Hi everyone! This is Juliette Hackett and Emily Wiebe, co-captains of the Pacific Varsity Women. As the club gears up for our Spring racing season, we thought we’d drop a line to update you all on our progress and what we’re looking to accomplish in the next few months.

Recently, we completed Row-A-Thon, PRC’s annual fundraiser. All of the money raised goes to buying new equipment for us athletes. We received some very generous donations and we’re looking to buy a new set of oars for the Varsity Women, sliders for the ergs and a few new ergs. We’d like to thank everyone who donated and all of the parent volunteers and coaches who made the event possible.

A few weeks after that, during winter break, we had six PRC athletes set world records! Jeff Wang and Jovanni Stefani set the Men’s U19 Lightweight Tandem 100k Meters record, Gena Coblentz and Emile Theriault-Shay set the Mixed U19 Tandem 100k Meters record and we set the Women’s U19 Lightweight Tandem 100K Meters record. We all appreciate the support from our coaches and teammates! Our first race is coming up on February 19th. We will be racing for the Camino Cup trophy against Marina Aquatic Center from Los Angeles. We’re looking to take home the cup this year after missing it by 2 points last year. Later in the Spring we will travel to Eugene, OR and Seattle, WA before regionals in Sacramento in early May.

The Pacific Varsity Women are a young, fiery squad this year. Our new coach, Emmie Koenig, who rowed at UC Berkeley, has been inspiring us to put all we have on the line in each of our pieces. The varsity women have responded well, and we are excited to cause a few upsets this year. Everyone loves the underdog!

After decent results in the fall, we have been working to improve our speed both on the ergs and the water to put ourselves into Grand Finals come May. We have been posting solid times in our eights in preparation for the Camino Cup race later this month. Additionally, much sweat has been shed laboring on the erg. Our first official 2k test was validation of all the hard work we have been putting in, or as we say, "money in the bank." There were numerous personal bests set by first-year and third-year varsity women alike.

To match our new, aggressive attitude, the varsity women will be sporting a sleek new unisuit design this spring, while the men will be adopting our old design. The varsity men have been showing great potential in several lineups, and they look forward to doing some damage as well. We're all fired up!

Thanks for reading. GO PACIFIC!!!

Hi. This is Jordan Duval-Smith with another PRC captain’s blog -- Sweeps in Seattle! One of my favorite views in rowing is the coxswain’s view through the Montlake Cut at UW’s race course. The Cut is a narrow, tree-lined shipping channel that connects Seattle’s Lake Union and Union Bay. The course starts on Union Bay and runs west through the Cut, finishing near the mouth of Portage Bay. The trees, the architecture, the bridge, and the spectators lining the sides with their colorful umbrellas and raincoats, all make for a beautiful panorama.

Of course, we don’t travel to Seattle for the scenery. We make this trip to test our team against the best junior crews from the Pacific Northwest at the Husky Invite. After disappointing results for the WV and WJV eights at the PAC-10 Challenge, where we were beaten by the powerful teams in the SWJRA region, the WV8 was looking for a win. We were struggling with boat confidence and as a result were not performing to our potential on race day. By going to Seattle, we wanted to “internalize” our focus and race our best race, without being mired down in preconceived notions of who we can and cannot beat.

The WV8 raced Mount Baker and Greenlake. The V4 raced Seattle Rowing Club, Lakeside A and B and Greenlake. We won both races with open water between the 2nd place teams and us. Despite the cold temperatures, unknown course, and borrowed boats, the girls rose to the challenge and focused on winning. They stayed alert to the feel of our boat, and making every catch count.

The varsity women took a huge step forward in Seattle. We hope to bring our restored confidence and excitement back to the boathouse and inspire the rest of our hard-working team as we come down the final stretch before the SWJRA Championships. I’ve been a member of Pacific Rowing Club since my freshman year, and would love my four-year journey to culminate in a trip to the National Championships.

As my final season winds down, I’d also like to express my eternal gratitude to my inspiring and dedicated coaches, from novice coach Annie Walsworth, to VW coach Matt Lehrer, assistant coach Katie Kratzer, and PRC head coach Bob MacLean. Their tireless enthusiasm, humor, and commitment to our success in and out of the boat are deeply appreciated. My PRC experience has brought me lifelong friends, taught me the true meaning of teamwork, and presented me with incredible opportunities to continue this great sport in college. I’ll be rowing for Stanford next year, but I’ll always be rooting for Pacific…so, GO PACIFIC!

Hello blog readers, I’m Logan Hart, co-captain of the varsity men’s team along with Nick Lewis and I’m here to give you a brief update of our progress this season.

