Special Feature: A week in the life of a rower
Successes like this one at Roses 2009 make all the training worthwhile. Photograph by George Lowther
Ok, so it’s a well known fact that rowers have to get up early to train and seem to be permanently eating (not that this is a bad thing)…but is it actually possible to lead a normal life and row? I will give you an account of a week in my life (in a word limit) and you can judge for yourselves!
So Monday is pretty easy, the only training we have is to go to the gym and do 3 x 5k on the rowing machine, at UT2, which is fancy talk for taking it easy! You are meant to be able to hold a conversation during this – so my friend and I often play ‘eye spy’ as 23 mins for a 5k can be pretty tedious! After this and dissertation work, it’s a nice trip to the Rook with friends.
Tuesday is, I admit, a pretty difficult day! I’m up at 6am for water training at 7am, but the best thing about morning outings, it has to be said, is second breakfasts! I manage to squeeze in one of these before I arrive for my 9.15 seminar. Following a few hours work there’s circuit training in the tent. This is 2 hours of squatting hell, which, on your own would be like banging your head against a brick wall, but doing it together creates an inexplicable bond of pain… there’s no trying to smooth over it!
Wednesday is easily my favourite day of the week. It’s spent thinking doing a bit more work, rowing in the afternoon, where we discuss what we plan to wear on that night’s social. Social’s make all the pain worthwhile -they’re always fantastic fun and usually quite drunken and messy… as long as we’re not on drinking bans for races.
Thursday – the recovery day. I’m usually nursing a hangover, so eventually emerging from my room that will probably smell of alcohol all day, I attempt some form of work and tell my housemates of the misdemeanours we endeavoured to accomplish the night before. The training is pretty light on Thursday to be kind to our heads, so it’s a weight circuit in the gym.
Friday sees another 6am start the early night necessary to cure the hangover on Thursday makes this easily possible. For me, my seminar follows and I attempt to make up for lost work chances the previous day.
Last weekend, we was a racing one, which follows the usual pattern of eating stupid amounts of carbs and flapjack and seeing a different (and generally pretty) area of the country. Racing is why we train so hard and it makes it all worth it when we win!
So it is possible to maintain a social life, a good degree and a sport as ‘intense’ as rowing; and even a relationship if you’re so inclined! I’m not going to tell you that it is not without a bit of stress every now and again, but in 10 years, when I look back on my time at university, I want to know I got as much as I could out of the experience. And I can safely say I have. Can you?
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