News-Record.com

Aug. 6

On Saturday I got an e-mail from one of my college roommates (Ms. New York 2006) who is in Beijing for the summer doing a language program at Beijing normal University. On Sunday she came out to see me. It was awesome! It was unbelievable to have a reunion in Beijing since we hadn’t seen each other since graduation. She took a taxi to my hotel, but the real adventure began when she arrived. She had to wait at the hotel gate for me to come down from my room. I had to sign a sheet saying she was with me, and she had to hand over a picture ID in return for a temporary badge that let her get into the hotel. I was pretty astounded at the high quality of security just at our hotel. Crazy! I am excited to see how it goes when my whole family tries to come visit me, with my Southern grandma! My mom, dad, older sister and maternal grandmother are arriving in Beijing tomorrow, and I can’t wait to see them!

The rowing has been going really well, and things at the course are shaping up. They have turned the large-screen TVs on and are testing the screens. Plus, they have a cable across all 10 lanes of racing, from the 1,000 meter to the 2,000 meter mark (finish), crossing over the course diagonally and hooking up with the finish tower. I am not sure if that is an adequate description to visualize this, but basically it’s a cable that swoops down over the last 1000 meters of the course. Today they attached a little camera to the line, so I think they will get some interesting shots of the race.

It’s still super hot and humid. Today, while we were practicing our starting sequence and our finishing bump, I could feel the beads of sweat form on my shins, roll around my legs and drop into the bottom of the boat. Very ladylike. But every day at practice I try to let all of these little things such as the heat and sweat and the crazy music just melt away into the background as one big mush.

While I'm surrounded by all of these distractions, I focus on totally blocking them out and concentrate on the upper back of our stroke, Caryn Davies, who sits in front of me. As the seven seat, it is extremely important for me to be exactly in sync with her metronome-like rhythm, and so every practice I am focused on her, the boat and getting the most out of the time we spend together on the water. Every day they blast music over the loudspeakers at the race course. Today the music sounded like it was straight out of a Lifetime movie! I mentioned that to Susan Francia , who sits behind me in the six seat, and she said, “Yeah, I feel like it’s time for me to cry now.”