One Day to Race Day

We have now had a few days to get used to being in Poland and I must say we are enjoying it! At least I know I am. It is so amazing to see the rowing course full of people and the racks full of boats. The different colours around are amazing and we are all trying to decide which team gear we would like to try and get hold of. We have been told that at the end of the week it is like a feeding frenzy with a couple of hundred people milling around and swapping gear. One of the men’s four rowers told us not to be intimidated just jump in and swap! So we are looking forward to that.

We have had some good sessions on the water and it has been great to be able to suss out the competition. We were basically on our own (with the Italians and Canadians) for a few days but everyone is here now and looking forward to racing.

We have received a really good draw for the heats with most of the heavy weights in the second heat. We are in the first heat against USA, Poland, Russia, Korea and Italy, so I feel very confident going into this heat. First place in the heat goes directly to the A final and doesn’t have to race again. The second heat has Great Britain (world record holders), Germany (a powerhouse in rowing) and Canada along with a few others so that will be a tough heat as my friend Tony (from Canada) has stated on Facebook!

I know that the nerves for me are starting to kick in as well as my roommate Alex’s! But we just need to get this first race over, it seems like it has been a long time coming and I am looking forward to it. We have one short paddle today concentrating on starts and then a good night’s sleep.
We have been able to have a look around the local area and get to the shopping centre across the street. It is an amazing place, housed in an old brewery; you definitely need some money to shop there! All top brand names Versace, Zara etc. and well out of my price range.

Amazing Shopping mall!

We also attended the opening ceremonies last night. Not sure I will ever do that again! They were having an all day dance party with one of the top DJ’s in the world Armin van Buuren and after serving alcohol to all the local Polish people all day they decided it would be good to stop it for an hour to have the official welcome by the Mayor of Poznan and the President of FISA.

They then unrolled every countries flag and when the German and Russian flags were unfurled the crowd booed very, very loudly! There were also a couple of mishaps with the FISA flag being raised backwards, the Brazilian flag getting stuck and not unrolling and the Swedish flag getting burn holes in it from the fireworks and a small hot air balloon catching fire and falling into the crowd!

But the music when we arrived was pumping and Henry, Matt, Alex and Lisa were all dancing away! I tried, but I am afraid that my dancing days to this kind of music are well and truly gone! So I just kind of bounced to the beat! Talk about high energy and loud music, it didn’t help that we were right at the front in front of the speakers!

Pete and I trying to fit in with the crowd!

The fireworks at the end were definitely spectacular and even the crowd turned and looked at them, but then Armin came back on the stage and the crowd was off again in a trance like state. Needless to say it was my time to exit, so Henry, Pete and I headed back to the buses and back to the hotel. But I could still hear the thumping in my head even as I put it on the pillow. I think my last thoughts were “Man this is what my parents must have thought of the music we listened to!” Last night I definitely felt old!!!

Just a quick footnote before I post this...today we had our last training session before tomorrow's heat. We were able to do a practice start with lights and buzzer and had the Russian team beside us. Now we are not the fastest out of the blocks and I don't want to be cocky...but within 20 strokes we had 3/4 of a boat length on the Russians. It wasn't our best start ever, so if we do this or better tomorrow, we should have a good race!

Two Days in Poland

We arrived in Poznan, Poland yesterday around lunch time. It was a bit bizarre as we flew into Warsaw from Milan and then caught a connecting flight to Poznan with LOT airlines, the official airline of Poland. At no time did anyone ask for our passport or did we go through customs! Just think what we could have brought into the country! We were on very small planes, the first one with three seats in each row and only 17 rows. The second plane even had the engines on the wings!

We gathered our luggage in Poznan and walked through the “nothing to declare” aisle into a throng of reporters and photographers! We thought that maybe we were to be the stars of the day…little did we know that the German soccer team was arriving to play Poland that night! Oh well we were superstars for a moment (at least in our own brains!).

We were picked up by the organizing committee in a minivan and transported to our hotel.

