Course Correction (6 page)

Less than a quarter mile into the race, our coxswain pointed us through the first bridge, a double challenge: a combined railroad bridge, with tracks going at one angle, and a roadway bridge at a different angle, each with its own pair of pillars standing different widths apart. Not only did she have to avoid the bridge obstacles, our coxswain had to exit the bridge without crossing the line of buoys that started on the other side of the bridge on the shore side. We came through cleanly, our blades touching nothing but water, and the coxswain set our course just off the starboard buoys as we rowed past Magazine Beach.

Things got serious right after that because I started to feel winded, which helped calm me down. Can I do this? Although the wind was not a factor, all the boats rowing ahead of us rippled the water's surface, creating unsettling wakes. When our shell rocked side to side, I had to think about how to adjust my hand height to help steady it. Thank goodness for our coxswain, who reminded the starboards to pull in high and the ports to lower their hands.

The first big turn approached. The port rowers rowed extra hard to help the coxswain power the boat around the corner that ended at Riverside Boat Club. This steering adjustment put us into the Powerhouse Stretch, a three-quarter mile section of race course devoid of turns. We passed uneventfully through two low, arched bridges with spectators leaning over the sides, snapping photos and cheering loudly.

The first mile marker bobbed between the bridges, and our coxswain took note. “We're a third of the way through! Let's take a power ten for the legs! On this one …” I made sure my next catch dropped in with extra crispness and my legs powered through the stroke in spite of the tiredness that had already crept into the edge of my consciousness.

As we came through the bridge near the end of the straight stretch, we overtook our first crew, forcing its coxswain to steer away from the buoys and take a wider path along the course. We cruised by them like they were standing still. Seeing the effect of our collective effort was thrilling. I felt reenergized. I wanted to pass someone else.

A giant turn lay ahead, where the river swerved hard to port under the Weeks Footbridge, the race's halfway point. Our coxswain maneuvered us into perfect position at just the right moment, and the crew we overtook veered into the middle of the river while we took the shortest route. Our boat felt strong as we headed into the second half of the race, but I could feel my legs tiring. I concentrated on keeping time with the rest of my crew.

We rowed under the Anderson Bridge, near Harvard Square, and caught another crew. Our coxswain warned us as we started to pass, “This is going to be tight on port.” Sure enough, our port blades clashed with their starboard ones as our coxswain fought for the course she wanted, asserting her right as the overtaking crew to choose her line: “Don't stop! We're almost by them.” The boat rocked unsteadily
as the port rowers struggled to hold on to their oars and keep rowing. My left hand banged on the starboard gunwale. Ow!

We finished passing and won a clear shot to the start of the next big turn, a full 180-degree, half-mile-long curve to port. The entire starboard side would need to help pull the boat around for a couple of minutes, just as I was starting to flail. I concentrated on pushing my legs down and finishing each stroke. But I couldn't block out the rising desperation as my muscles cataloged their aches and broadcast repeated requests to ease up, warning of imminent breakdown. I struggled to keep my focus and not to speculate about how much longer I could pull hard.

One more bridge to get through and one more big turn, and we would be done. As we emerged from under the Eliot Bridge, I heard cheering for Yale. That was for us! I heard, “Go Gilder!” and almost smiled. My first-ever cheerleaders! I hunkered down and kept my eyes on the back in front of me, even though my arms were ready to fall off.

We rounded the last turn and took our last forty strokes. That minute-plus took forever … but we finally crossed the line. Because the crews in a head race don't start or end at the same time, determining race results requires time to tally, especially without the benefit of computers. I had no idea how we'd fared against the competition, but I felt like a champion.

Everything hurt, including my butt. My hands sported new blisters, my lungs felt like they had been rubbed with sandpaper, and I wondered if I would be able to stand up when we docked. The race officials posted the results hours later, and we found our crew's time in the middle of the pack, a nothing-special outcome. I had never felt happier.

So much had changed in the year since my first encounter with rowing on the banks of the Charles. I jumped shore into a new adventure, found my own boat, and was learning its ropes. I could see the future beckoning, where I could speak like a rower and maneuver my oar like an experienced hand. My body was starting to slim down and thicken up, as my extra cushion of chubbiness melted away and new muscles emerged. My hands were already toughened; my first set of blisters had thickened into calluses that covered my palms and spiraled
up the insides of my fingers. They looked like warts, but they were mine and I was secretly proud of them.

