Dichroic Reflections

Race Report

Today’s race went fairly well. It was hot but not searing, and there was a nice breeze for the first 2 hours, but not enough to rough up the water that much. I coxed a men’s four, rowed in a women’s lightweight quad, and coxed a women’s lightweight four. Because this was the first year rowing was one of the sports in the Grand Canyon State Games, they had subdivided categories almost to the point of ridiculousness, so there are really two ways to look at the results.

I.

My boats came in:

• First (of one) in Masters’ Mens’ Lightweight Fours
• First (of one) in Womens’ Quad
• First (of one) in Womens’ Lightweight Masters’ Four

This being the way the GCSG actually did look at it, I now have 3 gold medals.

II.

More realistically:

They combined events, so in all those "first of one" categories, we actually were racing at the same time as other related boats. We came in:

• Master Men’s Lightweight Four: Behind a Junior Mens’ Four and a heavyweight Masters’ Four, but ahead of a Juniors’ Eight -- so third of 3, but still not DFL.
• Lightweight Womens’ Quad: Behind the Mens’ Quad (as expected) and behind an unexpectedly fast Mens’ Four, but ahead of a Junior Womens’ Four -- quads are generally faster than fours if all factors are the same, but these girls were twice our size.
• Lightweight Womens’ Four: Just barely behind a heavyweight Womens’ Four

That last is especially impressive; none of the lightweight women had been rowing much more than a year, while several of the heavyweights had rowed Varsity in college. Also, the heavyweights had a world-class coxswain, while the lightweights just had me. They basically kicked ass. I did think for a minute that Hardcore, in stroke seat (i.e. nearest to me) was going to puke after the race, but fortunately she recovered quickly.

T’s race categories had a bit more competition than mine, so he has the full assortment of medals: a gold, a silver, and a bronze, for Men’s Quad (1 of 1, but also first overall), Mixed Eight (2 of 2 in category, 3 of 4 in race) and Men’s Eight (3 of 3). On the other hand, I expect he and T2 will do considerably better than Egret and I in our respective doubles races next weekends.

The rest of the weekend will likely consist of laundry, grocery-shopping, and recuperation.