Stephen Pleasant ’18 (Novice Men)

Major: Accounting

Hometown: Frankfort, IL

One of the benefits of being asked to write one of these blog posts is being forced to take some time and reflect on my team and I’s week in Oak Ridge. As I sit here at midnight and shuffle through my semi-coherent thoughts, one common theme seems to run through all of them; Oak Ridge was rough, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

It all started in true rowing fashion, and by that I mean waking up at 5:30. It’s hard to say what exactly the atmosphere was like at that moment, everyone was pretty hopeful about break and excited to get into boats, our car even had donuts for the ride. Over the next 12 hours, we slept, talked, watched foreign music videos with random spider man cameos in them, and generally had a good time. When we got out of the car at the Days Inn, the good spirits continued. Everyone was kicking a ball around, excited to finally be out of cars and out of the cold, and we all looked ahead at the next day with smiles.

That was until, of course, 6:30 the next morning where smiles got replaced with lack of sleep. 4 alarms blared at the same time and when one of my roommates opened the door to check the temperature the room’s temperature dropped at least 5 degrees. Soon enough, we were bundled head to toe in a collection of spandex and sweatpants, and running our brisk warm up jog before practice, and soon after that, I was staring at the frost on the dock as I tightened my oar lock and shoved off from the dock, shivering and searching the sky for the sun. After 2 and a half hours of trying to convince myself I was warm, and acclimating our new rowers to the boat, we let the women take over and took our break, eating sandwiches and trying to get warm. The next practice was, go figure, sunny and warm. It felt great to get out on the water feel the sun, and be warm for the first time in months. Afterwards, we ran for a half hour and then did body circuits. Around this time is where, walking back to the car, legs barely moving, aching, everyone looked at each other and unanimously and silently agreed “It’s gonna be a long week”.

We weren’t wrong. The week was rainy, foggy, and, looking back, would have made for some awesome 80’s style training montage with “eye of the tiger” going in the background. Some practices, drilling down the river surrounded in fog, were amazingly surreal. Others, endlessly sprinting in the pouring rain, made me want to give up, and pushed me so far past my physical and mental breaking point I was numb at the end.

The most memorable part of the week, however, wasn’t the 2-a-day practices shrouded by fog or the hellish sprints, it was the lessons I learned. It was learning that eating at a china buffet in Tennessee is a terrible, bowel-destroying idea. It was learning that nothing unites a men’s rowing team more than Pokémon and cartoons. It was learning to embrace my inner Dad. It was learning that police at a Days Inn see some weird stuff, that Happy Hour at Sonic is something to do burpees for, and that our team can sing through 15 minutes of wall sits.

So now, being off the water and looking back, it’s obvious to say both my team and I improved as rowers, but past that, I learned why I row, and why we row. It's for the experiences we all share, from the pain in your legs as you down Advil to that elation as you cross the finish line, and especially everything in between. It was at Oak Ridge I learned that, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.