No More Silver Medals, with Ben Weatherwax & Michael Fairley

Transcript

00:00:12 Michael

If you don't have the love in the beginning, what happens if something goes wrong? Whether it is like an injury or just not achieving like whatever expectation you set for yourself, the reason we're all still doing this.

00:00:25 Michael

Is because we love it.

00:00:30 Kristi

Welcome to the other three years, a show for anyone who has an Olympic sized dream. They want to turn into a reality.

00:00:41 Kristi

Hi and welcome to this week's episode of the other three years podcast. My name is Christy Wagner and this week is a really fun episode and I'm super excited because I have Michael Fairley and Ben Weatherwax on as my guest this week. So Michael and Ben are both from Saratoga and they both rode at Saratoga Rowing for a long time.

00:01:02 Kristi

Like since middle school.

00:01:03 Kristi

They have both had really successful high school careers, probably some of the most successful for Saratoga athletes, but don't quote me on that because there have been a ton of really successful kids that have come out of the program over the past 20 plus years and continue to come. And then Michael and Ben both just finished up their time at.

00:01:23 Kristi

Harvard rowing for the lightweight team. So they were both in the two V8 this spring that won the IRA last month, as did their Varsity 8. And they just finished up racing at Henley Royal Regatta. Literally this.

00:01:38 Kristi

I've known Ben and Michael for a long time. When I first moved to Saratoga, I lived with Michael's family for about a month before the training center was finished, and I've also known Ben for a while and he actually trained with Orion during his gap year, which we discussed in the episode. So it was so fun to have them on and they offered a lot of awesome insights into high school rowing and college growing.

00:01:58 Kristi

And lightweight rowing. And they're just two terrific young men. And I know they're just getting started. And all of the things they'll accomplish.

00:02:05 Kristi

As a side note, before we jump into things, unfortunately benz's audio cut out a few minutes before the end of the episode and we patched it up and I don't think it messes up any of the really great stuff that they share. But if it seems a little patched together at the end, that's why before we get into my conversation with Ben and Michael, here is what is currently going on in my training.

00:02:25 Kristi

So.

00:02:27 Kristi

We just arrived in Erba, Italy for our pre camp before the Olympics, which is wild and crazy and very exciting. Travel was pretty smooth, really no hiccups. We took a little bit of an earlier flight so we got to Milan at like 6:00 in the morning. We made it to the hotel for breakfast, which was pretty.

00:02:48 Kristi

Exciting. We did get to sit in comfort plus seats and I was in the bulkhead, so that was nice, but still sleeping on planes is really hard. I have a lot of trouble with it. Just kind of trying to get adjusted to the time change and everything. But it's been good so far. It was really exciting. Ian flew in from Henley on Sunday.

00:03:08 Kristi

Monday. I don't know. My days are all confused. He had spent one day here in Italy and then had to fly back to the US. But I'm so grateful to him for coming. It was so nice. Just really, really nice to see him. Before you know, we buckled down into the month. That's about to happen. So yeah, we're just.

00:03:19

So.

00:03:28 Kristi

Getting our boats all rigged and getting back into practices here and enjoying all of the pasta and Gelato that Italy has to offer. It is hot, so I've been enjoying the ice that they give us and we can put in our water bottles. That's very nice.

00:03:44 Kristi

But yeah, so far things are going pretty well. We we were given fans Sophie and I've been constructing our fan in our room. It's a little bit complicated, but I think we'll be able.

00:03:52 Kristi

Figure it out. Yeah, I have a lot of books I've been, I've, you know, read a lot of books. If anyone has any suggestions, let me know. Although I don't know how I would get them while I'm here, but I would still love your book suggestions. So yeah, that's basically it. What's going on?

00:04:08 Kristi

And now it is time for my conversation with Saratoga and Harvard alums Ben Weather Rocks and Michael Fairley.

00:04:19 Kristi

Alright, here we go. We're recording. Alright guys, thank you so much for doing this. I'm like super excited.

00:04:25 Ben

Thanks for having us on the podcast today. Christy, we're really excited to be.

00:04:29 Ben

Here.

00:04:29 Michael

Yeah, this is pretty cool.

00:04:31 Kristi

Obviously I thought we should start by talking about Saratoga. If I'm not mistaken, you both started rowing in middle school.

00:04:38 Michael

Yeah. Well, officially, in middle school with the the modified practices being the official start.

00:04:46 Michael

We did our first sculling camp with Bob when we were in fourth.

00:04:51 Michael

Grade.

00:04:52 Ben

Yeah, he started us when we were really small.

00:04:55 Kristi

Do you know why your parents like signed you up for rowing in the 4th grade?

