Ironically, we traveled to Knoxville, while the University of Tennessee (located in Knoxville) sent their football team to Tuscaloosa to play the Crimson Tide in a long-standing SEC “grudge match.” The Crimson Tide won 41-17 in a surprising blowout against the Volunteers, and Alabama Crew brought back a bronze in the men's varsity four (MV4+), thoroughly stomping both fours Tennessee fielded. Even the trailer-driving went well! My closest call was leaving the race course, where I had a three-inch margin of error from the stern of the Engineer to a tall street sign that was looking to take a bite out of the carbon fiber hull. Jason jumped out to keep me notified of my clearance, and I just squeaked through that one. :-) Aside from that, the drive in both directions went very well; I switched with Drew at that same Cracker Barrel in Fort Payne, because I was starting to droop pretty seriously. After we got back in the truck, having finished dinner, I laid down on the bench seat in the back, and was sound asleep before we had been on the road 20 minutes. Anyway though, back to the race itself. We brought the novice eight up for their first race of the season (MN8+), as well as our MV4+, MV8+, and the double (MV2x).
The double was our club's first event of the day, and as we had not arrived until 11 o'clock the previous night, we had not rigged up any of the boats. Drew, Alex, and I left the hotel around seven o'clock Saturday morning, though, and so we were the first ones out to the staging area in the morning. As more hands arrived, we unloaded the boats and began rigging them up for the day's events. Calvin and Bryan prepared the Two Fast, our double, for their race, although the stabilizing fin was still curing from being attached a couple days prior. The weather had been damp and rainy, so the silicon had not dried all that well, but they decided to take a shot at it, only to have the fin fall off halfway up the race course. They had to scratch (drop out) the race and row their windy way back. Next up was my primary boat, the MV4+.
We boated out at 10:50 for our 11:50 race time, and spent the 5000m warming up, rowing, and getting our first look at the course. Amy, our coxswain for the race, had never coxed in a race before, and it was only Kyle's second race total, so of the five people in the boat, we had a total novice (Amy), a novice rowing varsity with one head race under his belt (Kyle), a new varsity rower with one year of collegiate experience (myself), a new varsity rower with several years of junior and one year of collegiate rowing (Person), and at stroke, a third-year collegiate rower (Drew). Quite the crowd, if you deign to ask me. However, that proved to be an explosive combination, as we took off through the chute with a strong and smooth start, quickly catching the boat directly ahead of us (Tennessee), and leaving the boats directly behind us (Auburn and Georgia Tech). We passed Tennessee by the time we were 2000m into the race, and we quickly opened up water between us, even through a gusty headwind. An island that marked the approximate halfway point came and went, and we continued to push through until we heard our exuberant cheer from the bank: “Row Tide! Row Tide! Row Tide!” Amy called us up into a couple Power 10s, and we cruised across the finish line at 18:44. After we docked and carried the boat back to the slings, Jason said that UT Chattanooga, Virginia Tech, Oak Ridge, and us all looked solid and fairly close, so it was going to be a four-way battle for three spots. However, Oak Ridge did not place quite as well as Jason had predicted, and we beat out Georgia Tech for third place, with UTC and Virginia Tech ahead of us by 11 and eight seconds, respectively.
With the four done for the day, I started derigging it, and Jarrod pitched in to pull off the riggers before he donned his uni for our upcoming race in the eight. The novices boated out for their 1:50 race, and we hung out in the shade for a while, resting and eating until it was time for the MN8+ event. Clambering down a rocky section of the riverbank, we had a good vantage point to watch the race, and we perched there in the bright sun and waited for our red-clad crew to pass. As they came into view and pulled past us, we urged them on with a hearty “Row Tide!” or three. They placed ninth in their event, and looked fairly good while doing it, too.
As often happens, the MV8+ (or in this case, the champ eight event, the difference being the former is limited to collegiate entries medaling, and the latter is an open division, meaning anyone can compete and medal) was nearly the last event of the day, and so along with Alex, Jarrod, Austin, Calvin, and Bryan, Drew, Person, and I boated out for a second look at the race course. I rowed 10,000m on port in the four, and subsequently warmed up and raced an additional 10,000m on starboard in the eight. Even at practice, it is a daily surprise to find out which side I am rowing; it makes me stay on top of things, because I cannot get comfortable and zone out in any one seat or on any one side, because who knows if that is where I will be come the next day! Anyway, this time we were behind another Tennessee boat and in front of Georgia Tech, the last boat in the event. We did not pass anyone, but neither were we passed; however, we gained water on Tech (moved ahead of them) and Tennessee (pulled closer to them). That was only good enough for fourth place, behind Oak Ridge, a junior rowing club that came out and kicked butt and took names on the day. Again, it was a champ race, so the boat's placement counted, and it whipped all of the collegiate boats in the even pretty badly. Next in line was Tennessee (who pulled out a surprising low-17 performance, nearly 50 seconds ahead of us, whereas last week they bested our time by a mere eight seconds), and they were followed by UTC, who consistently beats us by a handful of seconds in each event. The race, aside from giving me a pretty new blister on the inside of my right hand's ring finger, was a fairly good one, although we kept getting blown over at times by the crosswind.
The Head of the Tennessee was a solid race, and it showed significant improvement over last weekend's race in Chattanooga. In two weeks we will be back in Chattanooga for the Head of the Hooch, so we will see what kind of improvement we can muster over two weeks of practice and workouts.

