Dear Teammates,

Thank you for the support and the opportunity to race the 2x this weekend.

We made it to DC and back without any troubles and were very impressed with the venue and how well run the race was. Parking was a bit of an issue, but the intrepid Tara got us into a good spot.

The conditions were pretty good, just a bit of wind. The course is very curvy, but we did a great job navigating, cutting off a few hundred meters by hugging the turns.

Tara and I were pretty happy with our row; technique-wise I don't think we could have done better. We would like to improve our ability to maintain our speed during wind-gusts, waves, and big turns; these are the spots that cost us 4th place. We passed several boats and were not passed. I think I surprised Tara by yelling at another boat "Do not push us off course" when they were coming too close and we were at risk of missing a buoy.

Regarding the results, when we looked into the numbers and the competition, we both ended up feeling pretty good about how we did. These were the results:

19:51.3 Potomac, age 23
20:37.1, Alexandria, age 29
20:55.5 Unaffiiated, age 21
21:57.6 with a gap of a minute behind the 3rd place boat, a club focused on training for U23 national level
22:11.4 CHAOS Rowing: Tara and Carol
22:18, Old Dominion, very good sculling high schoolers, aged 16

Looking at other races, we were not surprisingly faster than the LWT 2xs 22:53 and 24:42.

looking at other races:

women's masters 4+, we would have been 6/12.
women's masters 4x, we would have been 3/5
mixed masters 2x, we would have been 6/12
men's masters 2x, we would have been 3/8
women's masters 2x, we would have been 4/14

The winning women's champ 1x was Charlotte Hollings from Calm Waters at 22:09; Tara and I were faster than all the other champ and masters 1xs.

So, we're competitive, but there is good competition out there.

This perspective is a great one to go into the winter training season with...we plan to work very hard and be even faster in the spring.

I'll close by saying we are very grateful to Felix and Cy for letting us race their Kaschper. She may not be beautiful, but she's fast and fun. William helped us out by lending us his carrier.

See you on the water,

Carol