The training has been intense in the weeks following the winter break as everyone prepares for our rapidly approaching spring season. PRC’s first races are only weeks away and the spring schedule is packed. The Peninsula Indoor Erg Sprints are close at hand, February 6th followed a week later by our first race on our very own Lake Merced. Six days later the top rowers from each squad will pack their bags and head to L.A. to race against the Marina Aquatics Center in the Camino Cup Regatta (February 19-20th). But the racing doesn’t end there ladies and gentlemen, that’s only February!

You can literally feel the anticipation building in every squad as everything begins to move into motion. Just last week the men’s varsity 8 was “set” based off of the scores of our first 2k of the year and the several days of heated seat racing that ensued among the top 12 rowers. The guys that made the V8 are excited to be in the boat and there is already talk of extra optional practices amongst the guys on the team. The mentality this year is that we’re willing to do whatever it takes to be fast; if extra practices are what we need to gain that edge, so be it.

In other news, Yale University came down to watch us row for a few hours during our last Saturday morning’s practice. It’s always exciting for the guys when collegiate coaches watch us practice as it gives us a chance to show off our skill and an avenue to pursue if we wish to row in college as many of PRC’s alums have done in the past.

To all our readers, thanks for taking the time to catch up on our season and I hope to see you at one of our races, GO PACIFIC!

Hello! I’m Tiana Abdulmassih and I’m a co-captain of the Pacific women’s squad with Jordan. We finished up our fall season with our annual Row-a-Thon fundraiser, which once again has proven to be a great success! The Red, Black and White teams raced against each other from 6am to 8pm – and as one of the white team captains, I’m sorry to say that the Red team won. While donations are still coming in so we don’t yet know the total amount of money raised, we do know that the event was a success thanks to the rowers, coaches, parents and countless volunteers who all pitched in to make it happen!

Right now, both the men’s and women’s teams are enjoying a three week winter break. I use the term “break” loosely, as this period is hardly time off for athletes at Pacific! We all love having this time to enjoy the holiday season and spend time with family and friends, as well as to get in better shape to prepare for training in January. This year, we have a Google document online to record our workouts – this has been great because although we are not training together, we are still able to see what our teammates are doing during the break.

Although it’s nice to have some time off, we are all extremely excited to start training for our spring season! During Martin Luther King Jr. weekend, members of the men’s and women’s teams from Greek Lake Crew in Seattle will come down to Pacific to practice and race with us. It’s always fun to meet rowers from different places and make connections with other teams. When we start racing in early February, we have a race almost every weekend leading up to the Southwest Junior Championships in May – we all look forward to races so that we can see how we measure up with the other teams in our region and demonstrate everything that we have been working on in practice. The team is excited and focused on having a great season, as well as winning loads of races!

Thanks for reading the blog and we’ll be sure to keep you updated on how our teams do in our upcoming season!

Hello and welcome to the PRC captain’s blog. I'm Jordan Duval-Smith, co-captain with Tiana Abdulmassih of the PRC women’s team. Tiana and I, along with men’s team captains Nick Lewis and Logan Hart, will be taking turns blogging periodically throughout the year about our teams. So check back for new posts.

We recently wrapped up our fall racing season with a series of excellent results for the women’s varsity boats. At the Head of the Lagoon regatta in Foster City, the WV8+ placed 1st of 13 in the junior event (winning the Grand Sierra Cup for fastest W8+ at the regatta, including the open/collegiate and masters events) and the WV4+ placed 1st of 7 (winning the Mayor’s Cup). Prior to that we participated in the Head of the American regatta in Sacramento (one of the biggest head race events on the west coast, drawing teams from across the state), where the VW8+ placed 3rd of 38 and the VW4+ placed 2nd of 14. Our JVs, lightweight 4+, pairs, and quads have also performed solidly this fall.

Next up is the PRC row-a-thon, our big annual fundraiser where we’re split up into three teams – Red, Black and White – and row against each other non-stop for an entire day. (As a perennial member of Black Team, all I can say is, “Black Attack!”)

The team is now preparing for spring sprint racing. With our fall success behind us, we’re motivated and confident that we’ll be a competitive force against the powerhouse teams in the SWJRA league. Our team dynamic is positive, the work ethic is awesome, we’re committed to doing what it takes to win, and we’re having a lot of fun together in the process.

Finally, to any non-rower readers who are finishing up a fall sport, we invite you come down to the boathouse and try rowing this spring with our novice teams. Once you feel the thrill of 8 oars pulling in unison and powering you across the water, I think you’ll be hooked.

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.