NCAA Rowing Championships Blog: Day 5
5/31/2008 12:00:00 AM | Rowing
Michigan's first varsity eight earned an at-large bid to the 2008 NCAA Championships, which are being held May 30-June 1 in Sacramento, Calif. The Wolverines left for the West Coast on Saturday (May 24) to get in some advance training in the Northern California conditions that they will experience later this week.
Junior Julia Nelson, who is an English and French major, is reporting back from Sacramento. The Wolverines had their first day of racing on Friday (May 30) and utilized a strong race in the repechage to move on to the semifinals.
SATURDAY | MAY 31, 2008
The Michigan Daily is known by our team, and other people who actually follow reports on rowing, to either mention us after poor performances through metaphors (like calling us smoked salmon, among others) or not mention us at all. The Daily writers may have described yesterday morning's race in a metaphor -- we got burnt off the start like dad cooking Thanksgiving turkey, but we got a second chance (thank you, repechage), and we aged like a fine wine.
In those four hours we took a giant step. Instead of being last by a boat length 10 strokes into the race (GULP!) we were out in the pack at the 500. It was a barn-burner of a race -- all the boats were in the pack at the 500, only a second separated anyone. That's what we needed though. We changed our start, but more importantly we changed our attitude. Our boat almost felt like it was taken by surprise in the morning. In the afternoon, even as we did 20s before the race, the aggression was eminent. We wanted to bust out, and as soon as that starter said the word, we were gone.
It was a (gutsy) start. We're used to starting at a pace and negative splitting all the way down the course, making our last strokes our fastest, but we realized yesterday morning that we couldn't afford to get behind crews at this level, so we switched it up. It worked, and it hurt so good.
Now, I am not a puker at the end of races. It's gross, and my stomach is iron clad with anything you throw at it, but I was dang close yesterday afternoon. It was a strangely satisfying feeling. If you have questions ask the tall kid, Ashley Kroll, who wears her stomach on her sleeve when racing, or Lori Gordon who was caught by the jumbotron after the races yesterday. They make puking a fine art.
It's understandable though. This sport is hard, and yesterday we went out harder than we knew we could and simply had too much heart to gear down. That's what we're going to have to do in the semis. We went from being a $5 bottle of Shiraz to something like a $30 bottle of Merlot yesterday. Today, we need to be ice wine, the really expensive, really sweet stuff, if we have a shot at making the grand finals. We can do that, we'll have to do something extraordinary, but all hands are in and we're giving it everything we have.
Now to report on the spectacular performance of our spare pair! These results aren't posted online, but those girls cleaned up. They beat out the rest of the field yesterday by over four boat lengths of water, both ladies rowing their first pair race. Annie Hildebrand will leave U-M with her last race being a national champion, and Ashley (Jones) has a "W" in her first race at a national championship.
One of the officials decided a while ago that the spare pairs deserved some accolades for their performances, so he dipped into his own pocket and had T-shirts made for the winners of the races. They're green, and I'll overlook that, because they represent a victory, and I really, really like winning. Congratulations again to the stellar raw speed of the pair, and a humble request for good wishes and faith as our eight takes on the race of a lifetime this morning.
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