10 June 2011

Vecchio Venerdì... Head of the Charles 1986

Once upon a time, a long time ago...

Before I had muscular arms like I did here...

I was a struggling rower. Struggling.

I was skinny and scrawny and not very strong. But I was tough as nails and didn't take crap from anyone. And I made sure everyone heard about how I wasn't going to take any crap. Boy, was I obnoxious.

In 1986, three other women and I decided we wanted to row in the Head of the Charles... a super fun, really big regatta. Being that we were smallish and unproven, we had zero support from our team. In fact, we had to train in pairs... they wouldn't even let us use a four to practice in. They needed that for the guys. We were promised the smaller of the club's fours for our race, however. But they tried to renege on that at the regatta!

I think we came in 4th (I am pretty sure I am remembering that correctly) out of 20 or so. Everyone at our club was so surprised... 'cuz they thought we were really sucky.


Here we are in action... can you guess which one is me?

6 comments:

  1. Aww....look at you back there! You look 12! lol

    ReplyDelete
  2. I went to school in Boston and loved watching Head of the Charles. It must have been awesome to row in.

    ReplyDelete
  3. The one in the front blocking the wind for the others. Because that's were tough as nails people are supposed to be (at least in cycling).

    How do you get used to not seeing where you are going? I see this boat has a coxswain, but I've been watching rowing on Universal Sports lately and those boats haven't had one (a coxswain).

    ReplyDelete
  4. No, I cannot guess which one was you!!! Were you the wee one at the back or the one with the curly red hair?
    Love that you guys did so well despite so little support! Go team!

    ReplyDelete
  5. I'm a new follower and would love it if you came by to follow me as well. Thanks!

    ~Holly
    Twins Plus One, Three Times the Fun

    ReplyDelete

we *heart* comments!

LinkWithin

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...