This weekend is the Head of the Tennessee--or rather, tomorrow is the Head of the Tennessee--regatta, and we are leaving this afternoon. For the first time, I am going to be doing the bulk of the driving with the trailer; Jason wants one of the younger guys (me, at this point) to learn the nuances of driving 60' boats strapped onto a 45' trailer in towns, traffic, and thoroughfares. Up until now, I have only driven the trailer once: on the way back from the John Hunter Regatta in the spring, and that was not even from Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where the regatta was held, but rather from Fort Payne, Alabama, where we stopped to eat dinner at Cracker Barrel on the way back. Knoxville, the site of this weekend's race, is a good five-and-a-half hour drive, and I have been told the final approach to the staging area is through a gnarly residential area with windy, narrow streets. We shall see how that goes...

Hey everyone, next weekend I am going up to Birmingham with the crew team to participate in the AHA's Heart Walk--except with a twist: we are bringing up ergs and making it an ergathon and joint fundraiser for both the AHA and Alabama Crew. I would really appreciate any sort of small donation if you find yourself so compelled. Just visit my page to participate. Thanks for taking a look! :-)

Q. Would you rather row two or three 2000m races within a few hours of each other, races at a very high pace and pressure, or two 5000m races in a day, at a lower pace, but still fairly high pressure?
A. Bring the 2000m races.
Quite seriously, racing a pair of five kilometer courses on a river is pretty rough, especially considering that to accomplish that, you essentially row the course four times, because you have to get to the starting line before you take off--rivers do not generally run in circles of 3.1 miles. During a typical spring race, I think I usually rowed about 8000m, possibly as much as 12,000m, if I was entered in three races. In the fall, I am going to be regularly rowing 20,000m, which is a really long distance! 12.4 miles of rowing is not easy, especially when half of that was against the current. Enough with the complaining though, I really enjoyed this regatta; it was my first race as a true varsity rower. In the four, we placed fifth out of 16 boats, getting beat by Clemson, Tulane, Emory, and UTC. The first three are traditionally strong crews--and Clemson was just hauling hard all day--and UTC's varsity is comparable to our own, so that was a toss-up that we just lost. However, top five showing is nothing to look down upon, especially since we were only 42 seconds behind the leaders, and over that distance that is not a horrendous gap. The eight did not fare nearly so well. We rowed an excellent first half or three-fifths, and then Georgia Tech passed us, Tulane began to slowly edge up on our stern, and things just started falling apart from there, making for a very poor second half or last two-fifths. Looking at the placing, it was a pretty sorry performance: ninth out of 11 collegiate boats. However, our placement in the field was right where we should have been, considering who had beaten us: Georgia Tech's A, B, and C boats, Clemson (again), Tulane (again), and Emory (again as well), UTC (but not by much), and Tennessee (who are mysteriously averse to rowing in any event but the eight; they just edged us out as well). We beat Clemson's B boat and Auburn (yay!), so it was not all for naught. We have room to improve though, and next Saturday at the Head of the Tennessee, we will be looking to pick up a few places in the field in the eight, and hopefully bringing back medals with the four.

