Long Beach

Dave and I left Seattle on Saturday for sunny Southern California. We have settled in at the Long Beach Rowing Center and are living with my mom as we put the finishing touches on our double. We have rigged up our Filippi K-Rigger to comfort and have gotten the first few shake down rows out of the way. We are on track to make the 70-kilogram average easily and are loving the sunshine and flat water.

There are several other Olympic hopefuls training out of the Long Beach boathouse, including a large contingent from Potomac Boathouse in D.C. and another lightweight 2x. We are friendly and cordial but mostly stick to ourselves. Conal has set us up with a solid taper plan - we only need to execute.

Today we played with a little different race rhythm. For the first time, we have a double that is wired to give us speed, so we can really experiment and respond. We are finding a little more length and focus per stroke at a little lower stroke rate gives us a major bump in speed, especially in the second half of our race when the lactic acid comes on hard. We will have more opportunities to push along with this rhythm tomorrow during some pace work.

Game time. ROOH!

On a coaching note, well done to the racers at Holy Names Academy last weekend. All crew performed well, particularly the Novice 8+ that won the Junior Varsity event and the lightweight 8+ that took the fight to other crews in the Openweight Varsity event. I will miss working with these inspiring young women when I matriculate this Fall at the University of Washington.