Indoor Training

Beginning in late November, the team put away our boats for the winter and headed indoors to hit the ergs. What is an erg? Well, in short it is what might more commonly be known as a rowing machine, but ask any rower and you might get a slightly more negative description of what an erg is that may or may not include some cursing. From the end of November to the middle of February the erg becomes the center piece of every competitive rower's life. If I were to compare an erg to something it would probably have to be a screaming infant. It pretty much consumes your life, it gives you hell everyday, exhausts you until you think you can no longer function or keep it together, but at the end of the day you have no choice but to embrace it and be thankful that it's there because the payoffs it gives are incomparable. So essentially, it's what I would call a love/hate relationship and depending on the day, the love or hate may triumph. (Maybe the infant comparison wasn't the most appropriate but it's what came to mind so I decided to go with it.) 

This year's winter training has taken on a new component. We were lucky enough to be given a racquetball court that is front in center in the rec. And when I say front and center, I'm not exaggerating, and if you've been in the rec even once this year you know what I mean. Our newly claimed erg room is the first thing you see when you walk in the rec, a small rectangular room with 2 glass walls that holds nearly 30 ergs in it. If you get the chance to see the room when not in use it looks almost pristine; however, come by the rec anytime from 4-7:00 Monday-Friday or 9:00 on Saturday morning and it transforms into a giant sauna as the sweat dripping of each rower's body starts making the whole room so humid that the glass walls begin to fog. Add in sliders, which connect the ergs together to simulate rowing in a boat, and you soon draw a crowd of at least 4-5 people that just stare for a good 5 minutes before continuing on. We essentially sweat in a giant fishbowl for over an hour a day that the entire campus can come observe and joke around saying, "man, I'd hate to be them." 

And what is all this winter training for? The even more celebrated or cursed, 2k! Spring racing is considered sprint season, but when was the last time you sprinted for 7-8 minutes straight? A 2k is the ultimate testament of athleticism and after pulling your first one, you can add in insanity. You start off the first 500m thinking, hey this isn't so bad, then you hit 700m and as the lactic acid starts building up in your legs, you start to question how you can't even be half way done yet. Once 1000m comes you don't know how you will continue, but somehow you pull each 100m with each stroke hurting more than the last. Legs burning as the lactic acid keeps building up you come to the last 250m and you have to sprint it out for one last minute. As soon as you think the entire room is going to close in on you as your vision starts going you've reached the last 5 strokes and  somehow regain some sort of energy to finish strong only to be able to collapse when the monitor hits zero. And then as the lactic acid pulses through your body you stand up from the erg barely able to walk as your legs shake underneath you. Oddly enough after completing 8 minutes of hell, your also full of pride because you realize what all the training was for. And that's just on the erg, the payoff of spring racing is still to come. 

Megan

Rowing in the South

 People start rowing for many reasons. In places like New England, rowing is a tradition. No one asks you why you join. No one questions your sanity when you wake up at 4:30 am and have to break through the ice to safely launch your boats. No one pesters you with annoying questions like: "How big are your canoes?" Sporting traditions are engrained deeply in society. For most of the world, this is soccer, cricket, etc. In America, we have our own traditions: baseball, America's pastime, and now football. Although rowing may not rank among baseball and football on the national scale, rowing is arguably the oldest sport in America and unique in the fact that it is also deeply ingrained in Western Europe. Why do sports matter? Why is it that sports play such a large role in defining our society? Perhaps sports carry such weight because they are communal events. People play sports together; people watch sports together. What do people talk about at dinner? Sports. What do businessmen make small talk about before signing deals? Sports. Even more importantly, ask most people where they learned about ethics, teamwork, or perseverance, and they will reply, "Sports." 

 Crew is not yet a tradition in the South, but the sport has been growing. This is essentially the founding time of rowing in the South. The reason why junior high and high school aged athletes start rowing are much different than those of the new rowers in the Northeast. Many of my friends began rowing in high school because the team did not have try-outs. Others started rowing because they wanted acceptance on a team that had a reputation for being inclusive. Some began rowing because they wanted the chance to compete on a national level. I began rowing because I hated golf and needed a new spring sport. I did not begin rowing because I thought that it would be a great physical challenge. I did not have aspirations to row in college. I had no concept of what rowing would become for me. I could not foresee the depths to which this sport would change me. 

 Recently, after receiving the news that my high school has decided to terminate all funding for the team, I have been reflecting a lot lately on why my friends and I started rowing. After five years of rowing, it is hard to remember. And, in many ways, it does not matter. I have become a better and more complete person because of rowing. It is the end result that matters. During these times, rowing must be preserved. Administrators and athletic directors unfamiliar with the sport cut rowing first in times of funding shortages. They do not realize that their actions will have a lasting effect on the status of the sport in the South. While it may not seems like it carries a significant influence, the decision of my high school to cut funding to the only high school rowing team in Georgia will have a lasting influence. It sends a message to the whole southeastern region where high school and collegiate teams, club and varsity alike are struggling for existence. It is in these times when the perseverance of the athletes to race competitively on a national level is most necessary, and that perseverance can be found in every member and coach of Vanderbilt Crew. 

