water aggression

Super productive session in the K4 this morning. We needed to work on power application and thats what we did. Aasim (who is coaching us until Shaun gets back) told us to be more aggressive as our blades hit the water, I am not sure if it was how he said it or the explanation around it. Sure enough on our next piece we were a lot more aggressive at the catch and could feel the boat surge which is a crucial part of making a team boat fast.

Heat Wave

An intense heat wave has hit Oklahoma City with the lows in the upper 90s at night and the highs during the day in the triple digits. I have been assured multiple times that this is unheard of in OKC in July..... meaning come August we will all be fried! The extreme weather is making it hard to train in the afternoons, we went out at 2pm the other day for an L2 workout and I was nauseous after 30min, even with lots of water and putting ice wrapped in my shirt around my neck to stay cool! For this week I am planning on staying inside as much as possible and only training early in the Am and after 5:30pm, otherwise its just ridiculous.

Teamwork

The USA women's K4 had our first practice together yesterday morning. We set up the old best, now named the titanic by Emily V. and launched her for the first time as a team. It was a shaky start, the boat itself is several sizes to large for us making it extra tippy because we don't have enough body weight to hold her down but we are determined to prevail and we are! There was a major transformation in our paddling and the way we felt in the boat from the beginning of practice to the end, and we found even more improvement today.
We have a positive attitude in the boat and our focusing positive changes we can implement to make the boat go faster vs focusing on the negative issues and a good policy of open communication.
My various K4 experiences stood me in good stead this afternoon when I was put on the spot to talk about  team building to a group of 44 teenagers. The 4 major points I was told to discuss were, communication, conflict resolution/management, teamwork and character. The K4 provided me with a perfect examples for all these points! It was interesting to put into words what we do everyday and how it related to each of the key points which help build a good team!

K4

Next week we start training the K4 for the World Championships. The K4 consists of Emily Vincent, Jen Burke, Nicole Mallory, and myself. We will nail down the line up in the first week of training the boat before our coach heads out of town so its going to be a busy week of training!
Time for a mac & cheese, BBQ chicken and salad dinner to kick off the weekend.

LPI

K1 200m gold, got what I was looking for!

Heading to Worlds

There was a lot of close racing at the lake placid international regatta today.  I had a decent day but didn't have the finishing speed I was looking for however, it was enough though for 3rd in the K1 500m which qualified my for worlds. The first 300m was great but I had a rough patch in the last 200m where I lost my technique and my speed but I am starting to put the pieces together for a good 500 race. Tomorrow we have the 200m which will be a fun day!