on to the finals!

we won our semi! woohoo! We once again had the fastest time of the day, although conditions were highly variable, so I dont place much stock in this fact.
The race went down pretty similarly to on friday, but with some hitches. The headwind was pretty brutal, although after rowing at Redwood Shores for so many years, I think I was better adjusted to it than some of the other guys in my boat. Australia went for a fly and die, leading into the 800m mark, until we started to walk through them, a seat per stroke. After plowing through the Aussies, we sat about six seats up on the poles until about 100m to go. When we started our final push about 350m out, there was no real commitment to the sprint, primarily because our legs and lungs were burning, our vision was blurred, and we wanted to save as much as possible for tomorrow. The poles started moving really big, and we kinda let them walk, until we started to worry about losing, when we kinda freaked out. We managed to hold them, but it didnt go quite as well as we hoped. However, despite a sluggish race, we did win, we did qualify, and we are good to go for the final. I didnt go nearly as deep into the well as I did in the heat, and I think many of my boatmates feel the same.

Tomorrow we match up against Canada (who won the other semi), the Brits, The Poles, The Estonians, and Germany. I anticipate everything being closer, as crews get more aggressive. The key, once again, is for us to stay in our own boat, and focus on the execution of our raceplan. We are the definite favorites going in, so everyone will be gunning for us. The race goes down at 4:06pm German time, 7:06am PDT, and 10:06am EDT.

Other than that, its one more day of sitting around the hotel, playing hearts, watching german tv, and trying to keep the nerves under control. Tomorrow night there will undoubtedly be some wild partying, which should be fun. I am really ready to hop on a plane and go home to California, hopefully with a heavy chunk of metal around my neck.