In the early morning hours, while most people are still tucked into their warm beds, the Pitt… In the early morning hours, while most people are still tucked into their warm beds, the Pitt rowing teams are wide awake and pushing their bodies to the limit.

Unlike most people, these athletes are not only awake and on time for 5:30 a.m. practice, but many arrive at practice on bikes or by running to the Washington’s Landing boathouses.

“Rowing requires a higher level of dedication than most sports,” women’s varsity coach Tiffany Altoff said. “You just can’t go sit in a boat or on an erg [rowing machine] then pull and expect to be fast.”

Rowing involves a group of people pulling as one in a boat that are led by a coxswain who steers the boat and encourages the rowers to give it all they have in crunch time.

Rowing is a very graceful sport in the sense that all the movements within the proper techniques present an onlooker with a picture of precision and power, according to Altoff.

“Yes, crew does look very ‘pretty,’ but what many people do not see is the end result when the rowers emerge from their boats covered in sweat and on the verge of getting sick.” Altoff added.

So far this season, both the men’s and women’s teams have been rewarded for all their off-season training.

In the Oct. 5 Head of the Ohio Regatta, the teams combined to place every boat they sent out to compete, which means that every boat that raced placed in the top 10 and was awarded team points.

“We did really well at the Head of Ohio,” men’s head coach Alek Gralewski said.

The lightweight four boat, that repeated as champions, navigated the course in 16 minutes, 14.4 seconds, to lead the men’s team.

Later, in the open four, Pitt took second with a time of 16:25.9, as well as fifth place in 16:37.7. Lastly, the men rowed their club eight boat to an eighth place finish in a time of 15:19.6.

“In the open four we were really surprised with the fifth place boat, they really had a great race,” Gralewski said.

In the women’s events, Pitt made a strong showing.

The women were led by the club four open boat that placed third in a time of 18:04.1 and was followed by their second boat in the race that placed ninth in 18:47.

These boats set the tone for the women, who then came back to place their club eight boat in seventh place in a time of 16:49.5. Taking inspiration from their teammates, the women’s lightweight four, surprised several schools with its fourth place finish with a time of 18:54.4.

“We were really happy with [the Lightweight 4’s] performance because typically Duquesne and Carnegie Mellon have very strong lightweight programs and we were able to beat them both,” Altoff noted.

For the remainder of the fall, each coach has slightly different goals for his team, but both share the common desire to return Pitt to the elite level of club crews, and in doing such making all of their boats competitive with the other schools.

As far as the women go, Altoff wants to make her team as strong as possible, both physically and mentally, and to achieve this goal the training schedule for her team has become much more vigorous and demanding to prepare them for the power and speed that the spring season will require.

“This year we have some of the strongest girls we’ve ever had,” Altoff said.

On the men’s side, Gralewski wants his team to focus on learning the proper rowing techniques so that they will be better equipped to compete in the spring.

The rest of the fall season will present some definite challenges, having three regattas in three weekends, but both coaches are excited about their teams.

Starting next weekend, the teams will travel to Columbus, Ohio, to compete, then the following weekend they will travel to Virginia for the Head of the Occquan, before finishing off with the CarDuPitt traditional regatta of the Pittsburgh area crews Nov. 9.