ABSTRACT
I started rowing-never having trained or competed in any sport-when I was 44 years old. My first race was the Head of the Potomac, a three-mile race down the Potomac River in Washington, DC, starting at a point near where the river broadens and becomes navigable just below Three Sisters Rocks. The course winds past the Washington Canoe Club, the Potomac Boat Club, beyond Georgetown and Georgetown University, past Watergate and Foggy Bottom and ends where the river widens just beyond the Kennedy Center. Head races are run single file, rowers working against
the clock. I was in a single scull feeling very much alone. I had been rowing less than a year, and this was my first organized competitive experience.