00:05:00 Michael

I wanted to because my older sister, she was already doing the modified so she would have been in 8th grade at that point. So she had already done some racing and stuff I've wanted to to try it out and was having quite a bit.

00:05:14 Michael

Of fun with it.

00:05:15 Ben

Yeah. And I started because a friend of mine at the time was doing a summer camp and asked me to do it with him and it ended up being the first sport I was somewhat good at and enjoyed, so I wanted to keep doing it.

00:05:28 Kristi

So what did you like about rowing when you were little, like when you were just you, you know, summer camps and middle school and all of that?

00:05:38 Ben

There, there's two big things that kind of really drew me to to rowing. One was just being on the water. I always played outside when I was a kid, I would go out into the forest, probably scare my parents, thinking I'd like run off so. So that, like, just being outside was it was a huge draw for me. Also. It was. It was really difficult. Like, it wasn't just like hitting a baseball or.

00:05:58 Ben

Kicking a soccer ball.

00:06:00 Ben

It was pretty frustrating and I think a bit of that perfectionist inside of me kind of came through and I was really, really angry when I couldn't get it right, so I just kept doing it. I'm closer to getting it right now, but.

00:06:14 Michael

To that note, I honestly thinking back to those I guess the years before you started doing the modified and like regular practicing, so just those week long camps.

00:06:26 Michael

I think I crabbed more than anyone that was in any of my camps ever. That was probably the most frustrating thing and I don't really know why I wanted to keep going back because I remember my parents weren't forcing.

00:06:39 Michael

Me to go but.

00:06:42 Michael

Eventually I just stopped crabbing and it was fine, but I remember that those initial like couple of years, those first summers being really frustrating, but something about.

00:06:52 Michael

It like kept me.

00:06:52 Michael

Come back.

00:06:53 Kristi

I I resonate with that, Ben. I'm like, wow, how can I still be doing something and trying to, like, make it perfect and it's just still seem so far away, like, perfect? Still seems so far away.

00:07:06 Kristi

Yeah, but then you guys were in high school and I feel like you had a really strong high school class that definitely changed, you know, over the course of high school. But yeah, maybe you can just talk a little bit about what high school rowing was like.

00:07:22 Ben

I guess for for our freshman year of high school, we we were both then our our, the freshman ate all spring. We had a really strong team dynamic, just a team culture and we all went to practice every day and I think we had a lot of fun and I think Chris trace our coach played.

00:07:37 Ben

Big role in that keeping it fun, but also pushing us to kind of get better every day.

00:07:42 Ben

I think we really embodied that as a, as a team, and that was kind of the start of a pretty strong high school career for both of us.

00:07:49 Michael

Yeah. I guess to add to that, I've been doing a lot of reflecting over the past.

00:07:54 Michael

Week or so since officially ending my college career, I guess not quite because we do have Henley coming up. But this was the real official end.

00:08:05 Michael

And I think it was that time my, our, our freshman year that I fell in.

00:08:12 Michael

Love with the sport?

00:08:14 Michael

And and I think to benjy's point, that was basically all Christians like he taught us to both have as much fun as possible with it. And to teaching us what hard work was and and why it was important.

00:08:29 Michael

That part of our our freshman year, I think was the the pivotal point where it changed from I guess, a hobby or just something I would do after school to a passion like something that I loved doing.

00:08:42 Kristi

Yeah. Yeah, I remember. So I guess for some context, when I first moved to Saratoga, I lived with Michael's family, and that was their freshman year. And I remember, like, watching the your Stokes race like with your mom and sister, like in the kitchen, and they're just like.

00:09:00 Michael

Yeah, yeah.

00:09:02 Kristi

Freaking out. Yeah, it was very exciting.

00:09:05 Michael

That was an awesome race. That was, I mean.

00:09:08 Michael

Because because we we had a tougher race at Scholastic nationals just after that. That was like the peak of that spring.

00:09:17 Michael

So it was a lot of fun.

00:09:19 Kristi

Yeah. And then I feel like you guys were both, like, very committed to rowing all through high school and super successful high school rowing careers.

00:09:30 Kristi

Did you kind of think that winning youth nationals was something that was gonna happen? Is that the trajectory you saw yourself on?

00:09:41 Michael

The thing was at at that point, freshman and sophomore year two, honestly.

00:09:47 Michael

Youth nationals was not on SRI's radar very much. It was scholastic nationals as the thing and then maybe club nationals as as a further summer rowing thing.

00:10:00 Michael

But for those first two years before we did end up going to youth nationals, I wasn't really thinking about it. It did seem like a very elevated thing that we just weren't at. It didn't seem like our team was good enough, even though we found out that we definitely were. So that was that was pretty interesting.

00:10:21 Michael

I guess.

