Well, Nationals are done for another year . . . almost! My racing is done at least. We still have Rhys’ World Cup single scull A Final plus a final bit of trailer loading tomorrow, the trip back to Sydney, a night in Potts Point (we finally got around to booking somewhere) and some logistics to get cars/luggage/people to where they need to be. But, I have finished all my racing, had some hot chips, ate a big dinner at the buffet, had my first bundy and coke and am now sitting around with the rest of the squad (well, the 8 of us that are still here and don’t need to be racing tomorrow) in one room. It’s a little squishy, quite noisy and very smelly. All the ‘kids’ are just bouncing of each other, eating way too much and making themselves sick. It’s great that everyone’s having a good end to the week.

I had the Interstate Lightweight Quad today. We thought the Tassie crew would just be miles ahead and they actually weren’t. The NSW crew went out pretty hard and it was them, Tas and us to the first 500m. Then NSW and Tas pulled away, with NSW in the lead. NSW started to fade in the 3rd 500m, with Tas overtaking them, but NSW continued to fight. We had a really big push at the 1500m and made up a lot of ground, but weren’t good enough to catch them. I didn’t feel like I had a great race – just didn’t settle in that well and never really got onto the rhythm, but tried hard to not upset the boat, put as much power on as I could and made sure I didn’t get my oars stuck in the water.

All the other girls had a great race (which is important to me) and we certainly had a lot of fun. We had some fun bantering with the NSW crew on the way to the start line, then had hysterical giggles on the start line when Nell had trouble with her diaphram/chest cramping up and me having to pat her on the back while she burped for about 5 minutes trying to get it to clear! It was pretty funny and the TV camera was focussed on us for the whole time, so hopefully they didn’t televise too much of it!
(Oh, we got bronze, if you didn’t catch that bit!)

Then some hot chips, a couple of cups of cider, a bunch of boat loading and general phaffing around, then back to Blacktown.

Rhys got through his repechage in the morning . . . he was coming 2nd in a super competitive race (all 5 people within 2s at the 1000m), then the guy in the lead blew up, stopped, put his head in his hands! The first 4 got through so after that guy had stopped everyone else just slowed down and paddled home.Rhys also came 2nd in the President’s Scull. Pretty impressive as everyone else in that race hadn’t raced already that day. He has the A Final of the World Cup scull tomorrow morning.

My battery is almost dead, and I can’t think of much else to say, so I’ll try to put some photos in (none of mine) and leave it at that for now.

Thanks for all your support, I’m looking forward to coming home and seeing you all.

Very quick post today. I’m about to head back out to the course for interstate quad training then to our WA team dinner afterwards. The dinner is not much fun as a lightweight!!

Our quad today went really well. We got silver and pushed the winning crew all the way. I thought they’d beat us easily so it was a nice surprise to be so close. Also a good sign for our interstate quad tomorrow which is 3 of the girls from the quad today.

So, just the interstate quad tomorrow (I’ll prob have to be ~57.5 as Maia is a bit under. Was 57.7 today), then pack everything up and load the trailer (hopefully the brakes are fixed now!!). Oh, and eat. A lot!! And drink.

Other exciting news today, our poster boy, Rhys, got a call last night asking if he could row the single scull for Australia in the World Cup because one of the guys was unwell. So thismorning Rhys had his first race for the Senior A (open age) Australian Team. Good on him. He really deserves it and has just missed out for so long.

Double scull this morning, had to be 57 by 11:55am. Thanks to a very light dinner last night (soup and a piece of bread) and no food or water thismorning except for 2 handfuls of Special K and a mini easter egg, I actually managed to be on weight by about 10am.

I decided I needed a haircut (it’s got a little long and has been getting in the way) and thought I’d feel stupid getting it cut a couple of days after I’d put so much effort into weighing in, so just did it thismorning. One of the boys had scissors, but didn’t want to help me, so I just did it myself. OK, maybe my brain was not functioning very well for not having enough energy, but I’m actually pretty happy with it, even now after I’ve eaten! (Photo below: that’s actually where my hair stops, it’s not just hanging behind my shoulders!)

