initiation

Yesterday at rowing practice myself and one of the other girls (Emma) ended up going out in a pair (just the two of us with only one blade each) for the morning. This was only my second time out in a pair so I was still a bit nervous and apprehensive about the outing, but the first half of the outing was going really well and we were feeling pretty comfortable and working well together. Yesterday was a double outing for the team so that we could get some more time out on the water, and after a 20 minute break to warm up, have some tea and chocolate, we headed back out in our little boat, ready for some more technical work and to further our confidence. And then it happened...

We had done one loop around the reservoir and had just turned around to head back down again and in very slow motion, my blade came out of the gate (basically popped out) and the next thing we knew we were in the freezing res! It was a pretty traumatic event, but we managed to stay calm, grab onto the boat, and started kicking to get us and the boat to the shore. Thankfully we weren't too far out, but when the water is freezing, wearing plenty of layers of clothes, and trying to kick a heavy boat to the shore, panic and fear quickly started to set in and we felt further out than we actually were. In the end we were out in the water kicking away for just under 10 minutes, but it felt like it was much longer than this. Practice started at 8am and as I was driving to the res listening to the radio it was announced that it was nearly below 0 outside, which meant that the res itself was VERY cold as well - and trust me, it was COOOLLLLLDDDDDD!!!

After we got out of the water, we were ushered into the boathouse, ordered to strip, and spent a good 15 minutes in a hot shower to try and warm up; it then took me the rest of the day to shake the chill off from our wonderful dip in the res. Considering a fall into the res is not something you want to do every day, or ever do to be honest (especially in the cold winter months), it feels as if we had a pretty good initiation ceremony into the Birmingham Rowing Club. Falling into freezing water is not the best form of initiation, but hey, everyone's gotta go in at some point, right?!

As a final note, I did get back on the proverbial sadle again today and went to practice - but this time my initiation buddy and I were out in a coxed four with much more stability and the knowledge that we would not be falling in today.