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| Our boat--Event 97, Lane 5 |
1. Lake Union 7:36.00
2. BMA Cornell 7:36.96
3. Marin 7:49.69
4. Boulder 7:52.93
5. Lake Merritt 7:54.94
6. Avalon 8:10.77
7. LARC 8:32.22
All race results can be found here.
Everybody says that rowing is a niche sport and that it is hard to find people who understand the sport of rowing. That is usually true until you come to an event like San Diego Crew Classic or the Head of the Charles where there are thousands of competitors, coaches, ex-rowers, alumni, family, friends who all know the difference between port and starboard and that crew is the sport of rowing and not "crewing." If you are like me, just another competitor, you will start to feel very small, towered over by ex-Olympians, current National Team-ers, coaches with multiple national titles under their belts, and other very big, important rowing people. I am always so awe-struck to see these people who will never know me, but whom I know from every detail published in Rowing News.
Saturday afternoon was spent watching various races including the two heats that East Bay Rowing competed in. After the last race of the day, our team got hands on the boat and went out for a short practice. During our warm-up, the boat felt a little rusty, which is typical after a few rest days, hence the reason for a practice row before the race. The practice was not amazing, but it was good enough to get us more comfortable in this new body of water and to get our bodies re-familiarized with rowing.
Since our race was not until 1:40PM, we had a late start and arrived at the race course at 10:30AM to watch other races and to get settled in. At 12:15PM, we had a team meeting. Chris touched on the usual pep talk topics--making sure we leave it out on the water, looking ahead at stern pair. Our coxswain talked about not worrying about the exact rate that we hit and about really working hard the third 500m. At 12:30PM, as the US men's national team was coming down the race course in an exhibition race, we launched. We had a long warm-up and did almost three loops in the warm-up area at the start.
After the start of the Men's Master A race, we lined up in our lane--Lane 5. As our coxswain predicted, we went to a countdown start. In calm conditions and in a straight start where all boats start on the same command, the bow seat of the boat will raise her hand as the coxswain is getting her point. Once the race official sees that all boats have their hands down, he will say the command, "Attention, go!" A 5 second countdown start is sometimes used when the conditions are too windy to wait for all boats to have alignment because it will take too long to get all the boats ready. By the time one boat is ready and the bow seat puts her hand down, another boat will have lost its point and that coxswain will have to make an adjustment. In the countdown start, the official ignores all hands and goes straight to announcing, "5, 4, 3, 2, 1, attention, go!" Countdown starts can be flustering for the bow pair rowers who are often the ones making the small course adjustments and for the coxswain who is calling the adjustments because whether or not the bow pair and coxswain are ready, the race will start.
I do not have the best memory when it comes to races, but here is my view from stroke seat. Our first two strokes started out cleaner than most of the starts that we have had in practice. We seemed to have trouble with the set on a few strokes in the high and settle. I also remember that there was a lot of steering and course adjustments going on in the first 250m of the race. Our first settle felt frantic, and our coxswain called a second settle, in which we found a better rhythm. Our coxswain made a lot of calls, trying to move ahead and away from Lane 4, Boulder. Boulder was slightly ahead, and I could feel them next to us the whole race. I know that I did not look out of the boat at all because it was not until after the race did I even know what the Boulder boat looked like and what color uniforms the rowers wore.
I remember the coxswain calling 750m down and then, calling the third 500m. I remember her call for the last 500m and then, the call for 10 strokes for the legs before the sprint. I remember the sprint and the rate coming up. I remember her call for the last ten strokes, and I remember counting them in my head. And then, it was over.
To me, the race went by pretty quickly. The rhythm felt okay, but not spectacular. The power was present, but the speed of the boat and the crispness of the blades was not there. We hit the rates, we had a sprint, and there was no fly and die. The boat moved; it just did not fly. We had an okay row, not a perfect row. It was no more, no less than what we have had in practice. After the race, there was a sense of disappointment that our race did not feel perfect and that we were not able to pull ahead of Boulder. I have no doubt that everyone in the boat did her best and everyone wanted that perfect race and wanted to cross that line ahead of Boulder, but effort and desire do not always translate into efficiency and boat speed.
Afterward, Chris talked about how maybe if we had rowed a perfect race, we would have caught the 3rd and 4th place boats, Marin and Boulder, respectively. I find it useless to think about a perfect race because it is rare to have a perfect row in the race. The winner of a race may not have had a perfect row, and the boat with the perfect row may not have won. This is where those winter practices become so important, because it is those grueling hours of rowing, erging, weight lifting, cross training that build your base fitness. You must have trained enough, be fast enough that even your okay row will be faster than your competition's perfect row. You cannot expect to find speed and power that you never trained for. Sometimes, there will be a miracle, but for the most part, the boat will only give you what you have worked for. Miracles are rare, that is why they are called miracles. This year, we got a fair trade at San Diego--no more, no less than what we trained for.
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