Picking up the boat to go rowing. Blue tarp is there because of some strange weather bringing hail our way early in our camp. Photo by K.Light.

It seems like it has been a long time coming since our Bronze at the World Cup in Lucerne, with many hard weeks of training behind us now. Those practices certainly have given me confidence as I head into the biggest race of my life. Our Bronze medal performance in Lucerne was over all a good sign of speed for us, but we obviously did not get the result we wanted in the end. We know we have the speed to win, so it is just a matter of going out and doing it on the day that it matters. Not just in the heats or just in practice. Thats what our boat has been gearing up to do. That being said, it was pretty awesome to go out there and set a new Worlds Best Time in the mens eight. A good sign of speed. The last time that was set was in the heats at the Athens Olympics by the US when they raced wire to wire against the favoured Canadian eight.

So far our Pre-Olympic camp is going really well, the boat feels solid, and all of our practices so far have been really positive. I’m over the 9 hour time change from the West Coast of Canada to Italy. The first few days are pretty rough, waking up at 5 am, and not being able to go back to sleep, followed by sitting at the breakfast table feeling like it’s the afternoon. Like some of my teammates, I used caffeine to get myself through the rough patches in the day. Doug Csima, our two seat, holds the record think, with 7 double shots of espresso.

Today is our second day off during our 16 days of training in Italy. It’s tough to keep your mind occupied when you are sitting in a hotel room all day, trying to make sure you do everything right for training the next day. Really, all my body wants to do is go and run around as my energy levels get higher and higher, but my mind knows better. I’d rather save up all of that energy and pour it into that 2 kilometer course I know is waiting for me in London.

The days we aren’t just hanging around the hotel, are full of structure and plenty of things to keep your mind occupied. Everything from eating

Gabe and I carrying the oars back up from practice. Photo by K.Light.

times, training times, recovery, cooling down in the ice baths, treatment, weigh-in’s, and hydration samples, are all planned out to maximize performance and keep us on the right track. It makes the training days move along quickly, but the days off very slow. Leaving plenty of time for Olympic thoughts to swirl around in my head, but I am able to bring myself back pretty quickly, as I feel like I have been preparing for this a long time now.

Speaking of, this one is winding down, and it’s almost dinner time, so I am going to wrap it up. I’ve gotta get the fuel in me to get me through these last couple of days before heading to London. Another update to come with some race prep coming our way!

Cheers for now!

~Will

Kevin Light has some more awesome pictures on his flickr page, check it!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kevinlight/

We had a nice little day off on Sunday, and took a trip up a mountain side next to the lake. It was a pretty cool day for it as the clouds were covering the top of the mountain. It’s a little over 5000 ft to the very top and marks where the alps start to really take off. On a clear day you can see the mountains in the distance in one direction, and Milan in the other. Here is a picture of the lake with Conlin in the forground.

We also took some pictures in the fields to keep ourselves entertained. This one we were trying to make look like a weird album cover, but @bowmanbergen didn’t get the serious face memo.

Other photos include, cheese selections at meal times, and hall Bocce Ball games that keep us busy when we aren’t eating, sleeping or rowing.

The destination. The "A" is our hotel and the lake is our training ground.

Right now I’m sitting on a plane leaving Germany bound for Italy, staring over the wing of the plane I’m trying to contemplate the last month of training, and how to put it into words. It has been an exhausting but rewarding chunk of training. We’ve buried our bodies with high intensity, high volume workouts, in order to get ourselves ready for the first test for our boat that awaits us in Lucerne. A highlight would be the 2k pieces on and off the water in pairs, singles and the erg. I performed well on all three of these tests within our group, and the eight as a whole brought a lot of intensity to the two-day trial, rising to the occasion as if it were an A-final. A pretty exciting time for us, being able to see all of our hard work through the winter pay off. That being said, there is plenty of work left.

