We’re off to London today! I am all packed and ready for our 2pm bus. I can’t wait to get over there and continue to prepare for racing. This past weekend, my friends and family surprised me with a send off party. I was completely shocked and it was so much fun to see everyone before I left. My entire family and a lot of Princeton friends were there to send me off. So sweet, and such a nice way to leave Princeton. Here are some photos of the party and of some other things that have been happening around Princeton in the last few days.
More travel updates to come later today from the airport!
Leaving on a jet plane,
Sara
Send off cake!
The Hendy kids
(Almost) All of my favorite Princeton friends!!
Another
Alex and Ani bracelets (also a USA sponsor). All the Hendy girls have the Olympic editions!
USA cookies (thanks Mom, Erica, Caroline, and Jenna) and cupcakes (Thanks Kristen)!
Hanging around the surprise party 🙂
Ah, the Hendy’s in all their glory
Cut the cake!
My friends Phoebe and Sonya. Just wearin’ some chocolate/yarn gold medals.
I designed these on the Converse website. Love them!
Little girl, Nina, that I babysit for. Huge fan!
Zelenka and Nina
Susan Francia (W8+) baked this cake for a party we went to at her house last week.
Last picture at the Princeton boathouse before heading off to London!
Ever since the entire U.S. Olympic Rowing team was named last month on June 22, things have been full-tilt CRAZY here in Princeton, NJ! The support and attention our sport has received is so incredible and very exciting! The women’s team participated in three “media days” on June 23, 24, and 25 where the boathouse was swarming with reporters and camera crews all excited to get interviews and catch our rowing on film. You can read a lot of the interviews in my “USA Rowing in the News” section where I’ve been posting new articles that pop up every day.
Sign at the bottom of my street in Simsbury, CT
Once the buzz of the team being named and the three “media days” had passed, we officially entered a “blackout” period. This means that we went back to intense, focused training, and there will be no more media at the boathouse until we leave for London. Although the media craze has subsided, the support from our friends, families, community members, and fellow rowing supporters has continued to flow in at a steady rate. I am so thankful for the many, many people who have reached out to me to show their support. It makes me feel like I will be traveling to London with a secret weapon – the hundreds of well wishes from people I care about hiding in my back pocket.
SHS themed sign on my street in Simsbury, CT
The support from my hometown, Simsbury, Connecticut, has been especially incredible. I snuck home for the weekend right after I made the team and was surprised with a huge welcoming committee at the bottom of my street! All of my neighbors were outside waiting for me, cheering and holding American flags, and each of them had displayed homemade signs out on their front lawn. I was so surprised by their sweet gesture that the sight made me burst into tears. Since my visit home, my family has been sending me pictures each time they see a new symbol of support around town. Apparently the center of town is littered with these really cool signs wishing me luck on my Olympic adventure. So cool!
Signs littering the streets of Simsbury!
I heard of the most recent kind gesture tonight when I was Skyping with my family. Apparently, my high school rowing teammate Ashley Mitchell stopped by my family’s house with a gift from many of my fellow Trojan rowers. They brought me this HUGE, beautiful package of spa essentials for me to use for relaxation once all the craze from London winds down. And with their package was this amazing card covered in pictures from my SHS days. So thank you to Ashley Mitchell, Brett Dietz, Cleo Rahmy, Amelia Ebel, Kristen Layden, Aly Moreno, Ashley Cummings, Nicole Graham, Jim Oleskewicz, Jon Perkins, Elle Conover, Kristen Koproske, Meg Loftus, Pete Kruse, Tyler McKinley, Lauren Digrazia, Katie Oranges, Amanda Pujda, Jackie Cross, and all the other SHS rowers who helped me get to where I am today. The memories I have from my spring seasons at the Paine boathouse are filled with all of you, and for that I am so grateful. This support has made me feel SO loved, and you can bet that I will be bringing my Simsbury unisuit with me to London.
My sister Erica showed me the card from my SHS rowing teammates tonight on Skype
This Thursday will be four weeks that I’ve officially been an Olympian. In that time, my partner Sarah and I, along with the rest of the women’s rowing squad, have been putting in a lot of miles and a lot of great work out on the water. There are only 18 days until my first race, so a lot of our practices have started to become more 2k race specific. That means the intensity and stroke rates are much higher and racing during practice is now more of a regular occurrence than a rarity…JOY! This weekend, much of the men’s squad flew into Princeton from California (where their training base is located). Beside the excitement of having male peers around for once, also comes the opportunity for different racing partners! This morning, almost the entire USA Olympic rowing team was present on Lake Carnegie, and some of our boats even got to race the men’s 8+ (broken down into 4’s).