Combination #1: Drew, Person, Alex, and Kyle, with Brenna coxing; 18:27/5000m
Combination #2: Drew, Person, me, and Kyle, with Billy coxing; 17:37/5000m
Combination #3: Drew, Person, Austin, and Kyle, with Billy coxing; 18:31/5000m

By those times, it looks like I should be in the varsity 4+ at this point. :-) The two days I did not seat race, I rowed with the novices in the Tenacity. That made for some interesting and learning experiences. I had to be patient both with the coxswains and other rowers even when they were making less-than-clear calls, or rushing the seats, or not maintaining a steady pace, and so forth. The first combination rowed on Wednesday, and I sat seven seat that day, with Jarrod back at three, making one-fourth of the novice boat varsity, and half the ports of the starboard-rigged Tenacity varsity rowers. Then again on Friday, when the third combination rowed their time trial, I was seven seat, but the only varsity rower in the boat. Today was also the first day that the novice guys tried rowing all eight. It was interesting to be sure--and very wet. Fortunately, we made it back to the dock without losing anyone to the river due to an ejector crab or other mishap (like the Two Fast's flip on Wednesday with Bryan and Calvin in it), although Richard, a novice back at four seat caught three pretty big crabs, and overall the ride was pretty floppy and not very well set. However, they said that they liked it--even if everyone, including the coxswain, was soaked at that point--and they wanted to get better. It was eye-opening for me to see how much a person can learn in a year; while rowing by sixes, we hit a fairly large wake, and we were pulling through it just fine...except for the fact that the crest was breaking just over the top of the stern gunwale! The coxswain, watching the water creeping toward the gunwale and finally pour over it, panicked a little, and called the rowers to “weigh enough” (stop). I chuckled at the moment of panic, having been in a very similar situation just last year as a novice. After the initial surprise passed, we got underway again, and enjoyed other adventures en route back to the dock.

Since last Friday morning, we have been whittling down the varsity rowers to determine the seating for the main varsity four. After three sloppy 500m heats on Friday, we managed to get through seven 500m heats on Monday with dependable results. From there, Alison took the top four boat seatings and raced them over 1000m on Tuesday morning. Taking the top three (since the second and third seatings were very close on their times and there was enough room for error to make either one faster) boats there, Alison is racing each arrangement over 5000m over the remainder of the week, to get a better overall picture of how the boat would do over the actual race distance. Yesterday's seating was Drew, Person, Alex, and Kyle, with Brenna coxing; their time was 18:27 for the course. This morning, I swapped in for Alex (and then tomorrow I will switch out with Austin; the other three guys stay the same), and Billy coxed. Of course, 18:27 was the time to beat, so we were pulling for that, and we made it--by 10 seconds shy of a full minute! We rowed a 17:37 over the 5000m. The experience down the boat is almost comical in its differences. At stroke, we have Drew, a fourth year senior collegiate rower; Person, at three seat, is a junior with one year of collegiate experience, and a few years of junior-level rowing; at two seat, I have rowed for one full year at the collegiate level; and finally, in bow, there is Kyle, who has never rowed before in his life. Drew is the lone returnee from last year's main four, and so for him, the three new additions to “his” boat are not nearly as good as the guys that have been with him in the boat the last few years, and so for him, the row was a lousy one. On the other end of the spectrum, there is Kyle, as green of a novice you would find in that boat, and to him, the time trial went really well. Person and I were in the middle on it; yes, it was a fairly solid row, with lots of good qualities about it, but even so, there were definitely things to improve upon.
And with that, tomorrow brings the final heat into consideration on the 5000m, with Drew, Person, Austin, and Kyle seeing what they can do towards beating the other two boats.

