It makes me very excited for racing season, as I have been away from Sprint racing for four years. There is just something about head to head/side by side racing that is more intense and captivating than head race season. Sprint race season is when crews race 2000 meters (1.25 miles) in lanes right next to each other. There is a competitiveness and "do or die" mentality about it, unmatched even on the ergs. After all of the practices and preparation, crew's do what they have trained for -- what we live for.
"The feel of a good row stays with you hours afterward. Your muscles glow, your mind wanders from the papers on you desk and goes back, again and again, to that terrific power piece at the end of the workout when it felt as if you and the boat were flying, as if you legs were two cannons and your arms were two oars and the great lateral muscles of your back were pterodactyl wings and the brim of your baseball cap was a harpoon." -- Barry Strauss from Rowing Against the Current
Good rowing is a feeling as much as it is a physical output. A rower will chase the feeling of a good row for the entirety of his or her career -- be it one stroke, one piece, one practice, one race... It feels like sheer perfection when a crew finds itself in sync with one another and at peace with the water itself. A good crew can make racing look good. Peaceful or serene even. However, there is a lot of training, guts, and sheer determination that helps them accomplish that. Outside of the boats it looks like a finely orchestrated ballet, inside however, there is often blood, sweat, and gut wrenching toil.
"The rower need to know technique and has to be in shape. He won't wrong by using strategy. Yet what it takes to win races is the ability to reach inside and pull out something to keep you going -- no, to go faster -- when you have nothing left to give. There's a word for what that takes and the word is not magic, the word is guts." -- Barry Strauss from Rowing Against the Current
Unlike other sports, there are rarely surprises and upsets in rowing. Essentially, you can only be as fast as you practice. Sure the pressure of a race can help you reach a little bit deeper or hold out a little bit longer, but racing is simply proof of how hard you have been working.
"In the early months of training you're thinking 'What the hell is all this for?' Because the race is so far off. There's so much tedium and discipline and brutal effort to hammer through. You have to resist the subconsious desire to put an end to all this self-inflicted hardship. But as the days pass and you feel yourself getting stronger, you begin to live for the next day. You punish yourself if with a will in training, because you know you're facing a race that will suspend your life. Somewhere in the race, you will find out what it is you've been working for. And your asking big questions of your body, and when the right answers are coming back, it's a feeling you know you will never forget." -- Dan Topolski from TRUE BLUE, The Oxford Boat Race Mutiny
No comments:
Post a Comment