I managed to drive everyone to the course successfully (had Special K next to me in the car in case I needed emergency food) and weighed in. I actually weighed in at 56.8, and Carly was 56.7 so we had a whole half kilo to spare!! Then I sat down to eat. A small carton of Sustagen milk, 2 crumpets and honey, 1 bit of bread and honey, 1 plain bit of bread and a bottle of staminade. I reweighed (just out of interest) and was back up to 58.15. 1.35kg in 20 minutes is not bad!!

Our race went fairly well, but we just weren’t fast enough. I think all of the other crews in the race had been training a fair bit, whereas we had rowed about 6km together before the race. We came together pretty well but were probably only 90% together (or 100% together 50% of the time) so only had 90% of the speed of the top crews. I felt like I contributed for the whole race, and Carly said it felt good, so overall a positive row but just a shame we couldn’t get a medal. Not really much else to say.

Czech came 1st (blistering 1st and last 500m, with a really slow patch in the middle!), Laura/Georgia M came second and Alex/Eve came third. Nell and Jess came 5th and I don’t know where the others came. (Oh, sorry, forgot to say . . . we came 4th!)

It turns out that Carly only started training again in November (after taking a few years off) and is still only up to doing 3 sessions a week on the water so she is doing amazingly well. She’ll probably be crazy fast next year!

I have my open lightweight quad tomorrow with 2 of the girls from my interstate quad (Nell and Jess) and another girl from WA (Amy). We have never trained in that combination and are not pre-rowing, so we’ll just wing it for the race I guess. I don’t even know what order the seating will be. The other girls have all rowed together a fair bit so I assume I’ll be in bow and it should be OK. Luckily Amy is super light (55.4 today) so I don’t have to be down at 57. Unfortunately I think I’m supposed to be weighing in at 57.5 and I think I ate too much for dinner tonight (back up to almost 59 now!!) so it could be another miserable morning. Damn . . . I was 57.4 before dinner so thought I could relax for 5 minutes!!

Other good results for today:
Fairclough won his U21LM1X, so is a National Champion
Rhys got bronze in the OM2X
Alex Murphy got bronze in the U23LM2X
Jack and Matt C got 4th in the U23M2X
Mitch Boros won the B Final of the U21M1X

Today, finally, it’s Wednesday. And first day of finals. Thanks to yesterday’s sluggish performance I was in the B Final, so the pressure was off (I had already not achieved what I had set out to do) but I did still want to finish off with a good race. I wasn’t expecting much more than a 6th place though. Even though I had organised a bit of a sleep in and no pre-row to give me a little bit of a boost, I was still pretty flat when I got to the course. Walking over the bridge to the island got me a bit out of breathe and by the time I got to my boat I was getting pretty tired. My enthusiasm from the morning (just after getting out of bed) was starting to slide. Still, I weighed in (58.4), had my raw crumpet and honey and half a mars bar (my secret racing weapon this year) and waited for race time.

Just before I went on the water I got to watch Rhys come 3rd in the Men’s Open Single Scull A Final (bronze medal). It was a really gutsy performance and his first Open Scull medal (he came 4th last year, then won the Interstate Scull). He was coming third, then in the last 500m the guy 4th pushed at him. He managed to overtake 2nd, but 4th pushed through him so Rhys still had bronze. Very inspiring and nice to see just before I went out, . . . but also not something I was expecting to match, especially as I hadn’t even made the A-Final and was so far off the pace yesterday. (Photo below: Rhys heading out to race with coach Joe)

Out for my warm-up and I was not feeling great. Relaxed and calm, but certainly not lively. I did a short warm up as it was a bit rainy again today and I thought I should save my energy. Still, I was blowing like a freight train after 30 strokes at race pace! Not a good sign when a race is probably ~250+ strokes long! I was pretty exhausted by the time I’d rowed to the start line and my enthusiasm and optimism was definitely wearing thin. I was trying a lot of positive talk though and was just determined to get out and row my own race and go as fast as I could go in this condition. Still, when I had to shake my head a few times while sitting on the start line as my vision kept going unfocussed I was seriously wondering if I should’ve even been racing!

