This weekend was my first rowing race. It was suppose to be yesterday but wind, rain, and stormy seas got in the way. Today was a much nicer day for it:
It was held downtown at the Wellington rowing club. Not that long ago I was photographing it to to share with Laura. I never guessed I would be playing here myself!
I am completely in love with this sport and am enjoying the challenge of learning a new set of motor skills. I also really like the calm of putting the boats together. I always liked the rituals around getting dressed for basketball - the ankle braces, uniforms, braided hair etc. Rowing takes that to another level. You have to take all the metal riggers off the sides, some of the boat bows off, load boats on to a trailer, count and tie down oars... It feels like packing for a camping trip. After the race, you do it all in reverse and wash down the equipment which adds a car wash element to it.
It also reveals abit about who on the team are volunteering go getters and who am more apt to just chill and watch others work. I was blown away by these kiwi kids in flip flops scrambling around the trailler bars loading and tieing down boats!
As for the race, our club did pretty well, however the one race I was in we came in dead last.. not that I knew at the time.
It was all I could do to watch the stroke rower and try despearately to keep up. This was only my 5th time on the water and 5 hours of rowing practice only gives you so much knowledge and confidence. I am in seat 4, counted from the front of the boat, for those of you who care:)
No comments:
Post a Comment