August 31, 2007 - Go Time

Well, it’s that time of year again: the time when I get less than 4:00 minutes to justify 365 days of training, preparing, and visualizing.  I really hate these last several hours and just wish that I could spin the clock up until our 2:00 PM race time.

One thing I’ve learned between last year and this year is that emotional pumpedness—I coined that word myself so don’t use it without citing, please—doesn’t have much to do with success or failure.  Mental focus is important, of course, as is psychological soundness.  Most important, though, is preparation. 

This year I am not as psyched about the finals as I was last year, but that actually makes me feel more prepared.  In a way, this is the ultimate test of the transformation in thought that I have espoused for the past several months.  I am confident that I really have matured because I know, regardless of the events of tomorrow, that I will be satisfied with my effort and glad for the growth I’ve achieved over the last year of training.

Still, I want to win.  Bringing back a medal would be an incredible honor.  There are between 120 and 140 strokes between the starting blocks and the finish line, though, and those are what should command my attention, not the few seconds I might spend on the medal stand. 

The race is inevitable; winning is not.  The race, then, is my goal.  I want to row beautifully and powerfully.  I want to spill out all my energy and cross the line with my last strength.  I want to be confident that the effort I give was the best I could have mustered.  If I do that, it will be enough.  It would still hurt to come away empty handed, but I won’t feel truly empty, in the deeper and more important sense, if I row as I intend.

Pray for me to have lungs, legs, hands, and, most importantly, heart.  I will need it.

August 30, 2007 - Adrian

Finally my life is complete.  As a near but post Cold War baby, I was indoctrinated from a young age to fear and despise Russians.  Today, I finally got to face them on the field of battle.  Just like Rocky Balboa avenging his fallen friend Apollo Creed, I was successful, vanquishing the Soviet spies to the B finals.

Okay, that was really just an excuse to reference Rocky.  Today’s race did include Russia, but we were much more concerned with Italy and Germany than the Great Bear.  Our goal was to beat Italy, who was in the lane directly beside us, and to ignore Germany.  It was a good strategy.

The race itself was not our best, but it was good enough.  We had to go all out the entire way, which was expected.  What wasn’t expected was the strong headwind that made the race last forever.  We led at the 500m mark, but finished second behind Germany.  We were all fully spent when we crossed the line.

The best part about advancing to the A final is that it gives us an automatic birth in the Paralympics next year.  In fact, all four of our adaptive boats qualified.  We are the only team with a boat in each category to qualify in all the events.

Saturday’s final will be tight.  I think that all six boats will finish within seconds of each other.  If we row our best, we could win the whole thing.  If we row poorly, we could easily finish in last position.  I think we are all pretty focused; we’ll just have to see what happens.

Honestly, I was a little worried about this afternoon’s race after my morning.  Somehow, Jesse and I missed each other in the hotel lobby and I got left behind at the hotel.  Though I am 99% confident that I know where the bus stop is, I feared taking a wrong turn or getting on the wrong bus, which would have spelled disaster.  Fortunately, I had my cell phone and I called Ryan to communicate the problematic situation.

After talking for a few minutes (at $1.29 each), my cell phone battery started to die.  I retreated to my room and tried calling again.  All circuits were busy.  Eventually, through a series of text messages (0.50 each), Ryan was able to tell me that Karen’s husband Frank was on his way to pick me up.  We had a fun ride over, hitting 200 kilometers per hour on the Autobahn.  We weren’t really in a rush, but why pass up a chance to go really fast.

Tomorrow I think we’ll try to see some more sites before our afternoon practice.  Then it will be all business until we finish up Saturday.  I don’t know what to expect, but I’m excited to still be in the tournament.

August 28, 2007 - A Few Nice Days

Well, this is frustrating.  I wrote out a nice post and lost the document without saving.  Here are some bullet points:

*  We easily finished 2nd in our first heat and move on to face Brazil, Russia, Germany, Italy, and Japen in Thursday's semifinal round at 2:00 PM Germany time.  It will be a tough race, but we should be able to claim one of the top 3 spots and advance to the finals.

