Every athlete has experienced the pains of training and physical toll it takes on your body. Going through tough workout after tough workout makes for an exhausting life but athletes still put themselves through this physical toll. For rowers there is no offseason and they put themselves through constant workouts and training.

“Rowing is not a sport you can really take breaks with,” junior Mikayla Larkin said. “It’s just one of those things you’ve got to keep at. We do cardio, we do core, personally on nice days I go bike just to keep [my] body activity up and then [I] don’t lose muscles throughout the [winter].”

While rowing is a tough sport, it teaches people how to push through when the going gets tough.

“It’s all about doing more than you think you can,” sophomore Josh Brandt said. “It’s pushing yourself as hard as you can and making goals and breaking them. It’s made me realize how much more as an athlete I can do.”

Throughout the year the team competes in various different competitions called regattas. Teams from around the area come to compete in them and they face off in different races such as eights, doubles and fours. Each rower will typically compete with three different boats.

“I’m in a women’s quad and a women’s double,” Larkin said. “Typically our whole team combines and we all do an eight, so that is our third.

The rowing team has big plans for spring break. They will be venturing to the Baylor campus for a training camp that will last six days and contain various types of training.

“We train for a long time,” junior Evan Moris said. “There is a possibility of trying out different lineups and possibly running different boats. My dreams has always been to row in a single or a double more often.”

The Baylor training camp offers rowers from around America the chance to come and engage in training and meet new people who share a passion for rowing.

“When we are there we are going to row a whole lot,” Brandt said. “There’s gonna be so many people and we’re going to be on the water on our boats for large chunks of time working on our strokes and getting faster and faster while we are there. It’s just gonna be so cool and so much fun.”

Rowing is a big time commitment, with all the practices, regattas and camps but it provides a good experience to the people in it.

“I get to spend a lot of time with [my friends],” Moris said. “Sometimes the races get in the way of some plans or I’d have to request a lot of time off [work] for rowing itself but I’d say it is worth it.”