These past three weeks have been the toughest we have had thus far. Our team has gone through a lot. Coach Adrian Spracklen told us that the difference between champions and everyone else is that champions are willing to flirt with that line between pushing to one’s limits and injury, but not cross it. Unfortunately, some of us did cross it and have been forced to reevaluate ourselves and our limits. The realization that taking time off now is more beneficial than being taken out of a boat in the spring should be obvious, but for many of us it isn’t. We’re all so competitive that it kills us to take even one practice off.

However, as we are coming to understand, there comes a time when it is necessary. The goal is Camden, and in order to reach that goal we need to be 100 percent in the spring. Healing our bodies now in the winter in order to give that 100 percent is what’s required to get there. We have worked too hard to let it all go down now.

As someone once said, “I’ve worked too hard and too long to let anything stand in the way of my goals. I will not let my teammates down, and I will not let myself down." I refuse to let my team down. Every rep I get in, every grunt, every time I think I can push no harder but somehow find the will, every blister, and every drop of sweat is for each of my teammates.

We are Mercyhurst rowing and our goal is the 2009 NCAA championships in Camden.

"For the rest of your life, you will always be able to say I was a member of a very special team whose whole was greater than the sum of its parts, and it was one of the greatest experiences of my life." That team is my team.