It’s July, and I still haven’t finished a summary of the past crew season. I had put this off for so long that I didn’t even remember that I had completely erased my first draft (at least 500 words) and was trying to find the document so that I could continue writing it. Oh well, there goes my half-hour scavenging through google drive. My guess is that I erased it in shame that it didn’t fully capture the essence of my excitement.
Anyways, being part of crew this past year was truly a rollercoaster of emotional ups and downs, as well as physical ups and downs. Because of this, I spent an hour of my time creating an elaborate graph summarizing my experience.
Don’t worry, I’ll be talking about this in incredible detail. You can take some time to analyze the graph yourself, but I’ll first lay out the key terms of how I measured my success, work, and attitude over the course of the year.
Speed
The main checkpoints of this were, of course, 2k times. I did seven in total, which you’ll see labeled in black. I also took into account general erg workouts and seat races.
Confidence in speed
Sometimes, my erg scores were exactly how I wanted them to be: on target, on pace, feeling good. Sometimes, I beat seat races as expected OTW. However, on other days, I would miserably fail workouts—throw up and leave a workout session in the middle, have terrible pacing, or lose races after 2 hours of sleep. So, I guess that this measurement isn’t really about how confident I could go fast; it’s about how confident I was achieving my full potential given the amount of work I put in.
Happiness
This strongly correlates with what happens outside of sports, but ultimately I drew the graph based on how happy I was that I simply was part of Choate crew. I distinctly remember telling my mom on a drive home that joining crew was the best decision I made since going to Choate. Days like this hit the peak. On days that I drag myself to practice, going only because I didn’t want detention? Less happiness.
Sleep average
Pretty self-explanatory. Somewhat correlates with confidence in speed.
Boat ranking
This only starts in the spring season. It’s a stepwise function, obviously, because you can’t be in the 1.5V.
Erg distance
Also self-explanatory. Usually, I hit peaks on the erg distance at the end of each term, especially during TEEs. Winter erging didn’t really cover a lot of distance rather than strength-based intervals.
Alright, the first graph was probably a tad bit too messy for anyone to understand other than me. Underneath, I broke down the main time periods for the big “ups and downs” or “peaks and dips” of various lines, and will be describing these in detail.
End of the fall term
This was probably when my real rowing journey started in my life. It only began after my back injury started ever so slightly healing; during the last two weeks of the term, the official fall crew had ended because it was intramural, and the erg room was open. Since I was going over to my brother’s dorm for thanksgiving break, he made me sign a deal that in exchange for paying for all my food and other expenses at the time there, I had to follow his workouts for a week. Unknowingly, I accepted.
My erg distances during this week consisted of 4-5k warmups to either long intervals (like 10x1ks) or steady state (3x20min r1:30). Although I wasn’t sure if I had improved from these workouts (a bit unsettling—it was a grueling week), this time period helped me gain enough confidence to sign up for winter erging for the next term. Rock climbing was canceled, I had a 6th course sports exemption at that point, so what could be so bad about winter erging? (Aha, ha, ha.) I also made my friend sign up for it as well.
Winter erging
Honestly, “fitness rowing” simultaneously fell below and rose above my expectations. It was only 3 days a week, and lasted less than an hour for each day. In this way, no matter how hard the workout was, SK found the energy to drag me (usually nearly dead) to the tracks to run a couple miles, or to the X to do some ab circuits. On the other hand, the workouts were all sprints and barely any steady state or long pieces. I had signed up partly in hopes of doing the end-of-the-term marathon that I had heard rumors about, but that didn’t happen—instead, there was a depressing 2k (talked about later).
One disappointing factor was that the coach for my time blocks, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday, also known as the head coach for the guy’s team, did not have a single care for people’s erg forms or split recommendations. He just… sat in a corner, sometimes biking, sometimes peeking at people’s screens. It was quite stressful, and I’m still very scared of him. I also looked at his Strava recently, and now I think I may know the reason why—maybe literally no student rower met his expectations for erg times? (He bikes like a hundred miles a week. Sheeesh.)
Anyways, the splits to every workout we did were recorded in a public google sheets for attendance. This, obviously, was quite embarrassing for me, oftentimes the slowest person in the group. For starters, there were only 5 girls, with numbers decreasing down to 3ish by the end. In addition, I was never a fast or fit rower, especially my fall 2k being a desolate 9:08. Understandably, it caused me pain to put down my scores at the beginning of the term, humiliatingly open for everyone to see. By the end of the term, though, I didn’t really care much. I got a bit faster, but more importantly, it felt good to put down any number at all rather than missing the workout (since blank spaces on workouts grew at an increasing rate halfway through the term).
I was very persistent, at the very least. I missed one workout total (I think) and DNFed 2 workouts due to vomiting/nearly passing out. The good thing about the nonchalant coach was that he approved of people leaving workouts in the middle if they didn’t feel ok, which my brother would probably call as bad coaching, but I am not my brother; I was in fact weirdly consoled by this fact.
