Christine’s Beach Sprints Fundraiser

This is a real USRowing National team! The first ever USRowing Beach Sprints national team, to be exact. I have to say, I plan a LOT of things. A lot of scenarios, a lot of plans.

if you had told me at the beginning of June that I would be racing in Portugal in an open-ocean rowing event…. No. No I definitely would not have believed you. Even if it *sounded* like something I might spontaneously do (and history tells us that is in fact the case).

Yet here we are. My seventh national team (third at the senior level). After honing the craft of flat water racing for over a decade, the one word I have to describe coastal rowing is “humbling.” Open ocean conditions prevent you from reaching terminal velocity. The boats are wide and it’s better to be resilient against the waves than intelligently molded from carbon and fiberglass.

asking for money is probably the least appealing part of all of this rowing. I have gotten very good at asking for couches and spare bedrooms and the chance to build human connections while doing this crazy sport thing has made it all worth it. yet asking specifically for money feels cold and transactional. I don’t like it. That’s why I’ve made a very intentional effort to work throughout my rowing career (the mental stimulation of something non-rowing was also a necessary component for me).

the wildness of rowing, however, is that racing at for your country on your national team at your world championships is earned at trials AND ALSO paid for with a check. Sweat equity (swequity? Is that a thing?) does not suffice. And so here we are, me standing here before you, with a personal gofundme link trying to rationalize why this is the way elite athletics works sometimes.

if you have the means to donate, it would be greatly appreciated. I am considering this link a glorified tip jar for the hours of “weird question Wednesday” content I put up on Instagram over the last two years (it went away because I couldn’t afford to spend 8-12 hours per week writing Instagram slides anymore, from both a financial and emotional standpoint). Also— any donation over $150 will be considered “purchasing” a coaching session (unless you don’t want a coaching session, in which case forget I offered).

thanks for reading!

cc