Bellingham Bandits

Well, the semis sure have been nailbiting races, as they often are. Over the years, a lot of people have told me that the semis are the toughest races of Worlds, and yesterday and today certainly lived up to that. Yesterday, Abby and Ursula raced the semifinal of the lightweight double and missed qualifying for the A final in the last 500 meters to the New Zealand crew. As a team, we are disappointed with the result but are taking it in stride and getting pumped up for the quad. Today while we were eating lunch, we watched the semis for the lightweight men's quad, among other events, and they were just as brutal as the races yesterday were. Many crews missed out on the final by mere tenths.

For those of you watching abroad, there is now live video feed for the races. There is a huge camera boat that follows alongside the races, as well as other ones that follow behind the boats, so the quality has been great.

Times for the finals are as follows, converted into US time zones:

LW2x Final B: Thursday at 3:41 pm Pacific, 6:41 pm Eastern

LW4x Final A: Friday at 6:18 pm Pacific, 9:18 pm Eastern

This morning all four bandits were in action in the first quad race. It was not a qualifying race, just one to assign lanes for Saturday. That said, we'll let you read the results as you will (select "LW4x" under "select class" on that website). There was a full cast of photographers at the starting line, including Joel Rogers and Erik Dresser (from row2k.com) who visited us in Bellingham earlier this year. Those photos are now posted online. It was great to get back in the quad and we always have fun when we're in that boat. We are getting pumped up for Saturday.

After our quad row, we went to lunch in the Athlete Restaurant where we were asked to fill out a questionnaire from FISA about the event. Interesting to see the question about what environmental issues we feel are important (clean drinking, plants/trees, recycling, animals, etc). Beyond that, we were asked to circle happy face, "indifferent" face, or sad face to such specific things like pontoons, wake from motor boats, and umpiring. How strange. I guess I feel happy when I think about the umpiring?? I think they might get more than they were asking for when they see Vic's response to "buoys: happy face, indifferent face, or sad face?" (see "Love NZ" post about minefield).

Regardless, the country of New Zealand is the most excited host nation of all the international events any of us have been to so far. Since racing started yesterday, the NZ (they say it "N-Zed") radio stations, TV stations, and newspapers have been incredibly focused on the World Champs. The morning sports report we hear on the bus highlights the previous day of racing for the Kiwis as well as what's scheduled for the current day. Then when we get to the traffic report, they are talking about how it's going to be slow near Karapiro. But wait! Here comes the weather report, where they are talking about how the conditions might affect the Kiwi boats. Mahe Drysdale, the five-time consecutive World Champ in the men's single, is not disappointing for the Kiwis thus far; he won his heat yesterday and we will not stop hearing about it. He also has a large group of uniformed schoolchildren that take field trips to the course to watch him race. We arrive back at the hotel with the option of watching nightly racing recaps at 8:30 on Sky Sport, a national TV channel. We are shocked at how different it is in the U.S. where most people have no idea what rowing even is.

Beyond the fun radio announcements on the buses, our rides to and from the course present a daily adventure. With a different driver almost every day, we also get a different route, leaving us thoroughly confused about where we are and whether we've gone that way before. Unlike in the US, the buses here are all manual transmission, and the shifting often gets dicey. We were heading up a huge hill yesterday afternoon on the way home from the course when the driver couldn't get the bus into the next gear. We slowed down so much while he was messing with it that the we were convinced we would start rolling backwards. The driver got it going again just in the nick of time.

As of today, all of the parents and friends of the Bandits are here and accounted for. The impression so far from the spectator side of things is that, despite the huge grandstand area, the Lake Karapiro course is not quite ideal for viewing. The course comes down at an angle towards the grandstands so it's not as close to the shore as viewers would like. The only part of the race they can really see is the last 250, so the general consensus (and Carlos agrees) is that it's best to watch racing either on the jumbotron from the grandstands or on multitude of flat screen TVs for those of us that have access to the athlete area. So for the fans at home who may get access to live online feed, know that we are probably watching the same!

Speaking of live feed, my impression is that they have begun live online audio feed. I'm unclear if they'll add video, but world rowing has all the information. If all the scheduled days stay the same (the only change would be in the finals if they rearrange due to a storm that is expected on Friday), then these will be the final three race times for the Bandits, converted to US time:

LW2x semi-final (top 3 to A final) - Tuesday at 4:11 pm Pacific, 7:11 pm Eastern (Wed. here)

LW2x A final - Thursday, time TBA (Fri. here)

LW4x A final - Friday, time TBA (Sat. here)

There is always a noticeable change in feel between training and racing at a World Championships, and this year is no different. The buses are quieter on the ride to the course than they were last week as people resign to their iPods and own personal thoughts as we head into racing. At the course, coaches are running around (sometimes frantically) double and triple checking the rigging of the racing shells and athletes are asking and re-asking their team managers if they have information about semifinal draws. We have our game faces on and are ready for anything that is thrown at us, the Bandits are also trying to keep it light when we're away from the course. If you think about it too much (this is only the culmination of an entire year of work, you're only racing the rest of the world in New Zealand, no biggie), it can get overwhelming. It's hard to believe that the 2009 Worlds began just over 14 months ago.

Here are just a few other random notes on New Zealand before I sign off:

I know I said that they don't celebrate Halloween here but I stand corrected. Yesterday while on a run I saw writing in a driveway in chalk that said, "Happy Halloween! We don't have any lollies, SORRY."

Over the past few days, we have been watching our last of five jars of TJ's Almond Butter we brought from the States disappear as we try to ration it between the four of us. If you're thinking, "man, that's a lot of almond butter for four small girls over only nine days," you'd be right. It's just that good. The impending A.B. crisis was avoided, however, as we emailed back to our parents before they left the U.S. to grab some before they left. Phew, that was a close call.

Speaking of crises, Carlos was in a self-proclaimed "communication crisis" earlier in the week when he couldn't use his computer or Blackberry. Luckily he is now back in touch with the rest of the world by getting his BB up and working.

We just got back from a walk to the nearest grocery store and learned that New Zealand produce truly does not disappoint. Much of it is grown locally and today we got the biggest and best-tasting strawberries I think we've ever had. Abby is stunned by the gigantic organic kiwis and today she also bought a tomarillo. That's a tomato grown on a tree, but (after asking a local) does not taste like a tomato.

Whew, that was a long post. Congratulations if you've gotten this far in reading it. The hotel gives us each twenty minutes of free internet per day, which leaves the US athletes to frantically check and reply to emails while racing the clock, which counts down each minute and pops up incessant but friendly reminders like, "only two minutes remaining!!" As you can imagine, I've written this entire post offline.

Over the next few days, we'll head into the big races. Thanks for staying tuned!