Still rowing after all these years
When I met Veronica, I had expected…well, I’m not certain what I had expected… but I certainly didn’t expect a tiny woman.
Our mutual acquaintance had regaled me with tales of Veronica’s athletic prowess: swinging from a trapeze after age 60, and similar feats of physicality.
But Veronica was a tiny woman whose considerable athletic achievements belied her size. She was bright, focused, answered thoughtfully, and was willing to tell me her sports story.
To start at the start: Veronica grew up (and has lived most of her life) in a mid-sized city that is home to one of the largest public universities in the south.
“…when I was young …ages six through nine… I just played softball with boys in our neighborhood during softball season. And then when it was football season, I played touch football with them. Same thing for basketball in season. Swimming, too.
“I participated in city league girls swim races,” Veronica continues. “I was short, always about an inch behind the taller girl who always won. We became great friends and still are.”
Despite this all-round sports skill, she never expected to become an athlete. “There wasn’t such a thing for girls. No girls competitions except church league - in which I played girls softball.”
University days
Even though she came from modest circumstances, Veronica was able to attend the university because, in her freshman year, the first semester tuition was $25.
She lived at home to save the dorm fee. Her Mom and she shared the family car.
Always interested in the scientific study of human body movement, Veronica earned a PhD in kinesiology from the university. She went on to build and eventually lead an international kinesiology research and education department at the school.
Entranced by rowing
Always active, Veronica was a runner for many years, and had also taken up golf somewhere along the way.
However, when she was 60, she fell in love with rowing.
“It was because of a grad student who was an exercise physiologist who had the lab right across the hall from my office,” she relates.
“We were good friends. He reviewed my book, [on the physical dimensions of aging] and commented that its big flaw was that it contained no reference to rowing.”
The student introduced her to the ergometer – which we amateurs would call a rowing machine. “I used that four or five times and liked the way it felt. I asked him to teach me on water, but he said go to [the local] Rowing Club for lessons because I’m too busy!”
The Club participated in national learn-to-row day, as well as provided lessons.
But these lessons weren’t ideal.
Veronica explains: “These were early classes and they put coxswains not well trained in boats. Sometimes coxswain didn’t show up, so we couldn’t go out. One cursed and I didn’t respect her.”
To make matters worse, one of the new instructors, according to Veronica, was “bad”.
“I hesitated a little [about continuing],” Veronica says. “But fortunately, a woman from England was in charge – Charles River crew and an excellent coach. She ensured that every person got into a boat. Her teaching was very good.”
As a result, she continues, “I fell in love with it. Loved being on the lake. I dropped my golf for rowing – golf took too much time and I was always angry afterwards…”
She had also been running for many years and abandoned that for rowing, too.
Veronica was 60 at the time, and has been rowing for 28 years.
The rowing experience
When asked to describe the experience of rowing, Veronica begins her response in true scientist fashion:
“There’s always something in the sky that’s really interesting – clouds, birds, helicopters. Some trees contain hundreds of birds. We go out early and sometimes see the sentinel birds awakening – they are used to our boats. The rest of the birds wake up and fly horizontally and never run into each other. Turtles on logs. Fishermen on banks.”
She adds that she “..really likes the way I feel when I get off the water, even in heat and humidity. Not true with golf.”
In the Rowing Club, the more competitive rowers go out earlier than she typically does. They’re in the water at 5:45A until about 7. “We start later and row for about 1.5 hours.”
Veronica rows in a double boat – two oarsmen, each with two oars.
“I’m the one that sets the rate in rowing. My friend and I both face backwards, but because she’s in the bow, she has to turn around to see where we are going.
“I also row in an eight. That’s a co-ed boat, four men and four women. To balance the weight, men and women are interspaced.”
“Saturdays,” reports Veronica, “everyone is on the water, but we go down to the dam, where there aren’t many stand-up paddleboarders. Those [paddleboards] are mostly rented and the users hang [on the water] near the rental place more toward town.”
Lessons, working hard
Rowers are always taking lessons. When they’re in the water, Veronica notes, “Patrol boats with coaches come up on rowers and coach strokes, usually every time we go out.”
Coaching is important because the sport combines both power and precision.
“The difference between rowing double and rowing an eight [was surprising],” Veronica explains. “In the eight boat, we are trying to synchronize two oars on each of eight people by the coxswain. In and out of water same time and we sometimes [manage to] do that.”
Her goal is “always trying to perfect stroke and make it easier to row better.”
She and her crew mates are preparing for the fall regatta in the eight boat. “Doing drills – fast take off and work on force for each stroke and perfect synchronization. Legs do all the work, arms just keep oars in position.”
Veronica says that she is “…more motivated to row than not.” Perhaps that’s why she adds that “I’m a fanatic about something, which has surprised me. And I can make myself work hard.”
That hard work includes three days per week of “practice” on her home ergometer.
Additionally, she’s in the water four times a week, if the weather is decent, with no rain. “If it’s really windy,” she adds, “we cannot go out because the double [boat] sits low in the water.”
Her four “water” days are the double boat Monday and Friday, the eight on Wednesday and Saturday
“I rest on Sunday.”
Club members pay monthly dues. “That lets you row anything in the boat house for which you are skilled – novice, middle (mid), advanced.” Veronica states that “Novice boats are wider and better balanced. Mids, narrower. Advanced, even narrower and less stable, but faster.
“I use club oars, too – also novice, mids, advanced.”
The key benefit for Veronica? “I’ve been able to row and locomote very easily to my current age, 88. I attribute this to rowing, and that was a good shift away from running.”
Injury
Veronica is a lifelong athlete of amazing performance. However, this didn’t prevent her from an injury. It happened not while she was rowing, but, oddly enough, at her home.
She became dizzy and passed out at her house a couple of months ago. This caused her to fall down her stairway.
Veronica was in the emergency room from 8:30A until 10:30P that day. The hospital insisted on keeping her for three days. “They were scared to death I would do it [pass out] again.”
No bones were broken in this fall, fortunately. However, she adds that “Afterward, I couldn’t use my right arm well because of skin loss from fall. Very painful. Couldn’t move elbow. Just waited it out.”
WIIFY?
Be open to serendipity.
Veronica had been a runner many years and had also taken up golf (angrily, by her own admission). She wasn’t looking for another sport. Even more, at that moment, she was focused on her professional work, completing a book. So, it was a happy accident that the graduate student reviewer introduced her to rowing. Veronica was open to the unexpected and has embraced the sport for 28 years – more than a third of her life.
Don’t be afraid to try something new.
Veronica’s curiosity about the ergometer opened a whole new set of friends, fun, and fitness.
Rebeka, a 47-year-old pickleball player urges people to try something just once – “I’ve even tried hatchet throwing,” she asserts.
Not sure I would countenance tossing a sharp object around – even just once. But the sentiment is solid.