The day of her last race at the Rio Olympics, silver medalist Gevvie Stone woke up at 2:30 a.m. She couldn’t sleep, she couldn’t eat. It was not the way she’d hoped her second and probably final Olympics would go.

“I felt horrible,” said Stone, a Marion summer resident. “Then I got an email from one of the guys.”

The email encouraged her not to win, but to have her best race.

“If I ended up with second to fourth and had my best race, I’d be happy with that,” said the 31-year-old. “That helped me go for it.”

“The guys” are a group of men, mid 30s to mid 50s in the Boston area, with whom Stone has rowed for much of the past two years. Stone’s father and coach Gregg Stone connected her with the all-male group, which turned out to be a game changers for the Olympic hopeful.

“They do all my hard workouts with me. They not only push me to go faster and to work harder, but I want to do them proud,” she said.

Stone said she’s always loved team rowing, so rowing with the guys has been helpful as she competes in single sculls.

Stone, the daughter of rowers who met at the 1977 World Championships and whose mother Lisa Hensen was also an Olympic rower, began rowing in earnest in high school. She went on to crew at Princeton. Stone joined the national team system after graduation, and when she didn’t make the quad team, she looked to singles.

While attending medical school at Tufts University, she kept pursuing single sculls, taking two years off in advance of the London Olympics for a chance at the podium.

Stone got a spot in the 2012 Olympics during the “last chance regatta,” and finished seventh overall at the games.

While Stone admits she had a difficult time getting motivated at London, she said, “It was a really fun race and a really fun regatta for me. You can finish seventh and still be thrilled with the outcome.”

But even then, people were nudging Stone towards Rio where they assured her she would have a chance at medaling. Stone wasn’t so sure.

“I idolized the people on the podium. I didn’t see myself as one of them.”

In the years between London and Rio, Stone changed her mind. She finished medical school and devoted two years to training, improving her strength and speed.

After spending several years rowing part-time during hospital rotations, her motivation was stronger than it had ever been.

“There’s nothing like not being able to train to make you want to train,” said Stone.

With her dad coaching, Stone qualified for Rio at the 2015 World Cup, going faster than she had in her first stint at the Olympics.

“I have an inkling that was actually my best race,” she said of the regatta, in which she came in second.

Competing against the same athletes who would be at Rio solidified the fact that, if all went well, she could leave the 2016 Olympics with a medal around her neck. Still, said Stone, “There are always things that can happen.”

In the semifinals in Rio, Chinese rower Duan Jingli outpaced Stone at the end of the race. “I was so pissed about that,” she said. “I was really motivated and more aware of her for the final.”

When the finals came, Stone rowed hard and at the halfway point she knew things were looking good.

“I had this moment of being in the zone,” she said. “I knew I would probably end up on the podium. By the last five strokes, I knew I was safely in second. It was pretty incredible.”

Once on the podium, Stone was finally in the place every kid who ever watched the Olympics has imagined.

“I was crying and laughing and who knows what else,” said Stone. “That’s a moment I’ll remember forever.”

Now back in Massachusetts, Stone will begin applying for her residency as an orthopedic surgeon. She has a few items on her bucket list too – work at a hospital in Ghana, do a cross-country bike ride. What isn’t on her list is training for another Olympic medal…well probably not.

“Tokyo is almost definitely a ‘no,’ ” she said.