00:10:21 Ben

Yeah, I had a little taste of it freshman year since I was pulled up for the varsity Lightweight 8 and the kind of that last two weeks before, before the race, and we finished, I think 5th place in the B final and we were all super excited.

00:10:34 Ben

About that and kind of looking at the guys who are winning the nationals back then they they kind of seemed like.

00:10:41 Ben

Almost like God.

00:10:44 Ben

I feel like that's that's kind of how I how I thought of them. You know, it kind of gave me a lot of motivation to to keep going back and trying to get to that level.

00:10:53 Kristi

But then you eventually did.

00:10:55 Ben

We we did eventually get there.

00:10:57 Ben

So I guess I'll back up a little bit. So we came in second at Scholastic Nationals and that freshman ate that one hurt a lot since we had beat the team Winter Park at Stokesbury 2 weeks before and then so the next two years after that, I came in second place.

00:11:14 Ben

Again and again, and then junior year came in second place at Youth nationals and all those silver medals really, really burned.

00:11:23 Ben

And you know, I wasn't really OK with it. And every, you know, going to practice every day, we were having a lot of fun. You know, I was with my best friends, and I don't know if winning ever really crossed my mind. That's like a reality. But I knew something.

00:11:35 Ben

Wanted and every day I would kind of ask myself if I was going to be OK with the silver medal again. And that's kind of how we get through practice.

00:11:44 Ben

And turned out white didn't get any more silver medals.

00:11:48 Michael

Yeah, I I would say that senior year we were definitely not going into youth nationals expecting anything. We were in the Cox for our senior year after the time trial we came in and what we got third or second.

00:12:03 Ben

We we were up there. I don't remember exactly.

00:12:05 Michael

At best, third, probably. And we were over the moon, we were like, ready to be done, like for thunderstorms to cancel the races and we would have been happy like it was not on our radar, that we were going to be winning, especially just because of other results earlier in the season. So that race getting to turn around those those silver medals.

00:12:26 Michael

Was was incredible and not something that I saw myself doing in prior years.

00:12:34 Kristi

And Ben, you also won Scholastic Nationals senior year, so.

00:12:37 Ben

We did win scholastic nationals. Michael and I won in the in the in the double.

00:12:41 Michael

Yeah, yeah, that was a fun race.

00:12:44 Ben

It was a fun race, like we won by like 10 seconds or something.

00:12:49 Michael

Yeah, it was a. It was a good one to to end our Scholastic career on.

00:12:55 Kristi

You guys had pretty different college recruitment journeys, which I think is like good for people. I know there's a lot of like high school and younger athletes that listen to the podcast. So maybe if you could just share a little bit about like each of your experiences with that. I think it's good for people to hear that there's like not one way.

00:13:14 Kristi

To do things.

00:13:16 Michael

Right. I guess a really good thing is that both Ben and I are examples of having terrible ergs relative to other people getting recruited and still getting to go to these top schools and and having a lot of success once you've gotten there so.

00:13:33 Michael

I think.

00:13:35 Michael

I was. I was 635 in my my junior year.

00:13:40 Michael

And throughout that junior year, I didn't really have recruiting on my mind that much.

00:13:48 Michael

There, it's kind of a joke in the recruiting world of the time that Bill Manning reached out to everybody and would write handwritten letters to like everybody under 7 minutes. Like, that's probably an exaggeration. But for that reason, Princeton lightweights were was the main team.

00:14:07 Michael

But.

00:14:09 Michael

Was the main team like in my.

00:14:11 Michael

Radar I guess.

00:14:14 Michael

So because I wasn't expecting to get recruited, I was pretty happy with that and that was just kind of how it was going to be that I was just.

00:14:21 Michael

Like OK.

00:14:21 Michael

I'll go to Princeton summer after my junior year. I got to go to the junior worlds in the Cox 4, so that was that was the big thing that set me apart.

00:14:35 Michael

When I didn't have much else going for me at the time other than I did win the double at youth Nationals that spring.

00:14:43 Michael

So from a recruiting perspective, the the junior worlds was the the huge thing for me and at one of the one of the guys in my boat, Henry Blue was already recruited to Harvard. He was a year older than me. So he was about to go in for his.

00:15:00 Michael

Freshman.

00:15:01 Michael

Year and.

00:15:02 Michael

He essentially got got Harvard on my radar, had me talk to the coaches and and then it just kind of went from there.

00:15:12 Ben

Yes, I definitely took a very non conventional.

00:15:14 Ben

Up to college, which I think it worked out, really worked out for the best for me. My my junior year. I think I was at like a 646 2K and I reached out to a few coaches.

00:15:26 Ben

Got a lot of automated responses from the questionnaires and I was looking at the Naval Academy pretty heavily. My double partner at the time was gonna go there.

