Getting ready mentally for physical challenge

CHARLOTTESVILLE
When University of Virginia women’s rowing head coach Kevin Sauer lists his team’s primary rivals for this weekend’s NCAA championships in Oak Ridge, Tenn., he says it’s impossible to narrow it down to only a few schools.
"Brown, California, USC, Yale, Harvard, Ohio State, Tennessee, Princeton," Sauer says counting them on fingers of both hands. "It’s really anyone’s race."
It’s May 9, and one of the last hard practices before a slow taper toward the national championship race. The women in two boats of eight rowers apiece will work hard for two minutes, rest for 30 seconds, repeat, and finish with a hard two-minute interval. It will be exhausting.
"Quicker, quicker," Sauer yells through a bullhorn from his motor boat behind the rowers as the boat cuts the flat water. "Rock-n-roll, both boats, let’s go. Everybody on it!"
Sauer knows that physical preparation gets you this far in earning national recognition. Winning the race in Oak Ridge will also rely on harnessing their mental strength. Not an easy task right now.
For one, it’s exam week. One rower hasn’t slept in a day and a half, and several others need to be home studying for tomorrow’s exams. Practice schedules have had to vary to work around the students’ tests, and it will be nearly 9 p.m. before the women will be home tonight.
At the end of the second intense set of six hard minutes, the women sit in their boat and wait for Sauer’s feedback. Aside from the frogs and crickets on the banks and an airplane overhead, only the sounds of heavy breathing fill the air as the boats slow to a stop.
Sauer is pleased with their work tonight, but sees that they’re fatigued. He reads off their two-minute split times and let’s them know that if rested he believes they can win the NCAA championship.
Tonight there is no cheering or vocal confidence coming from the tired rowers. Perhaps it’s tomorrow’s exams or 16 pairs of burning leg muscles keeping them from saying much.
"You have to believe that you’re good," Sauer says. "You can’t just go to the starting line with a coin flip and wonder if we’re going to do well."
On May 13, UVa won the South/Central Regional Championships to easily qualify for the NCAA race.
They enter nationals seeded No. 5 among 12 teams.

Add a comment

(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)