Welcome back to The Boathouse Blog!  How long has it been since you've been in a boat? One year? Two years? One week? No matter. TRRA is hosting Return to Rowing Day with USRowing on May 16th. Shake out your unisuit, do some jumping jax, and meet us at Lambert Boathouse for a relaxing morning with other former rowers. This is a national event designed to re-inspire the love of this life-long sport. It's never too late to get back in the boat.  Please call or emai

Getting "back in the boat" with the Q Crew  This week we are "getting back in the boat" with Julia and Emerson, two long-time rowers and members of the Q Crew, our LGBTQ+ Summer Rowing League (SRL) team at TRRA.  Julia and Emerson talk about " proprioception ," or "your sense of where your body is in space"--as well as "building a sense of poise and grace." They also shared their favorite part about being involved with the rowing community: "I've been in this sport for

By Danielle Farinella I’ll start off by saying that this article contains some advanced topics which are most definitely not necessary for success at the master or youth rowing levels. However, if you enjoy getting into the math and science of it all, you may find them interesting. You will want to be familiar with the concepts in Parts 1 and 2 in this series before reading Part 3. So far in this series, we’ve covered the building blocks: workouts. But really, a huge part of

Welcome back to the river! Use this guide to prepare for the season — bookmark it, share it, and check back as needed. ▶ Watch the Recording of the 2026 Spring Safety Meeting FOL LOW US ON SO CIAL ME DIA for TRRA updates KNOW BEFORE YOU ROW Conditions Change Quickly Spring on the Allegheny , Monongahela, and Ohio is beautiful: Herons, happy geese, humans in speedboats. . . It’s also unpredictable. As ice melts, debris flows, and runoff raises water levels fast, condi

Welcome to Part One of the “Recognition and Development” series of The Boathouse Blog ! In this quarterly series , the TRRA Development Committee will share details about the projects our staff and volunteers are working on behind the scenes. Think of these as developing stories from around the boathouse—of which you can be a part. If something catches your attention, there may be a way for you to get involved—either to help steer us in the right direction ( evade that log! )

By Danielle Farinella Am I doing this right? It’s February, and you’ve been training with specific goals in mind for each session: increasing aerobic capacity, improving oxygen transport, etc. But how do you know if you’re executing the workouts in the correct zone? (If you’re unfamiliar with Training Zones, see Part 1 of this series on the The Boathouse Blog! ) How to initially set up your zones (a few methods): There are a few different ways to set up your zones, each wit

Photos by Connor Schafer (@schafersshots) If you add up the weight of all the medals Three Rivers took home this past weekend at the Pittsburgh Indoor Rowing Championships, it would total over 2.2 pounds . That’s a lot of hardware. FOL LOW US ON SO CIAL ME DIA for TRRA updates These glimmering results are a testament to not only TRRA’s commitment to consistent winter training, but also the diverse membership of our crew. We placed in 35 events , bringing home 52 me

By Danielle Farinella Part 1. Workout Session Secrets Have you ever sat on an erg in January while your coach wrote an overly complicated workout on the whiteboard and wondered: what are we actually achieving here? And why do they think doing the workout exactly that way is so important? Well, today you can stop wondering. In this article, I’m going to walk us through the different types of workouts, what they achieve, and how better understanding the goal of the workout

A rower and a coach “Dude, you’re 6’ 3’’, you’re perfect for this,” was the line Matthew Houser’s mother used to convince him to try out for the crew team in high school. As a former volleyball player looking for a Fall sport, he said why not. That was over ten years, and a lot of medals, ago. From watching the first three rowers he coached grow into Midwest Champions, to biting into his own gold medal at the Head of the Charles in 2025, Matthew hasn’t left the boathouse.

Disclaimer: Coach Jill (me) recruited at a DI women’s program for two years. These tips are based on my experience at the collegiate level, but things may be different for men’s recruiting or DII/DIII recruiting. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to me or any of the coaches for advice! We are dedicated to your success and future, and are always happy to have a meeting with you. Before you begin Identify what you want in a college: Big, medium, or small

A practical guide for youth rowers navigating college recruitment So you've been rowing for a while now. Maybe you've seen former teammates get scholarships. Maybe you read about the new D1 opportunities starting 2026. Either way, you're getting faster, your coaches are talking about college, and you start to wonder: could I get a scholarship for this? The short answer is yes—but it takes planning and understanding how the process works. Even then, college sports might not

Jess DiCarlo in her element Jess DiCarlo , our current boat repair person at TRRA, learned the art of boat maintenance the hands-on way. From filling thin spots on a hull, to repairing massive gashes–or even replacing missing bows–she’s done it. Her interest in the craft began around 2017, when on her first outing as a bowperson in a quad, “disaster struck.” She remembers feeling so good and confident with herself, calling out strokes, peeking over her shoulder, enjoying the

Was it happenstance or density–I mean destiny–that “Love Song” by The Cure came on the radio as you pulled up to the TRRA 40th Anniversary Gala: Giving Back to the Future? Greeted in the Lambert Boathouse lobby by none other than the dynamic duo, Marty McFly and Dr. Emmett Brown, you entered a time machine in style. FOL LOW US ON SO CIAL ME DIA for updates To your surprise , as if you woke up in 1989, the weight room had been transformed into a museum–there were Newspap

FOL LOW US ON SO CIAL ME DIA for updates This year at HOTO we gave two lucky winners a "disposable waterproof camera" . . . Then we had the film professionally developed . . . The results are a 90s nostalgia daydream . . . Here are a few of our favorites: Big thanks to our photographers, Veronica ( @trra_youth ) and Carol ( @rit_rowing ) ! Keep an eye out for future Crew Cam Editions from TRRA! Our next "waterproof disposable camera" raffle is for the 40th Anniversary

At the beginning , it was a professor named Dr. Don McKenzie in the Department of Sports Medicine at the University of British Columbia who began to challenge the prevailing medical ideas that breast cancer patients should avoid strenuous activity –even knitting– due to increased risk of Lymphedema. Dr. McKenzie identified dragon boating as the optimal sport to challenge this view because of the strenuous upper-body motion required to propel a boat. In 1996, he recruited twen

Many row, few become coaches. Cara coxing at Iowa State A coach can make or break a first rowing experience. For Cara Burns (the current Three Rivers Youth Coach) her experience at TRRA First Row eight years ago was not only inspiring, it was mesmerizing, as she describes her first time in a boat as a coxswain: “I remember being mesmerized hearing my own voice. I was talking into a speaker, so I could hear it through the boat.” From high school regattas to coxing a Big 10

Three Rivers Rowing Association (TRRA) introduced The Boathouse Blog the week following the 38th Head of the Ohio Regatta. This article lays out the basics of the Blog and contains useful links to keep you in the loop. To join The Boathouse Blog, click the button , or follow this link . Who: The Boathouse Blog is for anybody who uses the boathouse or wants to use the boathouse. This includes rowers, paddlers, dragon boaters, volunteers, and visitors. At TRRA, we manage tw

by Aodhán Ridenour Three Rivers Rowing Association hosted the Head of the Ohio Regatta last weekend, and what an excellent HOTO weekend...

Rowing is a foreign sport to some . Most of us don’t grow up rowing like we do playing Tee Ball or community soccer. There are more moving parts, usually, and a four-year-old might find pulling on a sweep oar challenging . . . For these reasons, most youth rowers don’t get in a boat until high school. Or, if they are lucky, middle school. TRRA Youth brings the sport into schools via erg challenges and meetings with Phys-Ed teachers. We also host a variety of Learn to Row ev