Lots of good stuff happening!

Sorry for the delay in my my update but over the last few days I had chance to see the complete spectrum of junior development and all I can say is that the there a lot of good things happening! I am impressed by the spirit and drive of all of the athletes and equally so with the quality of coaching and mentoring the athletes are receiving.

Over the weekend I spent time at the IDR in Philly and saw the JRW Sculling Dev Camp lead the way in many of their races and some of the JRW Sculling Selection Camp working hard to establish their positions in either the Junior Worlds' or CanAmMex Quad. And man was it hot!!!

The JRM and JRW Selection Camp boats represented well and now know much more about their base speeds and things to work on as they gear up for some fast racing in Racice where I doubt it will be able to rival the heat that the athletes are facing at the present.

Upon return to training camp, the JRW 4x and CanAmMex 4x was named and is posted on the site. Good luck to both of those crews as they continue to train for their respective races ahead!

After a long hot day in Philly, I thought it would be a great idea to jump in the car with Laura Simon, our new Coxswain Coach, and take a roadtrip to Pittsburgh, home of Three Rivers Rowing and the site of the 2010 JRMNT Development Camp....and amazingly enough I found it was HOT there too! We spent the next 2 days riding in launches watching some very motivated athletes making lots of changes in preparation for Club Nationals, CanAmMex and a shot at next year's Junior World's Team. Once again I am extremely proud of the coaching and educating that is going on by a committed group of coaches headed up by Rick Brown. This is their second year of dev camp hosting and although last year was a great opening effort, they have managed to make this year's even better. And one way of measuring success is the attitude and spirit of the campers...which was awesome...but also that 14 of Rick's campers from last year found their way into the mix at this year's JRM Selection Camp! I also had a chance to ride along with Coach Pat Quinn, an assistant coach at Malvern, who is coaching the CanAmMex scullers and after seeing the focus and determination of those four athletes, I am excited to now see them race for the USA at CanAmMex in a couple of weeks.

And did I mention it was hot when we left Pittsburgh this morning...only to arrive in Princeton to find it hotter! We had a chance to jump into the JRM Selection Camp launches and observe practice and you could definitely see the effect of the heat as they wrapped up the second practice of the day. My understanding is that they will do final selection by the weekend and then the team will begin to find their individual boat speeds.

The HP Teams are off to Germany tomorrow. I am looking forward to heading over there on Saturday to see them in action and get a chance to work with the athletes as they now get to add the international training component to their rowing resume and experience rowing at a new level.

Tomorrow is also the 2- Trials for the JRW and there should be some interesting racing for sure and I will update everyone on Friday when the dust settles....and we all know one thing for sure already....it will be HOT!!