*  Today we went into the actual city for the morning.  It was awesome.  I had a chocolate mousse tort and a bratwurst.  It was very authentic and very delicious.

*  One of the LW's from the senior team got me a uni that actually fits.  The XL that I had was way too big and looked pretty silly on me.  Thanks a ton to Greg Ruckman!

*  All of our boats advanced out of the first heats.  Laura made it into the finals wtih a tremendous effort in today's reppechage round.  She got 2nd place by 0.28 seconds.  Also, Kendra won the erg race set up for the spare rowers from all the adaptive teams.  It was her first ever 1k on the erg, so we were very proud.

*  I'm glad to be here, but also very ready to come home.

August 27, 2007 - Tipping Point

Well, I've just come from lunch and our daily team meeting.  In another two hours, my boat will push off the docks to prepare for our first race.  I'm excited and edgy and ready to get started.

I hate dealing with the energy before a race.  I can't stop moving, my stomach can't stop tingling.  It's not a fear sensation, but it's similar.  We use positive words to describe our excitement about races, but others might say that they are a little nervous.

Once off the dock, I know I'll calm down and focus up.  When we are rowing, there is a sense of purpose and direction that is absent while waiting.  The edge of the dock is a sort of mental precipice.  Once you've stepped off into the shell, there is no turning back and all the adrenaline in the body starts to flow in the right direction.

Until then, I'm going to try to have a normal few hours.  I'm going to get Priscilla set up at the luggage check in station, eat a snack, cheer on the small boats, go to the bathroom about 5 times, and stay out of the sun.  As John Hyman of my WFU crew always used to say, "Just another day at the office."

August 26, 2007 - Last Practice

First things first, our opening race is set to launch tomorrow at 3:20 PM Germany time, which is 9:20 AM EST.  As I said before, we have 3 other boats in our heat: Israel, Canada, and Korea.  We’ve got to beat 1 of them to advance directly to the semifinal round.

Our last row through today went well.  We did a dress rehearsal with a true start and sprint and a light row through the middle.  I think we are feeling smooth and strong, so I’m excited to get it on tomorrow.

Everyone should be glad to know that, once again, I am still blind.  I had to be reclassified by a FISA doctor today.  He said that I have a textbook case of RP and that they could use a picture of my eyes for medical students.  I was very proud.

Actually, classifications turned out to be a major pain for Aerial.  She had to remove her opaque contact lenses so the doctor could look into her eyes.  Light causes her to get terrible migraines.  The afternoon row for her, then, was very uncomfortable.  We are all crossing our fingers that she will feel better tomorrow.

There’s nothing else to report.  T-23.5 hours to race number 1 of, ideally, 3.  Keep us in your prayers and wish us luck.

August 25 - First Strokes

Being at the world championships brings a strange blend of business and boredom.  It seems like there is always something that could be done, but very few things that absolutely must be done.  School work is a constant option, for example, but so is knapping.

After checking emails and updating my blog yesterday, I joined the rest of the team for our 12:00 meeting.  After that, we grabbed a quick lunch, dropped off the dogs to be watched at the Concept2 tent (I forgot my crate in the hotel), and checked our bags at the secure area before heading out for our first practice.

Our first row in Germany went well.  We were back in our own racing shell, which was a huge improvement over the boat we had during training.  We rowed our old boat while in Philadelphia because the racing shell began its journey across the Atlantic with the other US boats in mid June. 

Yesterday we also tried out some new oars from Concept2.  Aerial prefers them because they are easier to feel in the oar lock than our old blades were.  I don’t know what I really think about them.  I rowed with C2’s in college, but I am used to the Crokers that we’ve been using.  Hopefully I’ll relearn the feel of the new oars by the end of our row this afternoon.

