We're Fine, Thanks for Asking

It’s a great day to have off from training. It’s still early, but the forecast is for sixty degrees, gray and rain—a perfect kind of day for lounging and watching a rousing mix of movies and daytime television programming. We get to enjoy an off day today because the last three days had all of us at PTC racing in this year’s second National Selection Regatta. I raced in the women’s double event, which had the most entries of any event this year and produced a lot of competitive racing. This was my first appearance at an NSR 2, and my second NSR ever, having only raced the double at last year’s NSR 3. Last year I placed sixth at that regatta. This year, I won.
I’ve been rowing the double exclusively with my teammate and roommate, Ellen, for about three weeks. We share a lot of similarities in our rowing styles so hopping in the double together and making the boat go came pretty easily for us. We also share a certain—sometimes colorful—outlook on life and training which has made us good roommates, and friends. So fortunately for us, we get to have a lot of fun rowing together and going fast. Unfortunately, spending all of our waking moments together has resulted in my inability to refer to myself with a singular first person pronoun anymore (“we’re fine, thanks for asking”).
We were definitely a little anxious going into the regatta, as we hadn’t tested our speed against other doubles in a full out 2k race yet this year. We knew that we were quick off the start, but had yet to prove our speed in the second thousand. There was also a lot on the line for this race in regards to the ongoing Olympic selection process—top performers would be given an opportunity to race the double and possibly the quad at one or more of the World Cups in May. With that in mind, we went into the weekend positive and ready to race hard.
We had four races over the course of three days, including a time trial and heat on Friday, semifinal on Saturday, and final on Sunday. All of our pieces had good things about them as well as some flaws, but we were able to acknowledge our shortcomings with each race in order to continue building speed and strategy for our next races. Thanks to a persistent head-cross wind none of the races this weekend were all that fast, with winning times ranging from about 7:13 to 8:00—a substantial margin off of the USRowing women’s double time standard. In the end, we advanced through the regatta by winning all three of our side-by-side races and by winning the A final by open water over second place, Jen Kaido and Ala Piotrowski (2007 W2X).
What this means for us now is… we’re not exactly sure. Ellen and I are both first-time NSR winners, and accordingly it’s our first time facing these choices. We have earned the right to compete at one of the upcoming World cups in May, but which one has not yet been decided. There is also the possibility of racing the quad at one of the World Cups. If we decide that we would like to try to be the United States double, we have to place in the top four at a World Cup in order to do so. If we do not place in the top four but still want to be the double, we have to come back and win Olympic Trials June 9-13. If we opt not to be the double, we can join the quad selection group and go from there.

It’s a very exciting time at PTC right now, and it’s only going to continue to ramp up from here. As a friend of mine told me yesterday, “now the fun begins.”

See you out there,

--MK