The final countdown has begun before our departure to Poland. I can’t believe we leave on Friday! This year has absolutely flown by. It seems like just the other day Ellen and I were sneaking into the boathouse after coming back from Beijing to get a workout in before we were supposed to be “back”. Now the 2009 Senior National Team has been named and we are heading out on the medal hunt in Poznan.
Perhaps the understatement of the decade: 2009 was not what I expected. This year has proved to be more difficult and challenging than any of my other training years with the US National Team to date. Going into the year anticipating a “post-Olympic year” mentality (like “back in 2005…” as our older teammates so often like to spin yarns about) was a mistake I quickly remedied when I realized by December that this year was going to be more brutally competitive and…enlightening than any other. If this is the post-Olympic year, I can’t wait to see what the next three have to offer. My next blog post may be me complaining about premature gray hairs at this rate.
So with just two days remaining in the US before we leave for Poland, what are we up to? Well, we threw down some race pieces this morning on Carnegie which was a slight shock to the system (as I have been doing most of my training in the 1x since Lucerne, and with limited power/speed work at that), but fun! Tomorrow we recover a bit before getting one more good practice worth of hard work and then inevitably scrambling around Princeton to get our affairs in order before leaving for Europe for two weeks.
Squeezed somewhere into all of that, Ellen and I will have to collect, sort, and distribute the World Championship gear that we ordered as a team, and I will probably have to bust a few kneecaps in order to get checks/cash in order to cover everything… all in a day’s work.
But as far as I can tell, the team is happy, healthy and excited to get back to Europe and start racing. A big congratulations to everyone named to the 2009 team–a great mix of returning athletes and first-timers–and LET’S GO TO POLAND!!

Long Live the Dream,

–MK