Pain, Rain, and a Strong Finish

The following narrative of the Head of the Fish Regatta was written for the Niskayuna Freshmen Boys' blog by Eli, six seat of the freshmen eight.

Up until the Regatta on Saturday, I never realized how much pain a body can take. Pain, that’s what crew is all about isn’t it? The pain, the amount of hurt your body can take before you breakdown. Getting up at 5:00 in the morning, trudging through mud, and getting soaked by the nonstop rain, then rowing two 3200 meter pieces is pain, but you hardly ever feel it until afterwards.

I stood on the sinking dock, holding my oar in one hand, and my half frozen water bottle in the other. I thought to myself, this is CREW! I plopped my oar into my rigger and waited for the coxswain’s command. I looked around me. It was a total scene of chaos. Like a scene out of Saving Private Ryan, coxswains were shouting, rowers were checking there riggers, and the rain; there were at least 3 dozen other boats on the water near the dock, and the rain, oh the rain, it was the killer. People were constantly trying to bail the water out of their boats because the weight of the water would effect their race time. Our coxswain gave us the command to get in, and so I hopped into my seat, and waited to embark on one of the greatest events of my life, the HEAD OF THE FISH.

I never have been in a more awesome state then I was during the race. Rain whipped against all our faces, my arms were aching, my hands hurt every stroke, as one more blister popped open. We were nearing the 300 meter mark on the race course, only 300 meters left to go! The oarlocks were banging so loud, it would have sounded like thunder to someone over top on the bridge. St. Catherine’s was just about 200 meters ahead of us. We had done so well this race, we had to have a big finish. At last the Coxswain called for the final sprint. We pulled so hard after that last word came out of his mouth, it was like magic. The boat seemed to lift off the water and cruise through the air with such speed and precision. When everyone is rowing with each other, at the same time, there is this indescribable feeling you get that makes rowing what rowing is. This is what rowers live for, this is crew!

Ten strokes to go. Now we were pulling hard! Three, two, one, over! I nearly collapsed as we passed the finish line at the bridge. We quickly turned around and started off towards the dock. Our Coach was the happiest we had ever seen him the whole season, and it gave us joy that we had shown him that we were a team, and we accomplished something we thought we never could do at the beginning of the season. Once we got onto dry land (minus the dry), we sat in chairs around a heat source and waited for our times. About an hour later they came, and we had gotten 2nd place! We had represented Niskayuna’s High School Freshmen, and shown all the other crews, even those from Canada, who we are and what we do!