Messalonskee Rowing Club
An Organization For Colby Crew Alumni
News
Ted Farwell '05 Training for Olympics!
Ted, center with beard along with the rest of the national team.
Ted is training in Clemson, SC at the US Rowing Olympic Camp. He's been there since October and has survived two rounds of cuts. As you can imagine, the constant inter-squad training and racing in pairs, fours and eights is ferocious; only 14 of these heavyweight category men will go to the Olympics. The U.S. eight and four will be named on June 23rd and will be selected from the remaining men left in the Olympic camp. The pair without cox will be selected based on open trials a week or so later. In his own words, this is how he described a particularly hard session of racing at camp.
The other boat went out really hard and got a three-quarters length lead. We were trying to counteract for a long time, and it wasn't working, we were just hanging on to them. Keep in mind I, and I am sure everyone else used a TON of energy already on the last 20 minute piece. The intensity was insane. After maybe 4 minutes we started to move a tiny bit, right then, we were about to take an immense move, and I thought in my mind "f--- this, I don't care if I completely die, we need to get ahead, now. Ill just do it" and ignored the fact that the race was going to last another 16minutes. I had a huge adrenaline rush and was pulling as if we were sprinting to the line, and the race would be over in a minute, or less, no doubt pushing myself into a huge, possibly unrecoverable oxygen and pain debt. But if that's what everyone if both boats was doing, so be it. We needed the turn, and we were still down. That 15 strokes, we pulled back from half a boat down, to half a boat up. Crushing the other boats spirit. We were still full of adrenaline, the coxswain was yelling out splits, which were 1:27.5 per 500. Blazing fast. Now one of the other guys in the other boat started swearing at us: "F--- YOU", an example of pure adrenaline and testosterone just boiling over the top. I was feeling good and we were moving, and this was the same guy who yelled at Micah and I 4 months ago, during a race, and took our spot on the 2007 team. So I yelled back: "No, F--- YOU". I couldn't hold it in. It got me even more amped up, and I think it did the same for my boat mates, maybe not. We kept moving, and had enough to push them over and take the inside of the turn. There were still 11 minutes left at this point, but once we broke open water, it was much more relaxed and we just cruised away, and ended up winning by 15 seconds.
Two guys switched on the third piece, and I don't know what happened, it could have played out the same, but it didn't. We couldn't keep up with them and lost by 8 seconds. So the guys who got switched had a 23second swing, which is bad for them. We should have been able to win again, no matter the lineup, but we couldn't make it happen.
Afterward I was more tired than I have been in the last, well, maybe year even. I just felt awful. An overexertion injury. I felt nausea, my head hurt, my eyes hurt, my blood hurt, my legs hurt, my inner ears hurt, my bones hurt, my lungs and all of my organs hurt. It was nice to know I could push myself over the top for the win, especially when it counted
MRC in the Press
Row2k, Covering the Head of the Charles
Upcoming Schedule of Events
2009 Alumni Schedule
| Date | Time | Event | Location |
| 4/19/09 | Morning | Spring CBB |
Bates |
| 5/2/09 | All Day |
New England Rowing Championships | Durham, NM |