Stopping time, going inside your head, and simply analyzing the images that run through your mind as you think of what has occurred during the past 12 months. That’s how I sort of review my year. Because I’ve spoken about the great times and the mishaps of the first 6 months throughout my posts, I’ll just come back starting in September. I want to specifically talk about rowing and the lifestyle I adopted.
After a solid summer in Florida, having fun and training hard, I came back to France to start the second year of my master’s degree. With about 3 weeks until Sprint Nationals, the group worked to clean up our rowing and put together the best performance we had to offer. Just to explain the context, in the 80’s, our club was top of the line for the men and had an outstanding men’s 8+. 20 years later, our president wants to rekindle that glory and keep it running. This championship regatta was the first step towards that. As underdogs, all we wanted to do was get to the A final, obviously, realizing that we were amongst 30+ other crews on a distance that separated 1st and 6th by just a few seconds. Long story short, we surprised ourselves, but especially the rest of the opponents by just missing out of the A final and finishing a very close 2nd in the B final. For me, that was a solid way to end a difficult year of rowing.
Coming off something positive, I adopted a culture, you might say, where I trained but with no goals, besides just building myself a good endurance base. When it came time to race the single at the only head race of the fall, I was too preoccupied with my technique and moved away from making my body go through hell and the boat go fast. That performance was deplorable and shameful. I was behind people that usually belong under me on the lists. That was a huge wake up call! I was kind of stuck in a purgatory state at that point. Luckily, my cousin Julien came along. He started making me think about what I wanted, what I was ready to do for that to happen, and how to perceive myself in the coming weeks and months. With his help, I straightened back up and trained smarter. When I say smarter, I mean training at a level that is adapted to what I want to accomplish and understanding what is going to happen during tougher parts. When it came to my erg test, I was confident in my capabilities. If you know me, erging has never been my forte, but I still work towards ameliorating that. I wanted to complete a test by hitting the splits and some. I set out to go 6:34 to do so with a plan that would get me there. I got on the erg and did just that…and some! I went a little faster and beat my PR in 6:32. Finally, I was able to have a positive performance on the machine and an uplifting moment that set me up for progress.
Once we passed that weekend, I took a few days to decompress in Lithuania (that is a story for another post). In November we usually race a duel in a 8x+ against the club of the Basse-Seine. This match is the oldest in France and is 88 years old. It was planned the weekend of the Paris terrorist attacks. We legally weren't allowed to have a race and we also didn't feel like it was appropriate. We moved it to this past weekend.
When I got back, we were closing in on 2016 and our yearly Christmas race: la Coupe de Noel. This was the 50th edition so the club invited many world, European, and Olympic champions from the past including Jean-Christophe Rolland and Michel Andrieux (2000 Sydney M2- Olympic race).
I had set out to race with my buddy Antoine Lagouge, but he was hurt so I switched at the last moment to my friend and teammate Thomas Fadie. We did not have the best equipment and hadn’t practice, but that did not stop us from starting last and finishing first on the 9 km race which had two turns. We won with by raw time, but finished 2nd with age adjusted time. That whole day was a lot of fun and the partying finished in the early hours of the morning with a few stories that I won’t share... I couldn’t stay the whole night as I had an early flight to catch a flight the next morning.
In conclusion, 2015 was a rollercoaster of events, some that I deserved and some that were questionable, but it is all part of life. I learned from these situations and can’t wait to be on top of my game in this coming year while facing an angry crowd of rowers who are desperate to get to the Olympics this summer. I wanted to add that I have moved away from the single toward the pair with Antoine Peronnet, meaning I switched to starboard. We are working on getting faster for small boats qualifiers and helping our 8+ get faster for June.
Until then,
Much love.
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