Another interesting development yesterday was the draw of our first heat.  There will be 4 heats, 2 semi-final rounds, and the grand finals.  Three boats will progress from each heat to the semi-finals, and 3 from semi-finals to the finals.  Our first heat is the smallest of the 4.  We only have four boats: Korea, Canada, Israel, and us.  I’m not sure what our strategy will be, yet, but we only need to beat one boat to advance directly to the semi’s without going through the repechage rounds (aka the losers’ bracket).

Really, that’s about it.  The pattern for the next several days will be pretty consistent.  Right now we’re just focusing on feeling the boat, getting used to the new blades and the venue, and adjusting to the time difference.  I just want to accelerate everything and get to the racing, but that will come soon enough.

Watching Races

For anyone wanting to watch the race action, there are a few options.

www.rowersworld.com is supposed to be carrying free live coverage.  I have not investigated myself, but our team boat man, Jeff, says it works.  Look for links to the FISA World Championships and the event called the "LTA 4+."

Ryan's dad, Carl, gave me the following link.  It will take you to a site where you can pay a monthly subscription fee, about $5, to watch the races.  The subscription can be canceled after the championships are over.  One advantage of this site is that the races are archived so you don't have to watch them at awkward hours.

http://web.wcsn.com/sport/index.jsp?id=34017

There are 15 boats in our event this year, so we will have heats, semi-finals, and finals.  Our first heat is Monday, competition yet to be determined.  I don't know the exact progression, but our next race will not be until Wednesday or Thursday.  I'll try to send out updates once I know the real schedule.

August 24, 2007 - Arrived

Well, we're here and, thankfully, so far it is not raining.  Actually, the weather is absolutely beautiful as is the course.  The venue was built for the now infamous Munich Olympics, so it is really spectacular.  The course is a perfect rectangle, with six docks for launching and returning lined up at one end.  It's a pretty cool view to be able to look at the docks and see the entire length of the race course behind.  Karen says it makes you realize just how long 2,000 meters really is.

Our last practices in Philadelphia went well, though it only stopped raining for the last evening and morning.  Isabel arranged a send-off party which was very nice.  I was especially pleased that Barb Engleking, Priscilla's and my trainer from The Seeing Eye, came with her husband Bill and oldest son Will.  They are essentially my New Jersey family, so it was a welcome reprieve from the rowing world to have lunch with them and to have them at our going away shindig.

Our flight over was uneventful, although we all agree that the flight attendants displayed an attitude that can only be described as "severe."  At one point I thought we were all going to die because a stewardess announced very firmly, "Passengers, return to your seats, buckle your seatbelts, and refrain from standing!"  It sounded to me as if we were about to encounter serious turbulence.  In reality, the flight attendants just wanted to be able to get through the aisles with donuts and juice.  Welcome to Germany...

Our hotel, the Suite Hotel Munich, is wonderful.  The rooms are distinctly European.  There is one queen sized bed and one twin sized bed.  There are dividers that you can pull across between the two beds like giant curtains.  The bathrooms look like nicely-decorated prefabricated plastic rooms that were put in as afterthoughts.  Actually, there are two bathrooms.  One has only a toilet and a sink and is about the size of an airplane laboratory.  The other has a sink and a huge tub that I think has jets in it.  The latter is exposed to the main room through openings in the door that are intended as handles.  It's a little funny.  Really, though, the hotel is very nice and my description probably does not do it justice.

I especially like this year's food situation.  We have a restaurant across from our hotel where we have lunch and dinner whenever we are not at the course.  Last year we had a buffet with an assortment of ambiguous and bland foods, mostly consisting of pasta.  This year, we have a set menu and it is truly delicious.  Yesterday we had basil pesto and spaghetti as our meals, along with some incredible soups.  We also had a traditional German dessert whose name I won't butcher here.  It consisted of vanilla cream with a fruit jelly mixed in.  It was pretty tasty.  Jesse and I risked missing the bus to try it, actually.  It was worth it.

