Spirited Monotony

Yesterday passed in the same fashion as most days do here at Peddie: monotonously. Perhaps "monotonous" is not an apt word to describe the personalities of my teammates, but I beg your pardon, because waking up repeatedly at 4:55 begins to wear on one's capacity to be effervescent during late evening blogging time. Regardless, the eight's practice yesterday morning was another of my favorite "long 'n low" sessions, in which the rating never topped a 24. We returned to the basics of the stroke, ironing out some of the remaining kinks, and showed clear improvement between the first and last of our 2500m pieces. At the same time, the four continued to work on finding speed in its signature "Belford Bucket" rigging, rowing the same starboard bucket as last year but with completely different bodies. All the while, the two members of the pair remained snuggly tucked into their beds, sleeping; I am completely definitely not jealous of them at all.

After a brief bit of stretching back at the boathouse, we returned directly to the Peddie dining hall, where our ability to ingest massive amounts of food is given such respect that we sixteen oarsmen are legitimately allotted forty meals. Seeing as it was a Thursday, it was not a fried eggs day, so I was forced to make due with boarding school scrambled eggs, pancakes, and hash browns. Obviously, the only way to survive a breakfast without fried eggs is to consume a goodly measure of peanut butter instead, so I proceeded to do so as part of my nutritional duty. Thankfully the chocolate milk had been restocked, so I was able to imbibe a few cups of that liquid gold before returning back to my dorm room.

Since I managed to survive another few hours in the toxic waste dump that is Whitney Blodgett and my room, I had the pleasure of hopping on the little bus at 2:00 for afternoon practice. There, John McGrorty ended my uncharacteristic three-day win streak on our warm-up run, which I estimate to be between two and 400 kilometers long, depending upon a variety of factors (including temperature, humidity, and my personal level of exhaustion on any particular day). To add insult to injury, the wind demons decided to whip up a splattering of whitecaps on Mercer Lake, presenting us with an increased challenge for the afternoon. Happily, we conquered the challenge left by the demons, and thus took a big step in dealing with adverse conditions with poise and control. When Coach Campbell insisted that we must not allow the wind to play with our minds, I attempted to tell my mind that it was not actually windy, and that there was not actually any chop at all on the lake. Regrettably, I succeeded. This concerns me. I'm pretty sure that being able to control what your senses absorb is not a natural ability.. I'd see a doctor, but I might be given drugs on the banned substances list, so my sanity will just have to wait until after Worlds are said and done.

After Peddie dinner, a number of us fine gents took to Peddie's main green, playing a simple game called "keep it up" that involves keeping a large blue ball (who prefers to be called Mr. Blue Ball) in the air, without any use of the hands. Please allow me describe our level of success in five words or less: "We row for a reason." Our [lack of] basic motor skills aside, we were obliged to remove our shirts because of the evening heat, certainly not at all in an effort to lure any adolescent females in the surrounding area. We saw none. Whether there were simply no females, or whether we scared them away I can't be sure; what I do know is that now I've just got to work harder during our afternoon abs workout, just in case of.. emergency.