00:15:37 Ben

You know, I I visited the team and they had a really strong bond. There were some really cool guys on the team.

00:15:42 Ben

There.

00:15:43 Ben

But it was also the the only coaches that had really responded to me and talked to me. That was junior year. Yeah. So then going to senior year is still mostly the Naval Academy and I still and like 645 2K.

00:15:54 Ben

Which is.

00:15:55 Ben

Pretty much unreadable.

00:15:57 Ben

For any of the top programs.

00:15:59 Ben

But then I got a text from my coach one day and said call this guy names. You knock him onto and you should meet him. And so I got got to talk. He's the the Hartford Lights assistant coach. Yeah. He seemed like a cool guy. So I.

00:16:13 Ben

Was like, oh, you know what?

00:16:14 Kristi

Don't worry, Ben. Ian's been on the podcast many times.

00:16:17 Ben

I know.

00:16:21 Ben

We talked a little bit. I went to meet him at head of the Charles that year. This is my senior.

00:16:24 Ben

Here.

00:16:25 Ben

And I knew I wasn't going to be recruited there since they'd already filled all their recruiting spots after I met a few guys on the team, and that was really where I wanted to go. I had this feeling when I met people there that it just felt right. I was going my gut when I when I have that feeling.

00:16:41 Ben

I took a gap year and I was recruited over my gap year right after Michael and I won youth nationals and we won the the four in 2019.

00:16:51 Kristi

And you got to row you got to row with us on your gap year.

00:16:55 Ben

I did over my gap year. I had probably the best group of training partners ever.

00:17:02 Ben

Some of the most committed athletes who are always like.

00:17:06 Ben

Firing on all cylinders and I was, I guess 18 or 19 at the time. They were all like 2425 out of college and very intimidating, but also very nice. They definitely pushed me to be be become a lot faster.

00:17:21 Ben

Because if I didn't get faster, they would have all updated me and I would never hear the.

00:17:25 Ben

End of it.

00:17:27 Kristi

I have to tell one very quick story, but I have no idea if you even remember this, but I remember it like so clearly there was one day we were doing like one case.

00:17:39 Kristi

And you know, we would go in flights or whatever it was. Like you, me and Wheeler doing one CAS and or maybe there were five hundreds. I don't really know. And we're going and you, like, hit a buoy and flipped.

00:17:54 Kristi

And Wheeler, just like in the middle, it was like.

00:17:58

No, Ben.

00:18:02

It was.

00:18:03 Kristi

So funny, it was so really so funny.

00:18:07 Ben

I remember that day I I actually think about it a.

00:18:10 Ben

Lot.

00:18:12 Ben

Because after I got back into the boat, cat drove this launch over to.

00:18:16 Ben

Me.

00:18:16 Ben

Just very nonchalantly said, then watch out for the boy.

00:18:24 Ben

A little late. Thank you.

00:18:28 Ben

That that was a fun. That was definitely a fun day.

00:18:31 Kristi

I think we all appreciated you being you being around. I feel like you brought fun and some chill vibes which we needed.

00:18:39 Ben

Thank you.

00:18:44 Kristi

Were you guys both always gonna row lightweight in college? Like, did you ever consider rowing on an open weight team?

00:18:51 Ben

Well, when I was in 7th grade, I won the Mohawk meltdown, which is the local ERD competition.

00:18:59 Michael

How did I know he'd bring this up?

00:19:03 Ben

And I was also probably 165 lbs. I'm currently about 155 lbs freshman in high school, I was 140 lbs, so I was I was. I was a big, big kid. I've only grown like an inch since then.

00:19:18 Ben

But I thought I was, like, topped dog. I was like, oh, yeah, I'm I'm the biggest guy here. I'm going to grow for like, a Cal heavyweights.

00:19:27 Ben

I think this is one they were like doing really well too. Turns out I am a natural lightweight and so about a year later when I lost 25 lbs of fat, I thought probably lightweight round.

00:19:40 Ben

Better.

00:19:40 Michael

Yeah, I guess I am like on the the heavier end of it where I'm just like a little bit too small to be very good heavyweight, I guess. And I was also very slow on the ERG. So my only hope to get recruited to one of the better programs was to go lightweight. And I did know that.

00:20:01 Michael

I would be able to because I I don't think I'd ever been above 167 lbs. And I guess for context the the Max for men's lightweight is 160. However the boat average has to be 155.

00:20:16 Michael

So you don't necessarily need to be under 155, but I knew that I would be.

00:20:21 Michael

Able to at.

00:20:22 Michael

Least be close. I didn't think I'd have too much trouble doing it, so I wasn't really considering other heavyweight programs. The only way that I would be going to a heavyweight program is if I didn't.

00:20:36 Michael

Want to take rowing that seriously? I guess.

