OTC

Hello again from Chula Vista. It’s been just a week and a half since we all recollected ourselves from across the country for our Christmas vacation, and we’re back at the training full bore. The holidays flew by for me, with just a few days at home in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area with my family before turning around and heading back to the OTC.

Greetings from the Denver International Airport, gate B23. I write this comfortably seated on the floor with my back pressed against the cold plate-glass windows, which separate myself and my teammates from all the glory of the mile-high wintry wonderland. Normally the view from the Denver terminal is phenomenal, with the Rockies towering in the distance.

Our time in Chula Vista is at its end for this season. People have headed back to their own places in Boston, D.C. and Princeton, somewhat thankful to be returning to their own beds, their own cars, friends and loved ones. The OTC in Chula Vista is a great place to meet new people, relax, and focus on training but at times can be somewhat socially and culturally limiting to a large group of young people who are stuck in close-quarters for long periods of time.

Since signing on with the PTC group I have sustained my fair share of boo-boos. There was the time that I bit it on Washington Road during a team run, and rolled out into oncoming traffic, suffering a nasty gash on my right knee and a bruise the size of a small child on my ass. Then there was the time I was doing lunges in the weight room and accidentally knocked a forty-five pound plate onto my extended leg, resulting in deep bruising halfway up my calf. Another time I did a 2 x 30’ workout rowing bow seat in an Empacher four, but didn’t notice until the beginning of the second thirty minutes that one of the rigger bolt heads had carved a long chunk out of my right thigh, leaving a trail of blood and pus along the inside of the shell. And of course there is the inevitable and proverbial breaking of my heart every time I see Mark Flickinger walk by. But none of these injuries have ever kept me off the water for any period of time—an issue which has just recently become problematic as our time in San Diego rapidly draws to a close.

I heard recently that Lake Carnegie was open for skating in Princeton. Weather reports tell me that temperatures have been hovering in the 30s, and that for the most part, it’s been a pretty standard Jersey winter. Normally I would wilt at the thought of ice, snow, antifreeze and high heating bills, but instead I write this gleefully from the dining hall of the Arco Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista, California, where the weather report remains stable: 65 and sunny. So while my friends and cohorts on the men’s team rekindle their relationships with the ergometers in Princeton, I am enjoying warm, rose-colored sunsets over dusty desert hills, where families of small, furry bunnies scamper playfully to and fro amid the twilight-silhouetted palm trees.

Dan Walsh here giving you a post for the first time. I am training out here at the Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista and we just finished our pair matrix. I use the word “Finished” loosely because just like Neo's Matrix ours blends a bit of reality and insanity, never ends and never answers all the questions you might have. I feel like I see the same cat pass by yet there is no Glitch in this matrix. I am looking forward to the next evolution of ours because myself, and the other ports, are going from stroke of the pair to bow, and it will be revenge. No more having to control the rate, now I get to rush the slide and hear "LENGHTN OUT, I can’t hold the rate!”. No more having the toe, now I get to yell "Watch you F*&%ing course!". And last but not least I get to make the calls, the important calls like "Why don't you just row better” or “my rhythm was much better, be more like me." So to all my teammates I love you and can't wait for another two weeks of making each other faster.

We just wrapped up a nice weekend. It all started off with a nice hard workout on saturday morning. After a quick brunch me and Walsh headed in to PB to the ZLAC rowing club where we were treated very well. But, by the end of our little talk we were quite famished. So... we headed down to Taco Surf to grab some dinner. It was pretty crowded and after tasting some of those fish tacos I can tell why. From there we headed downtown to say goodbye to some navy friends who are shipping out pretty soon. Man were they going after it. It is a shame that we had practice the next morning, otherwise we could have done some damage.

So, I'm not good enough in the single to get a good workout in right now, so I've been rockin' the erg. I can't wait to do pieces tomorrow. Although, I must say, when the wind gets blowin' and it is not that nice out on the water I would much rather erg than be out in that crap.

Today was the day, it was great. I love when you hit that money spot while rowing where everything is just going great. It was perfect, well maybe not the rowing and steering, but it was a perfect practice. We go out there three times a day every day in the hopes of getting better and having a great row. Today that was accomplished.

I knew we reached that point when I was allowed to shut up and the guys were allowed to just row. Sure it was a little windy, set was not perfect, some off strokes, but the boat felt great. Heck it could have been slow as all hell, but if felt like it was cooking. It felt like I was riding a rocket ship. Every stroke the boat continued to surge out. Each stroke there was more and more run. It was great, it felt like a walk in the clouds.