Wrapping Up

What a trip! We made it safely back to Boston on Monday night after another full 26+ hours of travel, although traveling east meant that we landed in Boston approximately 2 hours later than we took off (according to the date/time of day).

So my previous post was written the night before our final. In terms of the racing itself, I have mixed feelings about it. It's natural to want a better result/performance, so in that sense I can't deny my disappointment. There weren't lofty medal expectations placed upon us by anyone else, or even ourselves (of course it's a goal, however), but we did have intentions of being in the hunt with a good piece. So, our 6th place (of 6) placement isn't a huge shock, but I expected and wanted to be closer to the field. In hindsight, there are certainly aspects of our preparation and planning that could've been improved, but I would not call them excuses as every athlete/team could improve something. Had everything gone perfectly for us from Trials through Worlds, we likely could've been around Brasil (5th place), but no better than that. It was a class field, and if you had told me before the race that we could beat the Italians (reigning World Champs and holders of 18 of 20 all time titles in this event) and STILL not medal, I would've laughed. So, I'm leaving not quite satisfied but with a clear conscience knowing we did what we could do on the day. All credit to the Germans who won the LM4x. It's also worth noting that almost every athlete (save for 1 member of the LM2- who still finished 5th in the A final) of the men/women German lwt squad won at least 1 medal in NZ. Phew!

After the racing, I joined Brian and our fan club who traveled across the Pacific to watch us race for a home-cooked meal (that we prepared ourselves!). The next morning (Sunday), I went tubing underground in the Waitomo Caves before catching finals in the afternoon. The trading pit formed in the boat yard sometime in the afternoon, and even though I arrived late, there were a few interesting items I picked up despite the seemingly flooded stock of US gear in the market. There was an athletes party in downtown Hamilton on Sunday evening, which seemed to start in several bars and gravitated towards "The Outback" in the center of town - it had a cowboy theme but the stages, tables, lighting, and dance music all suggested full tilt party.

On Monday, we drove up to Auckland to check out the Viaduct Harbor area (similar to Boston's Faneuil Hall, except bigger) before catching our 7:30pm flight back to LAX.

Thank you to everyone at RBC, friends & family, teammates, co-workers, chat board stalkers, who supported this trip and followed me and the fellas during our time in NZ. It was the experience of a lifetime, and I'm forever grateful. This blog helped me feel connected to folks back home, and made the experience richer and more enjoyable...not to mention it killed a bunch of time and prevented boredom from becoming a disease. I look forward to following your stories in the future!

Pete

Photos in this post:

- Outside the Wyndham Hotel in Princeton, before US Trials. That seems so long ago.

- An America's Cup Yacht from 1987 (NZ lost to the USA that year)

- Riverside Lane: road sign on the walk from the course, over the dam (Karapiro is man made in the sense that it's created because of the dam), to the B&B where the fan club of the Moms, Lib, and Pam stayed.

- View from the dam down to the hydroelectric power plant below.

- Some kid watching racing on her Dad's shoulders

- In the Auckland airport, I temporarily lost Brian and Matt, and snapped this shot from afar of them blowing the last of their NZ dollars on chocolate. Fitting.

Videos:

- From the afterparty!

Race Day

We had our best row of the trip this morning, and I'm feeling clear headed about tomorrow, expecting any conditions, and ready to leave it all on the water.

Racing at this level is an incredible opportunity that few get to experience. You don't know if or when you'll get back here, so you gotta race like it's your last chance.

Can't wait.

Finals...finally.

Having weathered a swift kick to the groin in our heat, the trip is back to fun again, and we've had some purposeful rows the past couple of days. At this point, we have to execute our race plan and be ready for any storm mother nature or the competition brings (tomorrow and Saturday look potentially ugly).

After practice the last couple of days, I've been able to catch most of the midday racing programs. Today in particular had some spectacular racing:
-In the M2-, NZ ran a clinic in dominating the top British athletes in the pair
-In the M8 rep 1, Canada let it all hang out, settling below 40spm for only about 100m in the 3rd 500, before the US and NZ went through in the final portion of the race and traded leads until the American horsepower punched first across the line.
-The M8 rep 2 was one of the best 8's races I've seen. Australia won by a canvas over the Netherlands, who just nipped the Chinese by 0.03 seconds. All 6 crews in the A final are probably within 2-3 seconds of one another on any given day, and the medals are wide open.
-Karsten showed her power yet again in the W1x over Knapkova and Emma Twigg in the semi...most likely the medals will all come from this semi.
-Drysdale, after stopping within the 100m breakage zone due to a floppy FISA sticker dragging off his boat, handed Synek is first loss of the 2010 season. However, Synek appeared composed and didn't fully press the last 500m.

Tomorrow morning, we'll go for our final race walkthrough before Saturday's final. If races are on schedule, I'll probably watch them on tv back at the hotel to rest up.

The posted video will show you the grandstand, and what the scene looks like for spectating - it will be a lot more packed Fri/Sat/Sun.

Later!

Pete

First Race

This isn't the post I want to be writing, but today was a poor showing for us. Our warm-up row and weigh-in went well, and we felt good. However, even though this was only a race for lanes, our sense of urgency was lacking, and that's not an option. So, getting a feel for what we could do in the first 1000m didn't work out so well.

For me personally, I owe it to everyone that got me here, and to myself, and to my teammates, to be better. Tomorrow's workout will focus on getting into the race with target times to hit based on the times from today's race (which will likely speed up come Saturday). If our speed in the final gets us 4th or 5th, or 6th, I can live with that if we leave it all on the course, but the frustration I'm feeling now is because we didn't...and because we've posted competitive splits on this course in the past week.

In other news, Denmark's bowman snapped his oar on the way to the start which delayed our race 40 minutes - would've been tough for them to row w/a stump.

Also, the wind forecast for thurs/fri looks worse than Monday (when races were cancelled), so there's talk of moving some of those races, but nothing confirmed yet.

Pete

Forecast is also calling for 75% chance of better posts later this wk.