My first impressions of Poland were that there is no middle class. You either have money or you don’t. I am not sure what I expected here, but the land is very flat, not even a hill anywhere in the city (so far). There are some amazing old buildings that have stood the test of time and war. But they have obviously built accommodation in a hurry to house a lot of people and it is in that 70’s style of square boxes, it almost looks like tenements. A lot of the apartment blocks look on the outside very dirty, some are painted lovely colours, but the grass around them is uncut, which makes it look even more untidy.

This is one of the nicer apartment complexes.

That is not to say that the city isn’t interesting! We have noticed a number of universities such as separate uni’s for Technology, Economics and Medicine. There are also some amazing shopping centres, one which just happens to be across from our hotel! This shopping centre I will write about more once I pay it a visit.

We headed to the rowing course in the afternoon that we arrived and to say I was impressed is an understatement. Although they are still doing some setting up, with landscaping, putting up tents and electronics throughout the course. The Adaptive rowers have their own area for our boats and even our own pontoons to launch from and return to. We were just about to go out for a paddle and the Canadian LTA4+ arrived. Now some of you may know that I have been a “pen pal” via the Internet with a fellow Canadian, a member of their LTA team, Tony, but we had never met. So we saw each other, had a hug and had to say good-bye as we had our respective rows to do! We will catch up more formally after the racing is over.

We had a pretty good steady paddle, just one lap up and down of the 2km course. It was good to get back out in the boat as we have had 2 days off. Seems like a hell of a lot more, but at least we got the feel back.

Today at the rowing course there was evidence of more and more countries arriving. It is amazing hearing all the different languages spoken by not only the coxes but also the coaches on the bank of the course. It is amazing to see so many tall people in one place! Some of the rowers are huge! The boat racks are starting to fill up as well and it is amazing to see some of the very expensive boats.

We had two more rows today, just a steady state row this morning and then this afternoon we had to do 2 x 1000m pieces, one held at a stroke rate of 20 and then one stepped with stroke rates each 250m of 24, 26, 28, 30. It was unbelievable; the wind was blowing a gale! A head/cross wind that swirled! It felt like the wind was a lot stronger on the second one! When we got the results it certainly showed that it was tough out there. The second 1000m was 0.6 sec slower than the first and that was with a faster rate!!! The prognostics were pretty low, but when compared to the able bodied we were probably in the top 10% of the crews. So not a bad effort! But battling that wind did cause me some discomfort with my hip and back…thank you MS! So the first thing I did when I got back to the hotel was see the physio…she is my angel, helping to put things back into place!

We have a sleep in tomorrow morning, so will have breakfast and then go as a group for a walk, taking my camera with me…hell may even get to that shopping mall!

Our Last Day in Italy – A Visit to Lake Como

Early this morning the rest of the Senior team left Italy for Poland. We didn’t go with them as we were given the nod later than the rest of the crews to actually come here, they couldn’t get us on the flight. I don’t think that we were upset about this as it gave us a chance to go exploring.

Matt is almost back to old self and is able to drive again, although still battered, bruised and stitched. So we all jumped into a very large van and with Matt driving headed towards Lake Como. We were told that it would be hard to find, but we had seen signs in the past week…so how hard could it be? Well we found out how hard! It only took us about 1 ½ hours to get there and believe me it was well worth it!

What an unbelievable place, not only beautiful in scenery, but also beautiful in the old buildings around. We were able to park the van right near what we believe was the main square closest to the lake itself. By the time we arrived it was lunch so what better to do than head to one of the many outdoor cafés. A few of us had pasta and the others had pizza. Real Italian pasta and pizza! Don’t know if it was the fact that we were hungry or sitting outside in front of one of the most beautiful cathedrals I have ever seen!

After lunch we headed down to the Lake itself, crossed over to the water side of the road and went for a walk. The thing that struck me was the money obviously in this city! The number of boats moored was incredible. We kept walking until we came across a cable car that went up the side of the mountain and for €4.50 which is about $7.70 AUS we went up to the top. WOW is all that I can say!

