Henley Royal Day Two

We raced Radcliffe this afternoon and won with open water. We took a lead right from the start and kept walking away!

Tomorrow we are matched up against the German Olympic 8. It will be a tough match up but we are ready and willing for the dog fight!!!

We race at 2:30 England time (6:30am PST; 9:30 EST)! You can listen live at regattaradio.co.uk for the commentary of the race!

Thank you for all your support during this event and the past few months while I have been on this team!!

Cheers!

First Successful Day of Racing!

Had a great race today against France! Had a lead from the start and was able to keep walking away! The crowds were large and loud but it was really neat to have other people cheering for Canada!

Results can be found at the Henley Royal Regatta site. We are in the Remenham Cup event entered as Western Rowing Club (we can not represent a country here so that is why we are entered as a club crew)!

Tomorrow at 2:10pm we are matched up against Radcliffe. (6:10am PST; 9:10am EST) It will be a good match up and a fight all the way down but we are pumped and ready to go!!

First Day of Racing

Matched up against France tomorrow afternoon! 3:40pm England time. (7:40am PST; 10:40am EST)

Visit regattaroyal.co.uk for live radio feed of the race!

Henley Royal!

After 2 weeks of training on the Bosbaan in Amsterdam, we are now in England! We flew from Amsterdam to England on Saturday and have been preparing for racing which officially begins on Wednesday for the regatta. We, however, do not race until Friday. Our first match up is against France! We haven't seen them on the water yet so we're not sure what to expect, but we are ready for anything!!

Our team has been split into two groups and we are staying with two families. Henley on the Thames is not a large city so many families will open up their homes to all the crews who come to race! It's really neat how the whole town gets involved in the event!

Yesterday, the Queen came to Henley to a party as part of her Diamond Jubilee celebrations. I was able to catch a glimpse of her from the opposite side of the river! It was really neat!

We have two more days before our first race so we will be rowing early in the morning before races start, to get our race prep work done. I am super excited to race though! Here are a few pictures for you to enjoy!

The first picture is of the Queen!

Holland Beker

Had a great weekend of racing! Saturday was our first race together. Our competition was the Dutch U23 national eight. They gave us a good fight but we came out on top, winning our first gold medal! It wasn't our best race but it was also encouraging because we knew we could make some improvements for Sunday.

On Sunday we raced a heat in the morning against some club crews which gave us a nice preparation race for our battle against the Olympic Dutch women's eight in the afternoon. We were all really pumped for this race as we knew we had nothing to lose!! The final was against the Olympic Dutch eight and the U23 Dutch eight too. We had a fantastic race and kept the Olympic boat to less than 10 secs lead on us. We also beat the U23 boat by more than the day before. We were very pumped with our performance!!

Now we are spending the next two weeks in Amsterdam training towards the Royal Henley in London England. We will still be training at the Bosbaan and will have an opportunity to do some training pieces against the Dutch national team. Should be great!! Looking forward to it!!

Euro Tour 2012

Hello, 

I just want to give you an update about what’s happening in my life before I head overseas! That’s right, I’m going overseas!!! 

As you know I have been pursuing my rowing dreams! My 2012 Olympic Games dream didn’t work out for me but there is a great alternative that Rowing Canada has put forth for the 2016 Development athletes. A month of racing and training in Europe this summer! 

Before I get into the details, I thought I would catch you up on the past 6 months or so of my rowing adventures! After Rowing Canada announced the Olympic invitees to camp for 2012, I was asked to leave the center as they wanted to keep the facility for only those at camp. I decided to head back to the West coast where I was able to spend time with my family and train in the single! I spent two months in Victoria and then I headed over to Burnaby for two months to train at the Rowing Canada Development Center.  While I was there I posted some great erg scores which provided me with an invite to try out for this European tour team! I couldn’t pass up the offer so I moved back to London, Ontario!

I have been in London, Ontario for 2 months now and am really enjoying my experience. I have switched from sculling back to sweeping (on port side) and am part of an eight. This particular group of girls has been classified by Rowing Canada as the Development team, which they are training for the 2016 Olympics! Our team that was made for this summer, is heading over to Amsterdam, to race at the Holland Beker regatta, and then we will be training in Amsterdam to race again at the Royal Henley in London, England. I am so excited for this adventure. We have a great group of girls and we are all eager to win and get faster! We all get along well and we are even playing pranks on our coach!! So much fun! 

After racing is complete, myself and a few girls on the team are going to stay for a couple extra weeks and travel England and France! Explore the world! I’m really looking forward to this as I have never taken time for myself and traveled the world! Once I have seen the world I will be going back to Victoria to celebrate my brother’s wedding with my family and friends in July! I will then be spending a couple months in Victoria training and working to save up some funds for when I move back to London, Ontario in the fall to begin my winter training at the Women’s training center! 

I hope you are doing well and I thank you for your support! 

God Bless,

Rosie

Summer plans

There has been some changes in my rowing plans. I unfortunately did not make the Pan Am team. I just wasn't fast enough to compete. You're probably wondering now what I'm going to do. Well, that's a good question. I struggled over that question too. I had a few options to choose from. Going to Victoria, Vancouver, Welland or stay in London and train. I chose to stay in London so that I could continue to adjust to life in London. Even though I won't be getting much coaching, I can still row with the team and have access to weights and nutrition. My training focus now is putting a lot of kilometers in on the water and cross training to build my cardio base.

This wasn't the scenario I was prepared for but I think it might be the right now, so that I can establish myself in London and catch up to all the other girls fitness levels. Come September I hope to be able to compete at a more even level with them. I'm planning on finding a volunteer position once a week to get a little variety in my week. I'm also going to do some job shadowing in the Occupational Therapy field to get an idea of what I can except and which area I would like to work in.

Happy Rowing!