Colonial Erg Sprints

Today we had our first competition (called an ergathon) for crew since we ended last season and started winter conditioning. We aren't on the water yet (two more weeks!), but we've been erging our butts off and doing lots of cardio and junk (ergs are the rowing machines). Today we went down to William and Mary for an Ergathon, and JMU, St. Mary's, UMW, W&M, Purdue, and U of R were all there. It was actually a lot of fun, which I didn't really expect. Everyone on the team just cheers for each other and helps each other out, and unlike the regattas from last season, you can see them pulling and how well everyone is doing the whole race. I really enjoyed it!

For spring season, all the races are 2Ks, as compared to 5Ks from last fall season. I'm excited for our first regatta on the actual water, because I've heard they are just so intense. I started the season with a 2K time of 9:14, which I think was just January 17th. A little over a month later, my 2K Personal Record (PR) is now 8:30, which I was pretty excited about. I'm definitely not the fastest by a long shot, but considering I was never athletic before this, I'm excited!

Some of the girls team waiting for the ergathon to start!

Catherine (our girls captain) and Colleen, Varsity rowers.

Dom and Chris right after they ergged. Chris was first in his heat and he got off the erg about to die, lol. The faces we make after we finish are a little bit scary!

The also have a coaches race. Our coach Sam (blue shirt) coxes Amelia (purple shirt) and has been really pushing her to pull a 2K in under eight minutes, so she let Amelia have at her as her cox for the 500m coach dash.

Watching the races was so much fun... and got SO intense the closer to the end everyone got because everyone is just yelling and hollering!

Haha. There's me on the erg. I was actually right next to a girl from JMU that I went to middle school and high school with, so that was a little extra motivation :). Melissa got first in our heat, and I had second in our heat, so VCU definitely dominated that one.

I love this picture. Amelia had just finished pulling a 7:56 2K! She ended up in second place overall, and a girl in the last heat beat her by ONE second. It was so intense. Lucia nearly passed out, but she did awesome as well!

We seriously are such a lucky team because we have some of the BEST coxes. I love Kavya. She is in the Honors College with me, and we started crew together not knowing what we were getting into and how much we would love it! She quickly became a coxswain and LOVES it and is SO good at motivating us and pushing everyone to do better than their best. Her face just says it all.

The coxswains also had a 500m dash, which was really fun to watch. We had Kheim, Kavya, and Wendy racing!

After we had all raced! Everyone on the girls team beat their best time of the season so far, so we all did extremely well. The ergathon definitely helped motivate me, and really just proves how far we've come in a short amount of time. To me it also shows how awesome our coach is and that she knows what she is doing and what we need to be better rowers.

Two of the three Gold Hammers that our team got! Eian got first in the Novice Mens category, and Victoria got first in the Varsity Womens pulling a 7:27 2K (faster than our coach's all-time PR of 7:28!). Victoria and Amelia also got another Gold Hammer for the Women's 10K relay! SO awesome!

Joining the crew team is probably the best decision I've made so far while in school here. Last semester at the beginning of the year I really just hated school, and I contemplated transferring out of this place. Once I joined crew and really starting getting to know the sport and the team, I started to like this place a little bit more. It's definitely a time consuming sport, which is good because it gives me something to do and think about besides school. I love how much more in shape I am and how active I am now! When I told my family back in September that I was going to try it out, we all kind of laughed because it was totally out of character. As far as sports ever went, I was on the summer swim team as a kid (where everyone just had fun), and played Parks and Rec sports in elementary and middle school. So definitely not a very active person, lol.

In two weeks the crew team is headed to Florida for Spring Break, and after hemming and hawing for ever over the idea, I finally decided to go. Although I'll miss just hanging out lazily at the house, I am SO excited to be able to row in Florida with the team! It's going to be the first week back on the water, lots of sun, and of course some sand and waves, too :)