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Every year, hundreds of thousands of people gather in Cambridge for the Head of the Charles Regatta to compete in and watch the most exciting rowing event of the fall. While the bulk of the crew season takes place in the spring, this race holds a unique importance for many rowers.

For senior men’s heavyweight rower Tyler Horler, the HOCR is a special race because of the spectators it brings to the Charles.

“One of the most fun, if not the most fun race is the Head of the Charles because 250,000 people come into town for it,” Horler said. “It’s a great time. It’s the only race where it feels like all the work and time we put into it is seen.”

Training

This weekend, athletes will put to use the skills built through hours of grueling training beforehand. For Horler and his team, there are ten scheduled sessions including lifts and strength and conditioning to prevent injury.

During this time of year when the weather is still conducive to rowing, the team is out on the water as much as possible. Similar to other endurance sports, Horler and the team do 70-80% low intensity aerobic volume and 20-30% high intensity anaerobic training.

Horler, who along with five other seniors on the team is training to qualify for the Olympics, finds that the support from the rest of the boat is often pivotal during hard training sessions.

“You definitely get a lot of yourself out of the other guys around you,” Horler said. “Sometimes you think you’re completely dead, and then an encouraging yell from your teammate next to you is enough to keep you going.”

The Format

The HOCR consists of a series of three-mile time trial races; rather than competing head-to-head, each boat starts the race ten seconds after another boat, with the fastest time winning. Harvard also competes in four separate categories of events: Men’s heavyweight, women’s heavyweight, men’s lightweight, and women’s lightweight.

The weight cutoffs for qualifying as a lightweight rower are 155 pounds for men and 130 pounds, which allows athletes of different body compositions to remain competitive at the highest levels of rowing.

On each team, there are several types of boats — eight rowers, four rowers, pairs, and singles. Boats are further broken down into coxed versus un-coxed.

There are 75 events that row at the HOCR split based on boat class. The events are further divided into age divisions and weight-class, distinctions that are HOCR-specific. The age groups include youth, collegiate, master, and senior.

The Course

A key part of the HOCR is the Charles River itself. The three-mile course used for the Regatta features seven bridges where the wind funnels through the bridge and can be felt at a much greater magnitude, according to Horler.

Weeks Bridge and Eliot Bridge are especially notable. Weeks bridge features the first major turn of the race as the bridge sits on a sharp 90 degree turn that is difficult to navigate with only a few strokes. Eliot Bridge is the ending point of a long and treacherous 180-degree turn and also marks the final 800m sprint.

Horler, who trains on the Charles River at least eight times a week, finds the challenging conditions of the Charles to make it special.

“The Charles is definitely one of the best places in the world to row,” Horler said. “It’s got so much history, not only at Harvard, but all the other schools, and boat clubs on the river. I feel a lot of love for the Charles.”

“Sometimes it doesn’t love us back, giving us some terrible water, but it definitely builds a lot of character out in the basin. When it’s rainy or windy, it can get pretty awful sometimes, but that’s the beauty of it,”he added.

Strategy

According to senior women’s heavyweight rower Olivia Sullivan, a big challege for the HOCR is navigating the course to pass other boats even with the 10 second separation.

“With head-style racing, there’s a lot of overtaking boats. If you’re more than ten seconds faster than the boat ahead of you, you’ll be passing them,” Sullivan said.

Not only that, but because the Charles River is notoriously full of turns, there’s seconds to be saved by taking the tightest lines around corners. Although these moments may seem insignificant, according to Sullivan, “there can be five seconds separating the top 10 boats.”

When the margins are this tight, the coxswain — the person steers the boat and directs the crew’s efforts — plays a significant role in the team’s success.

In addition to coordinating steering, passing, and pacing, the coxswain is responsible for synchronizing the crew which Sullivan stressed was indispensable to a boat’s success.

“You can have eight of the strongest people in the world, but if you don’t row well together, the boat just doesn’t move,” she said.

When a boat is working well together, you’ll see all the rowers getting their blades in and out of the water at the same time with the crew “sort of robotically in time.”

How it Feels

For the rowers, there’s more to the HOCR than the twists and turns of the river. The physical exertion of the race can also be extreme and mental toughness is a key part of success.

Sullivan said that her teammates have thrown up and even passed out from competition and training. At times it gets tough to push through the pain, especially in a time trial format where it’s difficult to tell how well your boat is doing relative to the other boats.

Since the legs are the largest muscle, the rowers generate most of the force in their strokes from their legs. That’s why Sullivan describes her experience as a “slow burn,” where the pain builds gradually until her legs feel heavy with lactic acid.

Still, she said, the team focuses on every stroke, knowing that even a momentary lapse in effort “could be the difference between fifth and fifteenth place.”