This weekend, not only did I get the amazing experience of racing at San Diego Crew Classic, but I was also given (to my absolute shock) the task of writing a POV for the weekend with the instructions of “soak up the days” and a deadline on Tuesday.
I woke up at 5:25 on Friday and immediately listed all of the sports I could have picked that didn’t require me to be up at that time. I picked up Ava and Gianna at their houses, and instead of setting the navigation to the racing course, the only thing keeping me from falling asleep was the arrival at “Pop Up Bagels” in La Jolla (Hoya) to which Gianna referred to as La (Joe-Lah) (Neither Me, Ava, or Coach Weston felt the need to correct her). We get to the course, rig our boat, take a really good look at our competition, and sit and stare in awe of Texas Rowing doing their stretches for a good 10 minutes while whispering to each other “the aura”. We launched, did our reverse pic drill, and then totally jinxed the wind conditions by declaring “it’s not that bad” while almost getting wiped out by a jet ski going mock 2 in the warmup area. Thank you to Ashley for keeping us alive. After practice half my boat piled into my stick shift Subaru and we headed to trader joe’s to stock up on snacks which were gone within 3 hours (sorry ava), and a food review of the 7 different packs of dried fruit Emerson bought. We recovered to the best of our ability with a shared chipotle bowl and yogurt land paired with a geography quiz for Gianna (she aced it), and went to bed sweating about the thought of most of our first 2k tomorrow.
Saturday was a day that not a single person could have predicted. We slept in until 9:00 (almost missed breakfast) but Sofia pulled through with door dashed pop-up bagels (my hero). To our horror we were later informed that the B final raced at 5:00 pm the next day, and that in the past 3 years Newport’s 3v had always made the A’s. Failure was genuinely not an option because no one was going to get home at 11:00 pm on a Sunday. We launched after some words of wisdom from Coach Madison, got out on the course, again almost got taken out by a jet ski, threw up a “Hail Mary” for good measure, and lined up in lane 4 where (shoutout Katellyn and Ollie) sculled our boat the equivalent of a 2k to fight the wind and keep our point. We were collectively jump scared by the start, and absolutely exploded off the first 300 meters, genuinely praying for 4th place. Around the 1250 mark, the boat to our left caught a monster crab and the morale in the 3v skyrocketed. The Caroline, with 5/8 rowers being novices had our own “McFarland USA” moment of total surprise from Coach Weston and spectators, “That’s not the 3v, THAT’S NOT THE 3V” because no one, not even the boat itself, thought we would be finishing in 2nd. Per usual a photo was snapped of Sofia puking and Blayke desperately holding me in the boat, later captioned by the JV as “semis btw.” This race proved we may not have 6’0” girls or D1 commits but we DO apparently have the element of surprise AND we go all out especially when a 12:30 AM race time is on the line. I don’t think any of us have been more shocked and excited in our lives and I remember jumping on top of 3 people once we got on land. (This was a huge win for 3v underdogs and a much needed confidence boost) which wore off when we realized that meant we actually had to race again the next day. We ended the night with a surprise boat change after 5 seat got sick, italian food, and a win in trivia with the buzzer beater of knowing Wayne Gretski ball knowledge because you really do miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. That night I learned that, contrary to popular belief, Coach Madison’s middle name is in fact not “GO BLUE” (man voice), and I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a little disappointed.
Sunday was a day that (thank god) ended before 6:30 pm, but was still very nerve racking knowing most of the boats we lined up against were the JV’s of their respective programs, but The Caroline was still riding the high from yesterday so really all we had to do was rip it to the best of our ability. A big thank you to Brooke for saving the boat-and shoutout Gianna for moving up to my pair. Not the finish we wanted for our last 2k, but a good marker telling the boat we were surprisingly ahead of where we thought we would be. I drank an XL diet coke from Shake Shack on the way home as Gianna scolded me for not knowing half the country songs on her playlist. It was a long car ride without Ava there to laugh with me on the “La Joe-Lah” mix up but I know she’ll be back soon. Super excited to go die during the mini sink kitchen workout on Friday-I’m so serious I will be sending out a farewell text Thursday night, but can’t wait to keep getting faster!
Junior Rower
Makenna Haley