I very clearly need to up my game. To be honest, there is not a day that goes by that I don't remind myself I haven't posted on this blog for quite sometime. I had a whole list of excuses, but then I remembered that real rowers, "Row hard. No Excuses."
I thought that I would share a video that I came across this summer. I'm kind of in love with the Canadian Men's Heavyweight Eight national team from the 2008 Beijing Olympics who won the gold medal. I'm particularly infatuated by their coach, Mike Spracklen and his coaching demeanor. As they say, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so in a news story for the Toronto Star, the rowers were asked to impersonate their coach.
Adam Kreek (with more world gold medals than I can count) says in his Spracklen impression, "Well you may look tired Adam. You can go into the dark, that's fine. Not everyone can be a champion. Not everyone can be an Olympic gold medalist." The impersonation is so nonchalant it is almost insane that someone can talk about something so important in such a calm manner. However, it comes down to a set of choices that a rower can make. You can have excuses, or you can commit and find glory.
As a college rower, it is easy to let a lot of other things in life get in the way of rowing. IF you want to be good, IF you want to row on a strong team, you have to make the commitment. That means making every practice (regardless of your other campus involvement), working out at the gym outside of practice, and making every stroke on the water count.
"Success in rowing is based on the time that you put in." -Adam Kreek
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