Post Race Perspective: Heat

Today we raced the heat in the four. Feels like de ja vu with our competitors from Greece. It was only some 7 weeks ago in Luzern in the heat that we had an almost identical race with them. I would like to say we turned things around but they pipped us again and not by a slight margin. With 500m to go we almost got back on terms with them only to have them kick away again in the last part of the race. They are a good crew and have a positive approach to racing from what I have seen. In fact as we crossed the line one of their guys called out in a celebration of sorts and it indicated how much it means to them. We were obviously disappointed as we slumped over our oars at the finish. The range of emotions came flooding in very quickly. I could have screamed out with anger, frustration and an overwhelming sense of heart ache. To loss is always hard and its certainly not something I or any athlete gets used to I think. You do all your training and make plans to perform, but when it doesn't come together it just hurts. What can I say about the race? We didn't start as well as we know we have too. We transitioned pretty well and rowed well through the middle 1000m even with all the crap water. No excuses about the water as its the same for everyone. We did ok with the water but still our skills were not good enough to enable us to get our work on. Our back end of the race was pretty messy and we were out classed but a crew who stayed on top of things and made gains in the last 500 and 250 of the race. As for our event we are in the hunt but certainly not in the top crews yet. Bled has thrown a few curve balls with conditions which has it's advantages and disadvantages. If we can make the best of the water and be more adaptable then we can go very well. For now we have a clear plan about going through the re-percharges on Wed. From there it will be about immediate responses to the outcome of the next round of racing. We plan to make the final and plan to race our best in the final. To ensure this can all happen we need to make every thing we do count. Every session, every stroke and all our energies will need to be directed towards our best racing each time we go out. Thats right today was not our best. It's not like we did have the right focus. We wanted to win the heat today. It didn't happen so we are now united in our aim of doing better. The guys have all responded really well and much of our conversations since racing have us very much moving forward in a positive way. Now we will use the next two days to prepare for the rep and find ways to improve.