Dogwood Invitational

Did I go to a regatta this past weekend? Yes I did.
Did I win any medals? Yes I did.
Was it fun to go to a regatta for the first time in a long time? Yes it was.
Are the people that I row with pretty cool? Yes they are.
Did I take a camera on the trip? Yes I did.
Did I take any pictures? No I did not.
Is that too bad? Yes it is.

It was a very busy day. We got up at 5:00 in the morning (that's 4:00 St. Louis time), had breakfast, and headed to the race course. We had a coxswain's meeting to tell us about racecourse rules and procedure (no swearing! don't cut across the course!), then rigged our boats.

Our first race was the Women's Masters 4x (quad). The race was early, and the water was the best of the day. It was a very quick race, we kept our rate up the whole time (probably higher than we should have, but that's OK), and we rowed well together. We got a silver medal!

Next was the Women's Masters 2x (double). By this time the water was getting choppy and the wind was picking up. It was a pretty sloppy row, but nonetheless we managed another silver.

I was also supposed to row in a Mixed Masters 2x, but C, my rowing buddy, had to attend to more important matters. Let me explain: we were on our way down to Oak Ridge on Saturday. We were nearing Paducah, KY, on I-24 when he got a call from his wife that their daughter (who was very pregnant) had high blood pressure and the doctors decided to induce labor. So we put C in a rental car, pointed him back to St. Louis, and sent him on his way. His wife had booked them on a flight to Seattle, where said very pregnant daughter lived, that evening.

With C gone, I was going to row the Mixed Masters 2x with a stand-in, but the races were just too close together. By the time I got back in from the Women's Masters 2x race and got the boat ready for the Mixed Masters 2x, they were already lining up our race at the starting line. So we scratched that, which I think was a good thing anyway; it gave me about 10 minutes to breathe before race #3.

The last race of the day for me was the Women's Masters 1x (single). Despite the fact that C had left us, we still had his boat, and I rowed it for my race. It was my first time in it, and it is quite lovely. It is new and shiny and bright red and I got lots of compliments on it! The race, unfortunately, was not quite so lovely. The wind had continued to strengthen throughout the middle of the day, and it was ugly. I almost bit it a couple of times on the way up to the starting line, and once during the race even! (For the non-rowers, imagine this: I am on the water, in a boat that is 27 feet long, 10 inches wide at the water line, and weighs 30 pounds. My oars, which stick out about 8 feet from the sides of the boat, act like sails whenever the wind blows. And the wind was blowing 15 mph. Not pretty.) It was a feat to stay upright, but actually ended up being fun because I had a good sprint against the girl in the lane next to me. She gained on me through the middle of the race, but I took it back in the last few hundred meters to get a third silver medal.

After that race, we got into de-rigging and loading the trailer straightaway, and then hit the road by about 1:30. All of this is by way of an apology: Sorry I don't have any pictures.

But you can see where we were rowing, thanks to Google Maps:
The "B" is the Flatwater Grill; it has a wonderful view of the starting line. We had dinner there on Saturday night. I got the House Salad & Artichoke Souffle, which was beyond delicious! The "A" is the Oak Ridge boathouse -- you can see where they have a little lagoon with a bunch of docks for launching and returning. The course was wonderful! It had 6 fully-buoyed lanes, so 8 lanes if you needed to put boats on the outside, and also had permanent stakeboats at the starting line and a finishing tower for the refs. I want to row there again!

If you don't believe me, results for Sunday should be posted on Regatta Central shortly. Look for the "Oak Ridge Dogwood Invitational."