Hectic first 2 days of racing at the Asian Championships. Organisers have been doing a good job allocating boats, rack space, spare parts. Can’t say so for the food on the first couple of days. I suppose they weren’t expecting hoards of hungry athletes, rowers in particular. But it’s picking up. The speed at which they adapt is quite commendable. Though we have a translator, communication is definitely a challenge cos he’s only 1 person. We all learn to work around hand signs and object pointing.
Two more days of finals and my campaign isn’t going too well. Missed out on the A final in the LM1X, which really sucks. It certainly felt i was on top of things in the heats. Keeping up on the technical pointers which I have been working on. My mind was fresh and I knew a change had to be made. And it worked rather well. The boat was moving, I was on top of it down the course. It felt fast and strong. And it certainly looked sharp. My time was decent but not fast enough to make it straight to the final. The next day, everything just went downhill. We were dumped in the LM2x in the morning, and in the arvo I had to race the reps of lighite single. There just wasn’t enough in the tank to keep up in the dog fight. And from what John saw from the shore, fatigue got the better of me and I went back to old habits. It sucks knowing that I couldn’t hold it together when it mattered. But I know I have only just started to learn to scull properly.
Every race is an opportunity to learn going down the course. Training is one thing. But there are things in a race, training simply cannot replicate. The plan is to focus on the process, work on the technical pointers and smash out a fast time in the B final.
Believe 