On Monday, my 4:15 alarm went off for the first time since October of 2019. I put on workout clothes in the closet, scarfed down an apple with peanut butter, and walked through the dark toward the Davis Museum, where the bus was scheduled to bring us to the Charles River at 4:45.
The bus never came. Apparently this happened on the first day of practice three years ago, too. We walked to the outdoor track to warm up and do a circuit (core/run/stairs), but then there was a flash of lightning, so we went to the indoor track. Running laps and doing core exercises on the tennis court was not the triumphant return to rowing I’d anticipated, but being together with my whole team was really exciting.
On Tuesday, we got to row! Only for fifteen minutes, once we’d rigged the boats, set up the oar cabinet, and done more core while the coach took the coxswains on a tour of the river. But it was so nice to be back on the Charles in a boat with eight of my teammates.
Our first row on Tuesday! I’m in light blue, drinking water (📷: Tessa Spillane)
Wednesday’s row was much longer, thankfully, but insanely buggy. It rained almost all of July, and the mosquitos have been relentless this year. I didn’t row Thursday or Friday (got myself checked out after experiencing some chest pain while erging—I’m good, thankfully). Yesterday, we rowed all the way to the Museum of Science, where we ate unsliced bagels in our boats, and back. It’s so cool to see familiar landmarks from the water. I only rowed half the practice to give my sore chest muscles time to heal, and I’m so excited to do the whole thing.
With crew in full swing, my schedule is packed. I start my internship a week from tomorrow, and fitting everything in is going to be challenging. But I know of a few things that work well: planning meals with friends to get social time in while eating, cranking through my readings in quiet spaces, and getting started on work as soon as it’s assigned.
I stopped at Aldi on my bike ride (it’s right off the rail trail!) for some pumpkin-flavored goodies