When I haven’t been on the water training hard in the last few weeks, I’ve been resting, napping, trying to stay cool (we had a massive heat wave here last week), and attempting to pack. The floor of my bedroom is sort of a disaster right now while I try to figure out how to fit almost my entire rowing wardrobe into two suitcases. Our flight for London is next Monday (!), so we’ll be staying in the rowing village for the 10 days leading up to racing. Can’t wait! If anyone has questions or ideas for my next blog post, let me know!
Olympic Trials have been on TV non-stop for the past week…and I LOVE IT! Nothing gets you in the Olympic spirit more than watching struggling, unknown athletes realize their lifelong dreams. It can be incredibly thrilling to see these ultra-talented competitors earn their Olympic berths, and yet I’ve been finding it nerve-wracking to watch them prepare to compete. I look at their faces as they walk onto the pool deck, or up to the track starting blocks, or as they chalk their hands for their uneven bar routine, and I know exactly what they are thinking. They’re telling themselves, “Ok, this is it. Everything I’ve worked for comes down to this moment. You’ve been here a million times. Just do your thing.” But in the deepest, darkest part of their mind, there is a voice questioning their abilities and making them wonder if they will be able to deliver at the moment that matters most.
I would bet that every athlete competing at an Olympic trial has a moment when they doubt themselves. And this is natural. They aren’t weaker for being unsure of their talents in a fleeting moment. However, it is the athlete who can hear this taunting voice, and then bury it before it becomes something dangerous, that is the one who succeeds. The importance of physical preparation can often come second to the essential ability of believing in oneself when the pressure is thick.
My partner Sarah Zelenka and I at the starting line of our heat in the Olympic Trials
By the time I was sitting at the starting line of my Olympic trial final, the demonic voice questioning my ability was already gone. We had fought our battle the night before. Without a doubt, nights are the worst for me. I can successfully spend an entire day distracting myself from the nerves of an impending race, but more often than not, when I finally let my body and mind unwind, the voice tries to creep in. On the Wednesday night before my final, I had to force myself to remember a few things. First, that I was prepared for this moment. I couldn’t look back at the couple of months leading up to trials and find ONE thing that I regretted about my preparation. And I had made sure of that! Every decision I made regarding my training leading up to our race, I made with that intention. Second, that as uncomfortable as nerves can make your body feel, I actually enjoy being under pressure. Reminding myself of the many races I have succeeded in when my butt was really on the line gave me the confidence that I could do it again. And lastly, that if I was the toughest version of myself during that race, a version that I practice being on a daily basis, that there would be nothing else I could do.
Pure relief.
As soon as I crossed the finish line, I felt a huge sense of relief. Months of stress fell away from my body. In fact, nagging injuries that have been bothering me for some time have suddenly stopped being an issue in the last couple of weeks, and I attribute this to the lessened stress. I agree with what many of the NBC announcers have been saying about winning an Olympic trial – once you secure your spot on the team, athletes begin to perform better because at least they can walk away with the title of “Olympian.” As nervous as I am to compete at the games, I am much more excited to see what we can do. Don’t get me wrong, I will be very disappointed if we walk away without a medal, a goal that I believe is realistic and attainable. But I already feel more driven and motivated to perform now that trials are behind me.
There is no doubt that I worked very hard to prepare myself both physically and mentally for this race. However, I haven’t stop thinking about the fact that so did the other pair we raced. So much of my Olympic berth had to do with luck and timing. Luck and timing. Sometimes it really doesn’t matter how hard you worked to get to where you want to be – you need that luck and timing on your side to get you there. Jamie and Amanda had one hell of a race…they didn’t make it easy for us in the least, and I really wish everyone in our training group could come and compete in London. Any success that our team has in London will be because of the girls in our training group who didn’t make the team. For now, my partner Sarah and I will continue to keep our heads down, learn as much as we can from our coaches, and get ready to throw it down on July 28. Can’t wait!
Out here grindin’.
-Sara
p.s. Here’s our post-race interview where we describe what happened in the race:
On the medal stand with my boatmates at the 2011 World Championships
Hi Everyone! I just started up this blog today, and it is still very much a work in progress. I have never blogged before, and I am proving to be less technologically savvy than I had hoped. Bear with me as I explore the world of personal websites.
I decided to start up this site because I have had a lot of requests to keep my followers involved in my upcoming Olympic adventures. I hope to post every couple of days with updates on my training and thoughts leading up to London. Hopefully it will give you a little bit of insight into the mind of an elite rower and how we will handle the pressures that come with competing in an event that the whole world is watching. Look for posts on our training schedule, our racing schedule, the challenges of staying rested while traveling, all of the cool GEAR we’re receiving, and what the sites are like once we arrive in the village. Please feel free to comment on my posts with suggestions for topics or questions you would like answered!
Make sure you click the link on the top of the home page labeled “Olympic Rowing Schedule” for the full rowing schedule of the games. My events are listed as the Women’s Pair. Also, be sure to click the “Follow” button on the right side of the page. This will make sure that you receive an email every time I post a new entry so you don’t miss anything!