But, I wasn’t going to pull out now!

Attention . . . . . . . . . Row!

I had a reasonable, but not super aggressive start, and also dropped my rate down to race pace (~33.5 strokes/minute) about 10 strokes earlier than usual. My coach had suggested I try to be as efficient and smooth as possible during the first half of the race so I had something left for the second half. Dropping the rate early didn’t wipe me out as much and gave me the energy to really get my race pace settled in. So much so that about 500m into the race, when I was reminding myself to keep pushing, I found that the rate had crept back up to 34.5. That was a little extreme for 500m in, so I settled back down so I wouldn’t blow myself up!

I was dropped pretty quickly by the front runners (Nell, Alex (yellow, red and blue), Annabel (orange, black and yellow stripes)) off the start – when I had a quick glance over I could see Jess (white, aqua and black) next to me (and slightly behind) and Eve and Amy on the far side of the course also dropping back behind. I settled into to a strong rhythm at about 32 (a bit lower than normal as I thought it better to be strong and smooth at that, than frantic at 33). I was still not feeling strong but just kept focussing on being smooth and efficient, rowing well, and always keeping the pressure on. I remembered all the things I’d been told (“Make sure you push at 700m, that is where it gets really hard” – Jamie, “Just need to get the first 3 minutes done and the rest will follow” – Ben, and so many others) and most of all “just keep going”!!! Jess sat just behind me the entire way and I definitely wouldn’t have gone that fast without her there. I kept pushing to the 1000m then just got really stubborn and decided I’d done enough races this year where I’d had to switch off at the 1000. No more! So, I kept going. Everytime the split really crept up, I tried to push a little bit harder. Every time I was in the middle of a distance e.g. 850m (there are markers every 250m, and everyone tends to push on the 500m marks) I pushed a little harder to try to get a bit of ground on Jess before she pushed. I’d seen Jess had an awesome race finish on Monday so, with about 600m to go, I pushed again, stepped up my rhythm and power (same rate, but just more power so a more aggressive rhythm). She went with me and I just kept driving. The rate was back up to 33, . . . and she was still with me . . . just before the 250, I started stepping the rate up. It only got to about 35, but I was trying to really drive each stroke to get more speed at that rate, rather than just taking the rate up. It worked. I pulled away from Jess, but knew I had to finish the race off so I kept going. It turns out that I’d actually closed the length + gap to Alex and Annabel who were fighting for second and third and I actually slotted in between them to nab 3rd! Pretty happy with that given my current state. I was only 0.3s behind Alex in second, and I had hit a buoy about 10 strokes before the line (luckily I saw it coming so it just slowed me down a bit rather than stopping me dead!) so maybe that would’ve made a difference? But also, maybe I could’ve just pushed a bit harder? I didn’t have any idea I was close enough to get them – I was just racing Jess at that point. Anyway, very happy with my race, happy with the way I raced, how I continued pushing, the positive talk that I kept up all through the race and the calm, composed, GOOD, technique that I had. I think I actually raced like a real rower. Finally! 🙂

Also have to mention my coach, Joe, who rode down on the bike path and yelled at me the whole way. Some encouragement, some useful technical things, and some new technical things (not my usual key words) which I simply couldn’t decipher during a race!! Also thanks to everyone else who was yelling at the other competitors whose names sound a lot like “Helen” because I thought I had so many people cheering for me! And to Jess’s coach for yelling at her and giving me extra incentive to stay in front of her (and warning me when she was going to push!)

