Flat water, sunny skies, covered bridges, and swans. It was my fifth year racing in beautiful Lucerne, Switzerland in the World Cup and the surroundings of Lake Lucerne and the Rotsee racecourse have become very familiar, almost homelike to me. This year I was representing the US in two events, the W2- and W8+. I had a new pair partner that I had only rowed with a handful of times before we left for Lucerne and also was in the 2 seat in an 8+ that had just been selected the week before. Some might react to this situation by being nervous or intimidated by other crews that were more experienced or had taken more strokes together in the boat. I, on the other hand, saw this as a great opportunity to solidify my rhythm in the pair, work on my length in the 8+, get to the start line a bunch of times and push my limits of pain tolerance by just going as freakin hard as I could.

The night before my first race in the pair I found myself praying to the porcelain gods multiple times during the night. Despite a valiant effort at rehydration and refueling before my race at 9:50 am, I just couldn’t manage to keep anything down. Coach finally made the executive decision to scratch my pair. The next 12 hours were pretty brutal. Besides being very “Hangry” (Hungry and Angry – usually one ensues the next and never a pretty thing) because I couldn’t eat anything, I felt even worse that I had let my teammates and coaches down. While everyone else was down at the racecourse kicking butt, I had a lot of time to myself to think about my situation. I could either lie there feeling sorry for myself and play the game of “what if?” over and over in my head or I could take control of the situation and focus on getting my body healthy so that I could put all the energy I was going to use for five races into one – the final of the 8+ race on Sunday. My teammates had a solid heat race in the eight on Friday that set us up to go straight to the finals on Sunday.

Come Sunday, my body only felt about 95%, but on the way down to the racecourse as I looked out the bus window at the flat water, sunny skies, covered bridges, and swans and at the faces of my teammates (many of whom hadn’t been to a World Cup before), I realized I couldn’t be in a better place with better people and began to feel 110% better.

We pulled ahead of Canada in the last few strokes to win a gutsy (no pun intended) race and earn a shiny gold medal around our necks. Standing there on the podium with the rest of my teammates I just had to smile because it wasn’t hard finding the positive in that situation.

Whether out on the water in her Pocock 1x or racing abroad for the USA, these are Olympic Gold Medalist and three-time World Champion Erin Cafaro’s thoughts from the boat.

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