My schedule up until February has been set.
Every week starts with a training partner coming to windsurf with me. I practice with the sailing team and make sure my GPA remains high. Before going to a regatta I have another training partner come to join me. The weekends are filled with lots of races and then the dance starts again.
October has and will continue to be focused on college sailing. I have been racing the top schools every weekend where I am learning how to prioritize my needs on the race course, where I am learning how to make calls, and where I am learning how to deal with changes on the course. We started off our competition season by winning Women's District Champs at Charleston. I learned a lot about current while beating Charleston on their own river in light wind and strong current. This qualified us for the Women's Atlantic Coastal Champs. Last weekend I raced at Navy where in one day the conditions were drastically different every race. It was like sailing the first race at a venue every time. This weekend I will race at Yale and the following weekend at Connecticut College.
November arrives with a trip to Miami to race at a local windsurfing event where I will debut my new gear! The third weekend we will go to Cornell for the Women's Atlantic Coastal Champs, which is essentially the National Championships of the fall, that excludes Stanford. Thanksgiving weekends will be spent training.
Once exams are over in December I will go to Cocoa Beach, FL to train with the Canadian team and their coach. We will be training until Christmas and then have a celebration. The following day we will pack up and go to Miami for the Orange Bowl regatta.
January begins after the event and we will return to Cocoa Beach to train for another week. I will then return to school to take my comprehensive exam. During the course of those three weeks I will be returning to Cocoa Beach on the weekends for training and getting on the water between my library sessions. The final week will be the one that we've been waiting for; the ISAF Sailing World Cup in Miami. The event also serves as the 2014 US Sailing Team Sperry Top-sider qualifiers. Qualifying for the team is a reward, but not a necessary stepping stone to the Olympics. At the end of the regatta I will begin to finalize my plan for the Spring.
An example of some extra-curricular training on a no wind day at Cocoa Beach.
Look at the money that has been raised so far! We still have a long way to go however. These funds with the new gear will only last through December. The qualifiers in Miami and any events in Europe or Mexico will be expensive do to air fairs and supporting a coach to come. Please continue to support me. Everyone's support will be different, from helping me get corporate sponsorship to hosting a fundraiser to making a monetary donation, but it takes a big team to make Olympic Dream possible!
Thank you so much for your support!
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| Time with a coach like Gebi is priceless. Photo credit Will Ricketson/ US Sailing |
