Rower Christmas

Rowers, assemble! Head of the Charles madness has descended upon Boston and the city has welcomed us with gorgeous sunny weather and leaves that haven’t yet turned. Today is pretty windy (wavy and upwards of 15pmh in the Basin), hopefully it will calm down in time for racing tomorrow and Sunday. Forecast is for uni-only racing weather, so I’m a happy rower.

Many of us can boast about being able to steer Great Hosmer without turning around, but knowing the Hos’s shoreline doesn’t help with avoiding abutments, buoys, or other crews on the Charles. Last week we came down for a recon row on the course around noon on a Wednesday, i.e. ghost town time. (A huge thanks to Harvard for lending us their boathouse and docks in exchange for some cookies!) During my first run down the course I was definitely a country girl in the big city, but having run through it a few times I’ve gotten a feel for the landmarks and turns. Add a few hundred boats and that’s what makes this regatta exciting.

The rowing community shows it’s true colors this weekend with support and hospitality; I bet there’s hardly an empty pullout couch in any Boston rowers’ house for the next few nights. We parked our trailer at CRI, about 5k upstream of the finish line. Long warm-up, but worth it to get in some uninterrupted rowing before the stop-and-go warm up lane on the course. The clientele around their boathouse this weekend is a great mix of world-class rowers, masters rowers, youth rowers, and everyone in between.

Catch the live webcast beginning at 8am tomorrow here: http://www.hocr.org/the-regatta/live-webcast/. Results will be posted on www.row2k.com. Merry Charles!

Here’s a quick look at an average training day at Craftsbury:

Weights, GRP style: Kyle, Jamie, Laura, Peter, and John harvesting home-grown punkins and squish