University of Minnesota Athletics
Erica Revering's Novice Rowing Blog
1/15/2011 12:00:00 AM | Rowing
The Golden Gopher novice and varsity teams are currently training in sunny San Diego. Follow the Erica Revering's novice rowing blog!
Jan. 16, 2011
Hello again!
This week has gone by so quickly, and I don’t think any of us are quite ready to head back to MinneSNOWta quite yet. Practices have been going quite well, we had a chance to do some pieces with the third varsity boat yesterday and it was interesting to see how we compare with them. On Thursday everyone on the trip crammed into Coach Davis’ room for “Tubby Time” to watch the basketball game vs. Purdue, and I’m sure the screams of excitement when we won were heard by many other hotel guests.
We will all miss spending our free time lounging by the pool and walking to the beach to watch the sunset, and making nightly trips to Yogurtland. Last night the whole team had a bonfire by the beach, and it was so big that it was tough to get close enough to toast our marshmallows without getting too hot! It was a good way to end the week.
Now it’s time to head back to indoor workouts, but it’s been a nice break from tedious erging. We are all a little more prepared for the spring season now, but sadly we have many more weeks of frozen water left! At least we know each other better and are more cohesive as a team now, and that should make future workouts more bearable. Well, that’s it for updates from the trip, time to head back to the land of 10,000 (frozen) lakes!
I only have one last thing to say….ROW GOPHS!
Jan. 14, 2011
Hello from sunny San Diego!
Yesterday was an exciting day. It was tie dye Tuesday, so we tried to get the whole boat dressed in tie dye t-shirts, which looked pretty awesome. It was a gorgeous day on the water, so there were a lot of boats out and about, especially a large flock of singles and doubles that one novice rower wittily nicknamed “the Spanish Armada” because they were all speaking Spanish. We also spotted some dolphins surfacing near the boat, and it’s a good thing that there aren’t dolphins in the Mississippi or we would never get anything done at practice!
After practice, we hung out at the hotel pool and enjoyed the beautiful weather. Both varsity and novice teams ate dinner at Luigi’s, which is famous for their 30 inch pizzas that have slices bigger than your head! It was fun watching a few varsity members attempt to conquer the pizza challenge, where two people try to eat a whole 30 inch pizza by themselves in an hour. Nobody actually did it, but they were close! It was also cool to talk to some older team members and get their answers to questions we had about racing and talk to them about their experience with rowing. A lot of them had some very valuable advice. Today we had one practice on the water and running and a circuit, which was really fun to do next to the ocean. We also visited the San Diego zoo, and saw some really cool animals like pandas and tapirs. This week has been going by so fast because we’ve been so busy, so hopefully when it gets warmer in the next few days we can spend some time in the beach. Well, that’s all for today, check later for updates from splendid San Diego!
Jan. 11, 2011
The few days we have spent in San Diego so far have been fun filled and exhausting. After we left the airport, in awe of the fact that it is 60 degrees in January and definitely wearing t-shirts despite the chill in the air, we spent 45 minutes shopping for groceries. My room (Chelsea, Nicolette, Kate and I) strategically planned out the food we would need for the week, but sadly, we grossly underestimated the amount of food we consume after practicing twice a day and going for long runs on the beach.
Practices have been good so far including a few exciting seal sightings. The whole team is learning a lot, like how to make the boat more set, what the stern deck is, and the name for that ball thingy on the bow. I believe I can speak for the entire novice squad when I say that this trip has made me appreciate sleep in a way that I never have before. The first night we were here, my room (and most other rooms) was asleep by 8:45 pm. It has also been a great bonding experience for us, with long treacherous beach runs, roaming around Mission Bay with help from a local tour guide, soaking in the hot tub, watching movies, and the game night we had last night. We played “famous people in a hat” and laughed at Coach Andy’s sparse knowledge of celebrities. We also discovered one of the most wonderful places in the world- Yogurtland. We have already planned many return trips for the rest of the week.
Today a few of us took the bus to Old Town, where we browsed through the historic shops and ate some delicious Mexican food. Unfortunately, some team members stayed behind to tend to their injuries, but they also had fun eating pizza and swimming in the pool. For the rest of the week we have big plans to visit the zoo, rent some rollerblades, go swimming, go parasailing, and of course, row. That’s it for now from sunny AND WARM Sand Diego… ROW GOPHS!
