2008-09 Crew Blog - Week 8

by Elissa Center - March 26, 2009
(photos courtesy of Sarah Gray)

Our team traveled south for its annual spring training trip this past week. It’s pretty much the highlight of my entire year - two rows a day, team dinners and skits, mini-naps, lots of blisters and the crew team taking over an entire hall of our favorite hotel in Woodbridge, Virginia. The weather held up for us after a gloomy-looking forecast the week before. It only rained lightly a couple of times, and the water was as flat as glass all week.

Some of the highlights of the week were, like usual, the team’s traditions. It all started with the varsity leaving surprise posters and small gifts outside of our new little sisters’ doors. I like to think that we were pretty stealthy. As far as I know, most of the novices didn’t know who was leaving their surprises until the last day of break, when we revealed ourselves.

Then there are the daily team dinners, including a few nights of delicious homemade food prepared by teammates’ families! And spring break dinner just wouldn’t be spring break dinner without some kind of fun activity to go along with it. One evening is filled with “hai-crew” poems we write and recite for the team. Another is spent guessing the answers to our varsity and novice questions, such as, “Which varsity member used to be captain of her high school cheerleading squad?” The last night is my personal favorite - skit night. Performing skits for our teammates and coaches is a fun opportunity to laugh at ourselves and each other after a long week of rowing and living together. After the skits, the novices presented us with gifts - superhero outfits with personalized names and designs on the back! Who doesn’t want a cape and superhero underwear??

Amidst all of the craziness of spring break, of course, there’s the rowing! We got a lot of great strokes in, finally starting our on-the-water preparation for the upcoming racing season. On one of the last mornings there, we even had a chance to scrimmage George Mason. The pieces were shorter than our normal 2K, but they helped remind us what it’s like to race again.

I left the hotel in Woodbridge with a “Virginia is for Lovers” shirt (a Mount Holyoke senior tradition!), a wealth of memories, and—of course—a good dose of impatient excitement for the start of the racing season!