Marilyn Fleming had been rowing for at least a decade before the idea to place an entry in the Head of the Charles lottery ever really came up.
It's not that she hadn't thought about it. In fact, it was one of those dream list kind of things people think about and sometimes never get around to doing. So, when her coach at the Prince William Rowing Club in Lake Ridge, Virginia, raised the idea at a meeting in August, Fleming and doubles partner Melissa Murphree, 33, were in.
"It's our bucket list thing," Fleming said Friday afternoon, while she and Murphree relaxed after a practice row and wiped down their boat in the singles and double launch area, located between Riverside Boat Club and the Boston University boathouse where the race begins.
"It's the ultimate challenge, said Fleming, 66. "I've been rowing for 10 years and we are promoting sculling in our Prince William club. So, this is the first sculling entry for our club. This is the ultimate rowing venue in this country."
If yesterday's last practice day is any indication, there are a lot of other people who think the same thing. Saturday morning, at 7:45 the first event of the 53rd Head of the Charles Regatta (Men's Senior Veteran Singles) will kick off the largest two day rowing event in the world.
Before the last race Sunday afternoon, when the final boats in the Director's Challenge Mixed Eight cross the finish line, 2,271 crews of every age, shape size and skill level, will have either added another Boston memory to their books, or people like Fleming and Murphee will have ticked a box on the list of things to do in this lifetime.
And with the weather in store for this weekend, they will all be rowing their events in front of hundreds of thousands of spectators who will, without question, be drawn to the bridges and banks on the 3-mile course. The Head of the Charles is a Boston fall event, and with clear blue skies and warm temperatures, it's a really, really big Boston event.
All this week, the regatta organizers and officials have been constructing the venue that serves as party central throughout the weekend. By Friday morning everything was set and a slow trickle of rowers taking their final practice strokes built to a pileup of crews. Just moving a boat up or down the course was a lot like driving in or out of Boston at rush hour.
"On the course today was interesting because we launched near the finish and rowed down on the side," Murphee said. "It wasn't exactly the workout we were hoping to get, but that's where our trailer was. It was so narrow and crowded. I'm looking forward to tomorrow and not rowing with the eights."
But that's part of the price--or charm?--of rowing the Head of the Charles.
"This is on everyone's bucket list," said Regatta Director Fred Schoch. Even in a year when the World Championships were held late in the season and Schoch said he expected a drop off in the numbers of international athletes, the numbers are eye popping.
"The youth event list is growing tremendously and we're looking for ways to expand and to allow more participation without plugging the pipe" Schoch said. "Because you have to time every boat individually, it doesn’t allow us to do mass starts and we've already condensed some of the singles and have different age groups rowing together without a full stop.
"We're so oversubscribed, we may try and incentivize the championship events a little more because they are a little thin," he said. "But the collegiate event is full, the alumni event is knockdown-drag out, the director's challenge events are full, and I think the parent child double filled up in an hour this year when it went on line. It's just crazy," he said.
"It's nice to be popular."
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