Rowing Training
Okay, we're at the boatshed. Walk in, drop your bags, and go on through. Don't expect any of the coaches to say hi to you. They won't. Basically, for the first ten minutes or so, you need to carry out speedboats to the water, wheel out the oar rack and wait for the rest of your crew to arrive. When your whole crew is here, you can go for the warm up jog.
Don't worry, you only have to jog about a kilometre. 500m to the toilet block and back again. Off you go, don't walk now!
Puffed? Its time for sit ups and push ups. 30 of each and you have about 1 minute to do them before your coach comes out yelling at you to get your oars and boat out. Go! (And don't forget to stretch!)
Now it's time to get out the boat. Somebody was sick this morning, so you only have 7 people rowing in an eight. You are the lucky one who gets to carry one side of the boat by yourself. It's around 98kg (and if you don't believe me, ask Anna). Ahh...the coxswain has been nice to the other crews going out on the water, so you let them have the closest lauching spot and walk halfway down the beach with your boat on your shoulders. Sore yet? And you haven't even begun rowing.
So once you've got your oars and drink bottles and socks and coxswain into the boat, you are ready to take off. Now when you get in the boat, make sure you don't put your foot on the thin bit of the boat, or your foot will go through. Don't put your feet on the slide either. Or on the foot stretchers. Or on the seat. See that little piece of wood attatched to the bottom of the boat, thats around 2cm wide? You need to put your foot on that, and don't let it slip off. Okay?
So you take off and you row for a few strokes. Now, you come to the hard part. Attempting to put your socks on, move your footstretchers/slide so it's right for your height all in the space of around 2 minutes. And if your coxswain lets you take that long, you're lucky.
I won't go through the boring details of the actual row but suffice it to say that around 6km of repetitive rowing with a few hard pieces thrown in isn't a great way to start the day. Remember, you have to go to school after this! Oh yeah, and all of the aforementioned stuff you do at training, as well as about half of the row itself, is done in the dark. All of it is done in the freezing cold.
So, you get back from the row. Thank goodness it's over you say. Not quite! After taking out the coxswain, drink bottles, oars and socks out of the boat, you must carry the boat back in. And guess what? Your crew was the last one back in to the shore so you had to land even further up the beach than where you took off. Yep, its time to carry the boat again. All 98kg of it.
Oh yeah, forgot to warn you. The water may be cold but the land is colder. Set one foot on land after being in the icy water and the pain is indescribable. You can't feel your feet, yet you can feel the pain. Its really hard to explain, but I'm sure you'll understand in a second when you get out of the water. And watch out for having to walk across the parking lot in bare feet. Ow.