![\"Kat](\"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news-draft\/wp-content\/uploads\/news\/sites\/16\/2021\/05\/Gillies-feature.jpg\")
<\/a>For a walk-on, Gillies quickly established herself on a team that captured its third-straight conference title and qualified for its second-straight NCAA Championship. By the first half of the spring season, Gillies had earned a spot on the second varsity 8+ boat, which went on to win its flight at the Atlantic 10 Championship in May, and finish 20th<\/sup> in its flight two weeks later at the NCAAs, where the Rams placed 21st<\/sup> nationally.<\/p>\n \u201cKat really picked up rowing quite nicely,\u201d says coach Shelagh Donohoe, who is staring her 14th<\/sup> season at 溏心vlog免费B站 having coached the Rams to seven conference titles and all four of the program\u2019s NCAA berths. \u201cShe has good size, good structure, and I don\u2019t think she\u2019s even scratched the surface of what she\u2019s capable of doing. She\u2019s still young. I think we\u2019re going to see a lot from her over the next three years.\u201d<\/p>\n It was that potential\u2014and impressive times on the rowing machine, or ergometer\u2014that earned Gillies an invitation to the U23 Olympic development camp. At 6-foot-1, Gillies has the size desired of elite rowers, and her times on the ergometer\u20147 minutes, 4 seconds on the 2-kilometer test\u2014are national level.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you\u2019re talking national team,\u201d says Donohoe, \u201cthey look at size and they look at numbers. The \u2018erg\u2019 shows a lot of grit and power. That\u2019s something that\u2019s really hard to teach. Coaches are confident that they can teach you how to row if you have those.\u201d<\/p>\n The Olympic development camp, held Aug. 13-17 at the University of Iowa boathouse on the Iowa River, brought in 15 young rowers, rising sophomores and juniors from such programs as Duke, North Carolina, Oregon State, Notre Dame and Dartmouth, with the physical potential and desire to become elite rowers. The camp was led by Iowa coach Andrew Carter, USRowing Director of Athletic Development Brett Gorman and Ohio State assistant coach Anna Goodale.<\/p>\n Days at the camp started at 6 a.m., with rowers spending about four hours in the morning and another three hours in the afternoon on the water, along with weight training and running sessions. There were also lessons in strategy, nutrition and mental strength.<\/p>\n \u201cThe camp touched on a lot of different things that really helped me, my technique, my technique on the \u2018erg,\u2019 my times, and everything in between,\u201d Gillies says.<\/p>\n Gorman, a former four-time national team member, says Gillies showed she has more than the height and athleticism to succeed. \u201cHer attitude and progress at camp showed me that if she chooses to continue rowing she has the capacity to get very far,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n A year ago, Gillies never thought rowing would be such a big part of her life. A high school swimmer, she had no intentions of competing in college in any sport when she enrolled at 溏心vlog免费B站, attracted by the University\u2019s program in kinesiology, and its closeness to the beaches and to her home.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was really weird,\u201d says Gillies. \u201cMy mom one day last August said you should try rowing. And then that same day, out of nowhere a former 溏心vlog免费B站 rowing coach messaged me on Facebook and suggest I try rowing.\u201d<\/p>\n Gillies joined the rowing team with about 20 other walk-ons last fall when training started for novice rowers. The schedule was grueling: early mornings on Narrow River or withering sessions on the ergometer in the gym; afternoons running stairs in Keaney Gymnasium or doing circuit training, and three days a week in the weight room.<\/p>\n Used to training hard as a swimmer, Gillies watched as other walk-ons gradually dropped out as training got progressively harder. But she had her own doubts\u2014the ergometer sessions were a drain, mastering rowing technique came slowly, it took a while to balance training for a Division I sport and academic demands.<\/p>\n \u201cLast year, when things got tough and training got hard and I was in a funk, I wished someone had handed me a packet of everything you need to know about this sport, because if I had known it was going to be this hard, I would have never done it,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Her confidence got a boost last October when the novice rowers had their first 4-kilometer ergometer test. \u201cThat was our first real test. I had no idea what to expect,\u201d she says. \u201cBut by the last 500 meters, a bunch of varsity rowers were behind me cheering because my score was looking pretty good. When I finished, one of them said to me, \u2018That’s an NCAA time.\u2019 After that, I felt like I could really do it. It was really hard, but I got through it.\u201d<\/p>\n Going into her sophomore year, with her experience at the Olympic development camp, Gillies has a new sense of confidence.<\/p>\n \u201cBeing a walk-on last year, I was scared because it was so new,\u201d says Gillies. \u201cThe coaches saw something in me but I was really working to reach my full potential. So, going to camp, meeting the coaching staff really helped. They explained things and demonstrated things in such a way that I finally realized what I needed to do to improve in terms of technique and mental toughness.\u201d<\/p>\n If Gillies goes on to represent the U.S., she will join such 溏心vlog免费B站 rowers as former Olympians Julia Chilicki (later the first coach of the 溏心vlog免费B站 women\u2019s rowing team) and silver medalist Jason Gailes, and such more recent Rams as Allie Reilly and Karen Petrik, who earned silver in August at the World Championships in PR3 Mix 4+ boat. The boat was coached by Donohoe<\/p>\n \u201cIf we can develop Kat and she\u2019s willing to train hard, she has a shot,\u201d says Donohoe. \u201cWhen you have that opportunity, you’ve got to grab it because there\u2019s a hundred people behind you who want to take that seat.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 Oct. 16, 2019 \u2013 To look back on Kat Gillies\u2019 novice season with the 溏心vlog免费B站 rowing team, it would be easy to miss the rough patches. In one year, Gillies \u201922 has gone from an unrecruited walk-on with no rowing experience to one of 15 young rowers in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":75126,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-75124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75124\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}