Ellen and I had the discussion the other day about our personal preferences for margins in something like a World Championships A Final.  Ellen argued that her ideal race would have her dominating the field with clear water between her and the following boats; whereas I argued that a closer, scrappier race between three or more boats for the medal spots makes a World Championship that much more impressive/enjoyable.  That's a debate that I'm sure the rowing community would be happy to ponder for as long as the sport exists, but for now I'm anticipating that regardless of what we would each prefer, on Saturday we're going to end up having to handle my version of the story given the quality of competitors in our field this year.  Six boats across--and whoever crosses the line first is definitely going to have earned it!

But before we can get to that particular bridge, we have another day of rest and recovery (read: waiting around) to prepare for Saturday's final.  That means we will probably resort to one or more of the following activities which have become standards in time-passing for myself and other teammates on this trip:
-Continuing the "bear vs. shark" debate ("what kind of shark? what kind of bear? is the fight in water, or in outer space?")
-Introducing the irresistible magic of Pass the Pigs to even more players. (seven converts this trip, and counting)
-Watching whatever we can get on Eurosport (this will include rowing tomorrow, at least)
-Listening to "Arthur's Theme" by Christopher Cross on repeat in the hotel room, with some Bon Jovi mixed in.
-Discussing and elaborating on David Banks' biographical background of poverty and depravity fabricated by World Rowing
-Hopelessly attempting the NYT daily crosswords (I have only been helpful on Latin clues so far).
-Playing Hearts in the lobby.  Oddly it is not a group of 80 year old women on the team who do this, but mostly the young, fresh faces on the US Men's team.
-As always: working on the List.  Spots are filling up fast. I can't name names, but a few Hearts players might make it.

It was a long, long day at the race course today--Ellen and I left the hotel around 10:00 a.m. and ended up catching the 5:30 bus back.  I was pretty hungry by the time we got back, but I think I escaped the sunburn and dehydration which are the two big ones to avoid when you know you're going to be outdoors and racing all day.  Even still, I'm pretty wiped after a long day of stress and nerves, and I'm pretty sure I'll finish this up and head upstairs before 9:30 and find Ellen out cold.

I'm really excited to have made my first senior World Championship A Final, and am glad that the hard work that I've put in to this training season has paid off with a shot at a medal.  All I've wanted all year was an opportunity to line up with the best and see where we are--and on Saturday, that's what I'm going to do.  It's been a crazy year--I'd like to send it off with our best race yet.

Finally, a big thank you to the official who yelled to us from one of the course towers during the cooldown to prevent me from decapitating myself and probably demolishing our brand new Empacher hull on the cement overhang.  It wouldn't be a real regatta without a near-miss in the W2X now, would it?

Speaking of which, I had a brief flashback to Beijing this afternoon watching the CZE W2X casually rolling through the top of the warm up area as their race was being announced at 5 minutes to go.  I'm sure they had it under control.

Good luck to all the USA semifinalists racing tomorrow!

Long Live the Dream,

--MK
www.megankalmoe.com

My roommate and 3 seat Eric set a 5:50 wake-up call.  We were set to take an 8:00 bus, so I wanted to sleep in until at least 6:45.  After hearing him pick up the phone I went back to sleep.  Then disaster struck.  For some reason our TV turned itself on at full volume and would not shut off.  That sure got me up.  Eric and I ate an early breakfast, met up with the rest of the team and headed to the race course.  We all have different ways of dealing with our pre-race stress--for some it's checking and rechecking the team's preparedness, for some it's quiet mental gymnastics.  On the bus ride over I put on my headphones and listened Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture.  I thought I would be stressing about the other teams, over-analyzing and over-thinking the race, so I was surprised how calm and focused I was.  Call me crazy, but the music definitely helped.

Karen met with us before we hit the warm-up ergs and launched.  She told us to row our own race, focus in the boat and forget about the other crews.  I took her advice to heart as we approached the starting blocks.  Hearing your country called feels surreal.  At that point it just sinks home that this isn't for your club or school, but for your country.  If I hadn't been focused in the boat something like that would make me extra nervous.  But our boat just sat at the start looking cool, collected and ready to row.

