It’s 9:00 a.m. and the alarm goes off for one local UCSB student.
He is different from most of his fellow students at UCSB because most would whine about having to wake up so early on a Sunday morning but not him.
Nine is sleeping in for him because his alarm is usually going off at 5 a.m. to the annoyance of his roommates. When asked why he wakes up so early, he will proudly tell you that it is because he is a rower.
The UCSB rowing team trains on Lake Cachuma at sunrise.
Sunday was an important day for some of the rowers of the UCSB rowing teams.
Eight novice men and four novice men traveled down the 101 to compete in an ‘erg’ competition at the boat house of Cal State Long Beach. An ‘erg’ is an indoor rowing machine that measures an athlete’s individual fitness over a precise distance of 2000 meters.
UCSB Rowing Team members show off medals from last week's 'Erg' competition at Long Beach State.
The dreaded 2k test not only measures how fit the athlete is but also their strength, endurance, and most importantly mental fortitude. The equivalent of a ‘2k test’ would be to power clean a 70-pound weight nearly 250 times over the course of six and a half minutes. It is not easy.
UCSB arrived at the boat house with an hour to go before its events. The men were registered in both the men’s collegiate novice lightweight event and the men’s collegiate novice events while the women entered rowers in the women’s collegiate novice event.
A male rower is eligible to compete as a lightweight is he weighs less than 165 pounds and a novice oarsman is a rower competing in his first season of college rowing. Not a single oarsman on the UCSB novice team had ever touched an oar before he or she had attended the university. This is also one of the beauties of the sport because most rowers do not actually start rowing until they get to college.
"Erg" competition at Long Beach State's boat house.
The women started the day of racing. As the onlookers screamed, the Lady Gauchos drove their legs hard despite their lungs and minds telling them to stop. Tanya Smith won the race with a time of 7:28 and teammates Shelby Hallford and Kady Eddy took second and third respectively. Laura Braden also competed, finishing fourth with a personal best.
Then it was the men’s turn to race. Tim Stuart and Andrei Yahontov were the only two gauchos entered in the lightweight category and Tim took home gold crushing the other rowers in his race with a time of 6:50. Andrei finished behind him and brought home the silver medal.
In the heavy weight category, Jordan Brower put up a time of 6:25, leading from start to finish over rowers from UCLA, USC, CSULB, Chapman, and Orange Coast College (a west coast rowing powerhouse).
Teammate Luke Wilhelm battled with a rower from OCC the entire race but was out sprinted in the last quarter of the race and brought home the bronze. Other gaucho rowers that competed were Elliott Waxer, Cameron Oxenham, and Sean Nelson. All three posted new personal best times.
Both the men and women are looking forward to a strong season. March 6 both the men and women will travel down to San Diego to start their racing season against UC San Diego, University of San Diego, and UC Irvine. It will be a great test of their training through the fall and hopefully kick off the gaucho rowing season off right.
