My Five A.M.

by Susannah Starr

When my alarm goes off at 5:00 in the morning, I groggily get out of my warm bed. My first thought when I wake up is always the same. “Why am I awake?” Then I remember, Crew…

I put on my spandex, sports bra, tank top, tee shirt, sweatshirt, sweatpants, flip flops, and shove my socks and visor in my pocket. I grab my backpack, water bottle and gym bag and sit on the couch trying to keep my eyes open. I watch the minute hand on the clock slowly tick to the right. After what seemed like 100 years it is 5:15 and I hear a car pull up outside my house. I stand up, stretch, and open the door. I am immediately hit by a wave of cold morning air. I walk outside and get into Naomi’s car. There is always a different book on tape playing and I am always half asleep but the sound of the narrator’s voice always gets me in the right mindset.

This is my average Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday morning routine. I have been on the Berkeley High Women’s crew team for three years, and even though the mornings are early and cold, I can’t get enough of it. Before me, my sister was a coxswain for four years and my mom and dad both rowed. Needless to say it’s a part of our family. My parents always come to all my races and help out with fundraising. My mom has been treasurer for the crew board for two years, my dad drove the trailer to and from races, and now this is my second year as captain.

I joined the team because my sister did it. I stayed because of the friends, who became like a second family. I am friends with everyone on the team and my best friends are and were rowers and coxswains. Some of them have graduated but we will always have the bond that only comes from spending eight hours a week in the same place with the same people.

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Berkeley High is very unique for many reasons but one of my favorites is that we are the only public high school west of the Mississippi River with a crew team. We race against clubs and private schools from all over California and even some from Arizona. We have strong rowers and good coaches, but the club teams are able to draw rowers from many local high schools, and they can make cuts. Even though we don’t win every race or go to Nationals every year, I still love it.

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Oakland’s Jack London Aquatic Center at 5:30 a.m. looks like something out of a Charles Dickens novel. The fog that covers the dock and water is so thick someone ten feet away is barely visible while the old factory across the cove looms ominously in the distance.

Naomi, Hana, and I get out of the car. Other sleepy girls crossing the parking lot to the open boat bay door, glowing yellow in the dark fog, greet us. Our coach Sabrina is standing in the doorway with a clipboard-taking roll as girls taking pairs of oars down to the dock. Another group is pulling the heavy Boston Whaler trailer down to the docking ramp. I sit down on the cold cement floor and pull my legs into the butterfly stretch as I yawn and rub my eyes. In ten minutes, the whole team is sitting on the floor talking, laughing, and stretching. Some girls are telling others about their weekends while others complain about homework. Sabrina reads out the line-ups, and we get to work taking down boats.

On this particular Monday, I am practicing in the Lightweight Four. The line-up has been the same for two months and has finally started to feel competitive. After countless seat races and weigh-ins we ended up with Hanna B. as stroke, me as three, Hannah M. as two, Claire as bow, and Naomi as coxswain.

After practicing five times a week at five A.M. we had our first league race and we did something that no one would have ever expected. We were at the Deep Water Dash in Stockton and it was unbearably hot. In addition to the heat, we had three races, each only an hour apart. We had to be prepared throughout the entire day. Our first race was the lightweight double, followed by the lightweight four, and lastly the lightweight eight.

In all of three of the races my pair, the port to my starboard, was one of my best friends, Hanna. We had rowed together as a pair for two years, but this was the first time we had raced or sculled in a coxless boat. As we carried the double down to the water, I could hear shouts of encouragement from my teammates.

“Good luck guys” shouted Kate.

“I know you’ll win,” echoed Isabella

“Don’t flip!” Joked Keelan

We put the boat in the water, got in, and I could hardly grip my oars with my shaking hands. Hannah and I warmed up down the course and I started to feel more relaxed. We pulled up to the starting line and I got my point. When the official blew the horn, we started and were ahead of the Delta Blades pair. For the whole race, it was a battle for first. When the last 300 meters came up, Hanna and I pulled one of our best sprints and came in first.

Then, in the four, which was scheduled twenty minutes after the double, we started out tired and not very hopeful because we were racing the Delta Blades four and the Los Gatos four. Delta Blades was an easy win but Los Gatos has always been top in the Lightweight category. At the start we were all pretty even then we hit the 1,500-meter mark and we walked away from Delta Blades with ease. Now it was between Los Gatos and Berkeley. They would walk then we would walk then they would walk. It went like this for the next 1,200 meters, and then came the sprint. At this point I could hardly breath, and I would need to drink about ten gallons of Gatorade to get all my energy back.

“Okay, we are coming up on that 300-meter mark. This is where we sprint! This is where we win! Press it here, send the legs, and prepare for it. Hear it is…” Yelled Naomi.

We did our first power ten and were ahead. Then came the second ten and were farther ahead. “How is this happening?” I thought, “Los Gatos came in first at Nationals, they have gold and silver medals. We have nothing and we are going to beat them.” As we neared the finish line, Naomi was screaming, I was sweating and we were winning. When we finally finished we heard the official say that we had come in first by two seconds.

Then in the Lightweight eight we got second behind out men’s open weight quad. But not even that could dampen my enthusiasm. All of the Berkeley High boats came in ether first, second, or third place winning almost everyone on the team a gold or silver medal and winning us the regatta cup.

After the races were over, we put the boats on the trailer and headed back to JLAC. When we all got back to the boathouse it was about 7:45 P.M. and the team still had about an hour of work. We had to unload the seven boats we brought. put the riggers back on, wash them, and put them back in the boathouse. Unloading and rigging is never fun. We always rush through it so we can get home, eat, and go to sleep, but the atmosphere was different that night. There was a common sense of pride that we had never really felt before. We took about twelve team pictures with the trophy and put it on a shelf near the door so everyone can see it.

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With or without medals, I will always remember the friendships I made on the team and the self-control the sport has taught me. Crew is unlike any other team sport. In basketball, the team has to work together to get the ball down to court and score a basket, but in crew as many as eight rowers have to move as one. Everyone has to pull their own while maintaining the rhythm of the strokes. It looks beautiful and easy from the shore, but when I am in the boat pulling my heart out, and the coxswain yells that I have 500 meters to go, I know that even though I feel like my legs are on fire and I might pass out from the lack of oxygen, I have to keep going.

I am not going to do crew in college for several reasons. It’s not only that I need a brake. Even though that is a big factor. Five, five A.M. practices a week for four years, yes including summer, has worn me out. I am in good shape but I need some rest. The real reason is that I don’t think I can row with another team. I love everything about Berkeley High Crew and rowing with other girls would feel wrong. I don’t think I could bond with them the same way and I wouldn’t want to pull for them.