Early Thursday morning, the beach on Lake Natoma was vacant, and the row of fan tents were empty. By Friday morning when racing at the IRA Championships begins with the heats, every tent will be filled with the family, friends and alumni of the teams they are supporting.
The boat yard was busy, however. It was full of equipment, and the athletes and coaches were making their way onto the venue in anticipation of the opening of practice. Being on the water is a good thing for the rowers, most of whom have been encamped somewhere within driving distance where there was a body of water to train on, but they are just seeing the course, some of them for the first time.
Many of them were quietly uneasy, filled a mix of anticipation and nervousness. They have been preparing for this national championship all season, but until the actual racing begins, there is little that can be done to change whatever the outcome of the season will be.
And so, for Thursday morning, one of the more important things being done was finding ways to manage the expectations and the nervousness of the unknown.
For Ellie Anderson, a Georgetown sophomore lightweight, finding a feather on the ground did the trick. Anderson picked it up, tucked into her hair and wore it around the venue and onto the water during practice the entire morning.
"Anything to lighten the mood a little bit," Anderson said. "We've done a lot of work preparing for this race, so now it's time to just kind of get into the boat, get into the swing of things, and maybe make your teammates laugh.
"Absolutely there are nerves now," she said. "You've been training for this the whole season, really the whole year, and now it comes down to one or two races. So, I think it would be weird if there weren't nerves. But at the same time, you have been practicing for so long, that you go on auto pilot. And maybe find a feather."
There are other ways of dealing with the pre-regatta nerves, and a quick survey on the venue brought out a few of them.
"Mostly you just have to roll with it," said Grayson Hanson, a sophomore from UC-San Diego. "Roll with it, and realize that you are with some of the best rowers in the world at our age level. You've just got to do your best, and stay cool calm and collected, and see what happens.
"You've got your teammates here and that's a big part of keeping everyone calm," he said. "We just have to make sure we are all on the same page, and feeling good about what we can do. But, yea, there are butterflies. You can’t help feel a little nervous about all the competition here."
For others, including some of the more experienced coaches, the way to deal with all the anticipation is to rely on routine.
"You just stay in the routine. You reconnect with the boat, you enjoy rowing the boat, and you stay in the routine that you've established all year," said Harvard head coach Charlie Butt.
But mostly, the answer to the butterfly question Thursday morning, was to just have fun.
"You have to have fun with it," said Harvard-Radcliffe lightweight women's coach Sarah Baker.
"I really tell the athletes go out there and enjoy being in California, enjoy being on a new race course that you are unfamiliar with. Spend some time getting familiar with it and take advantage of all the good strokes you are taking out there. Just have a good time."
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