One relevant incident of this was sometime during the second half of winter. I had just thrown up and had gone outside to sit down while others finished the last 2 intervals of an 8×2’ piece. It was freezingly cold outside, and I could see my breath create soft smokes in the air while the sound of the erg fans and the booming music faintly rippled in the background. While I was shallowly panting, the coach stepped out, saw me, took a U-turn, and walked right back in. I was very glad that I could savor the moment alone instead of having to make small talk with him.
I do think that it’s worth noting that I was not very “happy” during winter erging. The only pink line (happiness) peaks on the graph are during winter break and right before the 2k, both of which didn’t sustain for long. Winter erging was… a menace, no matter how enthusiastically I try to look back on it.
Winter break
Winterlude was only 3 weeks total, and I was too full of confidence that I was going to get really, really fast over the winter. Grueling practice three times a week, with extra runs, circuits, and erg sessions? How fast was this coach training us to become? Then winter break hit, and I basically stayed in bed for 90% of the day. No ergs, not even taking walks. Yeah, I guess it was pretty stupid. Apparently it wasn’t much different for other people, though, and when we all came back in January, everyone’s splits had gone up on an identical workout from the start of Winterlude. Definitely took some weeks to get back the fitness, but I felt much better than feeling like a couch potato.
Winter erging 2k
And as good (and bad) things all end, we finally come to the end-of-the-term 2k. It actually fell on the day of some really bad school events, and I had a huge mental block following afterwards. Since I was really looking forward to dishing out a huge PR, my confidence and happiness both dropped an incredible amount. The rest of the winter was… not fun to get through.
End of winter term
Overcoming that 2k incident was quite a hurdle. All I could look forward to was the upcoming spring season (and the preseason trip), and I erged and erged and erged. I ended up steady stating a good 15-20k per day, suffering through a half marathon, and going into the San Diego trip with little confidence gained about my speed. Little did I know that I was building up my strength slowly but surely (compare blue vs black lines on the graph during this time).
Preseason
I was very happy during this time period (see pink line). San Diego weather cheered up my mood, and while the coaches probably didn’t think much of me at this time, I solidified my role in the stern pair and grew closer with “the crew” (get it?). I don’t think preseason workouts fetch you much speed, but it definitely helps with the mental state of long boat rides and simply being part of a wholesome team experience. I have a series of preseason posts (1 2 3) if you want to check them out.
I also had a very small boost in the confidence graph right after preseason—I did a “rehearsal” 2k with my brother right before returning to spring term.
Race season
Wow. We finally get to the fun part! I just wanted to let anybody reading this far know that while this blog may take long to read, it’s even longer to write. The only reason why I’m writing this is because I’ve procrastinated for way too long but really wanted to keep my emotions fresh in the log. They’re not even fresh anymore, but the memories keep spilling out.
Anyways, you can see on the graph that there’s a huge upwards trend in everything during race season (except for maybe the sleep average, which is always splotchy year-round).
It’s surprising that I only wrote a single blog about a regatta, and that’s only because I overslept that day. I wish I had a separate post for NEIRAs, but I was going through a bit of a depression stage at the end of the season and couldn’t seem to write anything (see my “Burning out and recharging” post). Throughout the entire term, however, if you ever saw me in person—you most likely saw me talking about crew. Race season has been the most exciting thing I’ve done at Choate, and I’m very hyped for next year.
Start of spring 2k
I marked this period as a “쾅,” which is a sound effect for a loud hit. This is because everything went through the roof during this period—my confidence, my actual measured speed, my boat ranking, my happiness. (Sleep average and erg distance… not so much, unfortunately.) I started the season strong, determined not to get cut from the team—during this time, the coaches were cutting the number down from 80+ to 51, specifically mentioning that returners may be cut as well. My running and erg times had both improved, but the most notable result comes from the first 2k of the season. That blog that I wrote back then probably describes my exhilaration as true to my emotions as possible. I think the coaches were also a bit impressed, because I started making the top boat rankings and stayed there consistently.
It’s also not a coincidence that the very first 2k marked the start of a series of regattas. Regattas: fun, but they entail extremely long bus rides for a single 6-minute race and oftentimes a string of losses. Not much to say about these… I didn’t mark it in the graph, so I won’t go into detail.
NEIRAs
Super, super exciting.
My boat got switched from the 2V to the 1V in the middle of the season and—not to put the blame on anyone but—the initial 1V did not have that great of a start to the season. I also missed a regatta due to Chem Nationals, which put us below a team that we probably should have won against. Consistent lineups are, apparently, quite important. I’d also like to think of myself as quite integral to the boat 😉
So, we went into NEIRAs at the bottom of the seeding (18/18 in preliminary, 16/18 in final). Both our boat and our coach were confident that we had gained lots of speed since the beginning of the season, especially with a last-minute boat change to a newer Resolute instead of our 12-year old Vespoli. However, everyone’s mood took a turn when NEIRA announced the heats: we would be racing a bunch of top boats, and while we could probably beat schools a couple seedings above us, we were not sure if we could beat 11th place (Middlesex) without a whole lot of luck. We were confident to be against any school placing 12th and below, but in this heat, it was doubtful that we were even going to make it to the petite finals (having to make 3rd or 4th place out of 6 boats).
