So up until very recently my 'about me' section may have contained a little blurb about me being a sweep rower all the way. Or something to that affect. Who needs to get bogged down in details? The point is, a person can change and I think I have changed my mind about sculling.

I had not been blindly avoiding sculling. I tried it. Once. The guys on our team have a yearly boys weekend north of Seattle, taking as many small boats with us as we can. We eat, we fart, we row. A couple years ago was the last time I was able to make it and because nobody was interested in rigging a pair and I had no interest in tipping a single in the middle of February, I rowed in doubles for the weekend. Calmer water was never seen. The weather, although chilly, was great for a full day of rowing. I, however, was having a hard time finding the enjoyment in spending the weekend off balance and ripping up my hands with new blisters and scrapes as I learned to row with two blades instead of one.

Flash forward to last week when I biked down to the boathouse on Wednesday morning all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed to row with the recreational rowers, only to find that I was the only one. Not to mention, my back-up plan to help with the learn to row classes was nixed because there were actually enough volunteers for once! My choices were: bike back home and skip working out, bike to gym and lift in rowing trou, or drag out the erg. None of those included bringing a boat onto the water on a BEAUTIFUL morning. I chose to erg.   I always thought necessity was the mother of invention, but apparently she's the mother of mind-openness, or mind changing or something like that, too. I biked down again on Friday for the learn to scull/recreational sculling day.

I was lucky to be put in a double with an experienced sculler who I am actually well matched with. He had planned to row on his own, but noticed the group needed an extra body and graciously decided to help out. I won't go into all of the details because ::yawn:: we've all rowed before. But I will say that even though my first weekend of sculling wasn't much fun for me, I was able to build upon it with my second time out. We were rowing together and it was feeling really stable! The experience definitely gave me the courage to keep with it and the promise that sculling a single is a goal within close reach. Soon, I won't HAVE to depend on other rowers to be at the boat house. Although, I think I will still prefer to row with others rather than myself. Who knows, maybe that will change as well.