Lightweight Eats

My last race in Princeton, I missed every single goal on my checklist. This time, I nailed all but one. My goal coming into this regatta was, first and foremost, to learn a lot. A tight race in the heats between me and Cara Stawicki checked that one off easily.

Things are looking up for me. pc: Dan Copenhaver

Before the heats, I was so nervous I thought I might throw up. I'd beaten Cara in the time trial the night before, but not by much.

The time trial was 1900 meters.

Off the start, I knew Cara would be fast. I didn't want to let her get too far away, but the pace was smoking hot. I had to make a decision to let her go, even though Guenter told me not to. I was a boat length down, plus maybe some open water, coming into the halfway point, and definitely scared.

But I did what I came to do—go fast. I kept my head in my boat and let the speed come to me instead of forcing it. As I moved to level in the 3rd 500 meters, I definitely had some doubts. Again, I refocused on the present and put in an awesome sprint for the win in the heats. (I crossed the line at 40 strokes per minute and 1:49/500m pace.)



That win earned me the day off on Wednesday (and helped me get my nerves under control). I went to the race course anyways, to spectate and mingle.

While I was there, I got to watch the quad from Potomac (whose selection camp I skipped) qualify for Worlds. I'm super excited for all of the girls in that boat but it was definitely difficult to know that their choices had led them to a place where I so want to be someday—Team USA.

Watching that race definitely revved me up for my race the next day: the FINAL! Although a win was never realistic for me, I knew that one of my other goals was to set myself up for next year. Coming in second place overall was crucial to achieving that goal, and the closer I could be to Mary Jones, the eventual winner, the better.

The final was similar to the heat—I was down at the start, and moved through both Cara and Kat Schiro over the middle 1000m of the race.


In the end, I was 11 seconds behind Mary. I would have liked to sneak under 7:50, especially as many of my training paces indicated that was reasonable, but I was ecstatic with second place. I know I have my work cut out for me, narrowing that 11-second margin

For the month of August, I am scaling back my time in boats and giving myself a mental break from the grind of training. I will be running, lifting, and occasionally picking up some oars, but also trying to do all of the things I don't normally get to do—gardening, visiting family, hiking, maybe drinking some alcohol?

I will also be running some road races and posting some of my workouts on Twitter—follow me (@lightweighteats) if you want to see what a "fun" month is for an elite athlete.

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