Racing in the Head of the Hooch Regatta

Monday afternoon was open for me so I was able to get to the boat house early to unload the boat trailer. John from the varsity crew was there when I showed up. Together we were able to get the oars, stretchers, and small stuff pretty well taken care of.

Once the other people began to show up we were able to get the sweeps unloaded. I was on the trailer lowering the sweeps to those on the ground. I felt like I was 20 years old again hanging off the trailer supports working with the boys!

A good group from the masters club showed up to help rig up the boats. This was the first time we all worked as a group with the collegiate rowers helping them to rig up their boats. This means a lot to me as I don’t want our club to be looked upon as a burden by the collegiate rowers. We are all such novices; I was always intimidated to just jump in. I think that barrier has been broken.

We were moving the rigged up sweeps into the boathouse, Kaley the cox was calling “You lazy guys, get ‘hands on’”. I ran over to help out and she said, “I didn’t mean you Jamie!!!” I had to laugh and I told her to yell at me when ever I needed it, I was just one of the boys!!!

Hurricane Ida officially hit land this morning. It began to sprinkle last night just as we were finishing rigging up the boats from the race. I slept in till 5:00 this morning. It was Stumpy pawing at my nose that finally got me going. It has been a steady rain with gusts of wind blowing the leaves off the trees. This is the perfect morning for a huge greasy breakfast. No better way to start that out then home fries with lots of onions cooked with lots of butter in the cast iron skillet.

Stumpy insisted on making his rounds in the rain. It was a wet cat clawing at the screen to be let into the house at 7:30 a.m. He finished up the last of his wet food and is now curled up on the bed with Daggy.

It is time to pour another cup of coffee and get back to documenting the Regatta in Chattanooga.

The motel had a breakfast set up: Nothing really fancy, bagels, muffins, juice, coffee and the like. There was a crock pot of gravy for biscuits… I was afraid to eat that kind of stuff that has been just sitting around. We all left early to see Charley and Will launch off in the doubles competition. Alison then walked us up to the bridge to scope out the race course.

My stomach was starting to knot up and the anxiety level was rising. We stopped at the registration tent on the way back to the sweeps. I grabbed an apple, banana, orange, and a moon pie. The banana was eaten on the fly, and the apple was devoured before hoisting the boat up.

It took a while to walk to the launching dock. It was quite a sight to see a line of boats in either direction. We passed the safety inspection for the heel ties and bow ball. The launching dock was mayhem. I think I read there was a boat casting off every 20 seconds.

We launched off and began the ordeal of rowing against the current to the starting chute. We worked through drills and exercises in “holding the set”. Poor Tina and Amy our bow pair really had to work. They were the “steering wheel and first gear” to maneuver us around the other boats as they bunched up as we neared the start. With the current being so strong it was impossible to hold steady in any one spot. There was one mansion we passed I don’t know how many times! You want to use the row up to warm up, but still have the bulk of your energy for the race.

Looking downstream it was quite a sight to see the river just filled with boats. All I could think of was the “Miracle at Dunkirk” at the start of WWII when every boat available on the English Coast crossed the Channel to France to rescue troops stranded on the beaches of France. Steve who was in Jason’s boat said he counted over 80 boats!

When we rowed across the river I knew it was time to give it my all. This is where time just does not exist. We built up pressure rowing through the “chute” to be at speed when we passed the start line.

In a head race you have to work hard, but you have to be steady to make the end of the race. This is where all the mornings on the Concept II's payed off. There are so many things I’m concentrating on:

Sit tall and look ahead not scrunching the shoulders, stretch over the ankles before moving the knees, slow the seat down, REACH for the rigger for a long stroke, early roll ups, lift at the catch, catch together, don’t dig the blade, RELEASE together…. Really there is nothing to it!

Robin our cox called out drills: ten good strokes for release, ten good strokes for catches, and I see the 1,500 marker. This was where I nearly broke down. I’m so used to rowing in meters on the Concept II’s I’m thinking we had only done 1,500 meters! Dear God, I’ll never last till the end!

We got passed by one sweep and we could see Jason’s sweep gaining on us. This was the main rivalry: the race between Jason and Alison’s boats. Alison was in the stroke seat. She brought the stroke rating up to 29 strokes per minute for the last 1,000 meters of the race. Once I saw the bridge abutments pass by I knew the finish line was not far away. I gave it all I had and prayed I would not catch a crab

We survived the race in one piece. Nobody crabbed or had any disaster. We accomplished what we needed to do. It was a scramble to get off the dock. We were not in the correct positions height wise to make it an easy trip back.

The race results were:

18    00:16:01.1 Black Warrior Rowing Club A              

                    Handicap: 18 seconds

19    00:16:36.7 Black Warrior Rowing Club A                                  Handicap: 27 seconds

20    00:17:01.1 St. Louis Rowing Club C                                      Handicap: 51 seconds

21    00:17:29.6 RocketCity Rowing Club, Inc. B          

                    Handicap: 76 seconds

We did not come in last, and my sweep (Alison’s) won the “rivalry race” by 31 seconds.

With the race over I realized what an experience this has been for me. Getting involved with rowing and this diverse group of people has truly changed my life.

Robin and Alison sent out E-mails in regards to this. I’m just going to copy and paste from those mails to finish out this entry:

Robins E-mail:

Rowing family,

I just wanted to say thanks to all of you for a really great experience this weekend. Twelve months ago, I never would have pictured myself in a boat powering down the Tennessee River rowing all eight in one of the largest regattas in the country. I never expected to have that kind of opportunity, nor did I ever expect to have the courage to do something like this.

But being with all of you makes the decision to suck it up and try an easy one.

So it might not have looked like it at the end of the race today (I'm still not well; sorry if I looked gloomy!), but despite the hiccups, I was really thrilled with what we did and I just wanted to remind everyone of what, exactly, that was:

• This was our 4th race ever as a club.
• This was Chrys's first race as a cox.
• This was Ken and Kim's first race ever.
• This was the first time either boat rowed together in full racing line-up as it was meant to be.
• No one crabbed.
• No one ran the boat into/perilously close to a navigation buoy.

And for my boat, if you didn't hear it, the dock ref going out complimented you all on your professionalism and timeliness getting the boat up, out, and off.

I know that in the spring for the sprint races, we will face a new set of challenges. I also know that the more we do this as a club, the better and more confident we will become. We will perfect our BWRC cheer and our racing uniforms. We will be stronger in the boat and work harder to find the right ratio and rhythm. We will get more blisters. And you know, we'll have fun doing it.

But I also know that twelve months ago, I never would have been able to say "Yeah, I coxed a boat at the Hooch last year."

Alison’s mail:

Aw man...Robin beat me to the "yay team" email! Darn. Oh well....my turn!!

In short I want to basically reiterate the very same email and give my praises to the entire group for absolutely representing our newly founded club so well! As I have said before, I thought long and hard about taking the team to this kind of event knowing how complicated and hectic it would be, but I felt that despite our novice experience, it needed to be something we should experience!

As I tell all my ACC rowers, with every race you row, learn as much as you can from each mistake and each triumph. Keep these experiences close to you as you grow and learn from them.

Folks, I want to thank you for your continued loving words of thanks to both me and Jason. We appreciate that you take the time to thank us and love us for coaching. We thank you back for giving us your trust and your dedication to make the impossible...possible!

Row Warriors!