As autumn yielded to the inevitability of winter, chill winds blew over New England's open spaces. Rivers froze from Princeton to Hanover. There would be no more rowing outdoors until spring.

The start of indoor training coincided with the end of fall semester. By now, wending my way around campus, I often recognized and greeted various members of the group of twenty-five-plus regulars with whom I'd rowed through the lagoon's murk. There were several freshmen to get to know, among them tall, lanky, brownish-blonde-haired Elaine Mathies, sporting a faintly Svenska look, thanks to her shoulder-length braids, whose 6´1″ frame must have caused Nat to salivate; stocky Sally Fisher, another shrimp, albeit a tad taller at 5´6″ than Chris Ernst; strong-looking, medium-tall (i.e., above my pathetic 5´7″ but not cracking the dreamy 6´ mark) Margaret Mathews, with an abundance of wiry auburn hair whose growing up in Europe and Turkey intrigued me; and another super-tall goddess in training, Cathy Pew, a pre-med smartie who projected an air of self-assurance I could only hope to fake. Besides the team's Olympic aspirants—our captain Chris, whose natural charisma and quick wit got me liking her immediately, and Anne, whose obvious sense of disdainful superiority got me wanting to keep my distance—there were sophomores Jennie Kiesling and Lynn Baker, aka Bakehead. Both these upperclasswomen seemed more at ease than I felt, not just around the boats and all the associated accoutrements, which made sense, but with themselves. I hoped that in another year I would feel more comfortable in my own skin, like Bakehead, as she swaggered around, looking a bit like the bulldog of our team, with powerful shoulders; proud of her bulk and the power it gave her, she claimed it shamelessly. I found myself gawking with amazement at Jennie K, first because of her utter fascination with and deep knowledge of military history, and then because of her habit of counting every single stroke she took, whether in a practice or a race. Now there was a woman who could not be distracted!

I also knew my roommates by now—Maria and Gwen—and I had figured out we weren't going to be best friends, although I liked them
well enough. I knew the names of the girls in the suite across the hall and recognized most of the students on the lower three floors of Lawrance Hall, my dorm. I spent most of my free time in the early weeks of college with several of them, but my involvement with crew gave me an easy pass on forging lasting friendships, allowing me to step out of the social swirl without looking like the loner I was.

Aside from the press of my dorm's social scene, I liked my new home, which reminded me of my hometown. I felt comfortable in New Haven, despite its well-earned reputation as dangerous, given its record of student muggings off campus. Although the city shared a grittiness with New York, the university's private campus police force and focus on security kept fears of crime to a minimum. The campus was located squarely within the city and stretched several blocks in many directions, so the university's attempt to maintain a separate identity was difficult. The dozen residential colleges that lay outside the Old Campus, with their ornate architecture, locked gates, and quads with lush green grass and low stone walls, served as oases of green peace from the city's concrete and less savory elements.

Lawrance Hall, affectionately nicknamed “Lousy Lawrance” in my father's era, was sandwiched between two other dorms, Farnum on one side and Phelps on the other. The row of brick buildings nestled shoulder to shoulder, like Manhattan brownstones, with their stairways leading up from the public sidewalk to the front doors of private homes. A slew of these buildings, including Wright, Durfee, Battell Chapel, Welch, Bingham, Vanderbilt, Street Hall, Linsly-Chittenden, and Dwight Hall, served as the boundaries of the quadrangle known as the Old Campus. Broken by four major sets of wrought-iron gates and another three or four smaller gates, they comprised the bulk of the freshmen's living quarters, along with some buildings serving as office and classroom space.

Lawrance's entry doors opened onto the Old Campus, whose graceful elm trees scattered among its sprawling open space and walking paths crisscrossed the green lawn. The dorm's back windows looked out onto College Street and the New Haven Green. I lived on the fourth, and top, floor of my entryway. Another suite housing three more students was directly across the hall from my suite. A
dank, cramped bathroom with a moldy shower and a single toilet stall opened into the hallway opposite the stairwell, shared by everyone on the floor. Nothing fancy, but certainly serviceable, with a hint of history in view everywhere, starting with Connecticut Hall, at the interior of the quadrangle, which was erected in 1752 and was the oldest building on campus.

