Crew Team Gets Ready

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Photo by Neggin Khaledan

Crew captain, Chris, showing how to erg

The Holy Cross Crew team has started working their way towards racing in the water in a few weeks. The seven Tartans who make up the team are practicing every day.

Special equipment called ergs are used by the crew team for practicing when they cannot be in the water. The students lean back and pull the handle to their chest in a rowing motion.

Sophomore Natalie Giacchino shared that workouts are tough. “The only bad thing about crew is the pain from the long workouts.”

A typical workout is rowing for fifteen minutes and then start 500m sprints. After break for two minutes, they row a 2k which is a very hard workout.

One member of the team is the coxswain, cox for short, which is like a person yelling at the team, trying to encourage them, pushing them to go faster and harder with every stroke to finish.

Even though the workouts are difficult is worth it when they get to the water to race. Giacchino added, “I enjoyed the team bonding as we travel to practice rowing on the Anacostia River.”

Crew’s first races are later in March. Once they get into the boat they have to work together to pull on the oars at the same time which is different from the ergs.

Another benefit of crew expressed by Giacchino, “Maybe one day I will have abs.”

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