recap.

Note: This blog entry was written over 4 days: Sunday 8/2 - Wednesday 8/5

It's kind-of hard to write this; because, to write this entry, I must acknowledge that it's all over. Being that I am currently sitting on my couch at home in new york, it is, for sure, over. Exactly one week ago today, more than a full year of preparation, execution, and racing, came to a sharp point - 2000m down, a third place finish in the B-final at world u23 championships in Racice, Czech Republic.

(blm4x B-level final, usa middle of picture, 3rd place)

It is almost unbelievable that 2/3 of summer has passed, along with countless meters and stories, sunrises and erg sessions, weigh-ins and rainy afternoons. As always when I never thought it would come, it came. I remember the elation of landing in Prague, it was the same feeling as when we were told by G-man on the dock of Mercer Lake that we would go to worlds; both moments were like - holy shit! this is really happening.

(Sebastian Kirwan looks ecstatic upon his arrival in Czech)

After the typical airport shenanigans, and one seven hour flight and we'd arrived in Praha. As we settled in, we worked on adjusting to the time differential. No naps allowed here - the less you nap the more quickly you acquaint yourself to the new schedule. So we resisted our urges and battled odd drops in blood sugar with an old friend, jolly ranchers. After our travel day, our boats finally arrived. Monday morning were rigged and prepared ourselves for what would prove to be the 3 toughest races I have ever experienced.

---

Our heat, was an interesting introduction to international racing. At 11:24 on Thursday July 23rd, we lined up against: Germany - who would go on to place second in this event - Hungary, and Venezuala. Our goal for this race was to be second or better. We wanted to send a message that we we're fast enough to medal.

Germany was blazing fast off of the line and got way out early, a lead they held comfortably throughout the race, while we battled with Hungary who was able hold us tightly and push away in the final 500. Though, we didn't place second as we would have hoped we were able to avoid the repechage, which took place on friday.

We had a full day of practice on Friday, and were able to make some rigging adjustments which allowed for a little more comfort within the boat. We were also feeling more comfortable in our surroundings now; we knew that if we were to have any shot at making the A-final, we had to put up one hell of a fight. We needed to come top three to make it to the a-final, and with Germany, who had already handily beaten us, we focused in on russia, france, denmark, and turkey. Everyone was gunning for the three A-final spots; we had our work cut out for us.

Before bed on the friday, we met with g-man and spoke amoungst ourselves, prepping for the biggest race of our lives. This seems so trite to say, and almost silly, but, I shit you not, it was true.

Our race plan here was simple, qulaify for the a final, third or better. If it's better, great, if not, keep making moves until we're third.

The morning of the semi was rather blustery, raging tailwind as had been the case all week, there was a bit of swirling wind at the start when we locked onto the stakeboats. As we sat ready, our point well adjusted for the wind, a gust blew us astray. With the polling over we proceeded to start, taking our first 5 strokes into the buoy line. It is to all of our credit that we kept our cool. We were last off of the start, last through the first five hundred, but as we came scratching back, our speed improved greatly. By the 1000m mark, we were within 4 seconds of the leading German quad, and within 1.5 seconds of both Russia and France, who were in second and third respectively. We had surpassed Denmark and Turkey, and we'd be damned if our push was over now. At 500m to go, we were less than a second behind France, we had made our case in the third five, it was now time to see who had the legs for this last five.

Our increased cadence and maximal exertion was not enough to out sprint the french. France secured the last spot in the A-final by 1.72 seconds.

We were pretty floored by this, we seriously felt that we deserved a spot in the A-final. There was no way to remedy our feeling, the best thing we could do was focus on a first place finish in the B-final.

Bob and Mike's room in the hotel, due to its honeymoon esc nature became our boat's meeting place. They had a couch and a flat screen, I didn't know those existed in cheap 3-star hotels, but apparently they do. The night before the finals, we met and spoke with g-man. Again, it became clear that we needed another all out race, we had something to prove. We needed to prove that we deserved the A final and that we were above the other boats in the B-final.

We lined up Sunday morning with fire in our eyes, it was time to end this thing, prove our point, take it home. We sat ready for the third time, 2000m away from the finish of what has been the most fulfilling experience of my life.

"Denmark, Sweden, United States, Spain, Czech Republic, Turkey; Attention."

RED LIGHT

GREEN LIGHT

3/4 - clean
1/2 - clean
3/4 - port blade bobble in 2 seat, my bad, fuck, FOCUS
Lengthen - Clean
Full - Clean

38 spm, here we go, hit the legs, go.

First 250 down, breathe, heads in, take it to the 500, then we look, survey, and attack.