00:20:39 Michael

Which which wasn't really on my radar. I just was kind of thinking about it in terms of what colleges to pick and for what reasons, things like that, reasons that my my parents would want me to to take into account.

00:20:53 Kristi

So once you guys got to Harvard, kind of what was that experience like like coming into a Division One rowing team? Like, did you feel prepared for that from high school? Was it like a big adjustment? I know obviously COVID played like a pretty big role in the beginning of both of your college experiences, but.

00:21:13 Michael

Well, I guess because mine was first, I started my college career a little earlier prior to COVID. So coming in in the fall of 2019.

00:21:23 Michael

I wouldn't say that I was.

00:21:24

Is.

00:21:26 Michael

Nervous or that it felt intimidating because I I do feel that I was prepared really well at Saratoga and I was at at this point finally getting that like big win. I guess our senior year I was really just like hungry for a lot more. So I was really excited.

00:21:46 Michael

Coming in from the official visits and stuff, I knew that I loved the team, so I was really excited to get.

00:21:54 Michael

I guess I kind of came in.

00:21:55 Michael

With.

00:21:55 Michael

No hard expectations for myself. I didn't think like, oh, I would like if I wasn't in the top boat right away, I would be upset. I I was. I was going in without many expectations and I think that was a good way to approach it, to just kind of do your best and see see what happens and move on from there and I think.

00:22:14 Michael

That first fall was just really, really fun.

00:22:19 Michael

I I think the the adjustment with classes might have been a little hard. Just cause classes at Harvard are very difficult, especially the the intro level classes. I was getting the worst grades that I ever had in high.

00:22:32 Michael

School.

00:22:33 Michael

The the rowing was the the big break from all that. So I I was really just having a lot of fun with it.

00:22:40 Michael

And really enjoying being surrounded by a lot of other athletes that.

00:22:47 Michael

All wanted it as badly as I did. The team was a lot bigger back then than it is today that we had.

00:22:54 Michael

More than 5/8 worth of people, which which is a lot for a lightweight team. Now we we have like a little more than 3/8, so not everybody was like as committed but it was still we were surrounded by way more.

00:23:10 Michael

Athletes who were committed to the same level that we were and at Saratoga just by nature of less guys and people prioritizing different things, you're surrounded by less of those types of people.

00:23:22 Michael

So it was a really incredible opportunity that I felt really prepared for. I think at that point.

00:23:29 Ben

I definitely entered at a much different time, so I was a year after Michael and so after he got sent home the year before I went, went in and it was just the the freshman class on campus.

00:23:41 Ben

It was myself and two other American recruits we had. We had a few walk ONS on, but we were all in singles and so my gap year had actually trained me perfectly for that since I was running a single every single day.

00:23:54 Ben

So it turns out I was still really good at that. It it was fun, but we weren't really training for anything specific. So the the training load was much lower than I was used to than when I trained with Orion.

00:24:07 Ben

And there wasn't much else going on, so I had a lot of time for classes. I actually had my best semester ever freshman fall.

00:24:14 Ben

And.

00:24:18 Ben

Then the next year we we came back full strength with the the entire team.

00:24:23 Michael

Yeah. I guess one thing I wanted to say that reminded me I kind of switched spots with Ben and one sense because so after we got sent off campus, as Ben said, the freshmen were the only ones allowed to come back to campus and we would have been fully remote on classes. So I decided to take the year off because I didn't think that that was.

00:24:44 Michael

Worth it?

00:24:45 Michael

Especially from a rowing perspective. So I went back home and kind of fooled around and sometimes rode with the Orion, mostly just when you guys were doing like bridge to bridge pieces, which was so much fun. That was the the main the main thing that got me through training alone that whole.

00:25:04 Michael

Fall the fall.

00:25:05 Michael

This is the part that was a little easier to train through. I kind of fatigued after rowing alone every day, like growing in the single or just erging alone every day.

00:25:16 Michael

So it was like very hard to train through that winter that following winter and spring, so it was a big reset for me, I guess until we came back on campus that next.

00:25:27 Michael

Fall.

00:25:29 Kristi

Yeah, not to say that you guys were not successful in your early days of rowing in college, but I feel like it's no secret that the team has like improved significantly in the past couple of years, so.

00:25:45 Kristi

Which I feel like is similar to your high school rowing experience of like the team getting faster over your time in high school. So kind of what was it like?

00:25:56 Kristi

Being on a team, maybe that wasn't having the like amount of success that it wanted to have, and maybe what were some of the changes, especially as you became like upperclassmen and leaders on the team that you think added to the success that the team is like seeing now?

00:26:14 Kristi

Kind of a hard question.