Today's practice on the Black Warrior involved seat-racing, a highly time-consuming and somewhat complicated process of gaging rowers' ability in and effect on a boat's speed. And of course, the morning had to be chilly since it was the first practice of October. With our smaller number of rowers this year, the coaches have been trying to put together the best possible boat combinations to allow for solid competition and success. Our most competitive boat will be a varsity four, for which we were seat-racing this morning. Basically, the eight varsity rowers vying for positions in that varsity four were swapped in and out of The Heart of Dixie over the course of more than an hour and a half and seven 500m races. From those seven races, Alison is taking the fastest three boat combos and racing them again tomorrow morning over 1000m, as a sort of “double-checking” process, plus the fact that our races are more about speed and endurance rather than pure speed. Out of the three boats selected, I was in two of them for sure! :-) Person and Drew were the common denominator across them all, and Person, Drew, and I were three out of the four rowers in the two fastest boats for the day. While the first two combos rowed 2:13 and 2:14 (if conditions are ideal, which they rarely are, times around two minutes and faster are splits to shoot for), the first boat Person was put into rowed a 2:05, and then when I was put into the boat, we cranked out a 2:03! The middle boat--which I was in as well--rowed a 2:04, so there were some pretty close combinations. Considering we are now less than two weeks away from departure for the first regatta of the year, things are going to start picking up very quickly.
ROW TIDE! :-D

Oh bother, my posting is becoming very spotty indeed. :-\ I want to post more, but there never seems to be a time window large enough to allow me to sit down, relax, and type out a thoughtful, fairly well-written post. I suppose I shall have to learn to post little bitty notes here and there whenever I get the chance, instead of resisting the urge to post because I do not have time to give a detailed itinerary of the last N days.
This morning we had our first practice on the water. There were nine rowers, four coxswains, and two coaches between the Tenacity and both coaches' launches. The not so exciting part: spending an hour reviewing and re-reviewing the basics of technique and form, a necessary but monotonous exercise. The exciting part: I got to be stroke! For those of you less acquainted with the significance of such a title, allow me to elaborate. Stroke, you see, is the first rower in the boat, counting from the stern; he is the one directly facing the coxswain or the stern of the shell, and it is up to him to set the pace and lead the rest of the rowers in the boat. The Tenacity is rigged starboard, meaning stroke seat is starboard rigged, and the seven remaining seats alternate sides from there. I am really the only guy on the team right now to be able to row both port and starboard proficiently, and since we were short on starboards this morning, I was elected from the “either” pool to the “starboard” pool, and from there, Jason put me at stroke seat. I was surprised and a little stunned at first, because as I listened to him line up the rest of the boat, I thought for sure I should have been four-seat, but after further clarification, I found I had heard correctly: I was to be stroke-seat for the morning. :-D I was nervous, but I think I did well nonetheless.
After practice, Alison announced our afternoon workout: an hour of power. That meant we faced one hour of rowing on an erg at a slow, steady--even easy--pace; it is more of a mental challenge than a physical one. The workout assignment bode ill for me, as my Wednesdays are very full. However, after a Spanish class, two Accounting classes, an Accounting lab, a Management class, a meeting at UCC, and a little over an hour of studying for an upcoming Accounting 310 test with three of my classmates, I rolled into the rec center to start my workout at 9:15 this evening. I adjusted my heart rate monitor, tightened the straps on the foot stretchers, set the workout time, and at 9:16, I began to row. And row, and row, and row, row, row, row...well, you get the idea. Fortunately, for the first bit of my piece, there was a guy to my left who apparently thought that rowing would get him in shape but had no idea how to actually row. He stuck it out for about 10 minutes, and then he left. About 15 minutes later, two more guys showed up, and as I listened to them talk, I ascertained that they were a couple of novices that had joined the club, so I talked with them for a while, and they were around for about a half hour, and after they left, I finished out the final five minutes or so on my own. It was not all that bad, especially when I had the novices there to talk to and row alongside.
So...that is the excitement for the day.

