29 November 2011
While it’s not yet December, the festive season seems to start earlier every year, and so I best not miss the boat and get a blog entered now!
While I generally don’t make a habit of requesting anything rowing related for Christmas, right now I might make a request for the relentless wind of late to ease! It’s true, we have had a lot of wind (which is normal for this time of year) and I know logically its great practise before we head to a potentially windy Olympic course, but I am starting to crave some typical summer kiwi weather to enjoy!
Training has been going really well, and we are managing to stack in the km’s. Kayla, Kelsey, Jess and Zoe are the most recent addition to our training group coming from this years U23 team. It’s been great to have another couple of pairs to train with. The girls push us along every day, and give us some tough competition! During the last month we also competed in our first domestic regatta at Lake Karapiro. It’s always refreshing to have the opportunity to practise our 2km race, reminding us of why we train every day.
The rowers have definitely not been forgotten this festive season and last Wednesday had us all enjoying the annual RNZ Christmas dinner at Bill and Olive Falconers. This is always a great night for the fantastic hospitality of the Falconers, an amazing meal, and the chance to get out of the lycra, and also to celebrate the achievements of the coaches, athletes, and team at RNZ over the last year.
RNZ’s principal sponsors Banklink will be at the Gallagher High Performance Centre on Wednesday to treat us to a BBQ lunch. This is another really nice occasion, especially as we always love to catch up with the fantastic team from Banklink, who are so supportive of all of RNZ.
And finally the last gift we will receive is a 1hour erg test, an annual treat we get great pleasure from or perhaps just a little satisfaction at the end. But once this is completed we are free for a week to enjoy Christmas with our families, and refresh a little before we start the all-important 2012 training.
We hope everyone has a Merry Christmas and a safe and happy holiday!
Rebecca and Juliette
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