Capped Race Piece Day

Just wanted to share a quick note with everyone at home.
We are starting to get acclimatised to the heat here, although the humidity is a different kettle of fish! We had to do 2 race pieces today but with capped ratings of 20 and 22. When we headed out on the course the heat was just about 30 degrees but with two water bottles, a wet hat and semi wet zootie I figured I would be alright!

Our first piece was AWESOME! It felt so good it was scary. Even rating only 20 the boat had a better run on it than it has ever had. The second piece wasn't as good, we tended to be a bit out of time with each other and the row was just a bit messy, especially compared to the first.

When we headed back up the course after the pieces just to warm down there was not a breath of wind on the lake and to be honest I don't think I have ever felt the air so hot!

We didn't know the results of the pieces until the afternoon while waiting to head back for our second session. Well we did have a blinder of a row during the first piece, which we knew. Our prognostic put us in 2nd place out of all the Australian crews! Ben our Arms/Shoulders rower placed 1st in both pieces. In the second piece although we weren't happy with it, we still managed 4th on the list. So all in all not a bad morning. Go the Adaptives!!!

This afternoon, I must say, was the most amazing piece of rowing we have ever done! We went out to practice a couple of starts as our starts this morning weren't the best. Well the first one was the best we have ever done with 20 strokes after it. It must have been pretty good because the Italian LTA4+ team, our competition and Paralympic Gold medallists, actually stopped rowing to watch! We were told afterwards that they had a shocked look on their faces! I think we were probably just as shocked at how fast we were! We did a few more starts, both running and stationary and all of them were fantastic. What a brilliant way to finish the sessions for today off!

Tonight we decided that we needed to treat ourselves to some Gelati! So it wasn't long after dinner that we headed down the road to make our choices and purchases!

Pedro is trying to set up some short race pieces against the Italians for tomorrow, which I personally think would be really good for us. We have never raced another four and we could certainly use the experience. Besides it will tell us where we really stand against the Paralympic champions!