Reading Amateur Regatta - Day 1

Our first race was yesterday, June 14, at the Reading Amateur Regatta! We were all so excited for our first race in England. We started preparing early in the morning with a 6:30am row, which was short and sweet. After our row, we had an amazing hotel buffet breakfast that was fit for extremely hungry rowers. At the buffet bar, there were some extremely cute little jam jars, which the majority of the team found too adorable to simply leave....so we took all of them. 

The adorable hotel jams

After breakfast, we had a good amount of down time, as our races were at 4:36pm and 4:39pm. Racing that late in the afternoon was very new to us, and we were at first a little unsure how to spend all of that extra time. We ended up doing what we do best: hydrating, napping, shopping for regatta apparel and watching races. 

1.5 liter water bottle (2 for £1 - are you proud Mom?!?!)

The Reading Amateur Regatta official t-shirt

At one point while we were watching the races, a young lad came up to Coach Steele and introduced himself as an Emory crew graduate from 2012. Coach Steele began his college rowing career at Emory, and apparently is famous! They had a long chat. I thought it was pretty cool that our head coach is recognized everywhere, even in England. 

Coach Steele with his adoring fan

The time soon came for both boats to launch. The waiting area behind the start was hectic, and our coxswains had to deal with a current and major boat traffic consisting of other crews and huge motorboats. Although the Barolli eight tapped the Waddell eight at one point (we just missed our teammates so much), we came out of the craziness ready to race. The Waddell eight was up first, proceeded to the start and attached to the stakeboats (which resembled really tiny metal rowboats). Then, the Waddell eight was off like a rocket against the University of London Boat Club.

The Waddell eight in action

My boat, the Barolli eight, was then called to the start. We attached to the stakeboat and sat ready, the adrenaline and excitement coursing through us. We had been practicing all day for the past month in anticipation of this very moment. Finally, the official called "Attention...go!" and we were off, all the way through the 1,500 meter race course against the Thames Rowing Club. 

The Barolli eight in action

Although neither boat came out victorious, we had a ton of fun racing on the Thames for the first time. It was an amazing and exciting experience, and we are so excited to race more. 

Thanks for reading the blog of the day and come back tomorrow for more WPI Women's Crew updates!

Cheers,

Alexa Hiznay