Brian de Regt’s (Rowing) World Cup Thoughts Part 2

Check out Part 1 of Brian’s World Cup experiences here – shivs

Lets talk about a lightweight obsession – food, and more specifically, peanut butter. While Jon came prepared with like six pounds of the stuff, I just planned on taking care of my peanut butter addiction when we were in Slovenia. Interestingly enough, Jon’s bag was five pounds over weight, and he had to pay a $50 surcharge, but after this story, you might agree that it was worth it. The Slovenia grocery store chain is called Mercator, and there are a couple in Bled, one right near our apartment, one on our way to the course, and another on the shore of Lake Bled, but on the other side. Anyway, when we first got there I had no problem finding and buying up a couple things of creamy American peanut butter, Barney’s Best. Things were off to a great start. This supply, crucially, lasted me through the World Cup, but when I went back to the local Mercator to resupply, they didn’t have any. So I went to the next one down the hill, and much to my chagrin, they only had chunky. Of course, when you’re a slave to an addiction, rationality starts playing less and less of a role, so against my better instincts I bought a ton of it. Jon also knew of my peanut better crunch (haha!), and he couldn’t find creamy either, but he also bought a ton of chunky, so on Tuesday we had like ten jars of chunky peanut butter in the apartment. I struggled through the next couple of weeks, keeping a hopeful eye out for the beautiful blue jar of Barney’s Best creamy, but alas, every trip to the Mercator ended in disappointment. That is, until my last grocery stop, where I encountered twenty jars, lined up in nice orderly rows, taunting me, knowing that I could only buy a couple since I was leaving for Munich in a couple days. Damn those Mercators.

We’ll carry on with the topic of food for a little bit here. Post-WC1, Jon and I were looking to make a bigger impact on the planet (by weighing more), and quickly settled on Pizzaria Gallos, which is just straight baller. Jon’s from New Haven, so of course he wasn’t impressed (he was impressed), but I was blown away. In fact, a couple nights later we went back, and both had two pizzas, although now I hope Guenter, our coach, isn’t reading this. One big issue came when I tried to order a beer. You would think that it’s a pretty simple process, you say “beer”, regardless of what language the waiter speaks, they know what that means, and they bring you a beer. But I tried to get all fancy, and saw a 1-liter item on the menu, under “Pivo/Bier/Beer”, called Radler. Obviously, I went for it, only to discover that I had to suffer through a liter of beer mixed with lemonade or something. Oh well, you live and you learn, and the pizza was top notch.

On to Lake Bled. It’s pretty remarkable, without a doubt the most picturesque rowing course I’ve ever seen, and that includes Lucerne, which is certainly a very close second. But, since it’s such a remarkable place, you have to deal with a bit more public traffic than on other courses. After a tough weekend, which included approximately about 5,000 meters around a 40, Jon and I were both lying down in the boat, drifting after our very last 500 meter piece. All the sudden we hear a commotion, sit up really quickly, only to find that some guy is a swan shaped rowing boat is mad at us because we got in his way. In the same vein, the sunbather get very ornery when you dare to disturb them… by docking at the rowing club. At the same time, it’s pretty cool to be backing into the starting gates and have spectators feet away from you, although they gated off that area at the World Cup. The water is also remarkably clear – so much so that occasionally you’ll look down to see your rate, and see a school of MASSIVE (3-4 ft long) carp, hanging out forty feet below you.

About a week after World Cup 1, Jon and I had a bit of a “recreation day”, where we went and did some stuff we wanted to do, but couldn’t because of racing. One was an epic eight-hour hike to the top of one of the nearby mountains, 2230 meters above the valley floor. As we approached the top we spent about 15 minutes walking through a snowfield, and then, five hours after setting out, had a nice lunch of peanut butter rice cakes at the summit! It was chunky peanuts butter, but it was still pretty fantastic. We probably weren’t the first ones to have our lunch up there, as there were tons of black birds that had no problems at all getting as close to you as they could, in hopes of stealing your food. I had one stand about three feet away from me for a solid ten minutes, hoping that I would leave something behind haha.

Our second adventure was our trip down the alpine slide. Now, to preface this, I’ve occasionally been accused of being cocky. I don’t know what people are talking about but, it this case, I’ll admit that this could be construed as me bragging. But you know what, whatever, I’m still going to tell you. Jon and I hit up the alpine slide in Bled. Now, on all the advertisements, they say you can get up to 40km/h, which is reasonably fast, but also an in-your-face challenge. So I brought along my Garmin GPS, determined to ensure I was getting my money’s worth. Again, I don’t consider this bragging, but… when the results were tabulated, I nearly broke 60km/h. I mean, I guess I’m proud of that and all, of all the hard work that went into not braking once, to leaning into the turns really hard and stuff, and you know, the support team, the guy who put my sled on the chair lift, the guy who took it off and put in on the track, and the guy who gave me a little push at the top, but it’s important not to let things like that go to your head. I’m just happy that I could get out there and perform at 150%.

- Brian De Regt, LM2x

Check out Brian and Jonathan Winter’s video blog for more updates on their European tour - shivs

Brian De Regt began rowing at Norwalk River Rowing in 2001 at the age of 14, and was one of the original members of GMS Rowing Center when it was started in 2000 by Guenter Beutter. After graduating in 2009 from Trinity College, he was selected for the USA LM4- that raced at the Poznan World Championships. This year, Brian will race with Jonathan Winter at all three World Cup regattas for the 2010 season in the Lm2x, with the hopes of qualifying for World Championships in New Zealand.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 7th, 2010 at 6:43 pm. It is filed under Rowers, TEAM USA, World Cups. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.