June 15, 2006

HENLEY, ENGLAND - June 15

Cheers from England!

The SJU Womens Rowing team is having a great time in England. So far we have visited London, Bath, and Oxford. We have two European races under our belt so far as we raced a four and an eight in Reading last Sunday. We raced Villanova and Dublin in the four and Reading University in the eight.

The weather has been beautiful since we got here, despite some rain we encountered in London. We are still preparing every day for the races that will start on Saturday for us. We have been practicing twice daily since we got to Henley and have switched to one practice a day from now until the races.

We will be sure to keep you updated of the results!

~Team SJU (Jenn Linck)

June 13

Hello from Henley!

Well we have been here for five wonderful days now, so here's an update:

We arrived Friday, very tired and made our way to Henley, we are staying in an apartment right on the Thames, and we can see the finish line from our living room window, it is beautiful.

We began Saturday rather late, by crew standards. We walked from our apartment to the race course, about a 20 minute walk. There we found the boat we will be rowing over here, a Resolute, the same make that we won Dad Vails in, the only difference is that here the boats come in two pieces, so we actually had to put our boat together. Once together we headed out on the Thames; being that it was a Saturday the river was crowded with leisure boats and bathers, very, very different from the Schuylkill, and much narrower too. We rowed the race course twice, figuring out the rules of the river, traffic patterns and seeing the sights. We spent Saturday rowing and acquainting ourselves with the town of Henley. We had a second row on Saturday afternoon, up and down the race course two more times, good rows, stretching out after all of our traveling and preparing for the Reading Regatta which we rowed in on Sunday.

Sunday we made the 20 minute drive to Reading, where the Varsity 4 and Varsity 8 rowed. The four went first and was comprised of Brianna Kearns, Alicia Easby-Smith, Jenn Linck, and Maureen Owston. The races here are all duals since the rivers are so narrow. In their first race, the four won, beating a university team from over here (the specific name escapes me). After winning that they went on to face Villanova, where although they fought hard and rowed well, they lost. Then the V8 raced against Reading Rowing Club. The V8 is made up of Brianna, Amanda Holland, Liz Sauter, Meghan Henry (me), Jenn, Lauren Sysol, Kate Reehill, and Debbie Bateman, and Kate Parry as cox. We rowed a very hard race, against a very good team. Unfortunately we lost, but it was a good row in a boat we were not used to with oars that were not our own. In fact the rowers of the Reading Club complimented us telling us they had never seen that particular boat move so fast. So although we lost, it was a good race, and more importantly a good learning experience, our first truly international competition.

Monday was a very full day. We rowed in the morning, doing 500m pieces, it was a very good row, in which we were beginning to feel comfortable with our new boat, and finally stretched out and rested. After practice we headed to Bath, a town about two hours east. There we saw the sights, particularly the ancient Roman Bath, built by the Romans when they ruled the island of Britain about 1300 years ago, the history and everything else was awesome. From Bath we headed home to Henley, but first we made a detour to Stonehenge, this was truly incredible. At first we joked saying they were just a bunch of rocks, but after seeing it, and hearing the stories on our 'tour' we were glad we stopped, it was absolutely amazing. When we arrived back in Henley we had an evening row, this time 750m pieces. Even after a full day we had a wonderful practice. We moved the boat very well, and took some nice powerful strokes. I think by this time we were definitely comfortable in our new boat, and I was certainly getting excited for our race.

Today we rowed in the morning, a steady state, as we enter our taper which worked so well for Dad Vails. The row was good, and at this point we are simply trying to perfect those small idiosyncracies, like the slight movements of our hands that will truly make or break our racing this coming weekend. After practice we headed into London for a full day of sightseeing. We each stayed together for the big sites but then went off in groups to see the smaller things that we wanted to see in more detail.

Tomorrow and Thursday we will once again practice in the morning and go on to sightseeing for the rest of the day in Cambridge and Oxford, since we are into our taper. We are getting VERY excited as the racing draws nearer. We do not race until Saturday since winning Dad Vails we have a bye in the first round. Our boat feels EXCELLENT, we are rowing well, very strong and with the incredible ability of the rowers in our boat, and the excitement from being over here, we are hoping for great racing this weekend.

Many thanks for all the support!! We will update you later in the week. Cheers from the Hawks in Henley! (Meghan Henry)