500m gone, down again, not last this time, 5th, turkey is done, lets real them in.
"GO" - we move, noticibly and with signifigant increase in boat speed.
750 down, "Go again" We are going for this one goddamnit, GO.
1000m, still in fifth, the czech and turks are ours, GO again. GO. Spain is right there.
1250 down, will calls the sprint, "PICK IT UP!" We jack it, 36, 37, GO.
1500m down, its us, Denmark and Sweden all fighiting it out for first. I make the call to empty the tanks, we all gasp for breath, lactate reeling in our legs, here it is boys, the last five, 400 to go, GO!, 300, GO!

250 left, bouys turn red, i look to our left, there the fuckers are, they're walking, I scream GO! one last time and we make our last push for the line, hands quick, legs pressing, heart pounding, breaths loud and fast. We hit the line and collapse.

3rd place.

Fuck.

In all of our heads, I think I can safely assume that this was the first word to pop into our brains as we crossed the finish line and looked over our shoulders to see what the finishing positions were.

We went for two short cool down laps and took the boat in to de-rig. As we passed the grand stand each time during our cool-down, there was loud cheering from the usa contingent. Thanks to all who were there to support us, you made us truely proud in our endevours.

Shortly after derigging, we entered the catering hall and gorged a bit. This did feel pretty good and so did the cold beer they were serving at the grandstand. Aside from the gear trading and beer drinking that followed, I hope I've left you with a pretty good gist of our experience on the u23 national team.

Thank you once again for all who have supported us and believed in our efforts.

-Pete

an honor and a challenge

this is a mirror of what I just posted on our boat's blog: http://usalightquad.blogspot.com/
i urge you to read our quad's blog, most likely i will be mirroring my posts across both blogs, however if you read the quad's blog, you will find interesting and exciting writing from my teammates, well worth the read. Exctiting too! also, if you're enjoying our quest to Racice, CZH please please please help us out! http://www.firstgiving.com/guenterbeutter1

I'm finding that as this blog grows and I get to read the thoughts of my boatmates, that we are sharing one of the most extraordinary and transcendental experiences any person can have. It still jars me to put on my USA unisuit and strut around the house. I did this last night while my sister and her boyfriend (not a rower) were watching a movie; he was likely asking himself "what the hell is that kid doing walking around the house in his underwear when company is over?" My thoughts: yeah, whateva!

Leaving the white house yesterday was not nearly as sad for me as it was for the other guys (will) because I will be returning in the fall; however it did feel great to hear many a "good luck" as we walked out the door. Jon Winter especially offered up a few excelent tips for traveling and racing as he has had the experience numerous times over the past year.

I am nearly finished packing, I've been filling up my suitcase while writing this.

yes pete, this is really happening!

last chance to be fat

Hey gang, today was a rather weird day, it began with basically the whole team thinking that practice was at 7am but g-man stating that it was at 6:30 and hence we took a bit of a stumble to begin. Then we had to deal with a new quad that had no steering and really odd heights which also were unadjustable. We opted to wait for our normal 4x the phonix which we are now sharing with the u23women to go out and come back. we then did 4x 500m and rowed in. The day was absolutely gorgeous, which worked perfectly for the pool party Richard had scheduled for us. All of the stars seem to have aligned today b/c today was also mike nucci's 21st birthday, so we got a carvel icecream cake on our way to the bbq. As it turns out Richard had gotten a mirror of the cake we got as well. So after eating some really awesomely tasty brats and chicken, we found our way through nearly two carvel cakes. JESUS. Lightweights do know how to eat when let loose. I was feeling particularly induldgent because my weight was under this morning, though that will likely not be the case tomorrow haha. We sat, ate, swam, and told stories under the strong sun. Today was really one to be enjoyed and remembered. So after gorging, we made our way home around 6:30pm. I had vowed to not eat for the rest of the night.... FAIL. I found my way through my chocolate stash and at the bottom of all of this I found within the perfect time to focus. sometimes, i find you need these 'let yourself go' days to force yourself to refocus and remember why your here. to what purpose did i take all those fucking sttrokes for. oh yea... THIS. THIS. THIS. The us uni hanging on my wall. The 1191 dollars worth of czech plane tickets. the 1556 athlete fee. the 650 for oars. the calorie counting. the scale. the erg. we're here to go. our job is to kick ass in prague. our dream is to fullfil our potential. these opportunities are ones that cannot be let to pass. at the bottom of a carvel icecream cake, two hershey's dark chocolate almond bars, and a bag of dark chocolate peanut m&ms you can find your reason. You can remember what the fuck you're doing and why.


10 DAYS....

HOLY GUACAMOLE!

I have clearly failed you blog. Ha. But fret not, there's good news to be heard: WE ARE GOING TO U23 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS! That is the craziest thing I think my fingers have ever uttered. This is all very holy-shit right now.

