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WASHINGTON - Georgetown University's women's rowing team spent its spring break training in Florida. Throughout the week, several rowers will share their experiences from the Sunshine State as the team gears up for the start of the spring racing season on Saturday, March 25.

Senior Sarah Varney (Hingham, Mass./Notre Dame Academy)
Our third day in Florida proved to be another day of competitive strokes pushing the entire team one step closer to being race ready! The morning kicked off with a fiery game of "Biggest Fan", a round robin game of rock-paper-scissors, with freshman Stella Leitner (Pasadena, Md./Mayfield) and sophomore Anne Stoessel (Niskayuna, Conn./Niskayuna) going head-to-head in the championship round to get everyone in the competitive spirit.

From there the team split up into different groups. The lightweight 8 headed off to do tech work followed by a couple of long steady state pieces - continuing work on the baller rhythm they've been rocking. The lightweight 4 and two openweight 4s kicked off the day with some very close seat racing, and the varsity and JV openweight 8s had some witty banter going as they went neck-and-neck in the morning's pieces, not letting the strong headwind deter them. What did almost deter them was a water snake appearing on freshman Cait Hagan's (Horsham, Pa./Mount St. Joseph Academy) oar... but that's another story.

Going into racing season, it's awesome to see everyone pushing each other and have so many people within a stone's throw of the top boats on their respective squads. The competitive spirit is infectious, allowing the coaches to push us more in practice and the positive direction of the team is evident in everyone's mood (although most notably today, was seen in coach Kieren Emery's amazing dabbing skills)! Can't wait to see what tomorrow will bring!

Freshman Anna Kemmerer (Palo Alto, Calif./Palo Alto)
The morning was off to a good start - my boat left me on the dock. As I was turned around helping another boat push off, I heard the voice of my coxswain saying "push off in three, two, one." I looked over just in time to see my boat five feet off the dock, the seven other rowers and coxswain all staring at me, confused as to why I was not in the boat. After a few moments of shock and laughter, I was able to pull the boat back in and we pushed off again, this time with me in the boat.

Despite the rough start to the morning, the exceptional water led to a great practice. We just focused on steady state that morning with no real time constraints. Our goal was to get into our rhythm and stick with it for as long as possible at a low rate. We ended up totaling about 10K, with a short 250m piece at the end to practice speed work. We also finished off every practice this trip with starts (first three strokes, first five, and first 10) and "the ten". "The ten" was ten strokes taken as hard and high as possible to see the lowest split our boat could achieve. This day, we finally broke our max speed split by three full splits! Tired and exhausted, we contently paddled back to the dock.

We went back to the hotel for our midday rest and returned to the boathouse at about 1:30 p.m. for some stretching with our instructor, Karen. Over the course of our trip we had three stretching sessions with her to help reduce the possibility of injuries.

After stretching we went back on the water for our second practice of the day. Our goal was to improve our starting strokes, rowing with some of the openweight boats for competition. This practice was lighter, as everyone was definitely feeling the previous seven days of training camp. Despite our fatigue, our rhythm flowed over from the morning practice, putting another good practice in the books before heading back to Georgetown. The weather looks colder for when we get back. Time to soak in the final rays of sunshine and while we remember the rhythm we developed over training camp.