Finally, the Michigan Men's Rowing Team was coming to Pennsylvania. All of their previous regattas had either been in Michigan, or further west in Indiana, or Wisconsin. We were thrilled to think of finally seeing Markie-Boy row!
The Dad Vail Regatta is the largest regatta in the
world. Over 3,500 rowers, and the boats were lined up for miles on the shores of the Delaware River. Every combination of boats too--skulls (with one person), four men boats, eight men boats, boats with men and women, and Mark's boat, a "light weight eight". Mark's category is actually very small, because there are very few rowers who can weigh in under 160 pounds since most rowers are well over 6' tall. Every other rower in Mark's boat is 6' tall, or UNDER. Mark is obviously the tallest at 6'5". It took him two weeks of starving himself to get to 159 pounds (from 170). He told us that minutes before the actual weigh-in, the scale said he was 160 pounds. The coach sent him on a "sweat run"--layers of clothing, including sweatshirts and sweatpants--to lose a couple more pounds just to be safe. His official weight? 157.
Glo was scheduled to come with John and me, but the night before, she came down with the flu. As much as I wanted to worry about her health if she tagged along, I worried more about her getting Mark sick. After all, when Mark's around, Glo sticks to him like glue. In the end, Mark convinced me that Glo HAD to come, so we packed up our things and headed out Friday night.
Saturday morning dawned with perfect weather. Sunny, high in the 80's. It was easy to get to the regatta itself, and after quite a bit of walking we found Mark.
At least, we THOUGHT we had found Mark. The figure-who-should-have-been-Mark
looked like Mark, but he certainly didn't
act like Mark. In fact, all eight guys from Mark's boat looked as though someone had just died. They called it "getting in the zone" and Mark likened it to the preparation before an audition. Hmmmm, when I remember those times, I remember Mark beat-boxing... and laughing.
Anyway, John chalked it up to a crazy sports thing to do. Mark promised us that he would be different (i.e. himself)
after the race.
Man, what a process to race. It was fascinating to watch it all go down. The coxswain, a woman, is the only one who speaks. The coswains are typically small so that they don't add extra weight to the boat. Like 5'2" and under 100 pounds. I joked with John that it's every woman's secret wish to be a coxswain. Full control of eight men who can't talk back to you and who must listen to you! Heaven!
She told them everything to do, and they work as one. Checking the boat, lifting the boat, carrying the boat, getting in the boat.
When they finally got the boat to the water, I seriously wondered what they were doing. Praying, perhaps?
It took them about 20 minutes to get warmed-up and down to the start line. From our vantage point in the Grand Stand, we couldn't actually see the starting line, and there was no announcement. We knew that Mark's race started at 1:40, and we watched for the boats after that.
Wow! Pure excitement! My legs were shaking from nerves. With the telephoto lens on my camera, we could see Mark's boat. The maize "M"s on the backs of the rowers shirts, the white boat. We were so excited, and cheering loud enough that Mark said he could actually hear me!
Mark went into this, knowing that The University of Delaware, and Purdue had the fastest lightweight 8 freshman boats. He was hopeful that Michigan could beat them, but there were no expectations. In the end, the Michigan freshman lightweight 8 boat placed third and earned a bronze medal. Our family was thrilled! A Kennedy earning any kind of sporting medal? Awesome! (Mark, you are more than welcome to edit this post and add in all the official commentary on the race, because I haven't a clue!)
As it turns out, the other freshman boats didn't even place, so we felt extremely happy for Mark. All of the time and work he has dedicated to rowing over the last year (including giving up a scuba diving vacation over spring break) paid off with that medal.
The best part? Having the boat come right up to the Grand Stand so that we could yell out congratulations to all of the men! We were so proud!
Afterwards, we walked another lap around the world and found Mark. The
real Mark. Happy, posing for pictures, wanting to spend time with us. We headed back to the Grand Stand so that we could catch our shuttle back to the parking lot and head home, and so that Mark could watch the varsity teams compete (they took first place for the entire regatta--A.MA.ZING.)
At this point, I would like to say to all of you readers, "WELCOME TO THE
GUN SHOW!"
I was sad to say goodbye to Mark. I had tried and tried to convince him to beg his coach to let him come back to State College with us for Mother's Day. Turns out, a bunch of other mothers tried the same thing. John was emotional, telling me that one rower had walked up to his mom and grandma after the race with cards in his hands for them, hugging them and apologizing for not being with them on Mother's Day. Another boy handed his mom his medal as a happy mother's day gift. It's against team rules to NOT ride home with the team, so Mark had to do it.
As we were saying goodbye, Mark turned to me and said, "I can't do this. I have to tell you. I'm coming home tomorrow for Mother's Day. Surprise!"
I was stunned. What? Didn't he have practice on Monday? Turns out, he didn't have practice until Monday afternoon. I told him that it was too much driving for just a couple of hours. He said that he didn't care--I was worth it. I told him that it was crazy to ride in the team vans all night, back to Ann Arbor, get there, turn around and drive back to PA, only to drive back to Michigan 12 hours later. He wasn't listening--he was coming home.
I didn't realize it at the time, but this would mean more to me than just about anything my kids have ever done for me. But that's for another post...
Ok first, I would like to address the issue of the "getting in the zone", cause everytime I have friends or family come to the races, I feel really bad before the race cause I'm not very friendly. Music auditions are a little different in that during the audition, you've basically practiced so much and the individual situation is relatively the same in practicing and auditioning that there's really nothing to worry about. I act all funny and crazy before to just loosen up because that's how I play the best. Rowing is COMPLETELY different cause 1. we don't know how good the other crews are going to be and we need to focus on what needs to be done should we be in a bad position, 2. there's a severe amount of pain that goes along with any race, unlike auditions. If auditions were physically strenuous, I would be much more afraid of them, but races are REALLy stressful cause you know about a quarter of the way through, you're going to start REALLY hurting. Finally, 3. Because of the pain, it's WAY harder to focus once you hit about 500m into the race. You're worried about all the other boats and how fast they're going and you're worrying about your technique that day and how the boat is responding and the calls the coxswain is making, and add into that lactic acid is building up, you're severely oxygen depleted, you're whole body is compressing and extending as powerfully as you can, and it just keeps hurting more and more, and so you need to mentally focus on how you'll respond once you hit that point. For reference, I have raced races where I act super happy and relaxed before a race and from what I remember, those races did not go well. Either way, I'm sorry family I wasn't very pleasant before the race):
ReplyDeleteI also like that picture of us standing by the dock. I don't quite remember what we were doing (maybe just waiting for Meghan to call Oars Across and for us to get into the boat) but personally, I think I MIGHT have been praying right then(: Haha
Overall we had a really good race. Like not just solid, or ok, but GOOD. The start was nice and powerful, contrary to other starts we've had in races in the past, the high 20 after the start was right on rating, and despite us not making some of the scheduled lifts in rating throughout the race, we maintained really good power throughout. Not to mention, our sprint wasn't like us limping across the finish line, but rather felt much more like a powerful solid sprint(: Our coaches were really happy with how well we did!
Again, thanks Mommy for covering EVERYTHING so well! You're like the rowing paparazzi, and the news reporter at the same time!