The sides of my shins have been scraped raw after water practice today, and my hands are torn apart. Practice was good even though the sun was in my eyes half the time and I couldn't see shit but I guess there's nothing much to be seen when you're involved in a sport where you're not supposed to be able to see where you're headed. If you can actually see where you're going it only means that you're rowing in the wrong direction and had better do something about it quickly. Today's training reinforced just exactly how much of an entire-body workout rowing is, because if you think about it you're basically doing an endless series of squats and crunches in a seated position over the course of 2,000 meters just so you can coax your twelve-foot-long wooden attachment into propeling you forward as quickly as possible. Of course at the same time you have to keep the boat "set" (or stabilised), if not half of the rowers will have their oars four feet above the water while the other half will be frantically trying to rescue their oars from the clutches of the lake. Sometimes this process repeats itself to no end which is positively unsettling (pun fully intended). But at least we're all so much better especially if you look at how much we've improved since last Fall when we first started out. I haven't yet popped out of my shoes which I'm eternally grateful for. The experience of popping out of your shoes is pretty nasty particularly because it always occurs when you're least expecting it. Like you'll be focusing so hard on your stroke and feathering the blade (turning the blade parallel to the water surface to minimize air resistance) and all of a sudden you dig the blade in too deep and whoosh you find yourself in the lap of the perplexed rower behind you. Thankfully for me I haven't ended up in anyone's lap outside my will yet but that's only because I'm always rowing starboard in the bow seat (that's the last seat in the boat), and so there's no one behind me. But that only means that when I pop out (which used to happen far too often for my liking) I am faced with a very immediate danger of flying out of the boat entirely, and to be truthful I'd much prefer being in someone's lap than watching the 7 rowers + 1 coxswain row past me (remember, they can't see where they're headed, they'll only know once they go past...) Okay I don't know why I'm blogging about this when I have a Comms exam tomorrow which would be in my best interest to study for.