Finish was: Janelle, Alex, me, Annabel, Jess, Eve, Amy.
A Final was Ella, Hannah EH, Mac, Maia, Carly, Hannah C, Sarah, Laura

Other good results from today, Alex Murphy came 3rd in the U23LM1X (did a usual Murphy finish to storm home from 5th)
Jack also got 3rd in his B Final (U23M1X)
Fairclough won his semi, reasonably easily still so hopefully his final goes well.
Jack and Matt Cochran won their U23M2X rep so are into the final
Fairclough and Boros came 2nd in the U21M2X rep so are into the final

I have my double scull tomorrow (1:55pm here time), so am hungry and tired tonight. Currently 57.9kg so basically 1kg to lose by midday tomorrow. Should be fine. If we race well we are a good chance at a medal so fingers crossed and I’ll try to maintain my racing composure and determination from today.

Can’t think of anything else to say. I feel like that is already enough of a massive post for you and I’m pretty tired so will leave it at that.

The morning started dark and early (5:30am) with a horrified exclamation of “I can’t believe it’s not even Wednesday yet”. (It is still Tuesday isn’t it??) It feels like we’ve been here, and racing, forever. Also, Nationals usually starts on Monday, so the Sunday start and rearrangement of events is throwing everyone a bit. We headed out to the course at 6 (arrive 6:30) to pre-row for my single semi.

My pre-row didn’t feel great, but it didn’t on Sunday either so I was trying to stay positive. While waiting for my race, I got to watch one of our boys, Rhys, come 2nd (almost 1st) in his semi to go through to the A-Final in the Open Men’s Single. It was an awesome race – a powerful performance and he really broke some other guys and helped put a pretty serious contender (and one of the guys who beat him in the heat) into the B Final. Especially good as a few people had been doubting his capabilities . . . and this was a pretty emphatic rebuttal.

I was in lane 8 today, which has orange numbers, so I took a terrible looking selfie with all the orange racing gear I had today.

Today was a stark contrast, weather-wise, to yesterday. Yesterday I was sitting at the start line shivering, dripping with rain and covered in goose-bumps. Today I was sitting there dripping with sweat. I knew I’d have to go fast to make the A-Final, but also knew that I was capable of it, if I was fit and strong. Unfortunately I was not. As most of you know I’ve been pretty tired for a while now and have most likely had/have some kind of virus (glandular fever or similar). Based on Sunday, I seemed to still be able to race OK, but I think the last two days of racing have taken their toll. I did everything I could in my race today and am actually pretty happy with it, except for the actual speed. I rowed technically well, kept the rate up, pushed myself all the way and most of all, didn’t drop my head or do any stupid panicky stuff (sloppy technique, messy strokes etc) when I wasn’t going well. I just didn’t have the speed, and right from the start was off the pace. I came 7th, a long way from an A-final finish. I didn’t feel as physically wrecked as I did after races last year (lactic, burning legs, naseous/crampy) but am still sure I gave it my all and was pretty emotionally tired from pushing myself. I got my boat off the water and back to trestles and just sat down next to it for a while. I was exhausted.

For the rest of the day my ‘tiredness’ symptoms from the past month or so kicked back in – light headedness, out-of-breath walking up hills, generally shakiness and just needing to sleep. I hadn’t realised how much better I’d been feeling for the last week!! Anyway, it’s not too bad and I’ve organised to not pre-row in the morning so I’ll just get to the course in time for my weigh in tomorrow (B Final) so I can get a bit more sleep and rest. I’m going to attack the B-Final (10:30am tomorrow, 7:30 your time) with the same race plan as today – go as fast as I can for 2km, . . . regardless of what everyone else is doing. It’s the best I can do, and hopefully it goes a bit better than today.

I chilled out in the grandstand for a while, and took some photos to give you an idea of the atmosphere. I also had a lay down under some sculls in the boatpark for a while, which was pretty relaxing and surprisingly comfortable. I didn’t think I could capture the moment on camera though! Also got some clothes shopping done in the regatta store!

Can’t think of much else to say. Despite the poor racing performance, I’m actually quite enjoying my time here. The squad is really good and I’m a lot less stressed than I have been for previous years. I’ll be trying to make weight over the next few days, so may be having less fun then, but hopefully it won’t be too bad.

I know the comments thing on here is not super easy, nor private, but you guys are welcome to just email me any comments/conversation stuff from these posts instead of commenting on here. I love hearing from you.

