Rowing into winter
This past weekend, Y Quad Cities Rowing went to Chattanooga, Tennessee for the Head of the Hooch regatta. Head of the Hooch is known as “The Last of the Great Fall Regattas.” Over 211 clubs and more than 2150 entries were there to race over the 5k course.
On Sunday, high winds lead the course to being shortened to 2.3k. However, this quick change did not phase the athletes. Junior Delaney Evans said, “Although the shortened course on Sunday took me by surprise, I think that everyone handled the change well and were able to adapt.”
PV athletes brought home the medals. Junior Brenna Morley and Evans won the youth double sculls with a time of 16:24.58, while juniors Taylor English and Emma Mask got silver with a time of 16:43.61. There were 76 entries in the doubles race. The four teamed up to win the quadruple sculls by over seven seconds out of 60 entries.
On the boys side, junior William Sharis teamed up with Davenport Central junior Sam Saveraid to get a top 11 finish in a competitive field of 82 boats in the men’s youth double.
In the same event, the young boat of PV 8th grader Nikhil Ramaraju teamed up with Rivermont freshman Tristan Wakefield to come in 19th.
In the women’s single, Evans, English, Morley, and Mask came in 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 7th, respectively for a strong finish for the team.
Overall as a team, YQCR got 3rd, in a field of huge teams from all over the nation.
Assistant coach Deidrah Kennedy said,
“It was a great end to the fall season. Now we must get started with our winter training, which is where we do hard work to set us up to do well in the spring season.”
As the winter season comes and ice covers the Mississippi, the training for the rowing team will change a little bit. The team will now be training inside for the next five months, until the water is warm enough to get back outside. They train mostly on indoor rowing machines, called ergometers, or ergs. To supplement their six times a week erging, they will lift three times a week, along with a cross training session. Evans said “The winter is hard, but it is where we get a lot of strength gains.”
During the winter, there are also many indoor erging competitions for rowers to compete in. Last year, Evans went to the world indoor event and won the youth lightweight women’s category.