00:26:16 Michael

Yeah, it it, I guess it is mostly because there were a lot of things that were going wrong that that sophomore year, so 2022 spring was and it's we don't need to sugarcoat it. It was basically the worst the programs done in almost all of its history. So there were a lot of things going wrong there.

00:26:36 Michael

And then there were just so many different things that we ended up doing right following that.

00:26:42 Michael

I I honestly hadn't made that the parallel between our high school experience to college, I never really thought about it that way. But that is a really good a good way to look at it, because I do think there are some commonalities following COVID it kind of put everybody in a weird position where.

00:27:02 Michael

No one knew their speed relative to anybody. It isolated the teams from each other and not just specific people. So.

00:27:12

You know.

00:27:13 Michael

It was hard to judge where you were.

00:27:16 Michael

More specifically, where we were compared to previous years because there wasn't really anything going on in previous years. So I think 1 aspect of why it might have been such a train wreck was we weren't doing enough hard work, which is the simplest thing to this sport. When we started to realize it, it was much too late.

00:27:38 Ben

I would say I had. I kind of felt like something was wrong kind of from the beginning of that year. But at the time I didn't have the confidence to kind of assert my opinions and kind of share my voice. I kind of deferred to what the more experienced guys on the team were were.

00:27:51 Ben

Telling us to do.

00:27:53 Ben

And give me a lot more confidence now to when I go into a new situation to just like speak, speak up, speak my mind. Because oftentimes I think people think they're doing something that's like perfect or right, but it could always be improved. And I think that that can really carry over to to life in general.

00:28:09 Ben

I know people talk about lessons they learn from wrong all the time, but that's a big one for me.

00:28:14 Michael

That is a really good point, because with us coming onto the team, we had never raced, neither of us, even though we were both sophomores on the team, so not like, of course, we're still underclassmen, but we had never raced, so a lot of these things that were going on, I also didn't.

00:28:35 Michael

Feel that I that I was in the place to really speak up about things and I think that was similar to our high school experience because at that point I don't know about you, Ben, but I kind of.

00:28:47 Michael

I really looked up to the upper classman at Saratoga and like, idolized them when I, especially when I was younger, like in middle school, those guys, but.

00:28:58 Michael

It can be pretty hard if you're not confident enough in yourself, but.

00:29:04 Michael

We were just we opened the podcast talking about how Ben and I had been rolling since we were eight, so we probably should have had a little more confidence.

00:29:11 Michael

But.

00:29:12 Michael

Definitely, it's easier in hindsight.

00:29:15 Kristi

Well, and I think the important thing right is that you like learn from experiences. And I think that's what being a good leader is, is recognizing that maybe you didn't know everything and taking that into future experiences and.

00:29:32 Kristi

Not making the same mistake that you had made before.

00:29:35 Ben

Definite.

00:29:36 Ben

OK.

00:29:37 Michael

Yeah, a big part of why I think.

00:29:40 Michael

Things have gone so well for the team is because there's been such a core group of guys that were around for 20/22 and we all have this just memory of how bad things were and just this collective thought of like never again like this could can never happen again and that that was a lot of what.

00:30:00 Michael

Fueled, I think.

00:30:02 Michael

How well we turn things around.

00:30:04 Kristi

So.

00:30:04 Kristi

So obviously so exciting to win the IRA and like you guys specifically, you know coming in second at sprints, right second.

00:30:16

Yeah, yeah.

00:30:16 Kristi

To kind of turn that around in like a couple of weeks and then just really have like such a commanding IRA performance in the race for lanes and then like also the final, can you talk a little bit about maybe like that race that sprints and then kind of coming off of that, did you feel like there was?

00:30:36 Kristi

We're going to improve for the IRA and then kind of what the, what the racing at the NRA was like.

00:30:42 Ben

So I guess to start.

00:30:44 Ben

We lost our first race of the season by like about 12 seconds to Cornell.

00:30:50 Michael

It was ridiculous. It was, it was sad.

00:30:53 Ben

It was an embarrassing loss.

00:30:55 Ben

I I still like generally believe that we could win the IRA even after that, as crazy as that seems something we talk about is delusions of grandeur. If you don't have these like, far out there goals and hope, you're never going to come close to to reaching them if you don't. If you don't believe that, you can.

00:31:13 Ben

So yeah, go into sprints, we.

00:31:17 Michael

When we were ranked 5th.

00:31:18 Ben

We were ranked 5th.

00:31:19 Michael

Based on how we had lost to so, both Cornell and Penn and our last duel, we also lost to both Yale and Princeton by quite a bit. So no one was really thinking of us. I don't think sprints, but that is that is an important context that we were still ranked 5th.

00:31:38 Ben

Yeah. So going in, we we kind of had found a bit of a rhythm really just a week beforehand, but I I went in thinking that we we could win, maybe I was the only one I'm. I'm a bit delusional sometimes.

