This fall I worked as the assistant varsity sailing coach at Yale university. This opportunity provided me a look at the logistics and organization that is collegiate sailing. This opportunity also provided me an opportunity to work on explaining and teaching others the skills I need to work on myself, to improve my personal performance on the water. Through coaching, I learned how to deconstruct problems for others and reconstruct solutions for better performance. Coaching student athletes at Yale who were the same age as me, was interesting and challenging at the same time. I found the student athletes to be open to my coaching and very respectful.
One of my goals during my time at Yale this fall was to work on my fitness. While coaching I had full access at the gym. I was able to work on my fitness and be a role model for others about the importance of maintaining a regular workout schedule. I think there has been some major improvements in my overall fitness level. I now need to translate the gym fitness into laser fitness. There is no better way to test fitness than to go hike in a laser and race.
After I finished coaching at Yale I flew to Miami and spent 10 days working and training with members of US Sailing’s ODP crew. Currently, I am in Vilamoura, Portugal working with the Canadian, Belgian, and Finnish sailing teams. I am looking forward to what I will be able to learn from this new training group. It is important to see how I stack up against some of the European competition and utilize some of the lessons I learned from the Worlds in the Netherlands. From November 25th to December 12th, I am training here in Portugal. On December 13th there is a regatta with 60 European laser sailors – Grand Prix 1. I am looking forward to seeing how all the training I have been doing will translate into increased performance at this upcoming event.
All this hard work is to lead up to the Australian nationals and the Worlds in Adelaide, Australia this January. This will be my next long training and competition block. There is a lot riding on the world championships. We need to qualify the USA for a berth for the Olympic games in the laser class at the Worlds. To achieve our goal, the USA needs to finish as one of the top 7 countries has not already qualified for France. There is a good likelihood that we can make this happen since there are several top competitors who have already qualified for the Olympics. I need to do all I can to be ready for this event and I think that everything I am working on here in Portugal and the training I will get to do in Australia will make it easier for us to qualify.
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