Yesterday I posted about and mulled over Drew Ginn’s thoughts on a race plan. Today I raced, and most of those thoughts went out the window. Our race start time was 11:40, which, for the area we were racing, isn’t a good time. By this point, the wind picks up, the rest of the world wakes up and decides to tool around in their sailboats. It’s just messy.

The Fremont Four-Miler, as it suggests, is four miles long. In rowing terms, 6.4K. We weren’t even sure who else was racing in our category. Which means then that you have to row within yourself, imagine a competitor fighting for seats right next to you.

We are first in this flight and start with a building 3 that puts us right at the start line and away we go. We start strong, and take a big lead over the next boat. Following the first turn, towards the south end of Lake Union, some boats start their moves on us. There was still quite a few boat lengths in between us to make it difficult to tell if we were in danger. The danger actually came near the south end of the lake as the water got choppier and choppier. In addition to really bad water conditions, we were forced to fight against the human element as well. Apparently someone was holding sailing classes, so a launch waked us big time, throwing water right over our bow. As we trudged along the east side of the lake, and with these conditions, it really was trudging, Melissa called for us to stop. A sail boat crossed our line and she had to stop us before we hit. We yelled at them that we’re racing … it was completely ridiculous. We picked it up again but the water was continuing to battle us. It was in the bad water that we continued to gain against the other boats, but it didn’t make me feel any better.

The water didn’t calm down until we got past Gas Works Park. At that point it was crucial to forget the fact that I was soaked to the bone, that the oar was hard to handle because it was wet and my hands were wet. That the boat had lost its aggressiveness at the catch and that we had done our best to just continue on. That we were tired and my arms were tired just trying to battle the winds and the wakes. It’s crucial to focus in, leave the rest behind, and pull.

I tried to pull. Did my best to follow the rower in front of me, and to give what I had left to give. Melissa gave the call to raise the stroke rate twice in the last 500m or so. By this time it was obvious we had a huge gap of time before the next boats. Any of them. But we went with the legs and the faster hands to raise the rate, and did it one more time before the final 20 and the loud horn telling us it was over.

Probably the worst water I can remember racing in. There was nothing you can do about it. Just hope that you’re prepared, technique-wise and fitness-wise. As our cox’n likes to tell us, every boat is going to face the same conditions. We just need to do it better.

We did, I think. But man, it was messy. Wet and messy. I’ll update this with results when they are posted online.

In the meantime, here are a few photos I took of the Masters races that happened in the flight before ours. Most of the pics I took turned too fuzzy to bother with. As always, Green Lake Crew took a bunch of great pics.

Update – the results were just posted. In the Womens Masters 8 our crew placed first, with a time of 28:32:61. In the Womens Open 8 we also placed first, with a time of 26:56:03. Our mens team also placed … in the mens masters 8, second. And in the Mens Masters 4, first.