Reporting from the future: Tuesday in Chungju
Tuesday afternoon here in Chungju. Hope everyone had a meatless monday!
We woke up to much cooler temperatures and less humidity; a welcomed change. I am sure it won’t last long, but for now its exciting to go out for a row and lose less than 5kg of sweat! We have had no choice but to be very meticulous about hydration before, during, and after rows. If we let our hydration slip, the performance losses are very noticeable on the water. While its very important to be tuning in our equipment, technique, and race strategy; if we don’t show up on race day with our bodies feeling great we will have a tough time keeping up. I am sure everyone is struggling with the heat in some capacity, so we see it as an opportunity to get a leg up on our competition. Be better at the little things. Those details matter and they add up on race day. We got here nice and early so that we could sort out all of these things.
It also occurred to me on the flight over from the US , that as East coasters, we have the largest time change gradient out of anyone in the World Championships. That being the case, getting our sleep patterns sorted is also huge. Last night was the first night of normal sleep for me. Ben and I were trying to stay up to at least 9 to ensure a continuous sleep. Instead, neither of us could take it any longer. We turned off the lights at 7.50 pm and slept continuously until 6 am. Felt great.
As far as the rowing goes, it has been a surprisingly smooth transition to a new boat and new body of water. Our rhythm is getting better and better. Practice at the World Champion ships is nothing like practice on the Hosmer, well at least superficially. There are hundreds of boats out there going up and down the course. The are tons of boat wakes. Let me reiterate…TONS OF BOAT WAKES. It’s something that luckily I think both of us were expecting and prepared for so we haven’t sweat over it too much. Performing well on this level requires an athlete to be able to find peace amidst the chaos and move the boat in uncertain water. The best rowers in the world can go fast in any condition. So we will too.
The food so far has exceeded expectations by leaps and bounds but it has dawned on me recently that I have eaten the exact same thing for every meal. We are completely spoiled with the food at Craftsbury, thats for sure.
Over the next few days we will be doing some race prep pieces against some other US crews. Ben and I are looking to form a rivalry with the US women’s 4x. We are supposed to be faster than them but should be a good sparring partner, especially because they are probably a medalist crew. So we can compare times with them and see how we stack up. I think Steve will probably do some pieces with Andrew Campbell, the lightweight 1x, who is likely a medalist in the LM1x.
Over and out from Chungju for the day!