This year's Club Singles at the Charles featured a first time winner, Kieran Edwards, and a 'first time in a long time' winner, Eliza Kallfelz, whose last Charles medal came back in her junior days when she picked up a pair of Junior 1x titles in 2015 and 2016.
For Kallfelz, who has been taking a break from full-time training for full-time work, today's win was one she had to earn from a starting spot way back in the pack.
"I started 26th, which I knew was going to be a little difficult, and I'd need to do some passing. But you never know what to expect out there with the athletes, the condition, the steering. I really had no idea what to expect."
It was not an entirely smooth run, either.
"Coming around the BU Bridge, I caught a buoy with my blade and completely took a boat stopping crab. And I thought, 'Oh, this is not a good start to this race.' But I pulled it back a little bit and then had a good couple of turns. I got stuck behind a couple of groups of people, but everyone was actually really good about yielding. So it was, honestly, a really great race."
Edwards had a similar starting position last year, when he came through to take second overall in his first time at the Charles with bow number 39. Today, though, he had a clear shot at the course with bow number one in the very first race of the day.
"The course officials tell you not to practice the optimal line, but I was thinking, well, there's three boats in this entire regatta that that rule doesn't apply to," Edwards said, in reference to the first crew in the first race in each of the three days of the regatta.
"I think my line was worse this year," he admitted, about the difference between rowing in one of those three first-boat-of-the-day spots as opposed to coming through the field. "Last year, I was so focused on getting the correct line around other people, but this year, I kept turning around, thinking, 'I'm in the wrong spot' but I also thought, 'Okay, I'm pushing away from the guy behind me, and at the end of the day, that's what I need to be doing.'"
From that pole position in the very first race of the day, Edwards scooped up the first of the day's course records to go along with his gold medal. He took 2.3 seconds off the record, finishing the course in 17:54.7.
"I have done two other 5k time trials on the water, so I've been on-record and at that kind of pace twice before. This was my third piece on the water, seeing what sort of speed I can make, and sure enough... I didn't know I was on course record pace. I actually thought the times were a little slow, but I guess I shaved off a couple of meters here and there there and it worked out."
Kallfelz pointed out that the early morning singles races had really good water, and luck.
"It was great conditions. It was perfectly flat water, unlike how it is going to be this afternoon," she mentioned, alluding to the trickier--and rainier--conditions her sister Emily was set to face to defend her title in the Championship Single later in the day.
"I was really happy to get it over and done with this morning."
Kallfelz has not been training or racing regularly, so she went into the race very little notion of everyone else's speed--a big departure from her wins as a junior, where she often faced the same athletes all season long.
"This is probably the first race where I really had no idea how good or bad it was going to be," she said. "I'm working full time now, so training has been on and off, but I was excited to go into it with no idea of what might happen."
While she may not have been out on the river as much of late, Kallfelz does know the Charles pretty well, both from her two Junior 1x wins and her time rowing as an undergrad with Radcliffe Crew, and that added a different element to her win today.
"As a junior, I didn't really know what I was doing, and now I know the course a little bit better."
We asked here if that muscle memory of the course was helpful and she laughed.
"Well, the muscle memory of how painful it is is always there. You realize,'Oh wow, I remember this!' But it was great to be back on the Charles in a single. I really missed it."
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