Spring Break Blog: Zags Hit Lake Natoma For Scrimmage
3/13/2013 12:00:00 AM | Women's Rowing
The Gonzaga University women's rowing team headed to Sacramento, Calif., for the week of spring break. The Bulldogs will document this week with a daily blog that will give insight into their training, their first race of the year - against Loyola Marymount University of Friday, and a scrimmage with UCLA Saturday. The Zags will be training and racing on Lake Natoma, which also is home to both the West Coast Conference Championship and the WIRA Championships.
Today's blog is written by Gonzaga junior Sarah Atkins.
Yesterday was the second day of our training week here in Sacramento. Our first practice consisted of race pace pieces of varying distances, and progress in each boat was very transparent. We remained at the course for lunch and enjoyed some delicious food thanks to the Milburn family and the Brown family! Thank you for your generosity! After refueling, we went out for afternoon practice where we focused primarily on start work. We made much improvement on our starts throughout the course of practice and are eager to put them to the test in only a few short days against Loyola Marymount!
Also during this practice, we ventured further on Lake Natoma than we have ever gone before and were reminded why Lake Natoma means so much too many GU rowers and alumni. The calm water, the surrounding greenery, and the ever present sunrays combined with great rowing and irreplaceable teammates destines Lake Natoma to be a perfect place to reminisce on old memories and create new ones.
We hit the water early this morning to scrimmage Sacramento State. This opportunity highlighted areas where both the Varsity 8+ and the Second Varsity 8+ can specifically focus our energy and seek improvement and was overall a great trial run for us in anticipation of our upcoming races. As we continue this training week, we are eager to make changes and harness our potential as well as push forward to gain more and more inches.
In other news, tonight is the annual team talent show and performance of class songs. We are all looking forward to a night full of laughs and delightful singing!
