Reflection on a Season in Philadelphia

Yes, dear readers, I have once again procrastinated writing. I don’t forget about you all; this blog is always at the back of my mind whenever I discover something new or think of great advice to share with my readers.  But it is true that time really flies and oftentimes my blog has been shoved to the side in favor of being with the real live people in my life who make things great. And I won’t apologize for that – if there has been one thing I learned this summer, it is that face-to-face time with the people you care about matters more than anything else in the world.

But now, unbelievably, it is fall. I have lived in my new apartment for a month and a half, and I have lived in the great city of Philadelphia for five months. I think one of the reasons I have put off blogging so long is because I feel like my life right now is a dream. Obviously, there are bad days and stressful days, but I can say with all honesty that I think my life right now is great. I am living in a city that I’ve always had kind of a romantic notion about – stemming from my high school regatta days and continuing through racing here during my collegiate years and the summers in between. I am a year-round member of Penn A.C., where I share a dock and a locker room with former Olympians. Former Olympians who say “hi” to me when I launch my boat as they are docking (and it takes every ounce of self control to not geek out). I have great teammates. I have a job at Drexel University where I have awesome co-workers. I teach classes at Rowzone Manayunk where I get PAID to make erg workouts and motivate clients through them. My new apartment is amazing – we don’t have a lot of furniture or fancy things, but it is finally a place that I can unpack all of my belongings without knowing I have to repack and move them eight months later.  I feel like I can finally settle myself in and discover who I am and what I want from life without all the chaos. I feel more focused than ever, even though most of the time I am running around like a chicken with my head cut off just trying to make it through the day.

At school, I was always told that rowing after college was way harder to manage. I assumed this was in reference to the time commitment of a full time job and a full training schedule. Personally, I think this is the least hard part of rowing now. I get up, I go rowing, I go to work, I go rowing, I go to bed. To me, this is simple.  I’ve woken up before 5:30am and gone to bed before 10pm since I was 14.  It’s the way I work well and it probably won’t ever change.

One of the hardest parts to adjust to is the volume of training.  In the past month, I have battled two fevers, multiple cold sores and been so sick that I missed my first on the water practice in over a year just because my body is adjusting to the load. But I would have to say that the harder part is explaining myself to people. In college it is acceptable to bend over backwards for your sport, because most people assume you’re getting a scholarship for it (in my case, that was still wrong). In real life, people are split into two camps. The first camp are the people who think that rowing is a “sport and social” club; that I go a couple times a week and it’s a grand old time. These people don’t understand that practice is mandatory and think that I skip Happy Hour because I’m antisocial. Trust me, when it’s pouring and freezing and all the muscles I didn’t know I had are burning, I wish I was eating nachos and drinking margaritas. Then there is the other camp of people who just think that I am crazy. They see how much time I put in at the boathouse and they wonder what kind of person would put so much energy into something that doesn’t involve a paycheck.

And I don’t even know if I could verbalize why I do it. Words can’t justify the way I feel on the good days. The 5 a.m. launch in complete darkness with perfect water where I am the only person on the river for an hour; feeling so invincible and realizing that to anyone passing by that I am just two blinking lights gliding across the surface of the water.  The Friday night row in rain so hard and so cold it takes my breath and my vision away and all I can do is feel my muscles continue to take each stroke as I wait for the downpour to stop. The feeling of freedom on the last hard stroke of a Saturday practice with the knowledge that I don’t have to begin to beat myself up again until Monday morning. Crossing a race finish line knowing that I gave it 110% of my best effort and no matter what the results say, I will be happy with that knowledge. And the fact that I never, ever have trouble falling asleep.

There are so many days that I wish I could attach a Go Pro camera to my head so that I could replay my day to my coworkers and friends to say, “See this is what I do; this is my way of life”.  But it’s not something that can be explained. I just hope that those who don’t understand know that what I do makes me truly happy and accomplished – a feeling that can’t be found through socialized drinking, retail therapy or any of the other “grown up” coping mechanisms out there. If someone had asked me in March if I thought I was going to still be rowing at this point in my life, I would have probably told them no. But I am and it is the best choice I have ever made.

