Recap

I cried with complete abandon this morning after watching a replay of the race. With about 400 meters to go, I caught the crab that took us from first place to out of the race. I have not sobbed like that since discovering that my parents were divorcing.

This has been the most emotionally invested I have ever been in a single race season. Part of it is the amount of sheer resources I have devoted to this project. I left my home for the summer, I walked away from the quad at Malta, I left my friends in Seattle, I traveled repeatedly out to the East Coast for training camps and regattas. I worked for days just to bring a group of guys and coaches together to build this quad. I made the boat, I made stroke seat. We trained for weeks together. But it wasn't enough.

When the pressure was on, I faltered. At 38 strokes per minute, trying to steer the boat, trying to increase the pressure, watching the two competing quads come at us and eat away our lead, I lost my focus and got too tight and had a stroke that ended the season for me and my three teammates and our coaches.

So now I take two weeks off and get ready to do it again. I have a dream of racing for the USA and I am not done with it yet. I have more I can give, I just have to get more and more careful about it as I get older and my body wears down. But I will stay at it. I am going to make the team, even if it takes me four more years.

I have no regrets about this experience. It has been the greatest season in my rowing career and I am faster for it. I will eventually crawl out of the guilt hole in which I have buried myself.  The men I rowed with and coaches who trained me this summer were some of the best I have ever been with, and the experience was a privilege.

New season goals: sub 20:10 6k, sub 6:18 2k for the erg. Top 3 finish at NSR I in the light 1x. Top 3 finish at NSR II in the heavy or light double. Go to a quad camp. Make the quad. Win trials. Win a medal at the World Championship Regatta.