to see how she does at Olympic Trials this weekend, because she's been working so hard. She's going to PA school AND been training like an animal. I truly don't know how she does it!!!

Nicole and me racing at Empire State Games in 2002

Nicole and me paddling k2 a few weeks ago!

Ask Fem!

Dear Fem,
How can you do Olympic Trials if you have not been paddling? It doesn't seem like your training is very smart!
-Anonymous

Dear Anonymous,
That's a great question. Actually, I have been paddling in upstate NY-- I get out as much as I can when the waterways aren't frozen. (And when I don't have too much homework!) We upstate paddlers supplement paddling with cross-country skiing, kayak-erg workouts, and weightlifting. It's actually a really fun break from the intensive on-water work we do during the regular paddling season.

Unfortunately, in the USA, kayakers have little to no funding. In order to pay for training, travel, competitions, and the entire lifestyle, we have to find our own jobs and sponsorships. Based on the fact that the US women have 1 spot qualified for the London Olympics-and I was ranked 7th at our World Championships Team Trials in July 2011- I chose to train for the 2012 Olympic Trials in upstate NY so I could finish my college education at Geneseo. Without completing my undergraduate degree, I would never make enough money to continue in the sport for the next 4 years. It was a tough but necessary sacrifice that I made so that I could vie for a spot at the 2016 Olympic Games.

I will be proudly competing in the 2012 Olympic Trials knowing I trained the hardest I possibly could in a colder, northern climate while attending university full-time!