Tory's Top Ten Reasons to Hire a Rower

As I move into my senior year of college, all everyone (read: parents and relatives and other assorted adults) wants to talk about is “after graduation”. Seniors hate this question. The average college student wakes up at noon, procrastinates as much as possible and drinks three nights a week. For any athlete, this isn’t usually an option. For a collegiate rower, it’s impossible. Anyone who knows our schedule knows that we wake up before 6 a.m. to train and usually have to have finished our day by 11 p.m. in order to get adequate sleep. In that time period, we have to balance multiple practices, classes, homework, and stops for frequent eating. In this respect, I feel that rowing prepares athletes for the real world better than college itself actually does. As a rower, I believe that I have some advantages in the job market that many of my peers do not have.

1. Rowers are used to early hours. You need me to get up at 6 a.m.? That’s 45 more minutes of sleep than I got six days a week in college. I also won’t show up for work bleary-eyed and needing a coffee IV, unlike many other recent college grads.

2. Rowers work really, really hard. In rowing, the ratio of practice time to racing time is depressingly high in favor of practice. Almost three hours a day, six days a week between September and May for six minutes of racing approximately ten times a spring. We’re used to putting in a lot of work for a small payoff.

3. Rowers are used to being yelled at constructively criticized. I spend most of my mornings hearing things like “Mather, relax your shoulders!” and “Square up earlier!” through a megaphone or a microphone. Being told I need to work harder on a project or that I’m not doing something in the right manner isn’t going to phase me.

4. Rowers are used to dealing with people. Name the person that you dislike in your office. Is it the person who constantly complains? The person who never pulls their own weight? The person who throws you under the bus to make themselves look better? As a rower, I have dealt with all of those people. I haven’t just simply tolerated them either. I’ve had to work with them and trust them to have my back in a racing situation, meaning that I am fully prepared to work with these people in an office environment.

5. Rowers are team players. Too many times in my rowing career, I have been upset at a teammate for not showing up to practice and not allowing me to row because of numbers. I have vowed never to be that teammate and work as hard as I can to not allow my actions to hurt other people.

6. Rowers are humble. In rowing, there is no MVP. It doesn’t matter if I have the fastest erg in the boathouse or the most experience in my boat; I don’t have the option to do well until every other person in my boat gets faster as well. A standout athlete on a mediocre team in any other sport gets recognition; a standout rower usually does not.

7. Rowers are punctual. Showing up to practice late usually means punishment in the form of hills or sprints. While I might not encounter that at a job, a fear of being late has been ingrained into my skull. In fact, I’ll probably show up fifteen minutes early to make sure my desk is set up correctly and to make sure there’s a full pot of coffee brewing.

8. Rowers have good time-management skills. We know what it takes to balance a busy schedule. Procrastination is not an option when it comes to excelling in both school and rowing. Rowers have a keen ability to pick out what urgently needs to get done and what can be left for another day.

9. Rowers are strong. Need the communal water bottle changed? I can do that. Need a heavy box lifted off of a high shelf? I can do that. This might not be a reason to hire a rower, but it certainly helps us earn our keep.

10. Rowers are good at making coffee. But only if you like it strong. When it comes to caffeine, I don’t mess around.

Now this article isn’t meant to bash Average Jane College Student. There were many mornings where my alarm went off at 5:15 a.m. when I wished I was her. Sometimes I wonder if employers look at my resume and think “Why would she put so much time into a sport? Maybe if she had put that much time into her grades, she would have a 4.0!” But I do think that college doesn’t always prepare people for “the real world”. I believe that I learned more people skills and discipline on the water than I ever did in a classroom. With that being said, would you hire me (and my teammates)?