A Strong Week in Mexico

Earlier this month Ellis H, Ellis ‘16, Alex R. Privett ‘16 & Mr. Brian Carr headed to Mexico City to represent Canada at the tri-nation CanAMex Rowing Regatta. Day 1: It’s been quite the experience despite us only being here for 20 hours.  We landed late last night and arrived at the 1968 Olympic compound at around 1am. Between going into three wrong rooms and not having any running water (in the bathrooms and showers after 10:00 pm) we figured that we'd call our new home the POW camp. When we woke up in the morning, we enjoyed an authentic Mexican breakfast before we left for the race course.  What we thought was going to be a 15 minute bus ride ended up being almost two hours because of the infamous Mexico City traffic. The rowing is amazing and the equipment that we have is better than Team Canada's, and luckily we got off the water before a storm rolled in. At its peak, this storm left us trapped in a Walmart that was flooding from the overflowing streets, and caused power outages for our part of town. Day 4: I can't believe that I'm about to go to bed at 9:15 during my summer break, but that's my reality right now. Apparently there's only 75% of the oxygen here (2250 meters) than there is at sea level which has made all of the workouts a lot more painful. We're currently sitting inside waiting for the thunder and lightning to calm down enough for us to sleep. Our racing starts on Saturday which I've got my pair on, then I race the eight on Sunday before we fly out Monday morning at 6am. Day 8: Now that racing is over, I can safely say that I'm happy with my results. My throw together pair with a guy twice as big as me was pretty eventful, especially because he had never swept until this week. We had a close race with the American B pair that ended with us in second by only a couple of inches. Being able to race on such a fantastic body of water was an indescribable experience and really gave me a taste of what all intentional courses must be like.  Sunday’s races were even more intense though, with the final race of the day being my Men's 8+. The suspense was unreal when we were at the start line because I had never raced at a level where three boats could line up and be so competitive with each other, its something that you don't get at club and school level. As for the race itself, my best description would be pure pain. We had another great duel with the Americans throughout the entire race, and finished with a Silver medal around our necks and a Maple Leaf proudly on our chests.? Ellis H, Ellis ‘16