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As people here will readily tell you, the weather in Texas can shift suddenly and dramatically. On Tuesday, it was warm and humid, but by the afternoon and evening the winds had picked up, as a cold front started to blow in. DM got to sail off in the tailwind produced by the cold front yesterday.
By this morning, the cold had settled in. When I got dressed for crew practice, I put on a long-sleeve top, fleece vest, and my Boathouse jacket, plus knee-warmers, wool socks, a wool hat, and my winter biking gloves. I've been wearing chaco sandals as well, because I don't like getting lake silt/dirt in my shoes, so I put those sandals on, too.
Things were a bit chaotic when I arrived at the lake. The team has just finished its spring recruitment, which means that the head coach W (thankfully not me!) has had to adjust everyone's practice schedule and the practice boatings. I was originally supposed to row, but given the pandemonium and the need for good coxswains to work with the novice rowers, I wound up coxing instead.
In Arizona, we had to wet-launch our boats off of a sandy beach that had a quick drop-off to the bottom of the lake. That meant that, even in cold weather, we never had to go very far into the water - perhaps up to the middle of our calves. K and I also devised a system for ensuring we had sandals on for the walk to and from the beach. Our launching beach on Lake Bryan is shallow, and our boats' skegs are larger, so we typically have to wade in at least up to our knees, if not to mid-thigh. We also have to carry boats down across a grass/gravel field, and it's awkward for everyone to fumble with sandals, so more often than not we're all barefoot for the walk. That, plus my rowing flip-flops got destroyed last summer when someone let their dog into the boatyard.
Long story short, it was a cold morning for this coxswain, followed by an even more agonizingly cold bike ride home with wet feet in sandals, past fields of frost-covered grass. A painful reminder to wear wind-proof shoes for winter rowing.
Also a reminder to ask![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
dichroic what sort of waterproof socks she'd been recommending.
(Photo by JWP)
By this morning, the cold had settled in. When I got dressed for crew practice, I put on a long-sleeve top, fleece vest, and my Boathouse jacket, plus knee-warmers, wool socks, a wool hat, and my winter biking gloves. I've been wearing chaco sandals as well, because I don't like getting lake silt/dirt in my shoes, so I put those sandals on, too.
Things were a bit chaotic when I arrived at the lake. The team has just finished its spring recruitment, which means that the head coach W (thankfully not me!) has had to adjust everyone's practice schedule and the practice boatings. I was originally supposed to row, but given the pandemonium and the need for good coxswains to work with the novice rowers, I wound up coxing instead.
In Arizona, we had to wet-launch our boats off of a sandy beach that had a quick drop-off to the bottom of the lake. That meant that, even in cold weather, we never had to go very far into the water - perhaps up to the middle of our calves. K and I also devised a system for ensuring we had sandals on for the walk to and from the beach. Our launching beach on Lake Bryan is shallow, and our boats' skegs are larger, so we typically have to wade in at least up to our knees, if not to mid-thigh. We also have to carry boats down across a grass/gravel field, and it's awkward for everyone to fumble with sandals, so more often than not we're all barefoot for the walk. That, plus my rowing flip-flops got destroyed last summer when someone let their dog into the boatyard.
Long story short, it was a cold morning for this coxswain, followed by an even more agonizingly cold bike ride home with wet feet in sandals, past fields of frost-covered grass. A painful reminder to wear wind-proof shoes for winter rowing.
Also a reminder to ask
dichroic what sort of waterproof socks she'd been recommending.(Photo by JWP)