We do not have internet access at the hotel (at least not for a reasonable price), so right now I'm writing from the course.  I was surprised to find that my cell phone works here for a paltry $1.29 per minute and $0.50 per text message.  Last night I used it to call Lauren just to ask her to call my hotel with our phone card.  I plan to keep it turned off for the rest of the week just to avoid the temptation to use it.  If anyone wants to call, the number is listed at the hotel's website, www.suite-hotel.com.  My room number is 109.  I suggest buying an international phone card for the best price and, of course, remember that I am six hours ahead of you so the best time to call is between 1:00 and 5:00 Eastern Standard Time.

On the good news front, during camp I told Aerial about my back problems and she said that my symptoms exactly matched some that she had experienced herself.  The catch is that her back was not injured, it was a muscle in the leg and buttocks that is often strained by rowers.  She showed me some stretches and did some rather uncomfortable massage work on my leg (Aerial is an RN and really knows her stuff) that seemed to help.  Here in Munich, we have  a team massage therapist.  He worked on me yesterday for a long time and will repeat the process today and tomorrow.  I actually have bruises from the massage, which the trainer predicted, but my leg feels much better. 

I'm frustrated that my doctors in Winston misdiagnosed my problem as a disk issue and so allowed it to continue unnecessarily for the past five months, but I am mostly grateful to be on the road to recovery now and to have decreasing pain.  Psychologically, I feel stronger just knowing what's wrong and knowing that I am not going to hurt my back by continuing to row.  It makes me feel more confident in my body than I did even before leaving North Carolina.

I would say that I am not jet lagged, but I did put Neosporin on my toothbrush this morning instead of toothpaste, so maybe I'm more tired than I think.  Fortunately, I realized my error before brushing.  Priscilla, who slept well on the plane and who sleeps well everywhere else, too, does not seem affected by the time change.

Other Notes:
*  The first thing I saw on German TV was a live performance of "Mombo Number 5" followed by a group of women with red Mohawks singing "Another One Bites the Dust."  The music in the hotel restaurant is similarly strange.  The world loves old American pop.

*  I had Coke in a glass bottle last night.  It was a little less fizzy than American Coke and a bit sweeter.
*  It's fun to be back in a country with push button toilets.  Often there are two buttons.  One is a regular flush for number 1's.  The other is a power flush for non-number 1's.  Now that's what I call practicality.

August 19, 2007 - Small Victories

By all accounts, the start to yesterday's evening practice was about as bad as they come.  For one, it started raining during the morning and never let up.  For two, the annual "Unity Fest" was taking place down town and what is usually a 20 minute drive from the apartment where Jesse, Ryan, and I picked up Aerial to the practice site took over an hour.  Karen was not pleased that we were late.  Tracy was feeling sick and had been waiting for us for almost an hour.  The double was on the water hanging around in the rain to do race pieces against us.  To say the least, it was a mess.

Fortunately, bad beginnings do not always have to translate into bad practices.  Ironically, after the morning row Karen talked to us a bit about mental toughness.  The afternoon row gave us an opportunity to put her words to use.

Our ill-begun practice consisted of two race pieces.  We had almost no time to warm up for the first and had very little practice with a new starting sequence Karen taught us Saturday.  I didn't expect much.

Once the row started, one thing was clear.  We were all ready to unleash some power.  Our first 1,000 piece was not the smoothest or the prettiest we've ever done, but it was the fastest, and the fastest by a long shot.  It was so fast, in fact, that Karen seemed pleasantly surprised when Ryan told her that we had not done a mid-race move--a series of more powerful strokes used for strategy--or sprinted the last few hundred meters.

As if to test fait, we lined up for a second piece.  I figured, given the first explosion, that we would be slightly slower.  I thought wrong.  Our second 1,000 meters was faster than our first.  It was a very welcome victory for the crew.