00:31:50 Michael

We had we had.

00:31:51 Michael

Some confidence going into sprints. Maybe, maybe not over the top arrogance, but we we felt pretty confident in the boat that we were much faster than a few weeks prior.

00:32:02 Ben

And so yeah, we won the the heat, which was also the semifinal. Yeah, going into the final, we don't know what to do. We haven't been here before this year. And I I think kind of shook shook.

00:32:13 Ben

The team a little bit.

00:32:15 Ben

We we had made such so many strides up in that week prior that we as a boat we weren't quite ready for finding that gear that we needed to hold off pen when they made that move. Mike does that sound?

00:32:29 Ben

Pretty accurate to you.

00:32:31 Michael

Yeah. One of our one of our boat mates, David talked about how he felt like we didn't quite attack the the final the same way that we attacked the heat with basically nothing to lose, whereas in the final we now all of a sudden did have something to lose because we did have the leading time.

00:32:50 Michael

And when it came down to it in the final pen essentially snuck away from us around like the the 3rd 500, the last 500.

00:32:59 Kristi

So then like going into the next couple of weeks of training, did you guys like talk about, OK well, we want to improve on our performance.

00:33:07 Michael

An interesting piece of this is that right after sprints we lost our stroke seat from that final at sprints, he really screwed up his back and it was looking like for a while he just needed to take a few days off and I guess for more context we had two weeks between sprints and IRA's, which was really only a week and 1/2.

00:33:28 Michael

Because IRA Racing starts a bit earlier. So OK, maybe our strip seats just out for a few days.

00:33:37 Michael

But then, when those few days went by, he was still not doing well and it quickly turned into OK, this is the week of the week of IRAS and the lineup that we have. This is what we've got. And this is what we're going to have to do, deal with the IRS.

00:33:55 Michael

Once we once we found the final lineup, which was really just about a week before we had a few really good practices where we had kept up with our varsity.

00:34:09 Michael

Better than we had all season and better than some of the other varsity crews had in duels. So we were all of a sudden very confident. I don't think anybody was thinking that we were not faster with what we had done in so little amount of time at the at the end there.

00:34:28 Michael

So we were pretty confident moving into IRA's that we had found speed and we knew that with what had happened at sprints. We knew that all we had to do was race our race, that we knew that we could and we were convinced that no one would.

00:34:43 Michael

Be able to.

00:34:44 Michael

Keep up with us, which is kind of what happens for that race for Lance.

00:34:48 Michael

So the four seniors that were in the boat like me, Ben, and then two of other roommates, Zach and Evan, we lived together all year. We had been through all of the COVID stuff together and all of these past results together the the dark ages of 2022 and we were not going to lose this race.

00:35:09 Michael

Both Ben and I have talked about a lot of silver medals we've gotten. We decided that we were not going to lose that race. And I think that mindset was a really good thing. The the boat had going for it, along with the fact that we trusted each other completely.

00:35:24 Michael

I think the the moment I knew that we were going to win was around the 600 ish. When I think at that point we had almost had a full boat length. Maybe we were up like five or six seats at that point, but I had full confidence in everybody that we were not going to get walked through again.

00:35:45 Michael

Like we had it at sprints, I knew that that boat was not going to.

00:35:49 Michael

Let that happen again.

00:35:51 Kristi

So awesome. Really, really awesome.

00:35:54 Kristi

I want to take up too much more of your time, but you're now going to Henley, which is so exciting. First time for both of you, I believe.

00:36:03 Michael

Yeah.

00:36:04 Kristi

What are you looking forward to?

00:36:06 Michael

This has been my number one growing bucket list item for my entire life. As soon as I had heard about what Henley was which.

00:36:15 Michael

Just I think even as early as sometime in middle school it was this like very far away, like seemingly unachievable thing. But it is the rowing thing, like the most prestigious thing that you can do in rowing because of its history. So this is like I I don't think it's going to set in until we land in London.

00:36:36 Michael

Like in in a couple of weeks and I'm actually there. Whatever the 1st row we have on the Thames is going to be I I don't even know if I'm going to be able to row. I'm just going to be like looking all around. So I am unbelievably excited. I wouldn't want to end my rowing career any other way.

00:36:54 Michael

It's still like kind of unreal to me.

00:36:57 Kristi

Yeah, Henley's like the best. It was interesting. We went to Henley in college and my college coach was like, yeah. Henley always reminds me why I love the sport. And I thought that was such a cheesy thing to say. Right? But like, every time I've been to Henley, I'm like, wow, this is such a good reminder of why I love this sport and like, obviously rowing.

00:37:17 Kristi

At Henley, and I think growing for your school is just like such an iconic thing. And just I'm. I'm so I'm so excited for you guys.

