After a few weeks of beautiful weather, long rows in the single, visits to see my nieces and Lake Quinault, summer is gone. 

 

Today, we had our first windy and rainy day in Seattle.  I know, I know, that is what Seattle is supposed to be like, but no.  The past two weeks have been fantastic!  Sunny, 70, and the water was glass almost every day.  I had fun rowing in the Row for the Cure with a UW alumni eight.  I started work back up at the University of Washington Tyee Office (Fund Development) and am loving being back where I get to work in the Athletic Department and see old friends. 

 

Summer or fall, it is still a good time to be a rower.  Here come the long miles, single rows, circuit weights, and training for the Seattle half marathon! 

I have been home a week and a half and am finally making myself write this online journal entry.  As you can imagine, the last two weeks have consisted of many travels and subsequent time to think about rowing.  Contemplation of my race is the first step in processing this year’s endeavors. The next step is how to move on from here.   

 

I’ll be honest with you and say that our final race was not bad.  It wasn’t good though either.  I felt that if we had our best race, we would have been battling for 3^rd and we did have the opportunity to come home with a medal.  This was my hope for our race and I am bummed we didn’t pull it off.  I felt like our race resembled doing race for time pieces in Princeton all too much.  We were basically time trialing as we were so far off of the leaders.  I can’t say what went wrong exactly, but it just didn’t feel right.  I didn’t get us into our rhythm.  We had some wakes and bobbles, but nothing of significance.   And after hearing the finish line beep for the first time, we still had far too many strokes to go. 

 

We placed 5^th and that is where my coach predicted our quad would finish when we thought about it in January, not even knowing who would be in it.  I was hoping to better that prediction.  And yet, coming 5^th is amazing to me when I think of how far I came in a year.  Last fall as I was learning to scull, I started off “floating.”  Literally.  I would launch, grip my oars and stressfully manage to maneuver out from UW to the bay.  About forty minutes into my attempts to move the boat forward and have it feel like the ease of a pair, I would be so tired and frustrated that I would lay down and look at the clouds.  I knew I would struggle with sculling (I have never been a “natural technician”), but this was harder than I thought it was going to be, and I knew it would be hard.  This was extremely hard for me. 

 

To give you a little history as to why I would step away from the eight, rowing for me is all about progress and challenge.  It is my goal to win a gold medal at the next Olympics and I know learning how to scull will help me accomplish that goal.  The potential I see in myself to get faster striving for more is what landed me in a crew shell in the first place. 

 

When I walked on the UW crew, I had been a hard sell.  See, I was a track, cross-country, and basketball kid.  Why would I stop competing in a sport I had excelled at since I was 4 years old and try a completely new sport?  Yet, I knew I was probably past the peak of my running career.  I didn’t see myself getting much faster than a 5:14 miler.  I was tall, heavy to be a distance runner, and already training long miles.  A few things pushed me to my decision to try out for the crew, but one of the reasons was that the coaches wanted me.  One of the coaches in particular, Erin O’Connell, I remember saying, “You could go all the way.”  And she believed in me, or at least had hope that this six-foot, three-sport, team captain, all ready accepted to UW … had serious potential. 

 

Potential is nice, but it is nothing without challenge.  And with that challenge “to go all the way,” came progress.  And I have made serious progress in my six years so far.  My freshman year I learned to row and then managed to even row in a four at NCAAs.  Sophomore year I learned the 2-.  Junior year I switched sides.  Then two years for an Olympic bid (lots of learning there on all levels).  And last year I decided I needed to learn how to scull.  Rowing the small boats and focusing on how to improve my blade-work and boat-feel are the hard parts of rowing for me.  I can race, get fit, race, lift weights, race, erg, and did I mention racing is not a problem?  However, to make myself better, I don’t strengthen my strengths.  I attack my weaknesses, even though it means being last for a while.

 

So, the journeys began post-Olympics that I would go solo and get some more speed out of myself to be applied to any boat I choose to row.  One day, I managed to pass a learn to row class through the cut.  I was pumped.  Whoo hoo!  I can beat someone in the single!  Nice job Olympic medalist. 

 

That is what this means to me: a challenge.  A challenge to be the best in the world at something and it’s not going to be easy.  I have made it through 2005 and it prepared me for 2006.  I am back in the single.  I will row in a pair or a double at the spring National Selection Regattas.  And I will win a medal at next year’s worlds.  And the color of that medal will be gold. 

Not a great race, not a bad race, and we finished 5th.  That's all I got right now:) More to come later...

Michelle Guerette, my buddy, just won a bronze medal in the women's single!!!  Yeah G-rette!  So proud of her!