Throughout the race Tim was instructed not to make any calls about other boat's positions.  All the information I have about how we did came after the fact.  All I remember from the course is a blur of burning pain, the race plan running through my mind and the sounds of Tim's coxing and Eric's yells from in front of me.  It turns out we were in fifth for the first 500.  France, Russia, Australia and Italy stood between us and the finish line.  After the first half we started making moves--first through the French, and then again through the Russians.  We ended up taking third, with Australia and Italy ahead of us.  With no variation from our original race plan and no idea where the other crews were, we felt very happy with our performance.

As I write this I'm getting ready for tomorrow's repechage.  Our heat includes Germany, the Ukraine and France.  Germany and Ukraine both pulled faster times than us today, and who knows what France will do?  It promises to be a good race.  We've got under four minutes to prove ourselves on the course--and I think we're ready.  Definitely stay tuned.

And, inevitably sitting around thinking about an impending 2k against the other fastest athletes in the world doesn't exactly feel great. Doing it is one thing, but obsessing over it is another. I generally don't get very nervous for racing until it's right up to race time, but that doesn't mean that there aren't plenty of things for me to analyze and over-analyze in the meantime in a way that probably isn't productive to racing.

The Track and Field World Championships that were keeping us so entertained and providing us with some sort of competitive stress outlet in the evenings all of last week are now over, leaving us only with Little League Championships and women's soccer on TV to take the edge off the boredom. And not to take anything away from the female footballers and 11 year old baseball players, but they're not nearly as fun to look at as the track and field athletes. I am fairly certain that I fell hopelessly in love a least a few different times last week--mainly with the male decathletes, and with Croatian High Jump athlete, Blanka Vlasic. I'm not generally one to go for the ladies, but watching her do what she does best I think I definitely developed a crush.

Despite being the right make and model to hack it as a female rower, it's probably a good thing that Blanka stuck with the high jump, because if she were walking around Malta Lake in addition to the rest of the men who are in contention for spots on the 2009 "List" I would never get anything done when I'm there. As it turns out, the post-Olympic year is going to be more competitive than anyone realized, both on and off the water. Woo hoo!

My compulsive people watching habits have yielded some other interesting observations while down at the course, not related to The List as well. Maybe my favorite to this point: a Portuguese athlete having a smoke while walking up to the bus the other afternoon. I have no idea on that one. Another favorite: the FISA or Malta official rolling through the race course with fire engine red hair, matching lipstick, poly-vinyl leopard purse and silver snakeskin shoes. I can only hope that I will remain that fabulous when I make the transition from athlete to official! Really flashy, really fun--she looked great.

Just a few more hours until I'm going to load myself back on to the bus and head back down to the course and think about doing a little speed work this afternoon to keep things lively during all this down time. Though the first one is always the hardest when it comes to a regatta as spread out as this one, the excess down time doesn't necessarily make the second race all that much better==as opposed to one-a-day racing for three days like you might have at a World Cup during which time you don't really have time to come down, just go go go! And the way a taper works on my body, even though I feel like I want to do more training in order to regulate my sleep/appetite/moods etc., doing anything more than 12k at a time at this point seems like a great and heroic stretch of the imagination... so far away. It's a vicious type of existence, life on a taper in the middle of racing. I think I'd like very much for the week to get going so we can work on accomplishing the next step in the process. Repechages today will determine the remaining boats that we will see in the semis. Looking forward to semi draws.

Off to find something productive to do in the meantime...

Long Live the Dream,

--MK
www.megankalmoe.com

But on to the rowing.  Today they held practice starts up on the blocks, with an official and everything.  We've been rowing well, but everyone sat up taller and pulled harder seeing the light and hearing that beep for go.  The start is definitely a high octane environment, and properly harnessing your energy is key.  I was worried how we would handle it, but the boat felt set and smooth.  Tomorrow we'll be focusing on firming up the rest of our piece, and especially driving to the line.

The double-bucket four!

They are very much into rollerblading.  I've almost been taken out three times already walking along the footpath by people blading at around 25 mph.

The 'Speedo' is definitely in for guys.  I'd put the ratio at around 5 to 1 speedos to board shorts.  Also, body type, build, or quantity of body hair appears not to be a determining factor.

The Poles LOVE techno/trance music.  The PA system at the course plays nothing but techno before and after racing which is at least five to six hours a day.  The bus drivers listen to it.  In fact, I haven't heard anything but techno since we've arrived.

Here's a few more photos that didn't make it into one of the galleries for various reasons including the elusive double-bucketed four!