athletic adventure--row, row, row your boat

 It's been at least two years since I've done an athletic adventure. Pandemics cut your opportunities.

I got the flyer about todays event thru my LCCC email. I think and signed right up. I invited Angel and her daughter to join me. Angel had to work, but the teen joined me. It was sponsored by Lehigh U rowing and the YWCA of Allentown and held at Bucky Boyle Park in Allentown. Where is that? The riverfront behind the ruins of the Neuweiler Brewery. It all used to be industry but that pretty much is all gone. Lot's of empty lots.

This was a way to try rowing as a sport, and maybe sign up for this summers camps. I was so certain I'd fall in the river I took a plastic bag to sit on.

The teen drove to my place and then we took my car to the event. We got there right as it opened. There was probably 30 people there already and they had us all in one group at the first station.  Meanwhile the second and third stations were bored to tears. I left the group and when back to the sign in table. Overstepping my bounds, I said to them my many years of Girl Scout events needs to tell you to break this group into two or three. Nothing happened ... then.

We stayed in one group and examined the racing shell. We learned the anatomy, how to attach the oars, and how to pick it up. We were about halfway thru and they took half the group to the ERG machines.

These are rowing machines that are used for training during the off-season. We stayed with the first group. Then we moved to the machines. We learned the sequence to row, and had a couple races. I was always the last one done. The teen fell in the middle. She would have done better if she wasn't sore from powerlifting yesterday.

The boathouse.

Then we moved to the water, sort of. We got into the boats. The teen was in the front of the 8-person boat. I was near the back. I quickly discovered that my lack of agility was going to be a hindrance. You held the oar with one hand and reached over to the far side and grabbed the edge. Then you put one foot in, on the tape. If you put it anywhere else you could break out the bottom of the boat. Then put the other foot in. 

 

But I got in. We then went thru the same movements we did on the machines. But we were teetered to the dock, so we reallh didn't go anywhere. In fact we had the blades of the oars flat so we didn't move. Disappointing.

 

But it was fun. If I had my 2010 knees and agility I might have signed up for the summer program.  

When we got back to my place, I picked up Pat and we headed to Sharons. Pat and Sharon were going to walk together. I would have loved to have seen that, but I was helping her client with her curtains. I planned it so that we could join the parade of residents getting in line for the ice cream truck. I shouldn't have had any. I really didn't burn off the calories. But I did anyway.