Day 8

We woke up a little bit later than we did yesterday, and treated it exactly as we will be treating the first day of racing which is tomorrow. Instead of taking our daily run to practice we all got a ride in our "Europcar." We got to the venue and stretched and did our exact race day warm up. Then we met at the starting line at rehearsed our rac plan. We did our starting sequence, then paddled to the midway point and took 15 strokes at base rating, then paddled some more to the mile and one-eigth marker where we did our closing sprint. We did very well today and our prepared to race hard against Emanuel School tomorrow in the opening round of the regatta.

After our practice we stopped home real quick so we could grab our money then go into town for a little while to run some errands. Some hit the bookstore and others went into the sporting good store to get rugby balls, before we all met atthe Anchor for lunch. Our interest in rugby came when we were watching a match a few days ago where the Us National team defeated the Candadians 20-19.

We got home from lunch and hung around for a little untill Coach Schwaryn and Coach Mingle arrived, followed by our parents and families, who we haven't seen for a week now. It was nice to see our families and have that short visit, and after that we had our dinner. At dinner Coach Lamb spoke of the importance of this particular dinner compared to the rest. It's our first before a race, but it could also be our last. We realized the importance of each race and not to underestimate any opponent, and that being nervous is a good thing. Tomorrow will be a tough day of racing, but if we do what we know how to do then there should be many more exciting blog entries.

Looking forward to wrinting again,

Brad Adams