Ladders and HoneyBadgers

Well, it’s Wednesday. We’ve made it through more than half of the training camp already. Kind of alarming when you think about how fast time is going by. But at the same time, my body and hands have been reminding me that it’s not a bad thing we’re already this far through the camp. I have started to help sustain my energy levels by the usage of multiple Starbucks Frappuccino’s every day (the bottled kind you can buy from WalMart, I’m not that rich). Fortunately, they are not ‘light’ on caffeine, and so provide a nice amount of wakefulness – until the crash.

                This morning it was nice and sunny when we set out to the lake. Yet again there was debate about taking this afternoon off instead of tomorrow, due to a warm day forecasted for tomorrow. We are not doing this, we are sticking to our workout plan. The 12x250m ladder was pretty well run this morning, given a spread of abilities from novice all the way up to ‘been rowing since the dawn of time’.

                We have received a number of comments via facebook about our Harlem Shake video, or as it was also put ‘the worst Harlem Shake video ever’. What I can say is this: by the standards of my youtube account views, 200 views in less than one day is pretty much viral. So thank you for watching.

                Continuing with our usual tradition, I felt like I was driving behind Sebastian Vettel while following Matt from the boathouse to lunch at the Brenau University cafeteria. While there, as per usual, we all stuffed ourselves an awful lot, Matt specifically likes to enjoy an ice cream cone to cap off a filling meal (they do have waffles there but he manages to resist that during lunch and dinner). The cafeteria staff don’t seem to mind the way most of our team virtually runs into the dining hall to eat.

                The afternoon rolls around and I find myself sitting down here in the lobby while the others do things like nap, homework, nap more, watch tv, film random videos, do whatever the lightweight women are always doing while definitely not studying, napping or watching tv. I have heard rumours of pillow fights and crock-pot cooked food in their room.

                For the trip back to the lake for second practice, my car was again invaded by Alex and Lenore. The result – DMX and Ke$ha blasting through the stereo (not at the same time – boy that would be a weird mash up). This also meant multiple selfies and dance parties, etc were taking place while I was driving down to the course.  

                It had unfortunately clouded over and gotten a little windy by the time we reached the lake. Fortunately not windy enough to force us off the water.  After a quick row it was off to dinner. Dinner was the usual entertaining smorgasbord. This evening, those of us who had the pleasure of sitting with Matt got to enjoy a discussion on HoneyBadgers, and other things of that nature. 

Snowbird Looking For Some Sun

She’s from Kingston, and measures to the height of 56 end-to-end glucometer test strips. Quite the athlete, she has managed some significant achievements; a recent one being successful completion of several lengths of the swimming pool without being lapped or drowning. She’s hoping that the trip to Georgia will bring an opportunity to catch some sweet rays and get a bit of heat. Basically, she’s a Canadian snowbird; unfortunately looking at the weather forecast for the week at this point, it will be warmer than here but she may be slightly disappointed. Oh well.  She known to be one of the more sensible and less wild and crazy members of the rowing team. However, certain sources have indicated the she once dressed up as a Chechnyan rebel. Some say that she recently went to a Toronto Maple Leaf’s game and where they didn't lose. And that she recently wrote a book called 50 shades of black. All we know is, she’s called Beth Farnell.

I may not be at re-rigging, I have an exam

This member of our team is proud to be able to touch her tongue to her nose. However, it may be difficult to acquire a demonstration of this talent owing to the fact that she is part of the infamous crew which was received the ‘disappearing act’ award. As part of the questionnaire which was sent around to all of us going down to Georgia in order to gain some useful information for each person’s biography; she responded in a similar fashion to the majority of the team – with a “Land Before Time” reference.  Anyway, her favorite dinosaur is Petrie the Pteranodon. She claims that she ‘may or may not’ be the subject of a tragically hip song, the operative words in that sentence being ‘may or may not’. Unlike most others for this trip, who responded to the question ‘what are you most looking forward to’ with something to do with, food, American stereotypes or Honey Boo Boo, she is most excited to be able to row and then not worry about falling asleep in class later. This is something that wouldn’t be a problem if we decided to practice at a ‘normal’ time, hint hint coaches. Some say that if she was mayor, she would have called something better than transit busses to transport her football team, and that she recently launched her own line of designer Tupperware. All I know is, her name is Alex Stefanovski