I’m going to try to add pictures to the past couple of days posts, so check them out again.

So, now a run down of results from today:

Rhys 2nd in scull, into A Final
Mitch Boros last in scull, into B Final (he was 4th for 1500m then just couldn’t hold it so he gave his all to try to get into the A Final)Jack last in scull, into B Final (he had a completely blocked nose from allergies or sinus-y thing so couldn’t breathe!)
Rourke/Mitch U23M2- last in rep, into B Final and heaps faster than yesterday
Mackenzie U19W1X 6th in rep, eliminated AND 5th in U19W2X, into rep
Alex Murphy 3rd in U231X semi, into A Final
Cassidi U21LW1X 5th in rep, into B Final AND 5th in U23LW2X, eliminated.

Today started very early (5:25am alarm, leave the hotel at 5:45am to get to the boats by 6:30am) and overcast. My doubles partner, Carly, and I went for a quick (4km) practice row. It felt OK – reasonably natural to fit in (I’m in bow of course!) and good power. Just needs some work on getting the connection together. The racing piece we did felt a bit messy, but felt like the main problem was just tenseness/nerves . . . so good potential and hopefully it will come together well in the race.

Then back home for a bit of a rest before heading out again just before lunchtime. By this point the drizzle had set in at the course, and pretty quickly ramped its way up to proper rain and a pretty stiff headbreeze. Still 2 hours until my race so hopefully it would settle down.

I weighed in for the single, 57.7 . . . looking good for my “sweat run and re-weigh” plan for the double later. Then, a miracle! The weigh in guy said one of the doubles had scratched so we’d been consolidated to a straight final on Thursday. Yay! No 57kg weigh in until Thursday, after all my singles racing is done. (Also no practice race to get it together before the final, but we’ll probably do another training row later in the week)

By the time of my race the wind had dropped to a slight head but it was still raining, . . and cold (vs the weekend, which was pretty hot). My repechage went pretty well, but just didn’t feel as good as yesterday, and this was reflected in the times (ie slow!!). I got out in front from the start and didn’t have to push too hard to stay there, although I did make sure I had enough margin to prevent any stressful sprint finishes and was very careful to stay well away from all the buoys!! It felt a bit slow, heavy and not as easy as it should’ve, but I think that was (hopefully) because I wasn’t having to push so I just wasn’t as upbeat and pro-active about it.

I have the semi tomorrow at 12pm (9am your time). My semi looks like it’s way harder than the other one, but I think that’s partly that my perception of how fast everyone is going it a bit wrong (ie people that I think should be really fast, actually aren’t going that fast and vice versa). I just have to get out there and attack it like I did the heat, and hopefully it feels good like the heat did.

As a positive, apparently a couple of random coaches said to my coach “Wow, Helen was going really fast in that heat” . . . so my 300-500m after stopping with the buoy problem was really flying! I didn’t have much idea because the timing through the 500m wasn’t working and I couldn’t see my stroke coach (looking forward to getting the data off my garmin though to see exactly how long I was stopped for and how fast I was going). The coaches weren’t really random . . . probably people I knew, but my coach didn’t know them.

Then had a pretty cheerful and relaxed afternoon, helping the others out, browsing the regatta shops (not in a shopping mood though, couldn’t decide what I wanted to buy) then came home to a lovely meal of steak and veges (don’t have to be 57 for another 2 days!!).

So, now some details:Tomorrow, 12pm, semi 2, lane 8. Also in race is Amy Walters, Janelle, Annabel, Laura, Ella, Maia, Sarah Pound
(Other heat is Eve Mure, Jess, Hannah C, Hannah EH, Alice Mac, Alex Hayes, Carly, Aisyah Gala)

Highlights from yesterday:Mitch Boros straight through to U21M1X (3rd)
Alex Murphy straight through to U23LM1X (3rd)

