The erg life

Two items of note, one of joy and one of sadness. First the joy: Charlie participated in the Erg Sprints this weekend at T.C. Williams high school in northern Virginia. This indoor race is the largest in the mid-Atlantic region, this year attracting 1391 entries from 126 clubs.

Charlie T. participated in both the 20 minute row and in the 2000m meter sprint and finished well in both. In the 20 minute row, starting at 8:30 in the morning, Charlie finished 4th out of 53 entries with a distance of 5681 meters and an average 500m split time of 1:45. Later in the afternoon the 2000 meter sprint race was run. Charlie finished 3rd of the 41 entries with a personal record of 6:32.9. Well done Charlie!

Interestingly, Charlie's Dad rowed at TC Williams "back in the day," and Charlie attracted some attention wearing an old school warm-up as he showed off his medal.

Catholic High has done very well at this indoor race in the past. In 2017 Reilly Schindler won the Lightweight women's 2000m race topping a field of 38 with a time of 7:50.6. It was this performance that helped Reilly win a 4-year scholarship for rowing at St Mary's college in California. 

Reilly has now transitioned as a tri-athlete for team USA with the support of the St Mary's rowing program.

Now the sad news: 

On January 15th, 20 year-old Grace Rett, a rower for the College of the Holy Cross Crusaders, was killed in a automobile accident   while the team was in Florida for winter training. 

Grace was also a remarkable athlete, having just recently in December set the world record for the longest continual row indoors. 

To honor Grace's memory, the ODU Women's rowing program will have an event at the ODU rowing center on February 7th and 8th where an erg will continuously spin for 37 hours by hosting a “day of and for Grace.” The goal is to cover 383000m, the distance that Grace rowed during her recent world record.

The ODU Rowing team has opened the undertaking to any and all students and athletic staff members to help keep the machine spinning. Rowers will trade off as they need to - no one person will attempt to duplicate Grace's individual effort. 

More information is forthcoming. I plan on dropping by Friday evening and Saturday morning. If anyone wants to attend, please contact me and I'll coordinate with Coach Garbutt at ODU.

Here is more about Grace to help understand the "Day of and for Grace."

“She had a work ethic second to none and inspired others to ‘love the fight’,” her family wrote. Grace Rett immersed herself into the Holy Cross community. She was an active participant in campus ministry and attended Athlete Bible Study weekly. She also worked in the Office of Admissions where she loved to give tours of the “beautiful campus” and “share her love of the college” and worked in the Sports Media Department where she operated the live stream camera, the obituary reads. Selected to be a Monserrat leader, Rett mentored freshman, was a member of the Liturgical Choir, spent time as an RA and most recently joined the club basketball team.

Inside the Hart Center at the Luth Athletic Complex, flowers were left at Concept2 indoor rower in memory of Rett. She had recently set a new world record for the longest continual row in the individual heavyweight women 19 and younger category; She rowed the equivalent of almost 9 full marathons in just two and a half days.“Grace made the very most of her 20 years on this earth and was beyond proud to go from being an OLV Angel to a Marianapolis Golden Knight to a Holy Cross Crusader,” her obituary said. “She worked hard and took advantage of every opportunity afforded to her.”