Back-to-school season always has a tangible mood of eagerness, freshness, and expectation. For Blue Crew, the return to Wellesley marks the beginning of the 2011-2012 season—a season that will surely be filled with more memories, learning, and tremendous work. Coming off of a highly successful 2011-2012 season (Ok, ok. We finished third in the nation!!!), we have high expectations for the upcoming year. We hope you’ll follow us as we push on towards bigger goals.
After NCAA’s last year, the team dispersed to various corners of the country and world. From studying in Denmark or Berlin, to working in Boston, to interning in Washington D.C., following the summer training plan was a test of our individual drive and commitment to the team as a whole. Overall, we proved that even from afar, Blue Crew is always on our minds. As examples, Coogie put in 46.33 hours of training this summer (despite making a trek to Lake Baikal in Siberia!!), and Jess put in almost 60 hours. That amount of time is equivalent to watching 163 episodes of The Office for Jess!
After almost three months apart over the summer, we were overjoyed to reunite again over dinner at the Lulu. With Blue Crew back on campus, kitchen staff learned that they have to kick it into overdrive when stocking the salad bar and the quinoa! We had two weeks to re-adjust to Wellesley, and during this period we trained on our own or in groups organized by our new and awesome team of captains, Taylor Black, Conisha Cooper, and Shernaz Dossabhoy. We also got to know a fantastic group of recruits, who are coming to Wellesley from as far away as Seattle and Colorado and from as near as Newton, MA.
Throughout the pre-season period, we spoke of the T-word only when necessary. Testing. Knowing that the ergometer screen doesn’t lie, everyone was nervous for the 30-minute erg test, 2k erg test, mile test, beep test, and Wendy CrossFit workout. However, we were mostly confident in our summer training, and saw testing week as a means to an end: returning to the Charles River and entering the fall racing season with strength.
Proof of the work our team has put in since the beginning of testing in 2009 and 2010, improvement in our erg scores was spectacular. The top eight splits of the 30-minute erg test were almost 5.7 seconds per 500 meters faster than in 2009, and 2.63 seconds per 500 meters faster than last year. To illustrate how awesome this is: if we raced the Head of the Charles’ 3-mile course with this margin of improvement, this year’s boat would beat last year’s boat by more than 25 seconds and would beat 2009’s boat by almost a full minute! Also, this year’s average team split is almost as fast as the top 8 splits pulled in 2009. But given the buckets of sweat, months of early wakeups, and tons of love and support showed by Blue Crew over the past two years years, these numbers aren’t surprising.
The beginning of testing also marked the official beginning to our season! We launched onto the Charles on Tuesday morning, and have already spent many hours on the river working on brushing off the summer technique cobwebs. It feels amazing to return to the Charles and to remember the glowing sunrise over Boston. Saturday was an especially fun-filled day. Beginning with a Dam-to-Dam row in the morning (which was interrupted by a bagel break, thanks to Beth!), we finished the morning by meeting and bonding with this year’s novice rowers.
We are all excited for the next few weeks of the (too-short) fall season. We will be racing at the Snake Regatta at Lake Quinsigamond on October 15, the Head of the Charles on October 22 and 23, and the Seven Sisters Regatta at Smith College on October 29. Less than a week into the season, we have already made tremendous progress. With 250 days until the 2012 NCAA championships, we are ready to push harder this year than ever before.
We hope you will keep checking in here to read posts from different members of the team on how the year is progressing. Also, be sure to become a fan of Wellesley Crew on Facebook!
-Maggie West ‘14
