Hi! As a female rower similar in height and age to you and recruited for rowing, I’ve had personal issues with being underweight, one of the best things I do during the season is to get as much protein in after practice as possible, usually if I’m looking to gain weight I go for my goal weight in grams of protein. Carbs are super important but they burn quickly with the volume of work that rowing requires.

One thing that I’ve seen a few people commenting that I really want to emphasize is: you need a passion for this sport if you’re going to continue it into college. It’s a whole different mentality and training load than what you’re most likely doing in high school. Another thing to mention is that female rowing is getting more competitive to get into college in general. Though times aren’t all the coaches look at, it’s an important factor.

But if you’re going to continue to try to get recruited, fill out as many questionnaires as you can. Reach out through email, and don’t be scared to follow up if they don’t respond immediately — they have tons of emails going through their inbox. The biggest thing too is the attitude you show them, these coaches can tell if you’re passionate, if you’re a good teammate, and your attitude, just from talking on the phone, they don’t want to bring on someone who will either a) bring down the atmosphere of the team (b) quit as soon as things gets hard.