The Training Starts - Our First Camp

After the disappointment of not qualifying for the Beijing Paralympics, having a relapse of my MS and then a holiday back in Canada with my family, my hunger to once again represent Australia in rowing returned. So my training intensified starting in September of 2008.

The hard training paid off and in April 2009 after selection trials I was once again named in the Australian LTA4+ crew. The crew is slightly different from last year: Pete Siri from Queensland and Lisa Brown were named once again with me, with two new rowers Henry Macphillamy and Alex Green both from Sydney, joining us.

We did have some training time together after selection trials and did a time trial at the end of that week. We just weren't quite fast enough to be automatically selected to the National Team. We have been given 2 1/2 months to train, do another time trial and then hopefully be selected to head to Poznan, Poland in August with the rest of the Australian Team to compete at the World Championships. We all believe that this is possible and will be giving it our all to be there.

We have all been doing our own training in our respective states but recently met up at the Australian Institute of Sportl (AIS) in Canberra for our first training camp.

Our week long camp didn't start out to great. We all arrived at the airport at roughly the same time and headed to the ACTAS (ACT Academy of Sport) rowing shed. They kindly were lending us a boat to use for the week. Upon our arrival we were unable to actually row due to the fact that the police had found a body in the lake.

The week was a fairly tough one with 3 sessions scheduled per day. Unfortunatley Lake Burley Giffith has been hit hard by algae and by Thursday afternoon they had closed the entire lake. This led to a change in our camp with a lot of our training done on the ergos, stationery bike and the pool at the AIS. It actually came at a good time as Pete ended up with tendonitis at the back of his knee.

We did however have some very good rows...not bad for a new crew. The end of the week was a tough morning of ergo time trials with personal bests by all of us who did them. So not a bad way to end our camp.

We are now back in our home states for some more training with our respective clubs and we will meet again in 2 1/2 weeks for another camp.

I am hoping that the rest of the crew will also contribute to this blog so that you the reader can get their opinions, views and feelings about our journey.

I also look forward to hearing what they think!