Slow But Steady State Wednesday

It's Wednesday and everyone is starting to drag a little bit. It was obvious today that more than a few of us could use a little more rest. Everyone is experiencing some kind of stiffness, overuse soreness/injury, or being just plain tired. We were a little slower to the bus this morning for practice, but all in all had a great practice. Every day we seem to make it a little bit farther downstream. Despite being tired, I saw some great energy on the water and some boats really starting to move together.

After returning to the hotel, several team members and I did some more yoga and stretching to help combat soreness or just being generally tight. Today we experimented with a little music with our yoga. Rob Penaherrera showed us all how to "move [our] hips like yeah," to Miley Cyrus. It is hard to concentrate on deep breathing when we were laughing so hard! I also showed Katie Messler and Tess Graham how to do the "Single Ladies" attitude hand movements later that day. It's a real shame that we don't have a karaoke machine down here or a crew team dance off! We are a versatile crew in so many ways.

I found my way to the gym afterward, but I hear that there was a fairly intense game of Ultimate Frisbee going on before everyone showered up for our afternoon off. We took the bus to the Lost Sea, America's Largest Underground Lake. Almost everyone tried to catch a snooze and get some much needed rest. Even going to bed early doesn't seem to cut it at this point in the week.

I was convinced that we would see a Fraggle in the cave and was woefully disappointed that no one had ever heard of Fraggle Rock -- Jim Henson's muppets that lived underground and liked to sing a lot.


We did however get to stare down the "Devil's Hole," learn about prehistoric jaguars and moonshine distilerys, touch/hug/kiss the "Bear's Paw" for good luck (again I wish I had some photos downloaded to post!), and take a ride on the lake in a glass bottom boat. Our tour guide gave us a little guff for not rowing on the lake, even giving us two boat paddles. We did however practice our set by rocking the boat back and forth. It was a pretty cool trip.



After that we hit the mall in Knoxville for some food and more fun. Katie, Tess, and I spent about a half hour in Brookstone on their most excellent massage chairs. It's amazing what a little massage can do for tired and achy muscles. I think we could have fallen asleep right there in the store. Even Coach Jim was hooked.

Tomorrow we race. We are going to do some practice racing against North Park University. Bring it on!