Today was my last row! Tomorrow I’m leaving San Diego bright and early! 5 am depart, woo hoo! I’m a bit concerned that I won’t get back to campus until Sunday night before classes start. I fee so unprepared! I don’t have books and I haven’t looked at my schedule! I guess I can figure that all out tomorrow night…
BEfore I get into this post, I apologize for the issues with formatting with my last post, and I apologize for this post in that I can’t get the pictures where I need them. I believe this is a result of my bad internet connection combined with my own incompetence. Sorry!
So without further ado, here are today’s pictures!

Breakfast at the hotel (for the last time, finally):
A whole wheat bagel with cream cheese, eggs, and an orange. I also had a muffin and a few fruit loops on the side. (I must admit I have a weakness for fruit loops when I’m staying at hotels).
Lunch was my last time eating at the cafeteria in the training center so I wanted to make it count! I started with a salad with red wine vinegar and olive oil, plus salt and pepper. For my main dish, I tried the corn flake crusted chicken but I realized I don’t really like fried chicken so I gave up on it pretty quickly. Instead, for protein I added some sliced turkey to my salad. I also had a cinnamon raisin english muffin with butter, because, well, it’s my last opportunity!
For dessert, I had a taste of chocolate froyo, plus oat bran cereal with chocolate Silk soymilk and peanut butter. I miss my peanut butter at home! The peanut butter at the hotel has trans fat and sugar and is kind of gross. I would like to think that the peanut butter at the Olympic training center at least doesn’t have trans fat, but it definitely has sugar. The peanut butter at the dining halls at school is that trans fatty kind. When I asked the person in charge of dining at my dorm what type of peanut butter it was, she told me, “It’s the kind with trans fat, not the natural kind, but I like it.” Yummm clogged arteries! So yes. I was “that girl” who brought her own peanut butter to the dining halls. No shame. I love my peanut butter! 🙂 But what if an unplanned peanut butter craving strikes? What am I to do then? In the past, I was forced to indulge in the trans fatty kind, but this quarter, I’m prepared. I got a bunch of the individual serving Justin’s peanut butters, and I intend on carrying them around with me everywhere I go.
I’ll explain the other pictures later, let’s get back to my day!
We had an 8 am depart, so it was nice to sleep late again (well, relatively). During our row this morning, my hands hurt so much! I have never really gotten blisters from rowing, until yesterday, and today they were killing me! To be fair, they are pretty tiny blisters, but they still hurt, and it’s definitely new to me! I’m used to having hands of steel! After our row, we had to de-rig the boats and load them onto our trailer for the long drive home. Once that was done, we headed to our last lunch at the training center. I wanted to grab some more Special K bars but they were all gone. I ended up eating 2 other bars.
After lunch, we went to the Olympic store, and I bought a USA rowing t-shirt so I can march around pretending to be an Olympic rower.
We were supposed to go on a hike for our afternoon workout, but we were behind schedule, and when we got to the location we were supposed to hike from, we learned that the only way our hike leader knew to get to the trail was through a golf course that didn’t allow pedestrians. Instead, we drove closer to the beach and parked, and walked through downtown La Jolla, to the beach. The picture above is the scene we met at the bottom: a sunset on the beach! What an amazing picture!
Afterwards, we went to a nearby teammate’s house for dinner/a team party. The house was absolutely beautiful, and the last picture above is the view from their back balcony. The family brought in caterers who made us delicious Mexican food. I had a chicken taco, plus rice, beans, and of course, tortilla chips and guacamole. I’ve been seriously avocado deprived since I’ve been at camp, so I needed to capitalize on the opportunity! The family also ordered 125 mini Sprinkles cupcakes, which were easily devoured. I tried the Red Velvet, and chocolate with white icing. Both were good, but had a ton of frosting. I also snacked on peanut butter pretzels and M&Ms. Needless to say, I am so stuffed right now! After dinner, we had a white elephant style gift exchange. The gift I brought was well received; it was a sleep mask with an elephant face on it, complete with the trunk! I received a t-shirt with an alligator on it, which I am pumped to wear to practice. It was so much fun seeing all the wacky things people received. This was such a fun night, and a great end to camp.
Well, I better be off to bed! I have a long day ahead of me! We leave at 5, and who knows how long the drive will be with traffic and whatnot.
What do you do on long drives?