We Did It!

We arrived at SIRC just before 7am for our warm up training session. Everyone was pretty keen to get on the water and have the second last row for the weekend. It was a beautiful morning, flat water, a bit chilly but the sunrise was fantastic. We were only doing one lap of the course, concentrating on really becoming one, every movement in time with one another. This may sound really easy but when you have four people, all different sizes and all with different disabilities, well it isn't that easy!

We had a good row and the timing wasn't too bad, we were finally getting some "send" on the boat. In other words we were finally letting the boat do the work for us. This was something that Pedro (who is coaching us since Tara had left) had been saying to us since day one, "Let the boat do the work, drive with the legs and really build the stroke to the chest, send the boat". It made perfect sense to us but getting us all to do it together and exactly together has been the tough part. But this morning that came together.

After our row, we headed back to the motel, to pack up, check out and then head back for our final time trial. We all knew we had to do better on this time trial than any of the previous ones. We had to show the selectors that we were improving and deserved to be part of the team heading to Poland. On the way back to the course in the car it was very quite. I think that everyone was really getting into their "zones", thinking about what they each needed to do individually to come together as "ONE".

We all did our own land warm up and at 10:30 a.m. it was "hands on". With the boat on the water and all of us in our seats we headed out for our warm up. We did a bit longer warm up than the day before and then headed out to the course. Once invited on to the course by the officials we took our position in lane 5 and Lisa had us do one practice start. Wow! what a start it was, the best we had ever done. We backed the boat into the finger and awaited the officials to start us off. Unfortunately we had a bad start! But we were able to correct quickly and we were off.

Lisa called the race brilliantly, she had us lengthen out once the boat was moving and from there had us work each stroke. Not think about the entire race but to concentrate on perfecting each individual stroke. The boat felt good, I know I felt good and the row felt strong and engaged with the water. Before I knew it Lisa was yelling that we had only 250 metres to go. It was incredible, I thought we were only about half way, but we were almost there. She wanted us to dig deeper than we had done before and with 100 metres to go asked for more. I didn't think I had anymore but incredibly I found some and before we knew it Lisa said to slow it down to steady state.

I don't think that anything has hurt more than that last 250 metres and I am sure the rest of the crew felt the same. We had finished and we had done the best that we could, now it was up to the selectors. As we rowed past the viewing stands, the crowd were clapping and at that point Lisa said to us "That's for us" and I must say it felt good. Now all we had to do was wait for the verdict.

When we got back to the landing, Pedro was there waiting for us and congratulated each one of us. We had a few supporters there, Henry's parents and guide dog Billy, Pam, Pedro's wife and Kathryn Ross another adaptive rower, who congratulated us and told us it was a good row...but to all of us was it good enough?

We sat around for a while hoping that one of the selectors would come and speak with us, but we were getting cold and decided to have showers and change. Once we were back at the shed we were told that we were to attend a meeting with the rest of the Senior team. I think we were all on pins and needles hoping that this was when we would be given the nod. But no the meeting was about how well everyone had done over the weekend and to wish the Under 23 representatives good luck, as they were leaving for Europe the next day. Then Andrew Mathieson said he wanted the LTA crew to stay so he could speak with us. Well I can tell you a few things went through my head! And most of them were negative!

When Andrew did finally come over to us, he stated that he was happy with how we had progressed over the weekend and that as far as he and other selectors we concerned they were going to put our names forward to the Rowing Australia board for inclusion on the Australian Team for the World Championships in Poland. Well I think everything else went off in my head! We were going! And to be honest the relief was overwhelming. I don't think there was much of a reaction from any of us right away and I am sure Andrew was a bit miffed about why we weren't jumping for joy. I think it had been such a tough slog and mentally tough that it took a while for it to sink in. I know that walking back to the shed it hit me and I actually became quite emotional. All the hard work had paid off.

When we did get back to the shed that is when the hugging and emotion all came out! But we definitely came back to earth as we realized that now the even harder work begins. We have another camp in a weeks time in Sydney, then a week home, then back to Sydney where the staging camp will be held before we head to Europe. But we know that we are going which puts our heads in a better place because we know what we can accomplish. In just three short camps we have really come together as a crew...We Can Row as ONE!