The bus ride to Waramaug was shorter than most other regattas of the season—2 hours, going right after prize day ended.
It was dreary, almost raining. The wind was astonishingly strong, and while we were going to warm up for 2 laps around the course, our cox made a decision contradicting our disapproving coach—after a very, very choppy and unrowable first lap, we just had to dock. Drenched, hungry, cold, and tired, the team went to the hotel, then to an Italian restaurant (which kept running out of food), and back to the hotel. Most people passed out by 10pm, but I unfortunately had to stay up until 10:30 to finish up an overdue homework assignment. I was rooming with the captain, who was stroking the 1V, so we talked about whether we were going to make it to petites for a while. Then suddenly, the coaches sent out the announcement: due to weather conditions, there were going to be no preliminary rounds and a separate finals; all finals would be held based on the seedings, and the top 2 boats of final A would be moving on to Youth Nationals. This meant that we were in final C, with boats 13th-18th from the seeding.
While other schools may have despaired at this decision, having lost the chance to move onto a higher final round, our boat was overjoyed! We now had a chance of getting first in our heat. Suddenly, it was no longer a question of whether we were going to squeeze into 4th or 5th place but whether we were going to get first or second place. It also meant that we no longer had to wake up at 6am, but rather a leisurely 9:30am.
The day came, we persevered, and even though we gave it our best, the school in first place stuck on; we came in second, albeit with quite a gap ahead third place. I ended up buying perhaps a bit too much rowing and NEIRA merch (including a pair of “STARBOARD” sweatpants).
Anyways, now that Youth Nats is over too, I’d like to congratulate the 2nd place of NEIRA women’s 4s on becoming national champions. Good on you, Windsor. Deerfield… gotta step it up. 2k races weren’t for you, eh? (NEIRA races are 1.5ks, others are 2ks)
End of spring + last 2k + captainship announcement
This… was a bit of a depressing time for me. With a successful and very exciting season, I should have been happy, but I really wasn’t. Right before NEIRAs, there was a 2k, which I miserably PRed on, but was dissatisfied with. I brought up my erg distance again grudgingly, then did a very last 2k on May 31st. I didn’t blog about this because… I failed. It was at the beginning of TEEs and on a hot 91 degrees Tuesday, and I dragged my unwilling self to the hockey rink with an erg and warmed up without needing to warm up. Only 4 people did a 2k that day, and not a single person PRed. I didn’t either, even though my last best was on the most nasty sleep schedule and mentality.
At least captainship voting was soon, right? At the end of the week, the last google classroom announcement was posted—a voting form for next year’s captains. Heart racing, I carefully picked out a couple people that deserved the spot… as well as myself.
The next day was graduation. I cheered extra loudly for all the crew seniors, of course 🙂 After the ceremony, all the crew girls walked over to the old sac for the big announcement. One of the girls I had voted for looked equally nervous, and told me she hadn’t slept very well the night before because of it. After we had all gathered, the coaches made some heartwarming speeches, and finally said the four names that would serve as captains for the 2022-23 season.
I wasn’t one of them.
My brother didn’t get captainship at his rowing club 3 years ago and had been slightly sore about it. I had teased him about being unhappy, telling him it didn’t matter since he was a national champion: stronger and more skilled than either captain that got chosen. Well, I guess when my time came, it also stung a little—wishing I had been more involved in past years, or had started training harder earlier, or had made more friends with the underformers. I may or may not have cried at home. Happiness: 📉📉.
But in hindsight (since it’s more than a month into summer now), I think this event will ultimately drive me to become faster. It is what it is, and while I won’t be going for a recruit anymore (will write about this in a future blog), the best thing I can do at this point is to keep pushing and support my team through a non-captain leadership position. No regrets on how much work I’ve put in this season other than putting too little in, and already very eager for a competitive season for my senior spring. Also, how cool would it be if I’m faster than all the captains… just kidding, won’t happen.
Wow, that was a long blog. My fingers are tired. It’s 1:48am, but I promised myself that I would finish writing this by today—it’s kind of been a stopper to my other blogs for the last few weeks. 3000+ words… I wonder if anyone would ever read through it all (I’m definitely not going to proofread it haha).
[Afternote: I have briefly proofread this and it is 2:38am]
Anyways, my hope is that I’d be revisiting this blog next year, looking back at my first real season and comparing it to my second and last crew season of high school. I hope it’s going to be less of a roller-coaster than this year (optimally consistently in the “good” range), but hey, who knows, maybe I enjoy the ups and downs! Thanks, 2021-22 crew season. Loved ya.