Ok, I'm a little stir crazy.

It's rained a lot. We've been staying in the hotel between practices. We eat at the hotel restaurant and burn some extra calories at the hotel gym. I'm sitting in the hotel lobby right now. I need to get out. My coach urges us to "be like lions". Which is code for sleeping or sitting around all day between practices. It's probably a good policy but, when you can't eat much, it gets a little boring. I've finished two books already.

Luini, the Italian lightweight (pulls a 6:08) plops down next to me and starts talking in frantic Italian to his coach. The Italians kinda smell bad. And they always walk around with a stupid swagger. The Italian light 8 always glares at us. I was walking at the course yesterday and the light 8 was standing on the side. As I passed, 9 heads turned and followed me. We're an unknown quantity. We've pulled the fastest time in the world so far and they know it. 

I kept looking straight ahead. I was very proud of myself.  

Speaking of eating, I'm looking across into the hotel restaurant and I spy the M2+. Man, those boys can pack it away. Their coxen sits with them and periodically goes to the buffett (yes, its a buffett, a further test of my willpower) to collect various cakes and cookies for them. I guess you need those extra calories when you're pulling a floating leg press down the course.

So the pieces on tuesday against the hvy 8+ and 4-. I get sweaty and anxious just thinking about it. The workout is 6x1 min., all out. We do 2k of warmup and spin with the 8 in lane 7 and the 4- in lane 5. We start down half length on the 4- (who went 5:47 in their tt) and 3/4 length up on the 8. Teti bikes alongside us from shore and calls the start and stop of each piece. First and 4th are starts, 2nd and 5th are body, 3rd and 6th are base/sprint pieces. We sit at half slide and Teti quickly says: "Attention, Row". Both of his boats completely jump the start and we are even with the 8 and down on the 4- by the time we finish our first five strokes. We're at a 53. We hold a 50 for a minute. Later, our coach will tell us he clocked us at a 32 second 250 meters. In a headwind. That's silly fast.

So much for holding back on the first piece.

We paddle for a few hundred meters and Teti again rushes through the start commands. The other two boats seem ready for it, but our coxen is a little behind and the hvy 8 takes 1.5 lengths in a minute. We only begin to start walking on the 4- at the end of the minute. It all seems frantic and a little frustrating. They want to keep the lightweights in our place.

Next piece, we're ready for it. We anticipate Teti's call and fly out at a 40. We're getting more than even spacing in a headwind. We take a seat from the 8. I can see the 4- quickly come into view on my leftside. For a few strokes we hold the advantage. The hvy 8 cox sees this and gets frustrated. He calls it up two and we respond, but they are too much for us. A bunch of guys, 35 kg heavier than us who can get the split on the erg down to 1:12 if they wanted to. They burn right through us and we fold, topping out at a 43. It's too high for us and we've long ceased to effectively accelerate the boat. But we put a scare into them. Went as fast as we've ever gone.

We spin and go up the course in lanes 1-3. Same thing. Our start is a little more controlled, but in the increasing headwind, we get murdered. Teti keeps rushing through the calls and the other boats continue to slightly jump the start. Our coach later comments that there is a lesson in this: "Take every advantage you can in rowing; i.e. cheat like crazy". On the first stroke of the sixth piece the footstretcher of our stroke seat snaps and our day is done.

That was fast. It all went by really really fast. But that was a short recounting of my morning doing pieces against the fastest 8 in the world.

Our coach is all about confidence building right now. He rides his bike along the shore (no launches are allowed on the lake) and says very little. He tells us after the row how excellent we are rowing. And, at some level I believe him. I know he's doing it to boost us up before we race and I'd like to think I'm not so easily fooled, but it works. We are rowing like gods. The fastest lightweight 8. He tells us these things and we believe him. On race day, we don't have to do anything we haven't already done before.

A quick description of the course and some highlights:

-Dorney Lake is man-made. Built for rowing. It is exactly 8 lanes wide and about 2200 meters long. No launches for coaches, only about 50 or so bikes going every which way on the path circumventing the lake. Apparently coaches don't always look where they're going: there have been far more accidents involving bikes then boats.

-The Chinese rowers are insane. Especially the womens 8. Their coxen is about 50 years old and wears a flower-print sun hat while jabbering at her rowers and suicidally (or is it homicidally) deciding to start full pressure pieces behind defenseless singles at paddle pressure. They've already ben warned by regatta officials. Our coxen was nearly hit in the head by 2 seat's oar yesterday. Apparently they decided to begin and end their 500 meter piece in different lanes yesterday. They were like a Patriot missile behind us, seeking out the pale yellow of our Empacher stern.

- If the amount of chest hair one displays at the regatta in the days prior to racing is any indication of performance once the regatta actually begins, then the Italians and the Greeks deserve every medal to be awarded and then some.

- There are a ton of volunteers here. Driving buses, collecting shoes on the dock, checking bags at the course, handing out water. I love being in a country that cares about rowing.

-  I've gotten free massages 3 out of the 5 days. Water is always brought to you. I'm treated like an actual athlete here.

-If the rowers are any indication of the general population, the most beautiful women on earth live in Denmark and Holland. Even their coaches are like models. That is all.

Anyway, I'm tired of writing and have run out of internet time. Sorry this isn't organized or edited or even very readable, but it's what I'm thinking about now. I'm having an awesome awesome time.