Results from today:Rhys Grant won his repechage, into OM1X semi
Pete/Thom pair 5th in rep, into B Final, but much happier with their race today
Jack Clearly 2nd in rep, into U23M1X semi (a great effort for his first year in U23s)
Caitlin 6th in rep, into B Final of U21W1X
Rourke/Mitch pair 7th in heat, into rep of U23M2- and potential for big improvements
Mackenzie 6th in U19 W1X, into rep, and happy after her first race at Nationals for the club (not school)
Me, 1st in rep, into OLW1X semi
Cassidi 7th in U21 1X, into rep
Tom Fairclough, absolutely blitzed his U21ML1X heat to win easily (into the semi)
Mike/JIP pair 3rd in U23LM2- race for lanes. Final later in week.
Jack and Matt Cochran (WARC) 3rd in U23M2X, into rep
Fairclough/Boros U21M2X 3rd in heat, into rep (Fairclough here racing heavyweight, ~1hr after his LM1X heat win!)
Cassidi and a Vanuatan 5th in U23W2X heat, into rep
Fairclough and Tom Horton (UWABC) 2nd in U23LM2X heat, into Final (now racing U23L, instead of U21, and 3rd race in ~3 hours!
Alex and Will Clark (Mosman) 1st in U23LM2X heat, into Final
And an honorary mention to our coach Joe’s Trinity quad who came 2nd and got into the semi of the U17M4X+
And to Joe for doing over 60km on the bike just today to watch all our races!!

And, now it’s bed time again, so I’ll put some photos on for you tomorrow (I’ve taken heaps!!).

Here’s one of the boat park:

Hi guys,

Lots to say and even got some really nice photos of the course for you today but it’s bed time so I’m going to keep it quick. If you saw the results today, don’t be alarmed. I’m actually pretty stoked after my race. I had a reasonable start and settled into a really good rhythm. It was smooth, probably the best I’ve felt I’ve rowed in ages and actually felt like I’d be able to hold it for the race. I thought I was comfortably in fourth, but apparently I was actually pushing up into second. Then I hit a buoy (at about 700m in). And not just hit it and slowed down, but hit it and got my oar caught upside underwater parallel to my boat. I didn’t think I’d be able to get it out either! Anyway, eventually I did get my oar out and took off again in pursuit of fourth place. When I crossed back into my lane (because the oar stuck in the water had spun my about 45 degrees and dragged me into the next lane) I hit another buoy, which caused me to knock my stroke coach (which gives me stroke rate, distance and speed and is pretty vital for my rowing) off it’s mount and onto my foot. Face down unfortunately so I couldn’t see it anymore!! I did chase fourth down and had just drawn in front when she did a really big push/sprint and I just didn’t have enough left to go with her. I hung on for a bit longer but then chilled out a bit for the last 300m or so when I realised I wasn’t going to catch up and wasn’t going to lose 5th position either.

Obviously not the result I wanted, but really positive in that I actually felt capable of racing and was doing a pretty good job. Big thumbs up.

My weight is also better (weighed in at 58.3kg today, and was the same after the race) and I’ve decided I want to give the double a try. We’re going for a practice row early tomorrow (hence the early bed time), I’ll weigh in for and race my single at 1:35pm, then try to get down to 57kg to reweigh for the double. The double is at 4:45pm. If we are going to scratch, we have to do it by 2:45. I have to weigh in (57) between 2:45 and 3:45, so I’ll make a call at 2:43 as to whether I think I’m going to make weight within that extra hour. Good news is, looks like our double heat will be achievable to go straight to the final so hopefully if we are half decent and I make weight we can do that . . . which means I don’t have to be 57 again until Thursday!! My double heat has Georgia Miansarow/Laura Dunn (both from camp etc), Alex Needoba/Amy Walters (from Perth clubs) and one other double I don’t know (but they weren’t fast in singles). Top 2 go straight through to final on Thursday. Rest to repechage on Wednesday. (Other heat has Alex/Eve, Jess/Janelle, Mac/HannahC, Czech Republic and a crew I don’t know!! Glad I’m not in that one!!)

Also, my single rep should be OK. Top 2 through to Semis on Tuesday. All people I should be able to beat . . . . but as we saw today, anything can happen!