Yesterday morning, after practice and a quick breakfast with Matt, I drove over to the boathouse (for the first time in...well, since the ninth of May) to load the Two Fast onto the women's trailer for transport to the quad as a major prop for our GOBD table. Alison and I worked to get the area around our table set up as strategically as possible: we had the shell along the sidewalk behind us with a poster board of crew photos leaned against one of the stretchers, and a large laminated photo board on the boat itself. I had to bug out shortly thereafter to get to my Spanish class, but the setup went smoothly, and by the time I had a chance to swing back by the table, we already had over 50 people signed onto the list. I worked between two and three o'clock, and I stuck around until about a quarter after three, when Calvin and I walked to Alston for our Management class. When I left, we had 73 names on the list of interested individuals, so hopefully we can get another energetic group out this year, and hopefully more of them will stick around than last year's crop of novices! It has been exciting to see how far I have gone with crew in the past year; last year at this time, I had signed up (under the watchful eye of Jason, who looked very intimidating at the time) but I had not yet even been to the interest meeting. Eight months ago, I worked the Spring 2007 GOBD in the Ferg with Nick, and now, just yesterday, I not only worked the table, but Alison had also enlarged a picture of my boat--the novice 4+ from the spring--into a professionally made poster for the recruitment table! :-D

Yesterday morning began what is a very exciting part of life for me here at UA: the rowing season! :-D
At 5:30, I awoke to my first of three alarms, and after the second one shrieked at me four minutes later, I begrudgingly got out of bed, gathered my gear, and trudged up the Riverside Community Center steps to my bike. Problem: the front tire was flat. Fortunately, by that time it was only 5:43, and I still had a full 17 minutes to make the trip across campus to the Aquatic Center--so I ran. Eight minutes later, I trotted into the parking lot and spotted Person working on some stuff in his car while he waited for the rest of the crew to arrive. As it should be, the four main officers (Drew, Calvin, Person, and myself) arrived first, and then the coaches and remainder of the team trickled in gradually. Although I had already ran a mile just to get to practice, I still went out and ran a second mile as a “warmup” with the team. Chad and I ran at the head of the pack and chatted as we made the rounds of the football practice field, the track and field stadium, the indoor tennis complex, Coleman Coliseum, the Thomas Sewell baseball stadium, and back to the A/C. Most of the morning's activities involved beginning-of-the-year logistics (something of an extension on last Thursday's officers' meeting at Drew's), but we did have a set of weights to run through, as well as an erg piece. As I had hoped when scheduling my classes in the first place, I was able to complete my “afternoon” workout component long before my first class, and I caught a ride with Jason back to the Ferg, and walked back to Riverside from there. Whew, it had been a long time since I had touched a rowing machine, but it felt energizing, and Jason said my form was still fairly solid for having been away from the technique all summer.
Today, I drove to practice and then rowed the warmup piece, because for some reason, my right foot started bothering me in a very painful manner yesterday afternoon, and it hurts at random times as I walk and when I attempt to take a right turn too sharply. I have never had a stress fracture before, that I know of, but from what I know of such maladies, I may have procured one finally. I should get that looked at... Anyway, we rowed two 15-minute pieces as a team, in steps of 5-4-3-2-1 minutes at 18-20-22-24-18 strokes per minute, following the stroke at the front of the “wing” formation we set up with the ergs. Person led the first piece, and I thought Drew was going to take the second, but he sat down on the erg to the left of stroke's position, so I jumped in to lead the group. I did fairly well, especially at 20 and 22 spm, but holding 24 at an easy pace was not as easy as I tried to make it, and then dropping back down to 18 took patience as well. Overall though, it was a strong performance. :-) The only item for afternoon workouts was lower body weights, so I knocked those out in about 25 minutes, and then headed back to the dorm to shower and get ready for breakfast and class.

Now, on to Accounting 310!

