When the hour was up, my four launched and began to warm up when we saw another bright flash, followed quickly by a boom of thunder. We weighed enough and turned anxiously back to the dock.
Well, the lightning storm never let up. We ended up de-rigging and heading back home. It was pretty disappointing to miss the chance to race the Germans. However, it wasn't like anything had been wasted! We had trained hard in that boat all week, learning each others' strokes and getting a feel for our power. We had improved vastly technically and were starting to show some serious speed. For me, rowing in that straight four was incredible because everyone in it was so strong, talented, and powerful. Feeling that thing pick up during high rates gave me an unbelievable feeling of speed that I had never experienced before. While it's too bad that we never got to see what we were capable of in a race, the hours and hours that we practiced together were certainly worthwhile.
Our straight four: Kitty Mahoney, Olivia Smith, Maggie Bowman-Jones, Abby Young.
Oh yeah, the coaches didn't forget to give us a workout. We did an erg relay. Sounds fun, right?! Haha...
It was 3 girls and 2 guys to a team, on four ergs. We each did 4 x 500 meters all out. By the end of it, more than one person was throwing up and several were not really seeing straight, but did we work hard! It made me realize how much I miss working out with guys. It's so much different! Women are constantly encouraging to each other, but the way that we compete is more subtle; we just glance over at the next erg monitor. With guys though, it's competitive, brass, and in-your-face: "COME ON DUDE, I JUST KICKED YOUR BUTT! THAT WAS TERRIBLE!" Hearing things like that while erging makes you pissed off...but it also makes you pull darn hard! Also, the fact that when I looked over and saw the guys splits in the 1:20's, while I was just trying to maintain 1:43...I think I should erg with my guy friends more often.