August 19, 2007 - Small Victories

By all accounts, the start to yesterday's evening practice was about as bad as they come.  For one, it started raining during the morning and never let up.  For two, the annual "Unity Fest" was taking place down town and what is usually a 20 minute drive from the apartment where Jesse, Ryan, and I picked up Aerial to the practice site took over an hour.  Karen was not pleased that we were late.  Tracy was feeling sick and had been waiting for us for almost an hour.  The double was on the water hanging around in the rain to do race pieces against us.  To say the least, it was a mess.

Fortunately, bad beginnings do not always have to translate into bad practices.  Ironically, after the morning row Karen talked to us a bit about mental toughness.  The afternoon row gave us an opportunity to put her words to use.

Our ill-begun practice consisted of two race pieces.  We had almost no time to warm up for the first and had very little practice with a new starting sequence Karen taught us Saturday.  I didn't expect much.

Once the row started, one thing was clear.  We were all ready to unleash some power.  Our first 1,000 piece was not the smoothest or the prettiest we've ever done, but it was the fastest, and the fastest by a long shot.  It was so fast, in fact, that Karen seemed pleasantly surprised when Ryan told her that we had not done a mid-race move--a series of more powerful strokes used for strategy--or sprinted the last few hundred meters.

As if to test fait, we lined up for a second piece.  I figured, given the first explosion, that we would be slightly slower.  I thought wrong.  Our second 1,000 meters was faster than our first.  It was a very welcome victory for the crew.

Until yesterday, I think the crew was a bit pensive.  We had not had a signature row that we could really hang our hats on.  I think we all hoped that we were fast, but yesterday's confirmation really increased our confidence, reduced our stress, and lightened the mood of the boat.

Interestingly, the surrounding circumstances of the practice never improved.  It continued to rain, it got colder, and Karen's launch broke down so that we had to tow her to the dock.  No one cared, though.  We finally accomplished something together as a crew.  In a sense, we had a collective victory that overshadowed our individual personalities and differences.  It was a small glimpse of what makes me love rowing: the effort of distinct people acting together as one unified body. 

The next few days of practice will be critical to our success in Munich, but I think now we are all eager for them, we all wish we had more time to prepare and more chances to recapture the feeling we achieved tonight.  It's a good feeling.  It feels like confident anticipation; it feels like hope.