Yesterday, we raced a straight final which would decide who would be the U23 lm4x for the USA. Rating 34 into a head wind, we raced the clock, the only opponent entered, legs burning, sweat beating and one girlly squeal later, we got to the dock and G-man gave us word that we could go to Czech! I almost shat myself at that point.

I find it hard to believe that its been over a full month at gms training for this, it all has gone by so quickly. There is one thing for damn sure: we've gotta a tough road ahead before we can go race. G-man has promised us that he's going to make us find some real speed, now that we've qualified; can you say distance, lifting, and pieces! oh yea! and then there's also the whole financial thing, which is why we created a firstgiving website, which is a site for non profits (us) to raise money from friends and family. This is an awesome way to help, if you've got the funds, every dollar helps - SERIOUSLY even a buck, is a buck closer to CZECH!!!!!! baby! woo.

http://www.firstgiving.com/guenterbeutter1

Also join our facebook group, I've invited all my friends on facebook, and it's an open group so you can invite your friends too!

Many many many thanks to everyone for all of their inspiration and support of this dream. It happening baby!

Thanks! - much more to come very soon, if not later today (i've got to make up for my posting delinquincy somehow right?)

what up what up what up

what up my peeps, sorry it's been a WHILE! Prob like over a week or so. 

The skinny is that we're rowing a ton! Averaging over 30k a day, which is pretty awesome. We've also been erging a bit b/c the way the water is here, when it rains (as it has...A TON) they lock up the dam and our water level actually gets lower... so, we end up dodging rocks and stuff which blows, but hopefully the nice folks who run the dam will allow us to have a bit more of that h2o that we love so much. 

We found out today that we're racing at elite nationals... which is awesome, very excited about that, should be some gooood competition - other gms 4x, a usrowing 4x, and a riverside 4x. should be some really fast racing. anyway - excited. 

As a sidenote, things in "the white house" which, is literally, the white house we all live in... is going great. the guys here for the camp are awesome, we are this pack of 5 ridiculous, hungry, lightweights who are bro-in and row-in... constantly. 

Another side note, the past couple of days we've been rowing one of the only fluidesign quads in the world, which is interesting... We loved the boat the first time we rowed it, but have since found the boat to be very very susceptible to rotational torque, which leads to a wierd flexing of the boat when not all the rowers are in the same lateral plane, if that makes sense. In essence the boat twists. Wierd. The boat has serious speed and low drag but isn't so forgiving. 

I'll try to keep you guys posted more frequently. for now... i'm outie.

-pete

day 1

What up my peeps.... so, day one, complete!

Let me start by saying that the water here is fucking awesome, i mean FUCKING AWESOME. We went out for a row this afternoon after our organizational meeting. The row was about an hour long - 14k in the 1x, nothing better; well, except perhaps, for the fact that i only had to turn around once. That was just the tip of the iceburg; rumor has it, there is about 22k of continuous stuff round these parts. 

Allow me to paint the picture for you:

There are five of us, supposedly one guy may not be coming.

First row, i get assigned to the 1x, a filippi hw single... took a bit of adjusting, but after a quick change in foot stretcher position things began to pick up. 

Off the dock, we are a pack of two mens 2x, two womens 1x , 1 mens 1x. 

The doubles take off and as I make my adjustments. I'm ready to go after a bit of work and take the first of 3 gradual turns as I make my way toward the first bridge. Passing under the 'railroad' bridge the path narrows quite a bit, and as I notice the reverberation of my oarlocks I take a peak around. I am literally rowing between 40ft cliffs on either side. As my good buddy Chris Clark says, its like rowing in the Lord of the Rings, seriously, Frodo.

After about 1k of trippy, awesome, gorge rowing, the course opens up into a gently winding, lushly green, lake. As I make my way through the course on a flat lake, though my roommate Mike (a local, who rowed here as a junior) claims this was a windy day. I have a bit of trouble believing how awesome this place is. As I near about 3/4 of the way out, the launch catches up, and I get some good coaching from Gunter. I row a few more minutes then turn, my body taking the single home, while my mind was floating somewhere up in cloud nine.... haha, ok, you get the point. 

Anyway, this place is an awesome place to row, I am literally living in a closet, with a roomate. 

enough space for a bunk bed and a walkway..... 

Living the dream. 

Caffeinated pre-camp meditations...ha

It is wednesday, humpday, and as a I lay around the house more and more, and begin to pack for camp, the more I get that holy shit feeling. It's crazy that this is actually about to go down, and I am excited, and ready. I spoke with Gunter, my to-be coach for the first time yesterday and it was very cool to think that things are becoming more and more real. I'm likely shipping out on Sunday afternoon or Monday morning for CT and I found I'll be living in the "white house," a house on GMS's property, sounds like rowing camp to me ha. For now, more packing, trying not to hold my breath, and getting ready to lay it on the line MOFO!

ha