There is one word that can sum up the women's crew season: consistency.
There was nothing too flashy about the fall season, which featured only three varsity races, and nothing too discouraging; in fact, Tufts left the waters of Medford satisfied with the overall results, particularly its 14th-place finish at the Head of the Charles.
"We had three main goals for this season," senior co-captain Caitlin Gallagher said. "We had a pretty cool season and did exactly what we wanted to do."
The first goal was to work on technique, which the Jumbos did by mixing up their different drills and exercises, such as repetitive slow strokes, to fine-tune the fundamentals while making their strokes more efficient.
The second was to row a lot of miles to the point where it became second nature. The team rowed a distance of 5,000 meters from the Tufts boathouse to a spot near Medford Square several times this fall, to the point where the distance ended up feeling like an average row.
The third and final goal was to create a sense of team, which arguably was the easiest goal to achieve.
"We spend a lot of time off the water together just hanging out," senior co-captain Sara Douglass said. "It makes a huge difference both on the water and off."
Gallagher stressed that crew is the ultimate team sport, so the entire team must have cohesiveness in the boats to be successful. Of their three goals, however, the Jumbos saw the most improvement in the first.
"I think the biggest change we saw this fall is in the technical proficiency," coach Gary Caldwell said. "I think everyone on the squad made significant improvements in the way they row and how efficiently they row. The varsity squad took the premise that this was going to be important to the team to heart and everyone worked hard to make it happen."
New methods were added to expedite the process of technique education. The women had access to a big-screen television and a video camera and thus were able to record themselves on the water and analyze it afterward.
"We spent a lot of time dissecting piece-by-piece what was going wrong and what was going right on the water," Douglass said. "It made a huge difference, and we were able to make the right changes."
The hours spent watching video also helped the team figure out which different combinations of people worked and where those combinations worked most effectively. There was only one regatta, the Head of the Charles, where Tufts put out a set A and B boat. Otherwise, the lack of overall depth made it difficult for the team to determine exactly where people should fit.
That will be one of the main differences of the upcoming spring season. There will be the loss of one rower - junior Kaitlyn Mula, who will be going abroad - for the spring season's roster. But in return, the team will bring back eight rowers from last season who were abroad this semester. The Jumbos will essentially have a whole boat back for the spring, which will significantly add depth that they did not have in the fall.
As of now, the rowers will hit the gym and get started on the rigorous winter training program that has been the foundation for their recent success in the spring season.
"We'll be weight training three times a week, generally in the early morning," Gallagher said. "We'll be doing a lot of cardio training, swimming, running ... just pretty much being as fit as we can be in order to hit the ground running for the spring season."
Overall, while the fall season was enjoyable and had its moments, the girls are ready to start training for the spring in the hope of even better finishes.
"The fall season is so short. It's hard to look at individual races and try to figure out which one really sticks out," Gallagher said. "The idea of the fall is that you just row and worry as little about the results as possible and basically try to get better."
