Congrats on making it to March Break! For those who are local over the break, we’ll be running LEANDER practices at the boathouse Monday to Friday at 9am. Novices will get a LOT of practice in the tank—they will find this helpful once we hit the water, whenever that might be! If you are not local over the break, please find the time to try to maintain your fitness as best as possible.

After our meeting on Friday night at Leander, I can release a few bits of news. Leander registration should be up and running in the next couple of days. FYI, fees for the high school season will not change this year. They will be &260. Rowing Canada registration is free. Instructions on how to do both will be forthcoming soon. As in the case with all rowing websites, seemingly….nothing is easy and both are problematic. So don’t wait until the last minute.
April 6th is the day the club is targeting for the docks to be put in, given the ice conditions. (FYI, some guy drove a pickup truck out into the middle of the bay, so the ice is REALLY thick!) ALL ROWERS MUST BE PRESENT FOR A GOOD PART OF THE DAY! The docks will go in in the morning, and in the afternoon, there will be a MANDATORY WORKSHOP FOR ALL ROWERS. If you do not attend this workshop, you won’t be allowed on the water.

New this year will be a daily evening run for the first three weeks we’re on the water, unless you’re in a boat that actually did a workout. Teaching the novices how to row is mentally demanding, but not physically…and we risk losing up to three weeks of fitness in a critically short on-water season. So you will need to go out for a 40-minute run if you’re a novice or in a boat that has novices in it.
Also new this year, the Saturday morning practices will start at 7AM and run til 10AM. Experienced rowers can expect a long distance row of about 20km.

Given the late start date, we may hold the novices out of the Bennett Regatta in Buffalo on May 5. This has not been decided yet, but I’ll make the decision by April 25th at the latest. If we get on the water a lot and have good practices, the chances are good that we’ll attend. For experienced rowers, the only issue would be ice in the Niagara River. If it’s still chock-a-block when we go to do the entries, chances are we’ll pass on the regatta.

So we still have a ways to go before we’re on the H2O, but the weather is getting better, so be ready to start back on the 6:30am schedule–we should be able to get outside again right after March Break. Watch the blog!