Crew blog, Volume III

Members of Hamilton College's men's and women's crew programs will be checking in throughout the week with dispatches from their spring trip to Florida. Tuesday's update comes from Lily Trapkin '17.

This morning my roommate Nina and I knew it was going to be a beautiful day -- and it was!! The crummy weather from yesterday disappeared and we were able to go row on the water. The skies were clear blue, there was a high of 70 degrees and the cool breeze that was blowing all day helped to make the sun beating down on us a lot more bearable. It was our first time doing any real work on the water and it felt really good to be back at it.

Since the girls were unable to make it onto the water yesterday due to thunder and lightning, it was a nice relief to be able to put in the work that we need to prepare us for our upcoming regatta. We started our row by working on technique that we transferred into the 10-minute pieces that we did. We also took some power 20s at high ratings, which were challenging but helped push us into the rates we are going to be racing at very soon.

After we finished stretching, we enjoyed another meal full of variety at the University of Tampa dining hall. Everyone’s spirits brightened after consuming the maximum amount of food that their stomachs could handle once practice was over. Today’s free time was spent by the pool, but the cold winds persisted from the morning and made it a little too cold for me and some of my teammates to stay outside.

We started our afternoon practice with body circuits that felt a little rough after the circuits that we did on Sunday. Once we got on the water, we did a lot of technique work with pressure behind it so that we could get the work and meters in while also bettering our movement through the water. During practice, our coxswain saw dolphins swimming on our port side and got extremely excited because they’re her favorite animal. We were all surprised by her outburst but we channeled the excitement into our row.

While walking back to the hotel from dinner, we saw dragon-racing boats, which looked to be racing one another. The whole scene reminded me of something from the new 300 movie trailer where all the men are heaving the oars through the water. It was all very Viking-esque and although I didn’t see any dolphins, I still got to see an exciting sight on the water. I’m hoping to have just as productive a day tomorrow as we did today and looking forward to another beautiful day on the water in sunny Florida.