Hello again and thanks for reading our Rower’s Diary! I, Deanna Wong, will be once again updating you on the progress of our team.

At the Southwest Regional Championships, our varsity women’s team qualified for the USRowing Youth Nationals Championships in the women’s pair. In early May, Maggie Bowman-Jones and I raced very intensely in the pair event and won the bronze medal! We are currently training very rigorously six days a week to prepare for Nationals. Since we only have one boat to concentrate on now, Maggie and I are finding ourselves improving significantly every practice. With a week left until we leave for Cincinnati, Ohio, we are fine tuning the technique in the boat and making use of every workout to increase the strength in our legs. Practice has definitely increased in difficulty for Nationals, but Maggie and I know that the reward of winning will be all worth it in the end. As they say, “"The more you sweat in practice, the less you bleed in battle."

The experience one gains from racing at Nationals is priceless. It is such an honor to be invited to travel across the country to Cincinnati, Ohio to represent Pacific at the invitation-only national championship. It really teaches one to perform flawlessly while under intense pressure. We are very honored to race against other pairs around the nation and it will require a tremendous amount of hard work to medal in this event. However, with the precise training plan of the coaches’, I am confident in our success racing at the USRowing Youth National Championships. We will be looking forward to bringing home a medal to the Pacific family in a couple weeks.

Go Pacific!!

Hello! My name is Jordan Duval-Smith and I am co-captain, with Deanna Wong, of the Varsity Women’s team. However, I’m not a rower, I’m the coxswain. I steer and set the pace of the boat. The coxswain is like the brain of the boat, while the rowers are the legs and arms aka the engine. My job is also to motivate the rowers and keep them focused, both mentally and on their technique. This means that I spend a lot of time yelling. Coxswains do not get much credit because the perception is that since we don’t row, we have an easy job – that we just sit in the boat, being chauffeured around the water by the rowers. However, the coxswain is responsible for the boat and all of the rowers; we are in charge on race day, we strategize, and we make the crucial decisions. So, while the rowers go home with tired muscles, the coxswains go home with tired minds. But enough about the coxswain! I’d like to share a highlight of our spring season – the recent trip the varsity boats took to Seattle, WA for the University of Washington Husky Open Regatta.

The top 10 rowers plus the coxswain on the Varsity Men’s and Varsity Women’s squads were selected for the Seattle trip. Everyone was excited to race teams from outside the Southwest Region. In fact, we otherwise wouldn’t get to race these teams unless we first qualified at the Southwest Regional Championships to go to the National Championships in Cincinnati, OH. Our goal was to see how we stacked up against the top teams from the Northwest Region.

We flew out early Friday morning on April 2nd and arrived in a very chilly and windy Seattle. After settling into the hotel and going grocery shopping (always a highlight of our trips), both squads headed out to Green Lake Rowing Center. We practiced with Green Lake and had a mini scrimmage. The races were close, but Green Lake edged us out on their home water. We then had dinner with the Green Lake rowers and enjoyed getting to know another team without the tension of race day. The next morning, we went to the beautiful UW boathouse on Lake Washington for the big regatta. Unfortunately, the officials had to cancel the regatta due to high winds, which made the conditions unsafe.

Though we were all a little bummed, our coaches set up a scrimmage on short notice with Everett Rowing Association, one of the top teams in the Northwest. The Everett women had practiced earlier, so we went out and raced their varsity men. This practice was not ideal due to the uneven competition of men vs. women. Our boat came off the water with tensions high and confidence low. At our boat meeting that night, we put a big emphasis on our focus and what each person must bring to the boats in our races against Mt. Baker Rowing the next day. The tight bond of the Varsity Women’s team allowed us to openly air our frustrations and we ended the meeting with everyone on the same page and feeling psyched for our upcoming race. The next morning we knew what we needed to do. The Varsity “4+” race (meaning 4 rowers + coxswain) was close but we lost by about 3 seconds. We knew our 8+ boat could win if we pushed a little harder and improved our start. We made the adjustments and won by 7 seconds. This win gave the Varsity Women a huge confidence boost as we enter the final 5 weeks leading up to the big Southwest Regional Championships in early May – the strongest region in the U.S for junior rowing – where we’ll race teams from across California, including our ever-powerful local rivals Marin Rowing and Oakland Strokes.

Hello Internet readers, my name is Luke Demo. Brett Lynch and I are captains of the Varsity Men’s squad. In this blog, we will each share updates about the team. For both of us, this is our fourth year rowing for PRC. Over those four years, we have been learning what it means to work hard and go fast.

At this point in the season with around two months of training to go, we are entering the heart of our speed-building endeavors. We have begun to transition away from longer aerobic volume workouts and move towards shorter pieces that push our anaerobic threshold. These types of shorter pieces are truly a test of will power. For instance, a week and a half ago we did our 3rd 2k erg test, which alone seemed like a hard enough work out; however, afterwards we did a 5 x 650 meter erg piece. That day was our introduction to real spring workouts! The work is extremely difficult, however the payoff is huge.

We are all looking forward to our race coming up in Seattle. We are determined to improve our performance in Seattle from the fall race, Head of the Lake. The entire trip was a lot of fun, however we only had a little rowing under our belt at that point in the season. This spring, we will be taking a Varsity 8+ comprised of half heavyweights and half lightweights (under 155lbs). It has been proven so far this year that separately we can move boats and win races, however we have struggled to find flow amidst our mixed sizes. Nevertheless, we plan on hitting these next two weeks before the race hard so we can maximize boat speed.

On a more personal note, I love how Pacific is developing as a varsity program. My role as co-captain has been becoming more effortless as everyone is taking more initiative and discovering what the road to nationals requires. What personally keeps me fighting is our photo finish loss in the lightweight four against Marina. Everyday, I ask myself if I am working harder than the other crews. We all know that winning isn’t easy, especially in our region. So what it comes down to is how you approach every workout and most importantly spending every minute productively. As a captain, I am working to foster this mentality as championships approaches.

Welcome to our first blog! My name is Deanna Wong and I am the Co-Captain of the Pacific Varsity Women's Team. I will be updating this blog along with the Co-Captain, Jordan Duval-Smith, to share some exciting updates and experiences with our squad.

As a varsity woman at the Pacific Rowing Club, we train very vigorously six days a week. (mostly afterschool everyday and once before school) A lot of our training consists of erging, running, weight lifting, and sometimes working out at the beach. Our workouts are designed to push many of our athletes out of their mental limits and challenge our drive to succeed. Though our training is very intense, we wouldn’t be able to work as hard without our profound team bond. With our deep friendships, we inspire one another to push even harder every day.

Some new updates, just recently, Kron 4’s Vern Glenn visited Pacific Rowing Club to interview Maggie Bowman-Jones and me regarding our new 100,000 meter Erg Tandem World Record. Not many people are familiar with the sport of rowing so this was a great chance to publicize our rowing club to the Bay Area. It was very exciting having a T.V. station sports caster visit our boathouse and film many of us doing our usual daily workout.

Transitioning from Fall to Spring Season, we are training extensively everyday to get stronger and faster as a squad for the Southwest Regional Championships. We only have 12 weeks left until championships and we are making use of every workout we have. Recently returning from the Peninsula Indoor Erg Sprints, each squad from the men’s and women’s team won several medals. It was a great day for the Pacific Rowing Club as we started our Spring Season with great results.