Hello and Happy New Year!  It has been a very productive fall semester here on the Hilltop. Since my last updates, we competed at the Princeton Chase and began a very important indoor training phase.

The Chase for us turned out to be a few great efforts that were hindered by some very unfortunate equipment issues, all great learning experiences for coaches and coxswains. The varsity finished in very similar order as the Charles, finishing 11th, right in the middle of the Eastern Sprints pack. The surprise of the regatta was the second varsity, which had an excellent race, and finished a whole 22 spots higher than last year. While it wasn’t quite where the squad wanted to be, it gave them a taste of what they are capable of and also the importance of a good week of training and preparation.

As a group, I feel like we finally started gaining momentum right before the Thanksgiving break. It was a phase where we were really able to focus on the indoor training. The erg scores began to show significant improvements particularly in the last 6k test we did right before Thanksgiving. That was a total squad effort – 25 of 29 athletes pulled a personal best. The period from Thanksgiving to the new year was probably the toughest on the athletes. It was more training on their own as they were dealing with final exams, papers, and presentations. When the athletes returned to campus last week for our mini winter camp, it was apparent to me the athletes did what was asked of them and stayed in shape over the Christmas break.

Now that we find ourselves at the start of the spring semester, we are focusing on power and fitness through a combination of erging, weights, and general cross training. I expect us to continue to make significant gains throughout the end of February, when I hope the Potomac will be rowable.

We will also be trying someplace new for spring break this year. We will be heading to Sarasota, Florida from March 7-14, and training at Benderson Park which is a new, man-made regatta venue with a 10 lane, fully-buoyed course.

As I continue my time at Georgetown, I am comforted and assured by the passion of our alumni, as well as the support of the university. It has been such a pleasure getting to know the alumni. I am meeting more of you every week. It has also been more than a pleasure to continue to work with our women’s staff and men’s lightweight staff.

I want to thank you all for your support of our program and of the university. We truly cannot do it without you. I can promise you that these young men and women on our team are doing incredible things on a daily basis and you should be proud of the passion and loyalty they bring to practice everyday.  I hope you all know that we are doing some very special things right now with Georgetown Rowing and I urge you all to remain supportive of our financial goals. All of your financial support has a DIRECT impact on our student-athletes.

I hope to see you all in DC this spring.  We have a massive new launch that makes watching practice very comfortable! To view our spring schedule, please click here.