Highlight #11: Taking Gold at John Hunter
In my second sprint race of the spring season with the crew team, the novice four I was in placed first in our flight. The stern pair--Person and I--were in that race directly after getting off the water with the varsity eight, where we had placed dead last out of five boats. The day was quite incredibly cold and windy; when we got up at the hotel at 5:30 or so that morning, there was snow on all our cars! When we arrived at the regatta, there was a stiff breeze blowing off the water, and that didn't help things much at all! Warming up was fun...and quite crucial considering the frigid temperatures, so we ran for a bit, and then stretched out well before carrying The Heart of Dixie down to the launch dock and shoving off. Fortunately, we didn't have too much hang time between the point when we arrived at the top of the course and our race time. As we slowly edged our way into our assigned lane and backed into the stake boats, the wind was whipping across our port bow, making it difficult to hold a good point. On top of that, the start command caught us completely off-guard, but at least those two facets of the race were the same for everyone. We leaped from the blocks and powered through our start and high ten, which put us out in the front of the pack of six boats, with Virginia Tech and UT Chattanooga hard on our stern. John at stroke seat and Brenna in the coxswain's seat led the other three of us, urging us on with their determination and words, and Justin, Mark and I pushed through the entire 2000m with Person to beat UTC by two boatlengths of open water! Once we crossed the finish line and Brenna called “weigh enough,” we gladly relaxed and looked around for the competition; I was sure that there was a boat ahead of us, but the others said there was no boat out in front of us--we had been the boat in front! We happily and wearily rowed the Dixie back to the docks, where the rest of the team was waiting for us to help with the oars and congratulate us on our victory. The air was still freezing cold, but we were pretty well fired up about that race. :-)

Highlight #12: Dad Vail Regatta
In just my first year of rowing, I had the privilege of competing in the nation's largest collegiate regatta. Between the SIRA races and finals week, when we left for Dad Vails, practices and workouts were daunting at best, overwhelming at worst, and through all the sweat and pain, there was always Derek railing at us from the launch about the crews we would be racing against in Philadelphia. “They'll be bigger, meaner, faster rowers than you've seen yet this season. If you thought John Hunter was a step up from Aiken, or SIRA was a step up from John Hunter, then you'll be in for a surprise!” That motivated us to push through those workouts; we didn't want to drive 16 hours to Philadelphia just to fizzle out with a lousy race, so we rowed hard, rowed harder, rowed our hardest, and then rowed again in one, two, three, four, and five-minute pieces through the course of that last week of training on the Black Warrior. However, it all paid off on the Schuylkill in downtown Philadelphia when all three of our boats held their own with the best in the country, and my boat lopped a good 10 seconds off our fastest time at SIRA. No medals were earned, and there was no advancement to the semifinals, but we had showed up and rowed our best, and that what we had worked to do.

Hey, it's been an even week since my last post...consistent posting hasn't been my strong point this month, although I have posted every Monday up until now. :-)
Last week, I left on Thursday with the crew team for Oak Ridge, Tennessee for the second time in three weeks for the Southern Intercollegiate Rowing Association Championships. Sixty-five teams, mainly from the southeast, but also from other areas of the country, gathered for a three day regatta on Melton Lake.

For nearly a third of our existence as Alabama Crew, we have hosted an annual regatta on the Black Warrior. It's still very small, with only three or four teams attending, but it's also fun to have a competition “at home.” This past Saturday, Rice, South Carolina, and Vanderbilt joined us for a chilly morning on the river, taunting an imminent storm that had been forecast for several days prior to the regatta.
My day started off rather rushed: I had set my alarm for an hour later than usual, since we didn't have to be at the boathouse until 6:30, which is approximately an hour later than the normal time throughout the week. Somehow, for the second day in a row--because Friday morning it had happened as well--I woke up, turned off my alarm...and promptly laid back down “for a few minutes.” The next thing I knew, it was 7:23, so I fell out of bed, dumped two large bags of clean laundry on it, rummaged through the collection to find my rowing jersey and compression shorts. After I pulled those on, I put on a regular pair of shorts, tugged on my sweet Alabama Crew jacket, tossed my wallet, phone, wind pants, and water into my sling bag, and was about to head out the door when my phone rang. It was my coxswain, Billy, wondering where I was; I picked up and said, “I'm on my way.” He said, “Good, 'cause we're racing at eight, so we have to boat out in 20 minutes.” “Wonderful,” I thought. I trotted down the hall, hopped in my car, drove up to Blount to pick up Stephanie, and then zipped across the river to the boathouse. By the time I pulled in, I had time to park, run in, throw my bag in the boathouse, sprint down the boat ramp, and jump into the Dixie with Person, Justin, Mark, Billy, and Calvin all there waiting for me. We shoved off and started warming up down the river.

