Rowing

Remembering early morning rows

Shanklin Regatta 2024

There was a rowing regatta this weekend in Shanklin. It reminded me of the many, many mornings I was up early to row throughout my high school years. Here’s a little memory of those sessions…

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It is 5:45 on an early spring morning. The clock radio alarm has just woken me; it is still dark and cold. I turn down the music hoping to hear the sound of rain. If it is raining, I won’t have to get out of bed, get dressed and walk in the dark to meet my ride. But all is quiet outside, so I slide out of my warm bed. I have 15 minutes to pull on my clothes and leave the house. I splash water on my face, brush my teeth as quietly as I can and grab my backpack with my books and uniform for school already packed. In the kitchen I find a banana, my water bottle and some crackers to eat after practice.

I walk the unlit road down the hill through the forest to the main street where I will meet the carpool from school. The road is quiet and no one else is up. I hear the rustling of squirrels, quail and deer in the leaves under the trees overhanging the road. If I walk very fast I can just make it in 15 minutes and won’t hold up the carpool.

The car pulls up the same time I arrive so no one has to wait. We all say sleepy good mornings; thankfully our coach has on the radio so we don’t have to talk. We are all SOOOO tired. Twice a week our coach drives this carful of young teenage girls to the dock on the creek where we row. Girls from our small school get the least-desirable early morning practice slot; the boys from the big public school get the prime after-school practice times.

River Plym, Plymouth 2014

After a few quiet minutes and a few more stops to add girls we arrive at the dock. We leave our backpacks in the car and go into the shed to pull out the oars and the slings on which to prop the boat outside the shed. Our coach calls the commands to slide the long boat out of its narrow rack in the shed: it takes all four of us working together to lift, shift and carry the boat outside without smacking into anything.

We check the riggings, do a few warm up exercises to stretch and get our heart rates up a bit before we start rowing.

Then we follow the commands to carry the boat down to the dock and put it in the water. We take turns holding the boat, putting the long oars into the locks, kicking off our shoes, and taking off our sweatshirts. Once we are all ready, we get into the boat in synchrony so we don’t tip it over.

Our coach tells us the first set of warm-ups and our coxswain guides us to get the boat lined up and ready to start our paces: some short easy strokes to begin, getting longer and faster slowly as our muscles get used to the movements.

River Wey, Weybridge 2014

The light is still dim and we row in a stretch of water where a suburban creek is just reaching the edge of San Francisco Bay. It is tidal, so we need to watch for low spots, floating logs and other debris as we go. There are houseboats near the creek edge with flower boxes and clotheslines; we say good morning to the early risers, sipping their morning coffee whilst watching the birds. Snowy white egrets, great blue herons, cormorants, and numerous ducks and geese dabble in the shoreline grasses as we glide along, the light brightening just enough to spot them.

If we head seaward, we see the lights on at the maximum security prison, and the rows and rows of barbed wire fences. Sometimes we see some men in the yard and we wave at them too. When we get out this far toward the Bay, we need to turn around and head back towards our dock. Since we row backwards, all this time heading toward the Bay, we are facing west, looking at our beloved mountain that is turning rosy-red as the sunrise glows brighter and warmer upon it.

We turn around to return up the creek, now looking east into the rising sun. After passing our starting dock, we dodge the concrete pilings inconveniently located at a bend in the creek where the freeway passes overhead. The roar of morning traffic bouncing off the water and pilings seems especially sharp after the quiet of the creek. It is tricky going through the pilings including a sharp turn so we concentrate and focus on quick moves guided by our coxswain. Once we navigate the z-bend successfully, we find quiet again along with birds and more houseboats.

When we get to a long straight section, we focus on sprints and building up stamina. We don’t wave or chatter or look anywhere except straight ahead. All our energy and focus is on making the next stroke correctly, hearing the calls, keeping to the rhythm the stroke is setting. No one wants to catch a crab¹, or otherwise disrupt the rhythm of the rowing motion and the harmony of the four of us working together.

Only every once in while do we get to feel that flow when each one of us merges our movements together in synchrony. Then we fly across the water and our bodies and the boat and the water and the air and the morning light all merge into one. It’s hard to know where the end of my fingers and the oars and my shoulders and quads and the seat and the girl behind me and in front of me begin and end. We are all one connective tissue together.

But something always happens to snap us out of it. Maybe it is time to turn around, or the sequence we are working on is done, or maybe someone does catch a crab. It happens. We are tired but also happy.

Then the whole sequence reverses: we turn the boat back to the dock. Since our muscles are now fatigued, we struggle to get the boat out of the water, on to the dock, and over our heads to carry it back to the shed. We collect our sweatshirts and oars, spray down the boats and oars to get the salt water off, and dry them with a chamois. We put all the equipment away, lock up and get back in the car. This time we chatter away about the birds and people we saw and let our coach know which workouts were too hard. We sing along to songs on the radio, and start to eat our breakfast snacks. We usually have 5-10 minutes once we get to school to change before class so we have to hurry.

My first period class is always a bit of a blur as the glow from a hard workout is still coursing through my mind and body. Sometimes I pay attention, but other times, my mind wanders back out to the great blue herons gliding along the calm inky blue waters as we skim along next to them. Or to the sky that turned spectacular shades of azure, vermillion and flamingo pink reflecting back in our young faces, while our classmates are still asleep.

Even though we are given the ‘worst time’ to practice, in fact we get the best light and calmest water. And by the time we fully wake up, we’ve finished our workout and have another full day to live ahead of us. That’s not so bad, is it?

Thank you for indulging my memory of rowing mornings out on the slough! I spent so many hours there in my teens…

I’d love to hear about any memories you have of doing things consistently when you were younger: was it hard to keep at it when you’d rather be doing something else? What kept you doing that activity? Did you love it, or did you have to do it? Any regrets?

Thank you ever so much for reading this!

Until next week, hope you stay well and are enjoying time outside!

xx Sabrina

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1. To catch a crab is a term used in the rowing community. It means, either…

1. Catching an oar in the water when moving the oar blade backwards.
2. Missing the water on one’s forward pull stroke.
3. Leaving the oar under the water too long on one’s forward pull stroke.

From: https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/to-catch-a-crab.html