Rowing is definitely a workout. First of all, your seat slides back and forth so you can maximize your strength. When your seat is at the front of the slide (also known as the “catch”), your oar is behind you, ready to “catch” the water. As you slide back, you pull your oar through the water, using your legs to push off.

When your legs are straight and your oar is in front of you, it’s called the “release.” You then “feather” your blade—meaning you turn your oar so the blade is flat, parallel to the water— move your upper body forward, and then go up the slide, back to the catch position. All of that is one stroke!

Rowing, also known as “crew”, is a beautiful sport. We traveled 45 minutes every day to practice on the Snake River. After we’d carry our eight-person boat down to the docks, we’d put the boat in the water, take off our shoes, carefully step into the boat, and row out of the breakwater until we reached open water.

We practiced races, drills, and worked on technique rain or shine. Unless it was extremely windy, we were out there practicing. We all got used to getting soaked during practice, whether the wind was splashing us, it was raining extremely hard, or snow was falling. The Washington weather wasn’t very kind to us!

We got used to some other pretty weird things happening, too. I still have a vivid memory of rowing past a dead cow.

Practice and Homework

I had to get used to doing my homework while I was eating lunch or in between classes--I didn’t want to be up late the night before an early workout.

In the afternoons, I had to bring whatever homework I didn’t finish during the day to practice with me. I typically would do it on the van ride down to the river. Initially it was difficult because I had to get over the fact that I’m prone to car sickness.

On the van ride back, it was usually too dark to do anything, but I would use the light from my cell phone to go through flashcards. It was sometimes hard to concentrate in a van full of girls, but I did what I had to do!

On the days when it snowed, we would all sprint back to the vans, blast the heat, and try to envision the warm shower that was waiting for us back on campus. Those days, although freezing, were usually the best to get school work done—nobody wanted to talk through chattering teeth!