First stop, Swiss Land

We have been in Lucerne now for just over a week. Since arriving we have had the chance to experience the full range of weather conditions.

Our training has been pretty positive and the highlight has been a frisbee sessions. The form and posture shown down by the lake has been World class. Many great catches have been demonstrated while showing wonderful agility. Barefoot and free was part of yesterday's session and while we didn't expose ourselves to much, risks were taken.




Alright then I guess I should pull this all back to rowing. We play frisbee because it's a bit of fun and we have our own evidence it lowers cortisol levels from testing we did. Sure our sample may be low and the duration could have created bias in the data but no matter we are running with it. Relaxation is key and while preparing here we have obviously put in some good work on skills and capacity plus worked on staying relaxed.




Arriving back here so early before racing has given us a chance to settle right in. Longer kms and some gym work has been done. We started out at Sempache rowing club but after getting a new boat we decided to come into the Rotsee on the course to ensure we could get set up right.




The four of us travelled pretty well but since being here have had some minor sickness with sinus and head cold type of symptoms. We have all staying in good spirits though and been managing ourselves well.




Highlights this week so far have been the Games qualifiers with the women's 8+, women's single, men's LW2X all getting through.

We start World Cup 2 tomorrow and it will be interesting to see how things stack up. I feel all Australian crews will get a great chance to find hot competition and true feedback on the preparations so far. For us in the four it obviously the GB crew will want to dominate the season and the authority of their approach will be about being top dogs. This is great for us and every other crew in the event. We are just another boat out there and our simple focus has to be to row as well as we can. In the grand scheme of things this all really means nothing when you look at the big picture but still we are all competitive people and as such will want to go well.



Personally I am really interest in seeing the areas of our race which stand up well and to find where we need to look for gains. I certainly know we have had many great discussion about what we think we have as a group and our self assessment I do feel has been pretty honest. This is what I am excited about seeing. Our view verse what this event can expose for us, in us, about us and about the competition. Still it's very early days so all will be kept in perspective.

This is the start of our long tour and life on the road in one sense needs a bit of a plan to keep things enjoyable. After Lucerne we head to Italy and then on to World Cup 3.