Polar Plunge

I joined the rowing team last week. I remember it clearly. It was a Wednesday evening and my mother waltzed into my room and exclaimed: "You're going to rowing in thirty minutes. Be ready," I jumped off the floor and tossed on some work out clothes.

I arrived and I rowed. I rowed some more on Friday. On Saturday and Sunday I got up at five AM and drove to a place for a rowing race. It was very fun.

Then came Monday. Monday started out like your average rowing day, but today, many people showed up. A lot of them were new. Including one boy who I shall call Guy. Our coach, Nick instructed four girls to get in the four man boat, the one that I had rowed in so far. Our coxswain (pronounced cok-sin) was in there as well. So they got in. Then the male and female who usually rowed the singles got those in the water and rowed away. 

Now only Guy and I were left. Nick told us we were rowing the double today. This was completely new to me, especially since on the four man, you only use one oar. On the double however, each person has two separate oars per person. This was nerve wracking in of itself. To make matters worse, neither Guy nor I had ever rowed a double, so we had no clue what the Hell we were doing. 

We did okay for the first time in the double. For a while, anyway, As we were heading back to the dock to talk to Nick, well that was where it all turned to Hell. See, the female in the single was doing a start at the dock, so we had no way of getting to the dock, so we had to wait. As we were waiting, we drifted towards a buoy.

Now we were in a $30,000 Olympic row boat. We had no intention of hitting a buoy and getting murdered by the coach. So we rowed backwards like crazy. Unfortunately, we got unbalanced. Most people would be able to save the boat from tipping. Not two newbies who had no clue what we were doing. We tipped. Our boat flipped over completely. We were in the freezing lake for at least 15 minutes. I could barely walk. It hurt like a bitch. 

Here is a video of us tipping. We're in the back corner.

In case you missed that:

 You can clearly see us here (kind of)

And we're gone.

Most normal people would quit rowing after that, but not Guy and I. We both have continued to show up and row, though only in the four man from now on.