I had entered a skewed new world, in which having officially been co-ed for the last 5 percent of its 275-year history, Yale's men occupied way more than their share of every classroom's seats, but this aspect of the surrounding culture neither informed nor deterred me. Self-absorbed in my own private transition, I didn't think one way or another about the implications inherent in the situation. In fact, I was much more comfortable with my classes since discovering rowing: my fellow students weren't all geniuses; my professors weren't supercilious tyrants gunning for my failure. And the 24/7 presence of boys brought some advantages: I plunged into the dating scene, had some fun without getting entangled in the drama of romance, and slept with a couple of guys in my dorm. Even though the sex was just fine, I discovered that the physical intimacy I shared with them couldn't compete with the thrill of stepping into a shell.

The upperclasswomen fretted about the onslaught of winter training—something about difficulty and intensity—but I nodded happily at their grumbles about weightlifting, running, ergometer pieces, stairs, circuits. I didn't know what they were talking about, but by now the unfamiliar was no deterrent. I would be there, come hell or high water.

Ignorance was bliss.

Winter training stripped away the best of rowing and exposed its worst, magnifying the drudgery, monotony, and pain. There was no scenery to distract, weather to enjoy, boat to feel, or rhythm to seek. Instead, I spent every day in the dank basement of the cavernous gym attempting whatever marching orders Nat scrawled on that day's torn piece of notebook paper pinned to the bulletin board. The experienced rowers translated the mysterious phrases for the novices, all synonyms for torture: stairs, 1–9b, 5–9b × 5; tanks, 3 × 15 min. @ full pressure/5 min. off; Edwards Street run; Nautilus, free weights, body circuit × 5; 6 minute ergometer; wind sprints.

As newly fit as I felt in November, by December I discovered I was an out-of-shape blob. I lacked strength and fitness, as well as the knowledge of how to build either. As for mental toughness, I'd never heard of it, so surely I needed to develop it.

Regardless of the methodology, the goal of weightlifting for rowers is to build muscle, whether it is a bicep, hamstring, tricep, glute, lat, quad, or ab. These muscles have to be strong, and their strength has to last at least as long as a two-thousand-meter race—which takes somewhere between six and seven minutes in an eight-oared rowing shell, depending on weather conditions and a crew's competence. Assuming an average crew rows about thirty-five strokes per minute, factoring in the starting twenty to forty strokes at the beginning and end of the race, when the rating can exceed forty, the average race requires nearly two hundred fifty strokes. If either a rower's muscles or pulmonary system fail to deliver, the result is the same: her power production diminishes, her ability to maintain the cadence and synchronicity with her teammates decreases, and the boat slows down. A crew is truly only as fast as its weakest link.

I learned how to lift free weights: cleans, squats, dead lifts, bench presses, clean-and-jerk. I used nautilus machines: leg extensions, hamstring pulls, lateral pull-downs, and leg presses. The bench pull was a homemade torture device designed especially for the rowers: a bench raised four feet above the ground with a slot for a weight bar notched at hanging-arm length below it on one end. It resembled a sturdy ironing board made of wood, with a rectangular surface long enough to hold a person's body. The exercise consisted of lying face down on the bench, chin hanging over the edge, and raising the weight bar—anywhere from forty to seventy pounds—to the underside of the bench, then lowering it to full arm extension. Repeat thirty times per minute for up to six minutes.

During a stroke, a strong rower can shove her legs from a compressed position to straight legged in well under a second; accept without hesitation the transition in load from the legs to the lower back, supported by the abdominals; link to the arms via the latissimus dorsi (the muscles under your arms that wrap around your back); and finish the stroke with a crisp pull of the biceps. Many of our weightlifting exercises mimicked a single element of the rowing stroke to isolate
and strengthen those particular muscles: that way, leg strength could be built without being limited by wimpy arms, and individual rowers could focus on strengthening their own particular weakest links. Leg presses recreated the leg drive; dead lifts engaged the lower back to open up at the end of the stroke; bench pulls evoked the finish, where it was all up to the arms.