Racing College Kids
About ten days ago my rowing partner Andy and I put our pair
(two-person racing shell) on top of his truck and drove to Lake Natoma,
near Sacramento, CA, to race at perhaps the best rowing course in the
country. Our goal was to practice on a real race course marked with
buoys (we have no lanes here in Oregon) and to compete against the
Sacramento State Crew. This would be our first race against college
kids and we were extremely nervous. Sac State is a Division II college
program -- not as fast as Yale or UC Berkeley, let alone the Olympic
team, but they are fast and young.
When I was at Yale (class of '80) the Yale crew of 1956 was legendary because they won an Olympic gold medal. Those were the days when college crews still competed in the Olympics. What's interesting is how "ancient" I thought the 1956 men were in 1980 when they visited the Yale boathouse. (They must have been late forties) To race against those old men while in college would have been a joke -- and I am now older than the 1956 crew was when they visited me.
When we showed up at Sac State at 6:00, the college kids were really nice but they must have been scratching their heads. I was a lot older than their coach and probably older than most of their parents.
The Sac State crew races in eight-man shells but trains in pairs, so they launched five pairs to race against us. We did a warm-up in the dark to the start of the race course and then went to the starting line. We planned to row four, 500-meter races (500-meters is one-quarter the distance of the full 2,000 meter race course).
And...long story short.... We clobbered them. Experience helped. We are a lot faster off the start line because we have been rowing so long. But even when we gave the college kids a two-boat-length head start, we still beat them. It was great for us, and I suspect it was a real wake-up for the kids. Getting beaten by a 49 year old when I was 21 would have changed my thoughts about aging.
The adventure continues...
When I was at Yale (class of '80) the Yale crew of 1956 was legendary because they won an Olympic gold medal. Those were the days when college crews still competed in the Olympics. What's interesting is how "ancient" I thought the 1956 men were in 1980 when they visited the Yale boathouse. (They must have been late forties) To race against those old men while in college would have been a joke -- and I am now older than the 1956 crew was when they visited me.
When we showed up at Sac State at 6:00, the college kids were really nice but they must have been scratching their heads. I was a lot older than their coach and probably older than most of their parents.
The Sac State crew races in eight-man shells but trains in pairs, so they launched five pairs to race against us. We did a warm-up in the dark to the start of the race course and then went to the starting line. We planned to row four, 500-meter races (500-meters is one-quarter the distance of the full 2,000 meter race course).
And...long story short.... We clobbered them. Experience helped. We are a lot faster off the start line because we have been rowing so long. But even when we gave the college kids a two-boat-length head start, we still beat them. It was great for us, and I suspect it was a real wake-up for the kids. Getting beaten by a 49 year old when I was 21 would have changed my thoughts about aging.
The adventure continues...
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