We took a number of photos from every angle and then even gave the camera to Henry and believe it or not he took two fantastic pictures of the crew with Matt! We had to tell him which way to turn and to raise or lower his hands, but the photos turned out good! Who says blind people can’t become photographers!

Henry's Photo!

It was certainly getting hot so as we were walking back to the centre of the city Matt and Henry decided to become like the locals and took their shirts off. Alex did take a picture but I won’t put it on this blog as they certainly didn’t look like locals! They need a bit more colour on their skin to do that!

We then walked through the old part of the city (although it is hard to tell where old leaves off and new begins!) Como was a walled city in times gone by but as it has grown has spread past the original wall. The Italians in their wisdom have not done what a lot of the western world has done and ripped down old structures, but have incorporated the new with the old. I am glad because the old structures are magnificent!

We had walked so far that we were all feeling the effects of the sun so decided it was Gelato time! We found a small place, popped ourselves down and indulged. We walked further and it was time for dinner. So once again ordered some wonderful pasta and pizza! It was then time to get back in the van and hit the road as we had an early morning wake up to head to the airport and join the rest of the team in Poland. Funny enough the drive back only took us 45 minutes, we are getting better at finding our way around…now we have to leave!

Just a footnote to our trip to Como, we did hope to see George Clooney somewhere in town, but I guess he was hiding out in his mansion on the Lake!

So our Italian journey has come to an end and the pointy end of the journey is about to begin! So from Italy…Arrivederci!

Last Rowing Day in Italy

I must digress and talk about yesterday a bit more before I get on to today!

During the week here a number of the support staff have been heading out on long bike rides. A number of them are very experienced at riding in packs and they have also been here to Italy a number of times with other teams. Our support member Matt or Bilko as he is referred to decided that he wanted to go with them and had done so each morning. The build up during the week was to get them all prepared for the “Big” ride on Sunday morning. Bilko even went and bought new riding shorts, (not that they were the most flattering of shorts! but he liked them!) as they would be doing over 2 hours and climbing one of the bigger hills here in the district. I think he was a bit hesitant and he took a lot of joking from everyone about him doing this ride. But at 10:30 a.m. we waved them off.

At 12:30 p.m. we all went to lunch and I mentioned to Alex that the riders should be back at the hotel soon. Then while sitting down to eat we got the news that Bilko had “stacked it”, in other words he had had a crash! No one could tell us the extent of his injuries, but he had gone to hospital in an ambulance! Luckily they had a support vehicle following them and our team doctor had been in the van.

Well when he arrived back at the hotel late in the afternoon he definitely looked a bit worse for wear! He had actually come off the bike (he says at 35km/hour and hit a concrete wall and metal railing. Unfortunately he hit the railing with his face and the wall with his shoulder. Luckily he had not broken a bone at all, but did end up with a severely bruised right arm and shoulder, with 3 stitches to his chin (which they stitched up without anaesthetic! His face is bruised and slightly swollen but he is alive and that is all that matters. Oh... and he didn’t even get to see the big hill he was to climb!

Now, on to our last day rowing here in Italy.

We had one row today and that was 2 x 1000m pieces. We were only getting timed on the first 250m and the last 250m. The 500m in the middle was to be extremely easy. We were all looking forward to this because each time we had gone out we had done better than the time before and we figured that today would be no different.

Our first 250m wasn’t too bad, but certainly didn’t feel as good as it had the last few days and after the last 250m of this piece, I think we all figured that we had forgotten how to row! It felt terrible and the only thing to do was head back up to the 1000m to do the next two. Unfortunately the next two felt even worse. We had lost our really good timing and it felt like we were missing water. There certainly wasn’t much said in the boat or even after the rowing. I think all of us were in our own thoughts for the rest of the day. Funny enough we didn’t get the results until the end of the day and to say I was shocked is an understatement! The times we had done were phenomenal, faster than we had ever gone and the highest prognostic percentages we had ever obtained, even hitting 101% on the 2nd 250m. I just keep thinking, how the hell was this possible? I then found out that we had a cross wind at the start of the pieces and a tail wind at the end, but hell that could happen in a race! I will take the times, but just think how fast we could have been if we had gotten our act together! This is something that we as a crew have to think about when we next row in Poland.

