offthewater.wordpress.com

The US National Team has chosen a great location to spend the winter for many years now: 30 minutes south of San Diego, on its own campus is Chula Vista Elite Athlete Training Center. If you’ve been listening to a lot of the podcast, My Favorite Murder, it seems like a great place for a potential serial killer/Uber driver to dump the bodies of six young women. Think about what it would be like to spend 3 months pushing your physical limits in an intensely competitive environment with 25 other women whose cycles are slowly syncing from eating the same food, being on the same schedule and spending all of their waking (and also non-waking) moments together? They’re on the phone at weird hours of the day, making long-distance relationships divided by 3 (in one case 6) time zones work.

It’s the largest regatta in the world (idk, didn’t actually fact check, but I eyeballed it) and I will also claim that it’s the most inclusive too, as long as I’m throwing stuff out there. All of us, good-old American rowers are going meet-up at The Charles River, don our finest bean boots, try to talk our way into the “list only” Harvard boathouses and pay a bunch of money to stand in a heated tent with beer… The Charles is so cool because it’s a way for the younger athletes in the sport to see what the next level of rowing looks like. If I would have been a little more introspective and less clueless, I would have grasped how cool it is that a walk-on like me, with a little over a year of rowing experience, could be at this regatta with the OG, GOAT, single sculler.

It’s easy to look at the 15 instagram posts I’ve published this year and assume I’m a well adjusted, thriving rower. Here’s the reality of this year: I was doing a training plan with almost double the mileage of college. It’s not a lot, but it’s enough. But I cried because I’m going to be a lot more tired before it’s over…

I haven’t seen a rowing account be this funny since the early days of Fat Ergos and Colombia Lights. I am living in fear that something of me will someday be posted by them, but let’s be real, it would probably be really fucking funny, so w/e. A product of the UK, MORM is throwing shade all over the British rowing scene. I’m not super tuned in to the collegiate rowing scene across the pond, so some of the jokes are lost on me, but it’s a hilarious insider account. The MIT bois have divided their team and decided that the starbs can go to hell by making it clear on this beautiful insta account.