With just under 80 days to go there are plenty more hours of training to take advantage of before the games. That is the way I see it anyway. In

A picture of the view across the lake. Erba, Italy.

recent days there have been a lot of people asking me what “80 days to go” feels like. My response always stays the same, I think countdowns are great, but the way we train only allows you to think one day at a time, stroke by stroke. With that said the strokes we’ve taken up to this point, have given us a lot of confidence our eight is ready for the first test in Lucerne. We will be going up against a very successful German crew, along with the Brits, Aussies, Dutch, USA etc. Everyone is going to be fast, its just going to come down to who wants it more. The Germans are going to want to defend their title from last year. The Brits are going to want to win because of all the pressure of an Olympics in their home country. The Australians are still seeking their first Gold in the men’s 8. The Dutch are a hungry boat with new and old members, and the US is looking for a late qualifying spot, so they will be racing for a trip to London. Our team comes in as reigning Olympic Champions looking to repeat.

As for now, we just need to focus on each day to make sure we get the most out of this training camp. We are going to be pushing pretty hard over the next couple of weeks to get our bodies into that hurt locker that we’ll be feeling mid race. We want to be familiar with the pain of a solid 2k performance, no surprises. I’ll keep the updates coming while we are here, and post some pictures this afternoon.

~Will

Entering the hurt locker.

The heats are done, and it went great. We were seeded against one of the top crews from Lucerne, the Dutch, and came out on top.

My day started off like most other days getting ready for the race, waking up just before 6:30am with enough time to throw on some rowing clothes and get to the lobby in time to leave for the course. Race day however has a different air about it. It’s like the senses are all heightened just a bit, as though you can hear the sound of everything around you. I could feel every air molecule move past my face as our eight hopped on the bike and descended from the hotel down onto Lake Bled. It’s the feeling I’ve been waiting for all year. There is nothing quite like it. After a quick loop on the course to wake the body up, it’s straight back up to the hotel for breakfast. A couple egg sandwiches and then back up to the room. A lot of people say not to sleep before the race, but I just lay in bed, and if my body wants to sleep, I don’t force it to stay awake. It’s all about being relaxed for me. Before the heats I turned on National Geographic channel and there was a pride of lions taking down a buffalo, so naturally I was glued to this while it was on, but then the eyes started to close. I opened them back up and felt totally ready, like I had just rebooted the system. I opened my computer, and threw on this song to get pumped up. Loving the dubstep music these days.

After that it’s back to the course where I go through the usual rituals. Sand the handle on my oar a bit to get the super grip going, make some Eload to drink for the row, and a recovery for after. Then it’s time for an activation from one of our physiotherapists on the team, then out on the water for the prerace warm up.

Finally in the blocks I looked around and on my right sat the Dutch who were silver medalists in Lucerne, and on my left were the French who I

Sitting in the gates, waiting for the light to turn green.

had not seen or heard about, but you can never count anyone out. On the other side of them was a U23 crew from the Czech Republic and further away still was Ukraine. I’m not going to give anything away right now about what happened in the race, but it was a awesome to get the first race out of the way. It has been a long time since Lucerne and it felt great to charge the body up and unleash that energy onto the blade.

We came out on top and posted the fastest time of the day, which was great to hear, but you can never really compare raw times like that. There are far to many variables to know what happened in other races. The conditions are always changing, and you never know who might be playing their cards close to their chest. So I’m not looking into it too much, but I don’t hate hearing that.

Now with two days to relax it’s time to get the body up for another race. The semifinal is tomorrow, and there is a lot at stake for every boat. Getting into the A-final means qualifying the boat for the Olympics next year. Today we saw some of our teammates miss their Olympic qualifying spots by tenths of a second. It was pretty hard see that knowing how much they have invested. Thats why we are doing everything we can to get up for the race tomorrow. I’m heading to a team meeting in eight minutes and I already know everything that will be said, but we meet to make sure everyone is on the same page, thinking the same things as we go to sleep, and as run through our prerace ritual for the second last time this year.

Tomorrows race is at 12:40 and we have the following race line up.

First Heat of the Semi Finals for the Mens 8+

For the people on the east coast the race will be at 6:40 am, and for the people on the west coast it will be 3:40 am. You can watch the race live at http://www.worldrowing.com/live-results. Thanks for all the support!

Pedal to the floor the whole way tomorrow. Never enough.