After the row it was time to pack things up and load the boat trailer. Not only is the Australian trailer taking all of our boats but also the Adaptive Italian teams boats. To be honest I have never see a trailer loaded so much and then to think that they will be taking it over the mountains. We worry about taking trailers through Australia with our wide open roads. I wasn’t even sure how they were going to get this trailer up the road from the rowing club and through the round-abouts!

The rest of the team heads to Poland tomorrow on two separate flights, but because we were late inclusions on the team we have an extra day here in Italy. We will be doing a pool session in the morning, but then off to the Italian countryside and venturing a bit farther than just locally. We have the entire day to explore and I think we are all looking forward to it!

Oh and Bilko is making an amazing recovery to the point where he got his sling off his arm, yes he is battered and bruised but he even started driving again today! So at least he will be staying with us and having a look around. I think he has used one of his nine lives!

2 days to go till Poland

Since the last blog we have done some amazing pieces on the water, breaking all our personal bests! On Friday we had to do 2 x 1000m, with the first 250m flat out, the middle 500 capped at a 24 stroke rate and then the last 250m flat out. After the first one I was hurting…then we had to do a second one! I think that all of us wanted to throw up after the second one. But the times were amazing and the first 1000 was even close in overall time to our best ever. Not bad considering the rate was capped during the middle of the piece! This bodes well for racing in Poland! We had done so well that we were given the afternoon off from rowing and just had to do a pool session. So once that was done we were off to do some exploring of the local area.

I must say again that the buildings amaze me with how long they have lasted. It certainly shows me that the way things were built hundreds of years ago certainly were built better than anything now-a-days! We headed just down the road from our hotel to the local municipal buildings of Biandronno (which is the town our hotel is situated in). Here we found the Post Office and local town square fountain, so had a look around. We then walked down the road (sticking as close to the side buildings as possible, as there is no footpath) and stopped at a couple of buildings that had intrigued me every day that we passed by them. They looked like buildings that would have been used as housing a long time ago but were now used as out buildings as there were newer homes attached. But amazing structures!

We then had a look at the local church. As today was the Feast of the Assumption, I assumed that the church would be in use, but it wasn’t and the door was wide open, so we decided to have a look inside. It was absolutely beautiful with such an ornate ceiling with the most magnificent paintings. No one was around and the silence was deafening. A few minutes later we were asked to leave by a local woman who came in. We didn’t understand why but we assume it was because Lisa and I both had sleeveless shirts on, while Matt had open toed shoes. But we had our pictures and were quite willing to make a quick exit.

We then headed to the town of Gavirate which is the town the rowing club is located. Due to the fact that it was a public holiday, we were only able to find one café open, so stopped there to have a coffee. It was time to start heading back to the hotel, but Matt decided to take us on a tour of the area going through towns with names of Monate, Ispra and Brebbia. He was trying to find a building he had seen during his morning bike ride, but got us lost so we headed back to the hotel!

After dinner we were told that we could sleep in the following morning, do another pool session and we would row in the afternoon. It was nice not to have to get up and get going right away. We all met and had a leisurely breakfast. We met at the pool at 9:30 a.m., did our pool session and then I just sat in the sun reading a book. God it has been a long time since I just sat and read a book!

After lunch we headed to the course, where I must say it was extremely hot! It got up to 35 degrees, not one bit of wind and the water looked like glass. The humidity was so high that within 5 minutes we were all sweating so much we were soaked! We were told to just do a steady state row and we also did some drills, then got off the water. Tomorrow is another testing day with short race pieces.

We had a team dinner tonight where Ray Ebert (team manager), Andrew Matheson and Noel Donaldson all spoke to us about the upcoming days and then introduced our Olympic Gold Medallist David Crawshay to speak to us.

