Nonstop Racing

3 events in under 4 hours!  The William's Island Regatta is a "glorified practice" that my team attends each spring, and this year I competed in three different races in just a few short hours!  Though a short day, it was still really eventful...and exhausting! 

After arriving at 8am and getting my boat set, the day started out with my single's race.  Fortunately, unlike at the previous weekend's Percy Priest Sprints, the water was really nice with barely any choppy water! 

Heading towards the starting line... I'm the far boat

But the race still wasn't perfect.  Right at the start of the race, as soon as we started rowing, the boat in the lane next to me came right at me and we nearly collided!  Luckily, that didn't happen, but it still caused me to come to a full start and fall behind the rest of the boats! 

I managed to pass a few of them...

...but that poor start had made it really hard!

I ended up placing 4th of 6.  

And though it wasn't the results that I would have liked, I know that with some hard work and dedication, I can do better at the next regatta!

But anyways, I new that I had another event coming up, so I followed the officials' instructions and made my way to the dock.

There, my team already had my double on the water waiting for me, so all that I had to do was grab my oars from my single, put them in my new boat, hop in, and start rowing once again! 

I was already tired from my previous race, but the purpose of the regatta was to really work hard and get the practice, so that's what I would be doing! 

At the William's Island Regatta, there's a little bridge that we have to go under to exit the creek and get out on the river.  It's a tight opening and tricky to navigate.  With the single I didn't have an issue, but by the time I was in the double, I was already tired and we nearly got stuck! 

But after a few seconds, we made it out okay and ready to start the race!

The row up to the starting line had another little incident - we got stuck in a tree branch - but we still managed to get there safely! 

We weren't there for much time before the boats got lined up and were ready to start.  We were in the middle of the pack for the first few hundred meters, and were still in the race for the most part, but somewhere in the last part we fell behind. 

It might have just been that I was really tired, but regardless, we're going to work extra hard so that we can do better next time!   

After the doubles we had some time to rest before the next race. During those 30-ish minutes we had to help a four recover, so we weren't relaxing completely, but it was still nice to be on land rather than heading back out immediately after a race!

That next event would be my quad.  It's the same lineup as the four the raced at last weekend's regatta, but we'd be sculling instead. 

I feel that we work better together as the four, but I would still give it 100% and try to pass some boats!

Passing under the bridge...

...and realizing that the water had gotten pretty choppy!  

It still wasn't as bad as when my single raced at Percy Priest Sprints, but it was white capping and there was a lot of splashing!   

And there were plenty of obstacles in this event!  At least for us!  My oar's height had to be adjusted, but I wasn't given a chance, so it tipped the boat a bit and made it extremely difficult to get my oar out of the water!  It was worse since the splashing wet the oar handles, so I nearly lost my grip quite a few times!

And it doesn't help that by the time we got to the starting line, the other boats were already lined up, so we had to immediately turn around and start racing without a chance to catch our breaths!    

So, it's really no surprise that we finished last in that race...

But as I mentioned, the William's Island Regatta is an unofficial regatta that serves mostly as a "glorified practice."  We just go there for some racing experience and hard work!  The important thing is that we're about to get even more serious at practice and prepare for the upcoming Dogwood Junior Championships!