The Teammate Bond

Post # 119

I recently found myself in a seemingly unlikely situation: I was hiking near San Francisco with three girls I had rowed with in high school. We were 3,000 miles away from Boston, where we grew up, and it had been over eight years since we sat at a starting line together. We had only kept in touch here and there during college, but once we realized that half of our high school 8 lived in the bay area, we starting hanging out again, having adventures, and reminiscing about our days at Community Rowing. Sure, we'd had different college experiences and a lot of things had happened between 2004 and 2012, but it didn't matter. We picked up right where we had left off because we had bonded in our years as teammates.

Hiking in SF the other week. We competed together over eight years ago. 

The bonds developed steadily over the years, both in high school and in college. They developed each morning when we woke up early, came down to the boathouse for practice, and tried to squeeze the best performances out of each other. They developed during the hours on the water together, in practices with extreme cold/ice/snow, humidity, torrential downpours, thick fog, or insane wind. They developed during the annual fifteen hour van ride from Boston to South Carolina for winter training in high school. In college, they developed when our flights would be hours delayed on the east coast on a Sunday night and we'd play games to pass the time. 

The bonds got even stronger when we raced together. I remember the final sprint of many regional and national championships. Sometimes we were ahead of the field and other times we had to make up ground on our rivals in the final strokes of the race. Regardless of the situation, everyone had each others' back and we were doing everything we could to get our team across the line first. We wanted to work hard for each other and the team. 

With Wisco teammates Margot and Adrienne racing for the Badgers in New Jersey (left) and hanging out in California the night before I left for London (right). Adrienne also visited over the weekend (and came pounding on my door on Sunday morning as a surprise!). 

Over the years, we learned to have each others' backs in all sorts of situations, not just during practices or races. We became each others' family, and because of that, it's not really unlikely at all that we picked up right where we left off. Even though we're not competing together anymore, we'll always be there for each other, back each other up, and be on each others' team.