Feeling upbeat and good. Will hopefully have more time tomorrow. Goodnight x

(Reminder: 1:35pm and 4:45pm tomorrow. 10:35 and 1:45 Perth time)

Photos, added later to post:

Our race was actually delayed for 1hr 20 due to a storm coming in. This is a picture of everyone sitting around waiting during the delay.

And here are some nice photos from the finish line end of the course.

I took a photo of the warm-up-lake for you all today.

It was bright and sunny at this point, although was misty when we left Blacktown (and smelled of beautiful crisp mountain air) and was thunderstormy again this afternoon.

Our coach, Jamie showed up last night, so was at the course thismorning checking everyone’s rigging (pitch/span/oar lengths) then it was off for a quick lap of the course (~4km all up). My blister was a bit sore, but hopefully calms down for tomorrow and I still felt pretty tired, although did get one 30 stroke piece that felt OK. Part of the flatness (or hopefully most of it!) was just low blood sugar levels.

Racing starts tomorrow, and the draw just came out. I’m in heat 2, at 4:05pm in lane 2. Top 4 go to the Semi, with the rest going to the repechage. I really want to go straight through. The names I know in my race are Ella Flecker (Tassie, 2nd at Nats last year, 1st at NSW States this year), Annabelle Gibson (5th? at NSW States), Alex Hayes (my doubles partner from 2012, 9th? at Nats last year, 8th? at NSW States), Jess Bowyer (Freo, 11th NSW States). Hopefully I can beat at least one of them, and the rest of the field and I can go straight through to Semis. I stand a reasonable chance, as long as I don’t screw up or actually am in pretty bad form/shape.

That’s all for now. I’m off for a short walk. Fingers crossed for some good weather and fast racing (from me, not the others!) tomorrow.

(Fresh back from my walk, here are some pictures of the storm and our temporary home:

Firstly, an arty one showing the sunset and storm clouds over our Bowling Green.

The back of our hotel, with lovely orange lighting from the sunset.

Bright pink sunset and ominous storm clouds over the sports fields I was running around yesterday. This photo does not do the colours justice. There was also some pretty impressive lightning, but none captured on film.

The trailer arrived thismorning, a little later than our 9am prediction but still early enough (9:45). Here is a picture of them as they pulled up (the white ute in the background, . . . and the trailer is kind of hidden behind all the boat racks.

I got some more of the actual story. They left Perth on Sunday morning but there was not much fuel in the car so they refuelled somewhere just out of Perth. Just before Northam, the car just stopped. Somehow they’d managed to put the wrong fuel (it is a diesel) in it and it had got as far Northam before the new fuel came through. They were stuck on the road until some lovely soul in a 4WD towed them (and the massive, fully loaded boat trailer) to a safe place. Then they waited until the RAC came and towed them to the Toyato repair place in Northam. Being Sunday though, nothing was open! It was midday by the time the Toyota guys got to looking at it but luckily it was just a matter of draining the fuel, and not replacing valves and whatever else the wrong fuel can damage (which would’ve been horribly expensive as well as a lot more time).

They headed off that arvo at about 3pm and drove until midnight to get to Norseman, where they had a house to stay in. Up at 5am the next morning and another 17(?) hour day. Luckily it was a full moon, mild weather and not much traffic. They were tracking pretty well until they hit Balranald, in the middle of the Hay Plains, where they got a puncture on one of the trailer tyres. This was fixed easily enough, but it looks like at this point something was knocked loose in the new electronic brake system. It blew a fuse, which locked the brakes on. They saw the autosparky in town and got the fuse fixed and headed off again.

They were happily trucking again when all of a sudden the fuse blew again, jamming the trailer brakes on while they were travelling at full speed. Not good. This is when we started getting updates yesterday and got all panicky. Eventually the decision was made to disengage the brakes and continue on carefully.

So, that’s the full trailer story (so far!). The driver I spoke to (Jamie’s dad) was still in good spirits, so that is good.

