Training Trip Blog - Cara Linnenkohl - Jan. 11

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The Virginia rowing team takes an annual training trip to Florida in preparation for the spring season. This year, a different senior will check in each day with VirginiaSports.com to give insight to how the trip is going. Wednesdays’s (Jan. 11) entry is from Cara Linnenkohl (Redmond, Wash.).

Four years in, Day 6 of Deland training camp. The days start to blend together now, constant strain of the hamstrings and repetitive feel of the stroke, striving to ingrain into our muscle memory. We started the day normal, first practice at 7am long steady row, a few racing pieces and a steady row back to what we call home.

Today was a bit different though, we had an epic alum Lindsay Shoop come watch practice and speak to us. It was a perfect balance and reminder of who our team is and what our goals are as a team. As rough as these three a day practices are, we are all pushing forward toward the same goal of being one, a cumulation of a family, friends and support that bonds us, enabling us to achieve more than we dream. It incorporated reminders of past teammates, who, looking back on things now, made a huge impact on me during this exact same trip, but three years earlier.

Lindsay spoke of it as… it flies by so fast and all of a sudden you as an veteran (upperclassman) are looking for the person to look up to and trying to point the dial somewhere else but it keeps pointing back to you…

It’s time to lead our team to a National Championship and seeing the speed we have out on the water today was so amazing. After Lindsay’s talk and lunch we were on our own for lunch and the second workout of circuit/ run, then a bit of free time to take a nap or see the trainer or whatever else before our third practice. The third practice consisted of a technical and sort of fun row. We took out an eight and two quads which was a lot of fun. Sweeping (what is done in the collegiate community- with only one oar) and sculling (rowing with two oars rather than one) are different but have the same basic structural components. It was fun to change things up though.

After we got off the water we got ready for dinner, got on the bus, ate dinner at Stetsons, and then went to Walmart (our biggest social event outside of the beach trip) to get basic necessities for the rest of our four days here in Deland. When we got back from the dinner and our grocery run, we watched some technique video from our pieces this morning to further ingrain proper technique into our minds that will hopefully transfer to the water. A lot of our ability comes down to confidence in ourselves, each other, the excellence of our program and who we are as Virginia rowers.

Sarah Borchelt’s entry (Jan. 7)

Martha Kuzzy’s entry (Jan. 9)

MacKenzie Leahy’s entry (Jan. 10)

Jenny Shultis’ entry (Jan. 12)

Chelsea Simpson’s entry (Jan. 13)

Sidney Thorsten’s entry (Jan. 14)