Hello Again,
We returned to London this past Sunday evening after a week and a half of training in Augusta, Georgia. We took the Rowing Canada vehicles and drove down in two fifteen passenger vans and one truck-- pulling the trailer. As soon as we took the exit onto the highway from London, we came to a complete stop in a traffic jam. The trip was off to a great start! We hit a few snowstorms on our way but, eventually, after two days and about 16 hours of driving we made it. Unfortunately, one of our boats didn’t. One of our singles was slung on the trailer and it came untied and got pretty smashed up. Our coach and the other girls traveling in the truck stopped and did what they could with what was left of the boat. A few minutes after they stopped, our van got a phone call from our coach asking," Has anyone seen my wallet!” Apparently his wallet must have fallen out when they pulled off the highway, so there he was heading out of town for over a week with no money, not to mention he was the only one driving the trailer, now with no driver’s license. You would think these little glitches with trailer loading and driving would go away when you reached the National Team level, but not so. It still takes just as long, and we still damage boats!
Overall our training in Georgia was awesome. We stayed in a really nice hotel and had really good food. It was nice to be back out on the water and off of the ergs. We trained in a sculling group and a sweeping group, I was apart of the sweeping group. We rowed in pairs and on the weekend in the eight. Our coxswain is a full time teaching librarian so she couldn’t get the time off to join us for the whole trip. It would have been nice to row in the eight more often, but rowing in pairs and constantly changing pair partners allows us to work on technique, and with six pairs we have good competition for the workouts. Jane Rumball (from FRC) and I rowed in the pair for a couple of workouts. We called ourselves Team N.B. However, we had some boat troubles and couldn’t finish the pieces on the water, but for the pieces we did do, we represented N.B well! The weather in Georgia was warmer than in London, but it still was not summer! When we first arrived it was pretty cold, but by the last few days it had warmed up enough to wear unisuits.
We are now back in London training until the 9th of March when we head back South to Virginia to train where the University of Virginia rows. We are getting billeted on this trip as it is not sponsored by Rowing Canada. On March 5th we start another week of testing. This will include a 2k, a 6k, 10 secs and one minute and we finish it all off with an hour of power!
A couple of weeks before we left for Augusta we met with a nutritionist. She introduced us to a process that involves recording your food intake and classifying your food choices into different groups. In so doing, you make yourself aware of your food choices and it helps in developing better eating habits. One thing to keep in mind is that many athletes do not eat enough. It is key to eat when you are hungry, and to eat more than three times a day.
You need to fuel your body properly in order to get the most out of your training. Eat healthy snacks in between your meals and let your body tell you when you need to eat. If any of you would like further information on any of this, feel free to email me back. If you would like to get some ideas of healthy snacks and meals, you can also let me know. You can also go to heidismithnutrition.com for more details.
I hope you are all training hard and I will talk to you next month.
Katie
