Each spring, the men's rowing team travels south for a spring break training trip. For the past several years, the Orange have traveled to Clemson, S.C. to stay at Clemson Outdoor Lab with other collegiate teams from the north who spend the week training on Lake Hartwell.
While down in Clemson, S.C., senior oarsman and intern in the Syracuse athletics communications office Connor Toomey, will be journaling the team's week-long training trip to Lake Hartwell. Each day, Toomey will log his experience on the trip, which will be the last of his collegiate rowing career at Syracuse. Below is one of Toomey's entries.Â
7:45 AM
Today is our day off from practices, so I slept in just a bit until 7:45 which is when we normally head out from Kresge to launch. I wanted to try and get ahead with some work, so I got up, got dressed and walked to Kresge. It is a very nice morning here, still a bit on the chillier side but sunny and clear skies, nonetheless. I took a walk down by where we typically launch to watch the sun finish coming up and made friends with a Crane that was hanging out on the bank of the lake.
Down by the water in the morning.Â
After chilling with the Crane for a little while, I wandered back up to Kresge hall and found Coach Reischman and Arnaud Buard doing some work, too. I then toasted myself a bagel, added some butter and then sat down and got to work.
Mark, Alex, Mike, and I checked out some shops and then went to get some snacks at a local restaurant called Loose Change. We had fried pickle chips and jalapeno hush puppies because we had lunch scheduled at 2 p.m. at Kresge Hall. On our walk back Alex, Mike, Mark and I were checking out a lot of buildings that we were walking past, and it spurred our quote of the day. There was a building called Godfrey Hall and as soon as we passed the building, we all looked at each other and laughingly shouted "GOOD GOD FREY.... Hall." Â It is a beautiful day, and everyone had a great time exploring campus before heading back to the Outdoor Lab.
Went through Fort Hill on our walk.
At lunch the catering staff had a taco bar set up for us today to give us a bit of a treat from our usual deli sandwiches. During lunch, Coach Reischman had a meeting with us about the schedule for the rest of the week.
Our walk around Clemson.
5:00 PM
I wrapped up some more work for my capstone and then went back to my cabin to play some video games with Joe Willis. After a bit of time, Sam Hobson, Mark Ezaki, Stevie Chuck, Bricen Nygaard, and Michael Harris came into our cabin to play Quiplash on Stevie's computer. We played for a few rounds and then got ready to go to dinner.
Tonight, instead of the dining hall, I went to Raising Canes with Alex Degrado, Scott Zimmerman, Chris Young, Michael Kepler, Katherine Kelly, Mark Ezaki, Ben Dukes, and Emory Sammons. The table had some good chat about how things are going and where we hope this season will take us.
To end the night, we will have a team campfire with smores before going back to work tomorrow.
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