First Camp Completed

Well our first camp held in Canberra on Lake Burley Griffith has been completed. It was a tough but great week for all of us to come together and get some really decent training sessions in. The weather most of the week was beautiful and we couldn't have asked for better water. The picture shows what the sunrise was like on a number of mornings.

We started the week off with just 3 of the rowing members of the crew and Shannon our cox as Pete couldn't make it until the Tuesday. So it was out in the singles for myself, Alex and Nick.

Pedro the Head Coach of Adaptive rowing in Australia came out in the boat with Stu each afternoon and while we were in the singles this was no different. However it does take some getting used to Pedro's accent (Swiss) and at one point Pedro was saying something to Nick through the Megaphone which Nick couldn't understand. Eventually Alex had to tell him he was saying to move closer to her single, in order to get around a corner. When we finished our session Nick told us that he thought Pedro was saying "Kill the walrus!" and he couldn't understand what he was supposed to do! So at this point in time our catch phrase for the crew is now "Kill the walrus".

As Tuesday dawned it was a bit foggy but once we were on the water the fog came in thick and fast! Now as someone with MS my balance isn't great at the best of times. But by god once the fog rolled in and I had nothing to focus on the vertigo kicked in. Let me tell you that rowing 10 km's with vertigo is not a good thing to do!! It was all I could do to actually stay in the boat!! The others couldn't understand why I was so far behind and rowing in a zigzag! I think they could tell when I finally made it back to the landing and could hardly stand up because I was so dizzy! Not an experience I want to have again any time soon.

When Pete arrived the guys decided that they were going to have a competition to see who could gain the most weight! Staying at the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) this is not a hard thing to do! I usually have to be very careful because the food that is served is never ending. You can have as much or as little as you want and there is usually some sort of dessert every night. So we had the guys weigh in and this included Stu our coach. Nick weighed in at 73.4 kg, Stu at 81kg and Pete at 69kg (minus his leg). The competition was on and as you can see from the photo Nick was enjoying ever last morsel of food he put in his mouth!

As Nick was a new member in the crew from last year we weren't sure what formation we would be sitting in. So he was put in stroke seat to see how he would handle it. We had about two and a half days this way, then it was decided to try and mix things up a bit. So Alex was moved from Bow to Stroke, with Nick in 3 seat, Pete in 2 seat and me in bow. The combination worked well as Alex probably has the best and quickest catch of all of us. Now we just had to try and keep up with her! Last year with Alex in bow her nickname was "Bow Bitch" so it looks like I may take over that mantel! I just hope I can live up to it!!

In amongst the rowing we did a couple of weight sessions as well as a couple of swim session with two recovery sessions in the ice baths. This is probably the thing I love the best because it is amazing how much it helps my legs with recovery.

By Saturday though I was absolutely stuffed and I needed to sleep after our morning session, before lunch, and then again after lunch. So it was decided that recovery was the order of the day for the afternoon. So I headed to the ice baths again! I wanted to be a well prepared as I could for the next day as we had two race pieces that we had to do and they were being timed!

Saturday night was the "last dinner" for the weight gaining competition as we were going to weight the guys before our row the next morning. And as you can see it got to the point where they just couldn't eat any more! I never thought I would see the day when these three guys couldn't eat any more!

Sunday morning dawned and I think that we were all a bit nervous about how we would go in the pieces and I think we were all a bit more focused than ever. However before we headed out we needed to weigh the three guys. Stu weighed in 2.5 kilos heavier, Pete weighed in 2.4 kilos heavier and Nick...well he lost 3 kilos!!! We couldn't believe it. How could he eat 4 plates of food at each meal and loose 3 kilos. Needless to say I can't imagine what his mom goes through trying to feed him enough! So Stu won the comp...or had he? We forgot that they had all agreed because he wasn't doing any exercise he had to take off 20% of his total weight gained, so that gave the win to Pete.

Now we had to focus on the race pieces. We headed out and did a good warm up with our Cox Shannon giving us the low down on our race plan. We had a good hit out on both of them with the second one a slightly bit slower than the first. But definitely a good base to work on from here.

We headed back to the AIS and our last meal for the week before we all headed back to our respective states. We have given it our all this week as the picture of Alex's hands will tell. Nick's were probably worse than her's and mine took a beating as well. But all in the name for a good cause!

We meet again in four weeks time at the National Selection trials. We will have a day and a half to train and then "row for our future". We are hoping that we will be fast enough to head over to the first World Cup in Bled, Slovenia on the last weekend of May and then over to New Zealand for the Rowing World Championships in November.

So stay tuned!