My Pal Andy

I have been thinking about this important point to bring up for a while and I should have done it a long time ago; My pal Andy. When I started with Victoria City Rowing Club (VCRC), a nice, funny and very speedy dude was showing up consistently to every morning practice. For the first three months of rowing there wasn't even a remote possibility of keep up to this guy on the water, he was so fast. As time went on and he gave me pointers on how to speed up the boat and I was able to work on my technique with my Coach Doug White(and stopped flipping the boat), I was able to start to work together with Andy and we could competitively train together. Little did I know at the time that this guy was the fastest lightweight in Canada, that was not on the official National Team. He was the first Canadian lightweight at the 2010 National Rowing Championships! (3rd overall). What are the chances that the small club-team that I pick to row with last August, happened to have the fastest, nicest, and wittiest man in Canada.

Andy is now back in the books completing his Masters in Architecture at UBC. He moved to BC from Ontario a few years previously, first in Vancouver, and training with the UBC team, then on to Victoria. In Victoria he lived a block from the boat house with his lovely wife, Kim, and trained full time with the "big group" at the Victoria Training Centre. A big setback which started as a small shoulder injury, quickly turned for the worst under heavy training. He was forced to quit training with the group due to inconsistent participation but the biggest frustration with his injury was that he had little to no access to therapy! His injury had no resolve, and he still has flair-ups of the same condition over a year later. After leaving the VTC, Andy, I'm sure, had a serious life changing experience about his focus with rowing/career path. He went back to work as an Architectural Tech, and then came back to rowing, for the pure love of the sport with VCRC - the same time I joined VCRC.

I was able to spend some time with him outside of rowing as he is also and avid road-cyclist, tree-crushing mtn biker, foodie, is into indie music, and owned a truck and helped me move. On-top of being a super-nice guy, he has let me use his Fluid racing shell (single sculling boat), as he left it in Victoria at the boathouse while he is away at UBC. It was very important for my August time trial to help me reach previously unobtainable time standard (91% GMS) That is important for that endless RADAR testing.

Some day I hope to row and possibly race with him again. He mentioned 2016 Olympics....