Winter Indoor Training.

As you all may be aware of, there is a lot of snow in Ontario this winter. Unfortunately or fortunately, (still determining the answer to that question) the ergometer, or erg for short, is the main source of our training right now. There is an event called the Canadian Indoor Rowing Championships (CIRC) which takes place every February. This year it happened to fall on my birthday. Woohoo! Lucky me! Pulling a 2km on my birthday! Not as much fun as you may think.

Let me paint you a picture. We are in the Hershey Arena in Toronto, with ergs lining the perimeter of the rink. Half of the ergs are used for racing, the others are used for warm up and cool down. The racing ergs are all linked to the big screen where all the spectators can watch your progress. We are broken up in age categories, so many races are happening during the day. When your race time comes, we are assigned an erg and then we are called to ATTENTION, GET READY, ROW! And everyone starts their 2km. It can be very intimidating and overwhelming if you let it get to you. That is part of the mental game.

Photo courtesy of Rowing Canada Aviron

Photo courtesy of Rowing Canada Aviron

The picture above is just about everyone that I train with (a few people had injuries and did not race). The picture on the left is the screen upon which the spectators can track everyone's progress.





This year at CIRCs, I did OK. It wasn't my best performance but it wasn't a total blow up, which can occur. You may have recalled that on this day it also was my birthday. You forgot! Don't worry, I also forgot that it was my birthday too. The 2km race stress takes total control of your thoughts till its done. After completing the 2km and I was going to start my cool down, I was feeling a bit nauseous. This isn't the first time I have completed an erg and puked. As I was bent over the garbage can, a teammate yelled out "Happy Birthday Rosie!", what a great way to spend my birthday! Haha! All in good fun! Don't feel too bad, upon returning back to London I had some friends over and we had a little birthday party! With treats and cake (don't tell my nutritionist)! It was a great way to finish my birthday!

When we aren't erging we spend a fair number of hours at the gym cross training on the bike, elliptical, stair climber, anything that will get your heart rate up. Thankfully this month the Sochi Winter Olympic games were happening which gave me extra motivation to keep pushing through the long hours knowing that one day my Olympic dreams may come true!

Thank you to everyone for your continued support and encouragement as I continue on this journey!
God Bless!

Florida Training Camp

Deland, Florida is where I have been training for past two weeks! It was cool and rainy the first week but the sun has come out along with some wind. We've had a few practices with white capped waves but we persevered and went rowing anyway. The frozen tundra in Ontario has inspired us to row as much as possible. 



We have been rowing in pairs and the 8+ avoiding boats and launch swells but have put in some great kilometers! A number of my teammates have suffered from blisters and small infections but I kept all my callouses and my hands did not blister! Bonus! I have seen a manatee on the river but no alligators...thankfully. I would prefer to stay away from them.
 

One of our afternoons off, we went to a cute drive through bakery! The baked good were delicious and the decor added to the flavour as well! I highly recommend a trip to Buttercup Bakery if you are in Deland, Florida.

Long overdue update

My last post was back in August, prior to World Championships in Korea, and a lot has happened since then. Positive personal and mental building has and still is occurring, which stemmed from a challenging experience I had while on the team last summer.

As you know, I was named a member of the 8+ prior to leaving Canada. We arrived in Korea and began acclimatizing and training. The heat and humidity were unbelievable but somehow we all managed! A few days into training our coach decided to make a switch of athletes which left me out of the boat. It wasn't an easy decision for him but ultimately we needed the 8+ to be fastest and the other athlete was better suited for that position.

It was a hard pill for me to swallow and I struggled emotionally as any athlete would when their dreams get changed unexpectedly. I made sure I was strong for the other girls on the team to ensure that they performed their best and didn't have to worry about me. Not being a member of the 8+ left me in the role of being the spare. I trained with the girls and did the same workouts just in case there was a possible injury and I needed to fill a seat.

Our team performed very well at the World Championships! Our country left with a silver medal in the women's quad and four as well as a bronze in the eight! I also left with some new sculling skills learned from watching other countries, experience being at the world stage, and a knowledge of needing to work on my mental and technical skills as an athlete.

Life lessons are learned from experiences and this past summer and season made me realize how important mental strength is for rowing and any sport or pressures you come across. I thought my mental toughness was pretty good and so I didn't put much effort into improving it. I learned from my 2013 season that mental toughness is more important than physical strength. You can be the strongest person, but if you aren't mentally tough that physical strength is useless.

 2014 brings a new season for rowing as well as my improved outlook on rowing and new personal goals! As I mentioned earlier, last summer was a tough one, but I walked away learning more about myself and that I can continue to push myself to new limits!

World Championships Korea

The season continues! World Championships, the biggest race of the year! We did some more selection when we came back to Canada after World Cup III and I am now sweeping and have a seat in the eight! We are leaving in 5 days to take on the World! 

Here is the official document of the men and women's teams. 

http://rowingcanada.org/news/2013-world-rowing-championships-team

World Cup III Day 3

Today we raced the B final placing 3rd, which places us 9th overall. It was a pretty decent race. We did better with some personal goals as a crew but we still have speed that needs to be produced. We are now heading back to Canada and will be preparing for World Championships in Korea at the end of August.

Thank you for your support!

World Cup III Day 2

Reps today was a hard race. We went out and executed the race the best we could, but failed to advance to the A final. This is valuable racing that is teaching us how international racing works.

Tomorrow we race the B final at 9:15am Switzerland time. 12:15am in Victoria and 3:15am in Ontario. I hope you dream fast dreams for us!

Go Canada!

World Cup III Day 1

Heats didn't go quite as planned. Ended in the 6th position but did learn from this race, as most races are learning experiences. We have regrouped and are ready to race tomorrow! The repechage is tomorrow at 2:33pm Lucerne time, making it 5:33am in Victoria and 8:33am in Ontario.

You can follow the races at worldrowing.com under the live tracker tab.

Go Canada