Women's Rowing Journal - Sophie Bird '08
4/24/2007 8:00:00 AM | Women's Rowing
April 24, 2007
The feeling I had at the starting line for our race at Princeton this past weekend is one I will not soon forget. The bundle of nerves and excitement in the pit of my stomach was overwhelming; we were actually competing against Ivy League crews, amongst them the defending national champions. We'd done everything in our power to prepare for this race, from practices on the water, to endurance lifts, to using the transitive property to predict our boat speed in relation to that of Princeton, Dartmouth, and Penn. Now all that was left for us to do was to prove to them, as well as to ourselves, that we belonged there.
Sitting at ¾ slide at the start line I knew that I had to take that bundle of nerves and excitement and transform it into sheer power and speed with the seven other rowers in my boat. The start of that race was by far the best we'd had all season, managing to hit a 40 stroke rate during our high 20. And although our initial lengthen 10 only brought us down to a 36 strokes per minute, we eventually settled to a rhythmic and powerful 34 for the body of the race. At one point I remember hearing Dartmouth's coxswain yelling at her rowers ""Bucknell is up on you, what is going on?!?" From the starting five strokes to the final sprint of that 2K, we signed our names on every stroke, proving to them, and more importantly to ourselves, that we belonged in that race.
Actually competing against, and defeating, an Ivy League rowing team was not something I thought I would ever be able to do when I decided to go out for Women's Rowing in the fall of my freshman year as a complete novice. Now I can add that to the long list of "firsts that I've experienced as a member of the Bucknell Women's Rowing team. I can hardly wait for the Patriot League Championship this weekend where I will hopefully be able to add another "first" to that list: taking gold in the 2V8 event.
- Sophie Bird '08