Tara and Rachel of Steady State Network, shooting the breeze about rowing

Girl on the River

Ep 15. One of the things I miss most about rowing is the post-rowing chat over coffee, where we just shoot the breeze about rowing, interspersed with plenty of gossip, a bit of serious discussion and a lot of silliness. Which is exactly what this episode is all about.
Rachel Freedman and Tara Morgan are passionate rowers and rowing coaches. They're also the founders of Steady State Network - a superb rowing podcast as well as a movement, a magazine-in-waiting and a network. "Rowing for the rest of us" is how they describe it, and it's just as brilliantly blazer-free as they promise.
In our chat (it's really a chat not an interview) the conversation lets loose, covering:

• Being small as a rower
• How Tara would switch sides for the male GB rowers
• How Rachel and Tara discovered rowing
• How they met and set up SSN (was it a misunderstanding over Rachel's sexuality?)
• The joy of coaching masters rowers
• The Steady State ethos
• Regattas - regatta food and the best events in the US
• Diversity, inclusion and the Changemaker Scholarships
• Tara's work with adaptive rowers with the Seize the Oar Foundation
• Advice for clubs venturing into adaptive rowing
• Quick fire questions including some really quite extraordinary, X-certificate coxing calls

I hope you found this a little slice of rowing heaven to tide you over until you can get back on the water. In the meantime, do check out Steady State, and look out for Rachel and Tara on ZoomErgos on a Sunday (and me on a Wednesday morning!)