Training Camp
It's about halfway through the winter training camp that my team's on in Florida. We're training in the same area as a very good women's crew; let the libidinous collegiate sex games begin!
Honestly, as a college male, I can safely say there are fewer factors more motivating that the opposite sex. Coxswains, I'm afraid to say, don't count. We spend all our time with them as it is already, so it's really hard to impress them. I will confess, whenever we're on the water with the other crew and we row by one another, our catches are a little crisper, our tapdown is a little faster, and our set is always a little more...well, set.
In any case...
I have always had doubts about whatever it is that I do at one time or another. I don't know if that makes sense, so I'll try again. Every once in a while, I get despondent with my choice to row; I wonder "why am I doing this? What compels me to sit in these ridiculous looking boats and row for over two hours a day, while my amount of racing time is maybe 1/100th of what I practice?" Sometimes it's a bad practice that sets me off, and other times it comes out of nowhere. Maybe one day I just feel I'm too tired of working as hard as I've been doing, and I don't think I want to do it anymore. It's rare, and I've found the more I do the sport, the less it happens, but it still does occur.
That's why trips like this don't just mean spring speed. Personally speaking, they're also a break from the monotony of winter training, when the 15th minute of a piece is the same as the 25th, when there's no difference at the start and the finish of a 6K because you've been staring at the same damn wall/mirror/whatever for the past 100 strokes. It's a time to get back to the basics of the sport: your boat, your teammates, and moving with both of them over the water, together. It's a time when raw power and aerobic capacity aren't always the most important traits to have to move a boat. It's a reminder of what proper backsplash looks like.
I'm sure anyone who's been on a team trip knows, these kinds of training camps also help bring oarsmen together. Living in close quarters, spending most of your waking moments with them, even cooking with them (as in our case) teaches you things about teammates, whether you've known them for a year or four. It's where those lifetime bonds that the novice coaches sold to us at the recruitment meetings (remember those) are made, and you experience much of what life is about in such a short time. That is what the sport is about, beyond finish lines and 2K times, and I think if you ask almost any oarsman, he'll tell you that that is what makes crew so special.
EDIT: We returned to our homes after one of the team's most successful camps in recent memory. No booty of the neighboring women's crew was tapped, making this camp a little less successful, but still the most in recent memory. Because they were good looking. And they talked to us. And we didn't know them before we got there.
Honestly, as a college male, I can safely say there are fewer factors more motivating that the opposite sex. Coxswains, I'm afraid to say, don't count. We spend all our time with them as it is already, so it's really hard to impress them. I will confess, whenever we're on the water with the other crew and we row by one another, our catches are a little crisper, our tapdown is a little faster, and our set is always a little more...well, set.
In any case...
I have always had doubts about whatever it is that I do at one time or another. I don't know if that makes sense, so I'll try again. Every once in a while, I get despondent with my choice to row; I wonder "why am I doing this? What compels me to sit in these ridiculous looking boats and row for over two hours a day, while my amount of racing time is maybe 1/100th of what I practice?" Sometimes it's a bad practice that sets me off, and other times it comes out of nowhere. Maybe one day I just feel I'm too tired of working as hard as I've been doing, and I don't think I want to do it anymore. It's rare, and I've found the more I do the sport, the less it happens, but it still does occur.
That's why trips like this don't just mean spring speed. Personally speaking, they're also a break from the monotony of winter training, when the 15th minute of a piece is the same as the 25th, when there's no difference at the start and the finish of a 6K because you've been staring at the same damn wall/mirror/whatever for the past 100 strokes. It's a time to get back to the basics of the sport: your boat, your teammates, and moving with both of them over the water, together. It's a time when raw power and aerobic capacity aren't always the most important traits to have to move a boat. It's a reminder of what proper backsplash looks like.
I'm sure anyone who's been on a team trip knows, these kinds of training camps also help bring oarsmen together. Living in close quarters, spending most of your waking moments with them, even cooking with them (as in our case) teaches you things about teammates, whether you've known them for a year or four. It's where those lifetime bonds that the novice coaches sold to us at the recruitment meetings (remember those) are made, and you experience much of what life is about in such a short time. That is what the sport is about, beyond finish lines and 2K times, and I think if you ask almost any oarsman, he'll tell you that that is what makes crew so special.
EDIT: We returned to our homes after one of the team's most successful camps in recent memory. No booty of the neighboring women's crew was tapped, making this camp a little less successful, but still the most in recent memory. Because they were good looking. And they talked to us. And we didn't know them before we got there.
posted by Anonymous at 20:22
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