The Road to 2012

PRE-TED CONFERENCE

I’m sitting here on a Sunday afternoon with clothes strewn around my room, trying to figure out what to pack for the mind-blowing week ahead of me. Through a wild stretch of luck this past year, I managed to get myself invited to the TED Conference in gorgeous Monterey, CA as the assistant photographer. For those of you who don’t know TED, take a look at Thomas Dolby’s fantastic description of the conference. I’ve been going to this thing since 2005, but this will be my first year as a volunteer and should get me backstage and talking to a lot of the big speakers.

Though next week is a rest week in the program, I can’t wait to get out on the California coast on my triathlon bike. No, let me boil it down a little further–I can’t wait to get on my bike without donning four pounds of warm clothes that don’t really do too much to fight the bitter, bitter cold of this blasted land. More on TED: From a mental perspective, this is one of the only weeks of the year where my mind is boggled on an hourly basis. It’s really quite exhausting, but I come away better every year, open to possibilities and with more connections (and TED freebies) than I could imagine. I’m showing up at TED this year armed with my kayak2012 business card:

a nice little something that I’m hoping will garner interest in our goal. Really, be sure to take a look at that link up above and get a feel for what TED is all about. The talks on their website can change your life, and they’re all free for download! Post comments here on the blog about what you find

LONG-TERM TRAINING PLANS

In other news, David and I sat down today to discuss our long-term plans for these Olympic dreams we’ve been so bold about sharing with all of you. It’s becoming clear that to really reach our full potential, we need to throw all of our effort into this one boat and push for the K2 spot on the Olympic team with all of the will-power at our command. That’s going to mean plenty of sacrifice, but it’s also going to mean that we need to be fairly fierce about working our way into the best K2 training groups on earth. We’ll be starting out with the US team in Chula Vista after we graduate, something we’re both very excited about. From there, if all goes well, we’ll pull our way up to the next rung of ability and begin the slow, painful climb up towards the upper reaches where the giants roam.

To start down this road while still at school, we’re going to need to raise some serious funds and work with either Princeton or our local Canoe Club, the WCC, to purchase two kayak ergometers so that we can continue our kayak specific work during the winter season. We want to thank everyone who’s donated so far–you can track our progress towards these two ergs with the ChipIn widget over to the left in the sidebar. We’re almost a third of the way there! Seriously, all of the guestbook posts and personal messages we’ve gotten have been really inspiring.