3 Years of My Life

Photo obviously taken by Sport Graphics

I found this photo from looking through all the events we entered on the Sport Graphic website the other day. It make me think about what all we went through in my 3 years of racing. The expression on my face in this picture does not even describe to me what I was feeling at that moment. At every start in the spring (which are the 2k races) we start from a complete stand still and wait for the countdown and buzzer with other crews on each side of us. At every start in every race that I have been in there was a build up of adrenaline sitting in my stomach making me almost want to throw up. When we would finally get going we would all go super fast at like a 40-42 stroke rating (42 strokes per minute). They say that you reach your maximum heart rate on the third stroke, and you don't get done until 7 or 8 minutes (depending on the current/weather). 

I had to quit this past year because I just got sick of what I was doing and felt the need to focus more on my art. I really didn't like a lot of the decisions being made and also I didn't feel as though our coach really took care of us physically. I got sick one week and finally accumulated a 100+ fever and was still made to row. I ended up in the hospital the next day. It's stuff like that, that made me really question how well the trainers and coach was taking care all of us. I am all about pushing myself and seeing how far I can go, but that just went a little too far for me.

When I first thought about no longer continuing I thought that I would miss it tremendously and that it would be hard to get back a social life that I was missing out on, but it has been GREAT! I love that I'm not rowing anymore. Sure there are some thoughts that come up when I still miss it but man am I loving sleeping past 5 am! I have a social life now! All my time was spent with rowing so there wasn't much time to socialize outside of the athletics. 

Don't get me wrong I loved it while I was doing it, but there are some things that I missed out on that I wish I didn't. 1) dating anybody 2)spring breaks, I had my first one this year and it was awesome 3)sleep. period. 4)working and earning money.

I think that right now #1 is hitting me hard right now. I have gone through my whole college career without hardly dating any guy. All my friends are either getting engaged/married, are in serious relationships, or are just now getting in one. I think God is really testing my patients here and I am failing at being content about it. 

to be continued.......