Eat. Sleep. Row. Repeat.
Maadi week means long days for the coaches, with early starts, late evenings and non-stop work between.
It’s 6.30am, the sun is rising and the air is a brisk cold, foggy breeze – this is when you begin your day at Lake Karapiro on the week of Maadi.
It’s an early start when you get up and drive from Hamilton to begin your day of races, says Scott Wilson, Hamilton Girls’ High School’s head coach.
Although it’s not an early start every morning, that was certainly the case on this foggy Wednesday morning.
Maadi Cup has begun swimmingly for Hamilton Girls’ High, with only a couple of their crews being eliminated and the rest of the crews making it through to quarterfinals and semifinals.
Between races, Wilson keeps busy with repairs and maintenance on the boats.
At this stage, that mostly involves keeping everything clean.
“A dirty hull on the boat is going to slow you down. It might not slow you down a lot, but if you’re going to miss by half a boat length then you’re always going to wonder if that’s been the cause.”
Everything on the boat is adjustable, Wilson explains: “The length of the blades, the oars, where the feet sit in the boat – there’s so many combinations, depending on whether you’ve got a tall rower or a short rower or if they’re rowing a single, a double or a quad.”
These are all taken into account when adjusting the boat to suit each rower or crew.
While Wilson works on the boats, the Hamilton Girls’ High rowers are instructed to refuel with food and water and keep out of the sun during their downtime.
If any of the girls aren’t racing that day or that afternoon, they go back to school, although they admit that they’d much rather be at Maadi among all the excitement and cheering on their fellow crews.
By 5.30pm, as the crowds start to leave and the rowers’ faces show signs of exhaustion, Wilson and his crew usually finish at the lake and begin their journey back to Hamilton.
Once home, Wilson’s coach duties don’t end just yet. He makes sure everyone knows the schedule for the following day and checks times to see where they’re sitting for semifinals or quarterfinals. His “Maadi day” ends at 8 o’clock and then he does his own work – self-employed as an editorial director.
“It’s this whole mantra of eat, sleep, repeat – this is the Maadi week,” he says.
