Women's Rowing Journal - Page Kannor
10/17/2006 8:00:00 AM | Women's Rowing
Oct. 17, 2006
I don't remember ever being so calm at a regatta. Granted, as a sophomore with a year's worth of experience, I've only been to a few. Still, though, at all of those I felt like I had a lot to lose or prove, and my stomach always seemed to serve as permanent housing for butterflies the size of geese.
The Navy Day Regatta is held in Philadelphia on the Schuylkill River, a place that, if nothing else, holds plenty of rowing memories for me. This was sort of a "training race" for the varsity four, the second in a series of fall races leading up to The Big Race, the Head of the Charles in Boston. The weekend before the Navy Day Regatta our 4+ had raced in Rochester at the Head of the Genesee and won, beating rivals Colgate and Buffalo and serving as a pleasant surprise and a definite step in the right direction for us. Now we had worked hard for another week, and it was time to bust out our unis once again and test ourselves against some tougher competition, including Navy, Princeton and Georgetown.
The headwind and slightly choppy water didn't phase us as we kicked each other in the shins (gently, of course; it makes us tougher) and shoved off the dock to warm up. At the start, we were relaxed but focused, the perfect ingredients for a good row. The only things I really remember during the race itself were Coach's shouts of encouragement from his bike (some motivation, let me tell you) and the fierce desire to keep going. When we started getting tired, we found it in ourselves to go harder and faster. We passed La Salle shortly into the race, then Lafayette toward the end and finally, with probably less than 200 meters to go, Rutgers.
There are few more rewarding things than finishing a good race, gasping for air, sweating, legs burning and knowing that the girls in front of you and the girls in back of you helped make something incredible happen. We came in second, a solid finish. I couldn't have cared less whether we had come in second or 22nd-- the five us of clicked during those 17 minutes, and that connection can only help a boat go faster. We're working hard, as a boat, but more importantly as a team, and whether or not we come away from the Head of the Charles with a medal, it will have been an experience I wouldn't trade for the world.
- Page Kannor '09