After a challenging fall season, mentally and physically, it is time to take a small step back and reflect on my positives and negatives that have led me to where I stand on this day in mid-November.
Thinking ahead last spring, I took it upon myself to load up extra classes for this fall so that I didn't have to struggle in the spring due to traveling. Obviously as a freshman, I wasn't very experienced, but I learned well from it and am now implementing that episode into any academic schedule. Even though it was somewhat smart, I reached a new point of exhaustion. Classes were very demanding at the same time, and I also had a spot to secure in the top 8 list. At one point I told myself, I need to pick one or the other each time because there is no possibility to push myself 100% in both areas. I wasn't complaining, but I was scared because I didn't want to ruin my academic goals nor my rowing ones so I asked my coach for some advice, and his response was simple and short, "If the guys at Harvard can do it, you can do it. I always tell myself that if someone else can accomplish it then there is no reason I can't." From then on, I was determined to separate both areas and treat them like they were the only ones that existed, like a wife and a mistress. All these mental challenges got me ready for the upcoming weeks.
With newly found confidence, I went in the final weeks before racing with a smart attitude hoping that the rest of my teammates could feel what I had going. The water was now the place to put on a show and it happened on a good basis. We, as a team, kept looking for more speed and it was apparent. In the last post, I talked about different points that were worked on before racing the Hooch so I won't go over them again. With much pressure, the entire team arrived to Chattanooga with the words "serious" and "scared" written on their foreheads in my opinion; They had flashing lights on mine. But when did stomach aches and nervous pee breaks ever stop anyone from winning? The goal of this race in particular was to get away and stay away from Georgia Tech since they started right behind us. It was more of being chase like a prey feeling than actual racing feeling, which in the end costs us to be ineffective with our rowing and put us in the 5th place. It is a little frustrating because I cannot get upset at a crew that did everything they could and it just wasn't enough, but that is not what kind of crew we were that day. When we apply ourselves well, we win. So in this case, I believe we did not put on a show. There is always next race right?
A week later, we drove down to Melbourne to face off who we thought would only be our main competitor, FIT. On the 2-mile course, we definitely made a small improvement with the control of the stroke, and handled the shell with more maturity. I guess it still wasn't enough though because Rollins (who is never a huge threat) decided to follow us with a real determination only finishing 2 seconds behind us. I am definitely not very content with how close that team finished from us, but my main concern was to measure up against FIT who was 12 seconds ahead; a smaller margin then last year. That was the final checkpoint to enter winter training.
We, as a team and individuals, have a list of specific areas we need to work on, especially me. I have many goals this year including getting my name on a national team related paper. It might not happen this year but it is definitely a solid motivation factor. For now, I work for my team to be faster for them so that they can respond the same way. I have a lot of promising thoughts about this crew as a whole and expect more and more as the days fall off the calender.
It is now time to scrub the dirty rowing off some of the long shells and get some clean rowing on the short ones. Like a prominent mentor in my life always tell me, "it's all about the mileage in those boats."
On my way out, here is a little shout out to all the freshmen: good job on your first semester a the school and on the team, keep working harder and I promise it will show; Matt THOMAS, get better kid, I expect much from you so get yourself healed up.
Next post is winter break...cheers!