I'm going to start this now, just to get something up. However, as it is already a few minutes after 10, I'm going to keep it short and get to bed relatively “early.” :-P This past weekend I was up in Oak Ridge, and it was absolutely frigid. 'Twas warm--ridiculously, unseasonably, and yet pleasantly so--all week, all week, that is, until we were getting ready to leave. Then it got cold. Within a span of, oh, three days or so, the highs went from mid-80s to barely breaking into the 40s, and lows dropped from 50s and 60s to low 20s. Brr. I drove from dinner at Olive Garden outside of Knoxville to our hotel outside of Oak Ridge on Friday night after we had gotten into town, and there were flurries swarming the air. Saturday morning, at 6:30, it was 29 degrees, with a windchill of 20, and there was a 1/4-1/2“ dusting of snow on most of the vehicles in the parking lot, which was more than enough to create a few snowballs to peg people with! :-D Ironically, that was the most snow I'd seen since early spring 2006! After the excitement wore off, it just left us cold. It was definitely not a morning when one wanted to be in a unisuit, out on the choppy water in a small boat, with a gusty wind splattering frigid droplets of water everywhere. However, that's exactly where we were for a combined total of more than an hour of time. No, it wasn't long, but that didn't make the time any less cold.
We had three races in quick succession, and then a break of a couple hours before our last race of the day. The MV4 boated out first for their race at 9:08, and about 15 minutes after they placed third in their heat (missing the finals by one place) and docked, the MV8 boated out for a 10:04 race, wherein we placed dead last--but not by much. Another short breather on land, and I boated out a second time, this time with the MN4, and well, we took gold. :-D Yep, in our first competitive race as a boat together, coxed by Brenna, John, Justin, Mark, and I won our first collegiate race, beating UTC by a full boat length! That really improved the whole day; we crossed the line and heard the airhorn sound to indicate we had finished, and Brenna said, ”We're in first, guys." I was stunned; from three seat, I tried to turn around and look past the bow of the boat to see, because I thought for sure there was someone in front of us. But there wasn't! We had taken off from a very poor start--albeit everyone else dealt with the same problem--but even after a poor first stroke, we calmed ourselves and with Brenna as coxswain and John as stroke, we powered our way through those frigid 2000m to victory in seven minutes, 27 seconds.

In a turn of weather disturbingly reminiscent of the end of spring break prior to the Augusta Invitational, it has once again become a little chilly. Well, relatively speaking, it's not all that cold, really, but after a couple weeks in the 70s and 80s 'tis definitely a tad cool. This morning at practice it was in the mid- to high-30s. That coming directly after two days of muggy, humid weather when I couldn't wait to peel off my already sweaty shirt after our warmup run. Weird. Saturday it's supposed to have a high of 55 and a low of 29, and Sunday will be three degrees warmer at its peak but share the same low. But that's here in Tuscaloosa, and I'm going to be four and half hours north of here Saturday morning! Brr. I guess my crew jacket will come in handy a couple more times yet this semester. :-) 'Tis been three weeks since I left campus last, and it'll be my first time in Tennessee since the Head of the Hooch last fall. Several of the other guys on the team went to an indoor rowing championship very early in the semester, but I was unable to attend due to my RA interviews. I'll be back late Saturday night--“Easter Eve,” if you will--but I'll try to get a blog up on Sunday about the race...and finish it before it's two weeks after the race! :-P Now, I'm going to get some work done on the rough draft for my paper, which is due Monday morning, and I have a feeling I won't be working on it much this weekend...