Well this is sort of a gratuitous title given that just about every day lately has been a big day because it was the day-before or the day-of: seat racing, an erg test, or an NSR. The last few weeks have been full-tilt with a lot of competitive racing. But it’s not over yet. This morning, I have the distinct pleasure of pulling a 2k erg test. You may ask–“but didn’t you just race four 2ks at the NSR last weekend? and several more in practice before that?” To which I respond: “Yes. Yes I did.”
But before we get in too deep with today’s erg test, I should re-cap the NSR Final on Saturday, which was a great race and lots of fun. Gevvie and I had a good, aggressive piece with a blistering second thousand. We raced a really good race–they just got there before we did. And full credit to boat #3 (Carle/Dell) who finished just .3 behind us. Added to our .7 margin behind Bertko/Trowbridge, that’s just 1 second separating six athletes. I promised you some hot racing, and we delivered. Kate and Sarah will be off to Munich this Saturday with two pairs as well as Gevvie in the single. The rest of us will be getting in some training and preparing to ramp up for 4X selection which begins straightaway after the first World Cup, and will be looking to select athletes first for Henley and Lucerne, and then Worlds.
There were some personnel changes following NSR finals which has our training group at PTC slimmed down considerably. For now, I am still a part of the 4X camp, and for now, we are still sculling out of Mercer while the sweep athletes train out of the Princeton boathouse. As the number of hopefuls greatly outnumbered the available seats on the World Championship Team, no one ever thought that we would all be making the Team together and that everyone would get what they wanted. The change was inevitable, but still a shock nonetheless. Moving forward, it’s not entirely clear what our group will look like this summer and fall as we charge into the selection process. All we can do is keep going fast, and earn our seats every day.
Now: off to fret and sweat a bit and try not to psych myself out too much for this 2k. Start time: 10:00 am. At least we’re not in the mall this time. And after doing 6ks, 10ks and 30 minute tests all winter… what’s a measly 6:…?
Long Live the Dream,
–MK
Megan Kalmoe, OLY 
Meg: Keep up the great work & thanks for sharing & inspiring.
Chelsea: Rowing is one of the few sports where you get out of it what you put into it. The world is yours if you want it bad enough & are willing to do the work. :)
At the risk of sounding incredibly creepy, I’m going to just put it out there that I happened to see you at the Dad Vail. When you turned your head and I confirmed it was, in fact, Megan Kalmoe sitting an arm’s length away from me, I exclaimed “Hey, that’s Megan Kalmoe from the National team!” I think you heard me say your name. I was going to ask for your autograph and ask how your race went but I chickened out because you were with your team mates. I’m a huge fan though. As an 18 year old aspiring to take my rowing to a higher level, you’re a prime candidate for “rowing role model.” Keep up the good work, my whole team loves your blog and videos!
Chelsea! What a shame that you didn’t come up and introduce yourself. It would have been great to meet you! I was actually in entourage with a bunch of National Team women, and it would have been totally cool to chat and hang out while at Dad Vails.
Where do you row? You guys keep reading and I’ll keep writing and posting videos of the National Team’s adventures.
Cheers!!
Ah man, I wish I would have talked to you all now! I’ll be kicking myself for that for a while. Oh well. I saw Stesha Carle there too. I was pretty star struck.
I row for a team called Philadelphia City Rowing (PCR) in (you guessed it) good ol’ Philly. It’s still in its first year, a novice team through and through. It was formed by Libby Peters.