--Erica Curtis

October Rowing

This month the Vanderbilt Rowing Club attended two away regattas. Hobb’s Island Regatta was in Huntsville, AL and Secret City Head Race was in Oak Ridge, TN. Both events were successful for our team. The Varsity Men’s 8+ and Women’s 8+ both took first at Hobb’s Island. The Men’s A 4+ and 8+ also took first at Secret City, the Women’s varsity 8+ took second at Secret City. At Hobb’s we raced (and beat) Alabama’s freshman team. This was a big victory for us because they are a NCAA sanctioned Division 1 team. They are comprised of recruits who are payed to row. Because we beat them by 22 seconds, Bama’s coaches decided not to be so embarrassed again and instead raced their varsity boat against us at Secret City. We lost there by a minute and a half. We were sort of disappointed and sort of flattered by this decision on the part of the Bama coaches. I have a friend on the Bama women’s team that told me they were jogging the other day and talked about how Vanderbilt’s Women’s team should start the road to becoming D1 because we are good competition for them. This was another flattering thing to hear.

We were all a little disappointed with our performance in the fours. Mainly this is because we didn’t have time to seat race for them so we can make an A and B. Instead we spilt up our eight by stern four rowers and bow four rowers. This made it hard for us to row well together and we didn’t medal in either boat at either race.

We had a morning practice last week for the first time this year. I actually love practicing in the morning. For some reason, when I wake up very early in the morning, I have more energy during my day. Especially when the first thing I do is work out. The row we had that morning in our 8 was the best we had had all fall. There is something magical about that early morning lake, watching the sun rise, going to breakfast with the girls when we get back to campus, I loved it. I was probably the only one, however.

As we move into November, we are looking at Head of the Hooch, our biggest race of the Fall season. The training is getting harder, and after the Hooch, we will move indoors for winter training, which is even harder. This is the time of the year I start to question why I row. Putting myself through physical agony every day for several hours certainly doesn’t seem like something I would want to do. But this time of year also reminds me why I row. I look around as the sun sets on the lake during practice, I remember laughing with my teammates while we stay overnight at regattas playing games and eating good food, I continue to see the reasons that I stay on the team, and the reasons I joined to begin with. I love rowing, and as much as it stinks to have to come off the water, I have been happy with our success this season, and look forward to the Spring Sprints more than you can possibly imagine.

Anna

Rough Month

Dear fellow VIP-ers,

Hello, Matt and Emily here. Last time when Andrew talked to you he discussed the love-hate relationship that crew tends to involve for all of us. Never has this felt truer than in this past month. Several of the varsity rowers got so fed up with rowing that they decided to quit, including one of our VIP members.

What to say about that? The team is basically our family, so when someone leaves, it hurts. We understand their reasons, so we’re accepting them and moving on with what’s left of the team. However, we now have exactly eight varsity men and nine varsity women, with no coxswains. As coxswains steer the boats and tell us what to do, they’re kind of important. Fortunately, we have a plethora of awesome novice coxswains and rowers, who are all ready to step it up and lend a hand to our struggling varsity side. We're really grateful for all of them.

Essentially, what all the anger, frustration, and sadness boils down to is a new question for our research this year. On one side, we’d like to ask why people row. On the other…why do people stop rowing? This question will be included in our documentary, featuring the VIP member who is no longer a rower.

In better news, we’re looking to get some fantastic footage this Saturday, at 6 am (yikes), of our first race of the season. We’re having a scrimmage against the Auburn and Georgia teams. This will be the novice’s first ever competition, which is super exciting in and of itself. We’re also looking forward to it, because they just started rowing by all eights this week. It’s going to be a crazy day, and we hope to be telling you about our success next month. Until then, VIP-ers!

Attention, Row!

My name is Andrew, and I'm part of the Row Row Row Your Boat VIP project. We're a group of friends on the Vanderbilt Crew Team who are examining a question that crosses all of our minds at one point or another: Why do people row?

With the season starting back up, that question crosses my mind more than ever. Only a few days after we moved in I spent eight hours getting sunburned and waxing boats. And did the same thing again a week later. After many of us spent the entire summer off the water, our first rows were somewhat rough and not the enjoyable rows about which we all like to tell people In addition to all of that, we're busy recruiting for our freshmen squad. How am I supposed to tell someone else to row when my relationship with the sport is best described as love/hate?

I believe everyone in our group has asked themselves a lot of these same questions. Yet we all still go out six days a week, rain or shine, and work as hard as we possibly can for our own little corner of glory and collegiate club rowing fame. Now more than ever I'm glad we've decided to take a closer look at the oldest intercollegiate sport.