Training in Varese is coming along quite well. After Munich we have been able to get our two injured rowers, Brooke Pratley and Pauline Frasca, back into the boat successfully with no further problems. In this post, I thought that I would take the time to give readers an insight of a day in the life of a women's eight rower while on training camp.
Wake up is routinely at 6:00am, enough time to dress appropriately (after checking the weather) and put the kettle on to make the first of many plunger coffees for the day before the start of breakfast at 6:25am. After getting some good Italian nutrition into your body (usually force feeding because you know the next time to eat isn't for another six hours) we are in the 9-seater vehicles and off to training. On arrival, we have 30 minutes to warm up. I prefer to run three kilometres to loosen up and then some time stretching/sleeping on the mats in the gym. When ready, we all gather with our coach, Lyall McCarthy to hear what the session entails and the daily technical focus. The morning session will be between 22 kilometres to 26 kilometres of rowing and then finish it off with a seven kilometre run back to the hotel. The run is a struggle, although we have been doing this routine for four years now, so we all know that we just have to do it to get home. It is also an incentive that the faster you run, the quicker you get home to eat.
We arrive back at the hotel around midday, which is when I take the opportunity to get on to the internet while everyone is at lunch (it is always faster when only a few people are on the wireless connection), so I can call home on Skype and check what is happening in Australia.
After lunch, which is guaranteed to be pasta, omelette, some sort of meat in gravy and salad (it is not too bad, just the same every day!), I retreat to my room and study for about three hours prior to the afternoon
session which begins at 4:00pm. The other girls who are older than me and who were fortunate to discover elite rowing after university get the opportunity to sleep, read or eat gelati. The price to pay for a degree!
At 4:00pm, we either have weights and a run, cross training (more running) or rowing. This session is usually less intensive as the morning, unless you have to row again, which is rare. For cross training, I run 15 kilometres or sit on the rowing machine for 70 minutes. Although on the first day of cross training, four of us did manage to go for a long walk (2hrs 50min) up Campo Dei Fiori in Varese. It is a massive hill, 14 kilometre uphill climb to be exact. The weather conditions were great, at least at the bottom. By the time we reached the top, a huge storm had come across the valley, dropping the temperature to below 10 degrees along with strong winds and rain. To make it worse, we lost mobile coverage, so our coach was unable to come and pick us up because he thought that we must have been still climbing. We did make to the top (I wouldn't let them turn around, we were too close not to reach it), but we then had to run down hill for 10 km before we were able to get shelter and mobile coverage to let the coach know we were just about ready to be picked up. It was an adventure, and we all managed to keep high spirits which made the situation better. We all thought, atleast we have a story to tell to the others...
So that is a day of training camp. We do have a day off coming up on Saturday. I am thinking I will use my very broken Italian to try and get myself into Milano for the day via train. Until then, Caio!
Wake up is routinely at 6:00am, enough time to dress appropriately (after checking the weather) and put the kettle on to make the first of many plunger coffees for the day before the start of breakfast at 6:25am. After getting some good Italian nutrition into your body (usually force feeding because you know the next time to eat isn't for another six hours) we are in the 9-seater vehicles and off to training. On arrival, we have 30 minutes to warm up. I prefer to run three kilometres to loosen up and then some time stretching/sleeping on the mats in the gym. When ready, we all gather with our coach, Lyall McCarthy to hear what the session entails and the daily technical focus. The morning session will be between 22 kilometres to 26 kilometres of rowing and then finish it off with a seven kilometre run back to the hotel. The run is a struggle, although we have been doing this routine for four years now, so we all know that we just have to do it to get home. It is also an incentive that the faster you run, the quicker you get home to eat.
We arrive back at the hotel around midday, which is when I take the opportunity to get on to the internet while everyone is at lunch (it is always faster when only a few people are on the wireless connection), so I can call home on Skype and check what is happening in Australia.
After lunch, which is guaranteed to be pasta, omelette, some sort of meat in gravy and salad (it is not too bad, just the same every day!), I retreat to my room and study for about three hours prior to the afternoon
session which begins at 4:00pm. The other girls who are older than me and who were fortunate to discover elite rowing after university get the opportunity to sleep, read or eat gelati. The price to pay for a degree!At 4:00pm, we either have weights and a run, cross training (more running) or rowing. This session is usually less intensive as the morning, unless you have to row again, which is rare. For cross training, I run 15 kilometres or sit on the rowing machine for 70 minutes. Although on the first day of cross training, four of us did manage to go for a long walk (2hrs 50min) up Campo Dei Fiori in Varese. It is a massive hill, 14 kilometre uphill climb to be exact. The weather conditions were great, at least at the bottom. By the time we reached the top, a huge storm had come across the valley, dropping the temperature to below 10 degrees along with strong winds and rain. To make it worse, we lost mobile coverage, so our coach was unable to come and pick us up because he thought that we must have been still climbing. We did make to the top (I wouldn't let them turn around, we were too close not to reach it), but we then had to run down hill for 10 km before we were able to get shelter and mobile coverage to let the coach know we were just about ready to be picked up. It was an adventure, and we all managed to keep high spirits which made the situation better. We all thought, atleast we have a story to tell to the others...
So that is a day of training camp. We do have a day off coming up on Saturday. I am thinking I will use my very broken Italian to try and get myself into Milano for the day via train. Until then, Caio!
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Just realised that no one has yet to comment on your page so thought that I would - just so that you know that I at least read it.
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