00:37:27 Kristi

But yeah, I usually ask people also like if they have any questions for me.

00:37:33 Michael

I guess one thing I had a question that just as I've been thinking about I I talked earlier about how for me my my freshman year was kind of the point where I think I fell in love with the sport and I was wondering like what that point was for you. Like, when did you really decide that when did it shift over into like?

00:37:54 Michael

A passion kind of thing.

00:37:59 Kristi

That's a good question. So I started rowing, like really my freshman year of high school. I think at the beginning I just really liked, like Ben said, like being on the water. But I also thought it was such a fun sport, like the team was so fun and we got to go to.

00:38:18 Kristi

Races and but my freshman year there was a girl on the team or like varsity. Coxon was going to the junior national team camp and was going to be a Coxon at UW.

00:38:33 Kristi

I remember thinking that was just like the coolest thing ever, and so wanting to go to like ID camps and all of that stuff. And so my sophomore year, I went to, now they have like ODP and all these things, they but they had basically development camp before you went to selection.

00:38:53 Kristi

Camp and I went to that. I actually didn't have a great experience there. It really turned me off from the junior national team, but I think it showed me that I wanted to be competitive in the sport and that I realized like, oh, these.

00:39:10 Kristi

People.

00:39:11 Kristi

Sort of like Ben was saying, these like gods, right? I considered these other people right to be crazy because I also rode for my high school local high school team.

00:39:21 Kristi

But then I realized they were just like, not that different from me. I think that that was the point that I sort of realized. Ohh I really love the sport, but I can also be really competitive in the.

00:39:34 Kristi

Sport and I appreciate that my like love of rowing came before my need to be super competitive cause I think that's really what keeps you going.

00:39:44 Michael

That definitely makes sense if you don't have the love in the beginning, what happens if something goes wrong? Whether it is like an injury or just not achieving like whatever expectation you set for yourself, the reason we're all still doing.

00:39:58 Michael

This is because we love it.

00:40:01 Kristi

When I graduated from college, I was 100% done. I don't think anyone talks about how hard college rowing is, especially at an Ivy League school. The demands are just super, super high and like the expectations were very high. I think both from myself, but also from the coaches.

00:40:22 Kristi

And just if I was ever burnt out, I guess maybe you would say it was definitely then.

00:40:28 Kristi

So yeah, I thought I was gonna be done rowing, but like I did not win NCAA as my senior year, we came in second by like .0 something. But that still seemed like a very good way to end, you know, like, I was like, OK, this is a cherry on top. Like, this is the best about has performed since my time in college. Like, I can feel good about.

00:40:37

Geez.

00:40:49 Kristi

How this ended?

00:40:51 Kristi

After that I was just I was living in Boston and working and really just like rowing because it seems like a good thing to do. And I would say I sort of started to fall back in love with it then. But then really, I think it was like moving to Saratoga and getting to the train with Kat and Orion in like the early days. And it was just.

00:41:11 Kristi

His love for it and the community there. And just like I mean, you guys obviously know it's such a special place, an environment and it's so pretty and like I think that was just there can be like a lot of fun in rowing.

00:41:27 Kristi

Well, luckily for you guys, you're about to have tons of fun. I don't think. I think Henley is like, the most fun rolling in peace so well. Thank you guys so much. This was awesome.

00:41:36 Michael

Yeah. Thanks for having us.

00:41:42 Kristi

I hope everyone really enjoyed the conversation and I'm so grateful to Ben and Michael for coming on. It was honestly so fun to get to talk to them on here and I've just been so impressed with them for so long and continue to be so impressed by them and it was just cool to now.

00:41:57 Kristi

Share that with with everyone that listens.

00:41:59 Kristi

To end the show this week, I'm sharing a quote from Tia Toomey's book. The heart is the strongest muscle. She's a cross footer. This is one of the core principles for the CrossFit gym she owns, and she attests it to the New Zealand All Blacks who have another popular sports book that I have also read, and they call it sweeping the shed. But she writes.

00:42:19 Kristi

Never be too big to do the small things that need to be done before leaving the gym at the end of every day, no matter how good you are and what your role is, you stop and tidy up. It's an example of personal humility, a core value we have to be a part of this training group. We believe it is impossible to achieve success without having your feet planted firmly on the ground.

00:42:39 Kristi

So thanks for listening. And see you next time. Bye.

00:42:48 Kristi

I'd love to hear from you. So send us a topic suggestion or if you'd like to submit a question for our ASK. Christy, anything segment head to our website, theotherthreeyears.com. Thank you for listening to this episode of the other three years podcast. Part of the bright sided network.

No More Silver Medals, with Ben Weatherwax & Michael Fairley | Episode 65