March 22, 2005

Throughout the season, members of the UNC rowing team will provide TarHeelBlue.com readers with an inside look at the Carolina program and the experience of being a varsity athlete at UNC. This installment, the 14th of the 2004-05 school year, is by Julie Domina, a senior from Cary, N.C.

We just returned from a nine-day spring break training trip to Summerton, S.C. We stayed at a 4-H camp, sleeping on bunk beds and living without some of the common technologies like TVs or phones that we so often take for granted. But we had a great time and got to know each other even better than we already did going into the trip.

We went out to eat three nights during the week which made for a nice change from the usual routine. Last Tuesday, a bunch of us completed a nine-segment high-ropes course, where we worked our own harnesses and overcame a lot of anxiety to conquer the challenges. The last segment was a zip line which was awesome and a fun way to get back to the ground.

Between practicing two times a day, we filled the rest of our time eating, sleeping, working on homework, or just hanging out. The practices were intense, the weather sometimes a bit chilly, and the water conditions a lot rougher than we are used to at our home lake, but we gained tremendous speed and trained with our common goal of having a successful racing season these next two months.

On Friday, we put all of our practicing to the test and raced Army and RPI (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute). On the varsity side, we raced eight time interval pieces and won every single race. It was fun to face competition again after training without racing anyone for the last four months.

Racing and doing well makes all the tough erg, weight, and cardio workouts of the past seven months seem not so bad because all of the hard work is now paying off. I can't wait to see how fast we are this year when we begin racing the normal 2,000-meter course this Saturday in Washington, D.C.

It's been so great to see our program progress from a "building" stage to a competitive one. We won't be complacent with just decent results this spring; we want to make this year the best in Carolina Rowing's history.

Row Heels, Julie