On Friday, July 28, 2023 at 2:21:59 PM UTC-4, Charles Carroll wrote:
As any non-rower can tell you, rowers are no fun. This is because rowers only ever talk about rowing. Get two or more rowers in a room and the conversation goes from normal topics like work or weather to long, pointless stories about boats, blisters,
oars, grips, ergs, feathers, workouts, catches, releases, recoveries, splits, seats, strokes, slides, starts, settles, sprint's, and whether the water was really "flat" or not. From there, it usually progresses to what went wrong with the last row, what
might go wrong on the next row, and who's fault it was and/or will be. At some point the rowers will hold out their hands and compare calluses. If you're really unlucky, this could be followed by several minutes of head-bowing reverence as one of them
recounts the perfect row where it all felt easy.
“Lessons In Chemistry,” -Bonnie Garmus,
Bonnie Garmus is a copywriter and creative director who has worked widely in the fields of technology, medicine, and education. She’s an open-water swimmer, a rower, and mother to two pretty amazing daughters. Born in California and most recently
from Seattle, she currently lives in London with her husband and her dog, 99.
It has been about a year since I stole this book from the local library. At the time, I had no idea it contained any rowing content. I highly recommend the book as it is well written and entertaining.
Given that it has been a while since I consumed the book, my recollection is probably hindered more than normal. I had two issues regarding technical accuracy about rowing in the book. The most egregious was that the heroine, a novice rower, joins her
boyfriend in a pair and they become very competitive after just a couple of rows. As far as I know, there is no mixed-pair class, and it is hard to imagine that such a boat could be effective. The pair is certainly the boat of boats, requiring a very
well match pair of rowers.
I did cross sabers with the author in one of the masters facebook groups about this. The rowing inaccuracies don’t harm the value of the book and would only be noticed by a rower with a certain amount of Obsessive-compulsive disorder. Of course, the
quotation from the book, most rowers suffer from this and more.
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