Derby Sweeps and Sculls: Pants Would Have Been A Good Choice

Saturday June 11: My First Race in the 1x

Pre-Race

Since my race was at 8:28 a.m., a 4:50 a.m. alarm was required to be on time to meet Coach Sean (Clarke, the Marist men's varisty coach) at the boathouse to load the boats. Even though I usually wake up at 5:15 a.m. for practices during the year, I was getting a little spoiled with sleeping in til 6 :00 a.m. and 4:50 a.m. start hit early. I groggily made my two packets of raisins and spice oatmeal and coffee and stumbled down to the boathouse. One of the first new things that I would have to deal with for this race was getting my own boat there. We were going to load the Jody right on the crossbars of  Izzy, my 2008 Subaru Forester.

Coach Sean, making sure the Jody is tightly fastened

I was nervous about driving with the boat, especially because the Jody belongs to my coach, Tom. Since I didn't know where I was going, Sean and I planned to caravan to the race. The drive was not too eventful except for the second we crossed into Connecticut, we hit what seemed to me like a monsoon. Trying to follow another person (especially one who drives at 15 miles over the speed limit and believes "yellow light" means "go faster") is hard enough, it’s nearly impossible when you can’t even see the road ten feet in front of you.

View out of the front of Izzy...don't worry we were still on the Marist campus at this point

We arrived around 7:30 and I ran to registration to check-in and pick-up my bow number while Sean very kindly started rigging my boat. Having packed in my 100 degree house the night before, I had stupidly not packed rain gear or any warm clothing. Since it was raining and cold, this was a rookie mistake. Luckily for me, I never clean my car and managed to find a rain jacket. Pants, however, would have been a good choice.

Rigged and ready to go!

We finished rigging and I ran to the bathroom one last time. When I got back, Sean was grumbling and cursing over my boat. Apparently the spread was off by over a centimeter, something that had been causing me to overcompensate to my port side. At that point, I got really nervous because they had made the last call for my race and I was on land when I needed to be on the water. But he fixed everything quickly and I walked my boat over to the launching area. Since this race had no docks, I had to “wet dock” or wade knee-deep into the water, place my boat in the water and then climb in without flipping. I was definitely glad I had Sean and Brendan there to carry my oars and explain how to get in, even if they did make fun of me the whole time. I was all set and headed off to the start.

Other singles wet-docking at the launching area

Lane "5"

The race course, as seen from the finish line

On The Water

The race itself was fairly uneventful. I was in the second heat, and two of the racers scratched so there were only three people in my race. I was originally supposed to be in lane 5, which is the outside lane. The officials moved me to lane 4. The start was staggered so it felt like I started way behind. Even if the start hadn’t been staggered, I probably would have started behind anyway. My start was fairly sloppy and I was definitely not very aggressive from the beginning. I picked it up after the first five strokes. I didn’t really stick to any plan in terms of a high twenty because I was concentrating on the girl in lane 1. She was probably a boat length ahead of me off the first twenty strokes and I wanted to catch her. I kept my rating high (I think anyway, I don’t have a stroke coach) and thought about something Sean had said about single racing:

“When you’re racing a single, it’s not like the eight. People don’t make huge moves out of nowhere. The races are usually decided by the 1000m mark and if they’re not it’s because the two or three guys are really close to each other. No one who is behind by a deck will take ten strokes to move up an entire boat length on you, and if they do it’s because you let them.”

And I was not about to let this girl go. By the 500m mark I had moved back and was probably up a deck on her. I kept telling myself that all I had to do was hang on, because she wasn’t going to make a move unless I let her. At 250m, my lead was probably about a length. We had practiced sprints the day before and I wanted to try and see what I could do. I started cranking as hard as I could in order to get across the line and finish the race. Afterwards, the guys made fun of me for not taking a single stroke past the line, but once I heard the “beep” for my bow crossing, I was done.  Even though it was “only a thousand meters”, I was tired!

Post Race

Brendan: You got disqualified.

Tory: You’re kidding. That’s not funny.

Sean: No, seriously, you got disqualified.

Tory: WHAT?! FOR WHAT?!

Brendan: There’s a weight limit for Novice Singles. You can’t be over 200 pounds so they disqualified you.

(Sean and Brendan kill themselves laughing)

Tory: I hate you guys.

Which I think is their backwards way of saying “Good job.”

After I raced, I got to watch Sean and Brendan race in their respective heats of the Open 1x, of which I snagged some video.

Brendan, headed out to race

Sean, headed out to race

Just chillin' in the river after the race

Packing up the cars

Once they were done,  we looked at all the results, packed the cars and headed off for some food. Sean had “droid-ed” a restaurant on his phone, but once we got there, we decided that the BBQ shack, which turned out to be RiverView BBQ, we had passed previously looked better. And it was amazing. It was right on the river, probably 10k or so upstream from the course. It was very pretty and I had a super delicious BBQ pulled pork sandwich.

Big flavor from a little shack

Enjoying a well-deserved meal

They weren't kidding about the river view

Between the three of us, we ate everything on the sign: ribs, chicken and pulled pork

Overall Impression of the Race

I definitely think this was a great venue for my first race in the single. The registration people and the officials were very friendly and helpful. The other rowers were also friendly and I met some really nice people. There were enough rowers there to make the race fun, but not so many that I was intimidated or lost in the shuffle. The race course is very pretty and it helped calm my nerves because I had raced there before with Marist, at Head of the Houstonic. It’s also close enough to be a one day trip and doesn’t break the bank on paying for gas (definitely a plus for me).

Results

Can be found on the New Haven Rowing website here. I was in the Women's Novice 1x, and yes, my real name is Victoria.

Guess who ate my other peanut butter and honey sandwich?

Acknowledgements

Obviously, I didn’t do everything by myself. so I’d like to thank the following people: Tom, for lending me the boat to race in; Brendan for pushing me to enter the race, even though I didn’t want to; Ben for still being my friend after I whined in between every practice piece and Sean for lending me the oars, adjusting my equipment, pushing me through hard workouts, and telling me to “just be quiet and pull hard”. 

Friday June 10: Pre-Race Prep in Pictures

The Jody's hardware and wrenches

I'm pretty sure that this is the first time the Jody has been de-rigged in 10 years

Dirty, dirty boat

What Hudson River grime?

Izzy the Subaru gets packed with oars, rigger, an extra strap and hardware and wrenches stuffed in my "track bite sock"



Pre-race meal: Twisted Soul on Raymond Ave in Poughkeepsie



Pork dumplings, fried chicken coconut curry and BBQ mac&cheese are all gone

Laying out my stuff...yes, that's two peanut butter and honey sandwiches