Until yesterday, I think the crew was a bit pensive.  We had not had a signature row that we could really hang our hats on.  I think we all hoped that we were fast, but yesterday's confirmation really increased our confidence, reduced our stress, and lightened the mood of the boat.

Interestingly, the surrounding circumstances of the practice never improved.  It continued to rain, it got colder, and Karen's launch broke down so that we had to tow her to the dock.  No one cared, though.  We finally accomplished something together as a crew.  In a sense, we had a collective victory that overshadowed our individual personalities and differences.  It was a small glimpse of what makes me love rowing: the effort of distinct people acting together as one unified body. 

The next few days of practice will be critical to our success in Munich, but I think now we are all eager for them, we all wish we had more time to prepare and more chances to recapture the feeling we achieved tonight.  It's a good feeling.  It feels like confident anticipation; it feels like hope.

August 18, 2007 - Focus

The final push towards Munich began this morning with an early wake up call in Winston-Salem, a short drive to Greensboro, and a flight to Philadelphia that turned out to be pleasantly uneventful.  A relaxed lunch and afternoon of school reading gave the first three quarters of the day a laid back feel, but with the team's first evening row of our pre-race training camp came a renewed sense of focus. 

The attitude in the boat tonight was relaxed, up-beat, and almost jovial.  The presence of a photographer hired to take shots of my guide dog Priscilla and me for an ad campaign for The Seeing Eye was certainly fodder for some good-natured ribbing and laughs.  Still, there just seemed to be something a little different about the crew's concentration level.  It seemed like each rower was paying closer attention to body position, blade work, and balance, that each was sitting up and listening more intently when Coach Karen offered technical advice, and that each was straining to create and maintain perfection more fervently than we had in any of our previous practices.  Perhaps it was a sense of urgency with the world championships just a few days away, perhaps something just clicked, or perhaps it was nothing more than the first cool and comfortable weather we've seen all year.  Whatever it was, the mood in the boat and by the dock was decidedly different and different for the better.

Really, my experience rowing with the national team this second time has been different in many ways.  For one, I've done all this before; it's no longer new.  In some sense, that is a little sad.  For example, getting our gear packages and international flight reservations didn't hold the same magic as a year ago.  At the same time, with familiarity comes confidence, and I feel much calmer now than I did during our last week before Eton.

Other things have changed that don't necessarily have anything to do with experience in rowing, but with experience in life.  For example, the addition of Lauren's constant and steady love in my life makes me feel far stronger, more confident, and less desperate for achievements than I've ever been.  It's not that I've lost any drive or will to win, but I simply feel more complete as a person and less reliant on outcomes for self-esteem.

Pain has also shaped my outlook.  As I have struggled with the relentless and so far incurable pain caused by an unidentified injury in my lower back, I've been forced to come to terms with the mortality of my rowing career and athletic prowess.  This too, though, has had both positive and negative effects.  Of course, the pain is unpleasant and it has robbed me of much of the joy I used to experience while training.  At the same time, the injury has given me a deeper appreciation of the here and now, reminding me that the greatest beauty is found in the process of growing and improving, not in final results.

Finally, this year there is an end in sight.  I now know that, if I am chosen to represent the country at the Paralympics in 2008, that will be my last race.  I have goals and aspirations beyond rowing that will soon require my full attention.  I know, then, that I have to soak all this up while I can.  It's not about living into cheesy metaphors like "seize the day" and "live in the moment."  It's about relishing a life that we only get to live one time, recognizing that some opportunities do only come one time despite our best intentions, and that endings, even to life-defining passions, are inevitable.

I'm tired of trying to write deep things about rowing.  It is, after all, only a sport no matter how much I glorify it and no matter how deeply I love it.  There is a world outside the narrow walls of the shell that is happy and full regardless of my erg score.  Perhaps this realization represents the biggest difference the past year has brought.  It does not diminish my insane love for the sport or my insatiable hunger to be a part of it, but it does give me perspective.  I am more than a rower...  I am going to go call Lauren.