1. What inspired you to go to your first rowing practice; was there anything memorable about it?
I came into the Washington program on the tail end of the Jan Harville dynasty in 2002, so at the informational meeting that preceded the first practice, I was definitely swept up with ideas of being molded into a champion like so many of the women who had come immediately before me in the 99, 00, and 01 crews. The coaches promised me that I would work really hard and be pushed into the best physical shape of my life which were also appealing ideas at that time in my life because I had gained about 20 pounds as a freshman participating in activities that didn't exactly promote "a healthy lifestyle" or "good decision-making". I remember leaving the meeting confident that my life was about to change in a very major way.
2. Was there a practice, race or other event when you fell in love with the sport, or when you knew you might not be too bad at rowing? When you thought you could make the national team?
My first "oh wow" moment came when I had finished my novice season racing at the 2003 Pac-10 Championships. We'd only placed third, but I still got a medal out of the deal, and I thought that was pretty cool for a no one from nowhere without a clue about the whole rowing thing. I knew then that I really wanted to return for the next season at Washington.
It wasn't until I made the U-23 team in 2005 that I started seriously considering trying to make the National Team. My straight four spent about ten days training in Princeton at Mercer with all of the senior national team members, and I remember being completely and totally humbled but also really inspired to take my rowing to another level.
3. Best race/practice, worst race/practice?
The worst race experience I've ever had was more a comedy of errors than anything. My first experience bowing a straight boat over a 2k course was in 2004 at USRowing Nationals in Indianapolis. I rowed the pair with one of my Washington teammates from the USRowing Northwest Development Camp. To start, we were rowing with borrowed equipment that didn't quite fit us--the pair we rowed was a few kilos overweight, and the oars we used were a little light, so one could catch an over-the-head crab without much upsetting the set of the boat or disturbing the other athlete in the boat. So in that rig, we entered the warm-up area only to receive a reprimand from the officials for breaking the warm up pattern. A few minutes later we pulled up to the start queue to find that our race had already pulled into the stake boats, so we then received a warning from the start officials for being late. So, now just one violation short of disqualification from the regatta, we locked on to the stake boat and waited for the start command. Then for no apparent reason our stake boat came loose from the dock and we started floating down the course, so someone off the dock had to dive headlong into the river in order to swim out to us and tow us back in. The good news is that since then, every race I've ever bowed has been a breeze.
My best race was this year's NSR 2 final. Ellen and I had only been rowing together for a short while and so we weren't really sure how fast we were. We went into the regatta just focused on improving our performance from race to race--and we did that--and we came out with a win. It meant a lot to me to produce that performance because I felt it was proof that I'd improved a lot over the past year. I was also really excited as we crossed the line because I knew we had opened the door for ourselves to participate in one or more World Cups, join the sweep group in Breisach for two weeks, and to put ourselves in a good position for Olympic Team selection.
4. Best/Anything you've done in the sport no one knows about?
I'm not exactly proud of this one: I crashed into the Harrison Street Bridge at the 2006 Fall Speed Order. Fortunately it was after I'd already gotten a finish time, but I cracked my port oar into two pieces. Miraculously I didn't flip or get speared by another single before the safety launch could come and rescue me. I really wanted to keep the oar I broke but I wasn't really in a position to ask at that point.
5. Any/Most important advice for young rowers?
Male rowers are mostly just nice to look at.
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