Well Race Day! We headed to the course at just before 8 a.m. Our heat was to be at 10:10 a.m., so we wanted to be there early to check the boat and make sure everything was screwed down and placed in the right area. Everyone was pretty good, didn't seem too nervous and was ready to get the job done.
We did a warm up on the erg's, had a picture taken we all of us at the boat and at 9:30 a.m. made our way over to the dock with the boat. The FISA officials were at the dock with the bow number which had a GPS on it and they had to check out Brandie's blacked out goggles to make sure that there was no light getting in to them. Once we were all in the boat and settled we headed out to do a light warm up. The Arms only females were racing so we had to stop so that there was no wake for the rowers who were racing. The men's Arms only then came down, two heats and we were able to finish our warm up. Next off the block was the Trunk and Arms and then it was us the LTA 4+.
The start was extremely fast, the referree did not hold us long at all. Unfortunately our start was terrible, in fact it was crap! But we were able to pull it together over the first 250m and were closing in on the Chinese who had a great start and we were ahead of every other boat. Then we basically lost the plot. The last 750m of our race was the worst we have ever rowed!
We shortened up, were rushing the slide and just not getting any drive in the boat. It was a hard slog and the boat was not running at all. In the end we ended up 4th behind China in 1st, South Africa and Denmark. All I can say is thank God this was only a race for lanes. We have never rowed so slow! I don't know if we were nervous in the end but we certainly didn't row like we did yesterday. If we had we would have been miles ahead as the Chinese time wasn't that great.
At 1 p.m. we went out for a training session and it still didn't feel great, however it was a bit better than the race. We have to slow ourselves down and really start to drive the legs back and right now it seems like we are doing the opposite.
I am usually a very positive person and can take something positive from a race or training session. But to be honest I had a hard time taking anything positive from this race. I guess the only positive thing is that we have another chance to do what we know we can do on Saturday.
1 comment:
Don't worry Carol. That was just race nerves. You will all be firing just fine on Saturday. Remember what you said about Keiran Perkins. Any lane will do it. You are in the final and that's what matters for now. You can win it from anywhere.
It's the next one that counts. I have faith in all of you to pull it off.
(besides, I am sure you were all just lulling the other teams into a false sense of security.. It was all part of the strategy right?)
Tina K
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