Now let me tell you about the fun we’ve had at the course today. We drove up and were told we all had to individually sign in and out to get onto the island (where all the boats and infrastructure are). Annoying, and by later in the arvo they’d given up on that idea. Once the trailer got there we did a super awesome job at getting it unloaded incredibly quickly and then rigged all our boats up (again, very quickly – we are a pretty efficient squad when we need to be). The official documentation said that we weren’t allowed even on the warm up lake until 2pm and wouldn’t be allowed on the course until tomorrow, however we thought we should be able to get out early, especially as there was a crew coming down the course as we drove up! Apparently not – there were marshalls stopping crews from getting on the water. So, at ~11:30 we headed off to the Plaza for some lunch.

(The warm-up lake early thismorning. Photo from Nick Wakeford – I haven’t asked his permission so hopefully he doesn’t mind!! Thanks in advance Nick!)

Back to the course at 1:30, to get on the water at 2pm. The marshalls told us we couldn’t go out and everyone was starting to get pretty angry. Luckily, either because the marshals realised they were wrong, or because Rhys was yelling at people enough, they changed their tune and let us on the warm-up-lake, but with strict instructions not to go on the course. Our plan had been a short paddle (~5km), back in and stretch, then full race warm up and out onto the course to do a 1km and 500m race piece. This was looking less possible and, after our paddle, we were tossing up options of possibly doing the race pieces on the warm-up-lake (which is about 1005m from one end right to the other, with a bend in the middle!) or doing them on ergos (which there weren’t any set up yet!).

This decision was taken off us as they announced that the warm-up-lake was now closed to all rowers as well because there was a storm coming in! I’m pretty sure it still hasn’t come in so think maybe they were just sick of people asking to go on the course so they just found a reason to close the whole lake. No, just kidding, there were storm clouds and they were telling all the site people to pack up / tie down their gear too. But I’m serious about the fact that it still hasn’t come in yet!

Again, we were getting pretty angry. We’re racing on Sunday afternoon and we’re not allowed to train on the course until tomorrow late morning?!?!? It’s pretty ridiculous. It was important that we get the high intensity pieces done so luckily we found a bunch of ergos in the Rowing Australia (RA) tent and borrowed them (we did ask, but probably not the right people, and they certainly weren’t keen to help us out).

I did have a bit of a complain to one of the RA guys (Dipper), but he was entirely unsympathetic. His only comment was that it won’t be as bad next year because there is no world cup so the races will start on Monday like normal. Grrrrrrrr.

Anyway, that’s all done for the day.

(OK. . . so maybe there was a storm coming in! Photo from Nick Wakeford again)

Rowing felt OK but not great. It’s been so long since I rowed that I’ve now got the start of blisters (after 5km!!!). The 1km and 500m erg didn’t feel that great either . . . but at least they’re done. My weight was looking a little better, but now is back up again. I talked to my doubles partner’s coach to warn him about my weight and they’re not upset if we have to scratch it because I don’t make weight, so at least they’re chilled out about it. I had a brief moment of excitement today when the coach thought on of the doubles had scratched so we were down to 8 in the race . . . .straight final on Thursday!!! Unfortunately not, so I’m still having to weigh in at 57 on Monday.

On the up side, I had some fun buying low-residue food today – chocolate sustagen drinks, creamed rice and baby food(!!!) were some of the highlights. Breakfast tomorrow is my last real-food meal, so I’ll get started on the hard-core instant weight loss after that then I’ll have a better idea of how hard 57 will be.

On a side note, I went for a 1hr run last night . . . .around the 3 sports fields here (2 joined together and one off to the side), which took about 7 minutes per lap. I kept trying different configurations (figure 8s, different directions) to keep it interesting but there were heaps of soccer and rugby teams training and I’m pretty sure they were wondering what the crazy girl was doing running past in different directions all the time.

I think that’s quite enough of a novel for you all now so I’ll try to find some more pictures (from someone else’s facebook page because I forgot to take any after the trailer got there!) and leave you for now. Jamie gets in tonight, we’ll be at the course tomorrow, don’t know what rowing sessions we’ll do, and no idea what the rest of the plan is.

Hugs!