Crew = Pain

            There are times when every rower questions why he or she does crew. There are countless reasons to hate a sport that causes so much pain and suffering. Rowing is a synonym for pain, as a former Yale rower once said, “having a vacuum cleaner stuck down your throat while having sulfuric acid splashed on your legs.” You could hate crew when you have hours of practice everyday, and you are always late to every commitment because your practice was longer than expected. After your coach calls across the line of boats that you are doing one more piece, even though you feel like you will most definitely die of exhaustion. When you have practice on a machine called an erg, but better known as the creation of Satan himself.  When you look down at your hands and hardly recognize them since they are covered in so many blisters and callouses. When it seems normal to discuss different methods of not stopping a workout because things start to go fuzzy and little stars begin to creep in on the sides of your vision, or which direction you should lean to when you have to vomit. ­And just when your workout is over and you land on the dock, you have to lift the boat, a torrent of water dumping on your head and go on to carry a 120lb boat back to the boathouse. The list could go on forever.

            So why would anybody who started rowing ever actually stick with it? Because although lows can be incredibly low, the highs more than make up for them. What makes a sport based pain manageable is that you know that your teammates beside you are going through the exact same thing. They become the only ones who can understand some of your stranger habits, such as staring at excel spreadsheets of different workouts for prolonged periods of time intently looking at the differences in milliseconds.Suffering together creates a bond unlike any other. What makes you keep rowing is knowing that your teammates in your boat are going through exactly what you are, and you cannot let them down. The pain is only temporary. Rowing is the only racing sport where you can see the people you are beating, and nothing in the world feels better to watch other crews getting farther and farther away from you. Crew is a sport for the slightly crazy. It shows you pain you never thought you could feel, but because of that pain it shows you determination you never thought you were capable of. Rowing is a sport that is unlike any other in the physical and mental grit it requires, and shows you a part of yourself you never knew existed.