Touchdown (in) Clemson

Miscellaneous

Mar 6

So all of us arrived safe and sound on Sunday and began rowing on Monday. Despite having a bit of a reality check as we came to terms with a realtor’s artistic portrayal of our temporary homes, we are all happily and healthily situated.

Clemson looks to be an awesome place to train. We’re relatively close to the boathouse and anything else we might need (food, good roads for biking, food, etc.). Lake Hartnell is an exquisite body of water for rowing as several reservoirs of the South have turned out to be. There’s miles of rowable water and a fair amount of protected water as well due to the naturally occurring fingers that come with flooding a southern landscape. Additionally, Clemson’s varsity women’s program is so heavily supported that we get to reap some of the benefits like two buoyed courses (one by the university and one by the chamber of commerce), an amazing erg room, spin bikes, Gatorade on tap, and more. Their coach, Robbie Tenenbaum, has been extremely gracious and hospitable. We’re very lucky to be situated in such a place for 7 weeks.

To our surprise, I think all of us have found it relatively easy to come back to the water after a winter of skiing, erging, and lifting. Granted, the winter flew by, but the majority of us haven’t touched an oar since USRowing’s Fall Speed Order in November. Considering this, it seemed amazing how quickly we all took to our shells.

We have four rows under our belt (one of which was during a white squall of sorts), and some of us have some pretty raw hands. Fortunately and logically, today is a cross-training day to allow the hands to recover and catch up with the rest of the body. I’ll look to do a bit of a bike ride myself.

For more “steve-centric” insights, feel free to check out my personal blog.