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I never expected to fall in love with rowing. I did not anticipate, for one second, the joy I would have from gliding through the water in a boat propelled by my own energy. I tried rowing at the age of 44, because my 13-year-old daughter joined a newly formed rowing crew. She was thrilled by the sport and said I should give it a try. So I started in a masters learn to row program, all of us total novices, in an eight-person sweep boat with one long oar per person plus a coxswain who steers the boat.
Despite the boat being rocky and off balance, I knew immediately that I had found something special. After I advanced a little, I tried sculling (a form of rowing using two oars) in a four-person boat, then a two-person boat, and finally a single. I was in heaven the first time I got into a racing single and was able to take my first few stroke. That was terrific! For me, there have been so many Game Face moments in the last year and a half since that first class. But my favorite, so far, was my first race in a four-person sculling boat or quad. We had only been sculling for about two months and we were definitely not the prettiest looking crew out on the water during our warm up. Our blades were not quite in sync while our competitors had the most amazing rhythm as they performed all of their complicated warm-up maneuvers. We nervously lined up at the start of the race and, to psych us out, one of the women in a boat next to us asked if we were a crew from our local high school. So it was amazing when, halfway down the 1000-meter racecourse, we passed all of the other boats! Fueled by our energy, enthusiasm, a little revenge and the belief that we could go as fast as we needed to, we never let up and, somehow, we came in first! For the first time in my life, at the age of 45, I felt I was an athlete. —Ann Rosenstock
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