April 1, 2004

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 North Carolina. This installment, the 14th of the 2003-04 school year, is by Julie Domina, a junior from Cary, N.C.

Now midway through our racing season, the team realizes that the time to achieve our goals is limited, so we have to perform each race at our greatest potential, as there is no time for mistakes. Personally, I think not winning the varsity eight race will fuel our desire to come back strong this coming weekend when we make a road trip to Indiana to face some good competition from midwestern crews. It is the kind of situation where it hurts worse just because winning was so close to our grasp but it slipped away. Not to worry though, we have regrouped and will be ready to go this weekend!

While the athletes were all focusing on their races Saturday, a bunch of our parents were busy barbequing and preparing tons of picnic food for us to enjoy once the racing was over. It was so nice to be able to sit down and relax after racing instead of having to immediately load back up on a bus and start driving straight home. I know the parents liked being able to spend time with their daughters and I caught a bunch of them huddling around our boats, trying to figure out just how rowing works and how we make it look so easy.

This week we are starting a small taper from our normal exercise regimen so that we are well rested for our races this weekend. We are doing a lot of steady state workouts, with a few sprint pieces thrown in to keep our legs accustomed to the lactic acid that hits during the middle of a 2,000-meter race. Be sure to come back and check out our results from this weekend, as the racing is definitely going to be close and exciting!

ACCs are coming up on April 17th at Clemson - get those pom-poms ready!

Julie