University of Minnesota Athletics
Ski-U-Mah Preview: Lisa Weeks
4/28/2015 12:00:00 AM | Rowing
The following is an excerpt from "A Path to Row," a feature story about Lisa Weeks and her unlikely journey from following directions written in sidewalk chalk to standout in one of Minnesota's top boats.
Be sure to check out Michael Molde's entire piece, as well as other great articles about Gopher student-athletes and teams, in the May issue of Ski-U-Mah, which be available online here at GopherSports.com next and in print at Gopher Athletics venues the first week in May.
That first season was a learning experience for Weeks and her novice teammates. Although the sport of rowing may have looked beautiful when watching from the shore, it wasn't even close to as easy as Weeks had thought.
"Watching a race, you just see the blades enter the glistening water and the boat seems to just glide along, but you don't really know what's happening inside the boat," Weeks said. "Before I actually started competing, I kind of thought rowing looked almost effortless, because you're just putting a blade in the water and letting it go. Everything seems so fluid."
According to Weeks, though, it was a harsh reality to actually get in the boat and compete.
"Your muscles literally feel like they're tearing off of you, and there is so much shearing pain, especially in a 2K," Weeks said. "Not only do your muscles hurt, but your mentality slowly gets worse as the race goes on and you're thinking, `I don't know how much longer I can keep up with this.' So it's definitely a very tough sport, both mentally and physically."
Beyond just the physical pain and mental anguish, there were the additional hurdles of anxiety and nerves to deal with during that first season. Imagine the feeling of never having participated in a sport, then practicing it for just a few weeks before competing against teams with experienced athletes, some of who were recruited to row collegiately.
"We were all very nervous prior to our first race, because we wanted to do so well for Peter (Morgan). I think it went pretty well, but we knew we were going up against Wisconsin, and the majority of Wisconsin's novices were actually recruited rowers," Weeks said. "What's unique to our team is that absolutely none of our novice rowers had any previous background in the sport, so we were truly a `novice' team."
Players Mentioned
