And then, the rain came. We woke up at 4:30 for our last morning in Princeton to the sounds of rain and thunder. We met down in the lobby not once, not twice, but three separate times over the span of four hours in an attempt to go rowing. After a very damp row, an even damper loading of the trailer we headed into Princeton for the afternoon. This worked well until we were caught in the act in the doorway of the Bent Spoon by a storm that made the previous one look like a few drops. This however did not stop us from the long awaited cookie sandwiches. Also a thank you to my dad for his guerilla-style dash to get the car for us right as it started hailing.
After arriving back at GMS Monday morning, we all split off with our various Connecticut-based friends to have a rare afternoon off and celebrate the 4th (we are the Junior National team after all…patriotism is not something to be taken lightly). It’s a small opportunity for most of us to have a few hours of what some people would call a “normal summer”. It’s not really a surprise that our days still largely revolved around laundry, food, TV, and napping. I was lucky enough to have not one but several delicious meals at the Youngling house—after which we had a reunion with Junior National Team alum, current Princeton Crew varsity member, Weston local, and all around superstar Margy Bertasi to roast some marshmellows and listen to (not actually watch) the local fireworks. It was a fantastic day, I can’t speak for everyone, but I think we all enjoyed the time off.
But now that we’re back in New Milford it’s all about the rowing. With trials now over, the quad set, seat racing complete, real summer training gets started. Everyone refocuses, set goals, and goes to work. So I’m happy to say that back at the Newbury Inn, we are finally starting to fall into a regular routine.
Before I get into the regular blog, I want to set the stage for all of you not in the lovely town of New Milford, CT as to what training at GMS with the Junior National Team looks like this year.
As usual, there’s a smorgasbord of rowers, from junior novice to elite, Olympic level scullers that come in and out of the gorge all day on our stretch of the Housatonic. Right now, we have the U23 lightweight quad training with USJNT blog Champ List inductee, Pete Orlando (as in…WE ARE PETE ORLANDO) that is set to compete in U23 World Championships in Amsterdam, The Netherlands the 21-24th of this month. We also have the boy’s selection camp, down to four plus one, coached by elite rower Richard Klein, on their way to finalizing lineups for the World Championship quad coming to Eaton with us in August.
In addition to these five world championship crews (U23LW4x, JM4x, JW4x, JW2x, and JW1x), we have the Junior Women’s High Performance quad training here in preparation to join the sweep team’s high performance squad heading to Berlin to scrimmage the German national team. For those of you new to following international rowing results, the Germans consistently have a powerhouse showing from the junior to Olympic level. This is a fantastic opportunity for athletes on the road to the National Team, and a great indication of depth and speed of junior rowing in the United States.
So with all these high-caliber athletes training at full tilt, the water glasslike as ever, the barn with all it’s enduring character, humidity high, and temperatures climbing well into the 90’s, it’s business as usual here at G-Man Systems. I would also like to add we have team psychologist, chaperone, chauffer, and my father Wil Heywood with us this summer—so courtesy of him I’ll have some photos up soon from some of our more recent rows. Also new—Elite rower Lizzy Youngling and myself have started our first ever “Vuh-Blog” (as we call it) so here’s the link! http://www.youtube.com/user/USJNTScullers
I promise some of them are entertaining—definitely check in once in a while to see some rowing footage, exclusive interviews, and most likely videos of food as training progresses.
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