This weather has been so crazy as of late. The wind woke me up during the night. The back gate had worked loose and I had to refasten it. With all the rain we have been getting the wood was so swollen it would not close enough to latch. It does now!!
My Google homepage had the temperature pegged at 69° when I ran out the door to get to the boathouse. I thought we were going out at 5:30 p.m!!! I was flying over that bridge to make up for lost time after getting the call from Alison at 5:35 a.m.! This morning it is the “competition crew” rowing. Today we concentrated on keeping the boat steady while rowing all eights, and practicing racing starts.
There is SO much to remember to do right. Now I’m getting the feeling of what the collegiate rowers feel every day. Things all fell into place on the row back to the dock. We got our first taste of what to expect an a few weeks as we practiced our first race. We did the racing start, then really hard fast strokes to get the boat speeded up and then back to a manageable rowing pace. The boat was not too tippy, and for being novices I think we did as well as could be expected.
The most awesome thing is: for the first time rowing I felt the “rush”. I’ve enjoyed pushing myself both in the river and at the “Y”, but this morning as I was straining against the foot stretchers for more power and trying to regulate my breathing I got that adrenaline rush. What a feeling!! It has been too long since I’ve experienced that heady abandon of pure joy.
I actually rowed in shorts and a tee shirt this morning. Now that we are getting up to speed we are also getting wet from the catching and releasing of the oars. Alison explained how it takes MANY years to master the oars so you don’t get drenched. This boy was soaked as we hoisted the boat overhead!
When we were packing away the boat, the collegiate men’s team was doing their warm-ups. I often wonder what they are thinking about us “old folks” sharing their space. I know when I was their age in the mid 1970’s the opportunity simply was not there for people in my current age bracket to do this kind of thing. I remember when I was little my dad played baseball for a local tavern. He was in his 40’s then and they called themselves the “Old Timers”!
Home from the row, I found a couple potatoes in the ice box so I was able to fix up home fries/onions, sausage, and egg for a pig out breakfast. I was famished.
There were thunderstorms forecast for the afternoon. Living dangerously, I did up a load of laundry and hung it on the line to dry. Hopefully if the rain does come, the clothes will have dried by then.
Getting to the “Y” at 10:30, after doing some stretches I settled in on the concept II Rowing Machine. I was “Whupped”!! I could barely row at all! I instead concentrated on practicing racing starts: ½ slide, ½ slide, ¾ slide, reach slide, and full slide, followed by ten strong fast strokes.
I like to break up my time on the rowing machines. I was working my back on the Cybex machine when I started a conversation with the black lady on the abdominal machine right next to me. I told her how I pushed fate by hanging my clothes out on the clothesline… now it would surely rain. The sky was threatening thunderclouds as I spoke. What followed could only happen in the south. Her reply to me was:
“Oh, I worked for this white lady who wanted me to hang out her clothes in the middle of winter. That grass was so high in her back yard where that clothes line was. I told her I wasn’t gonna walk through that long wet grass to hang out clothes when she had a dryer. That woman said ‘Ni---r, I aint throwing my purse out the door when we got that free sun and air.’ I left that woman; she was thinking it was still slave times.” She laughed telling that story. I had to say something. All I could think of was, “Boy, and I thought I was cheap!” That got her laughing even more!!!
Life is never dull here!!!
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