David is always awe-inspiring to listen to and this night was no different. He talked to all of us about having confidence in ourselves, our crew and coach, and to believe in our abilities. I know that I left that dinner believing in our crew more than I ever have!

Fantastic Day!

I have so much to say today, what an amazing day! I am sure that I say this every time I write on this blog, but each day just keeps getting better.

We were hoping to race the Italians today, but Pedro was unable to get in touch with them, I like to think they were just too scared to race us!!! We did 3 x 500m race pieces today and I must say “we were flying”!

Our first start was absolutely amazing and even with one crew member crabbing (which means they caught their oar under the water) we were still able to manage a 2 second personal best (pb)! The second and third 500’s weren’t too shabby either, with both of them as fast as we have ever gone. Mind you by the end we were all stuffed as we should have been. Henry even just about chucked on Lisa! That means that he was working his butt off!

I know that I haven’t put too many pictures in of Lake Varese that is because I have always been in the boat and don’t have a camera with me, so I have borrowed some from “Bilko”, our support member and he has taken over 400 photos so far!

Every day we sit in our boat and look at the amazing scenery. I keep pinching myself to make sure I am really here and not dreaming. I don’t think that if I lived here I would ever get complacent about these mountains, they are magnificent.

We were very happy after that session to hear that we had the afternoon off. Time to explore!!! Mind you only after the physio appointments that a few of us had.

We decided that we would all travel into the city of Varese minus Alex as she was meeting up with her parents for dinner. So in two cars we headed towards the unknown! With Bilko driving one car and Pedro the other, we headed towards Varese Centro. After a couple of wrong turns and u-turns we made it to a car park, left the cars and continued on foot. Now this is what I think of when I think of Italy.

The building architecture is fascinating to me, such ornate structures with Juliette balconies and flowers hanging from them, each of the homes a different colour.

We all stopped at a café and I finally had my first Italian coffee. Now I am not much of a coffee drinker and most of my friends would know but oh my god the cappuccino that I had was the best I have ever had! A few of us had the cappuccinos, Lisa had what I would describe as melted chocolate and Henry had an ice coffee which was just a huge glass of iced espresso. Now Henry doesn’t sleep at the best of times and I am sure that this coffee is not going to help the situation. I think that we should consider giving him one of these before we race!

After our coffee stop we all split up because some of us wanted to do different things. So Pete and I headed off exploring the landscape/architecture. We came upon a beautiful clock tower that was attached to a church. We heard an amazing choir singing and headed towards the sound. I figured they were practicing for the weekend service. So we snuck in a side door to see if we could listen and didn’t I step foot into the front of the church where low and behold the whole congregation was standing looking at me! Pete had been behind me following and needless to say as I backed up I just about ran into him, whispering that there was a service happening! We certainly high-tailed it out of there. We were able to walk around to the main entrance of the church and just have a peak in, seems that I forgot that Catholics hold a Friday mass! It is a religious day tomorrow called the “Feast of Assumption”. But how was I to know that!

We continued on our journey through an archway across from the church and came upon a small piazza with quite a few café’s. When we stopped to take some pictures the whole place stopped, it must have been the walking stick and artificial leg!

We finally met up with the rest of the troupes and it was very funny because if you have ever been in Italy you will know that they have these pedestrian crossing’s painted on the roads but none of the cars stop for you. It is up to the pedestrian to make it across quickly before the next car comes. Well when you have one wheelchair, one prosthetic leg, one walking stick and one blind person using a stick, it is amazing how fast cars actually come to a halt! I think every other pedestrian was happy that we were around…safety crossing the road!

We decided that we had better head back to the hotel as it was almost time for dinner, but we first had to work out where the heck we were and how to get out of Varese Centro. Bilko just followed the traffic which seemed like around in circles but we eventually managed to make it back to the hotel.

One of the best parts of the day was when Pete and I walked into the dining area and were approached by one of the coaches of the women’s crew, Larissa. She said to us that she saw us row today and said that she was very impressed with what she saw! This was a fantastic complement!

We are all so pumped after how we rowed today that it makes looking forward to tomorrow’s row even better!

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!