LK: Could you speak about your introduction to the sport of rowing?  Where does St. Catharines fit into this?
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KK: I went to Sir Winston Churchill (go bulldogs!), and I was a very mediocre, but competitive, cross country runner. In grade nine, the learn to row program was very popular and I knew a lot of people participating.  My grandfather, John Kit,  helped start the rowing program at Churchill as a teacher-advisor.  He actually gave some money near the end of his life to the club for boats.  I showed up to a few indoor sessions, and got lucky. I was put in a really good boat, that I was definitely under qualified to be in at the time.  It was a midweight four, I believe, and three of the girls were already experienced, and Nicole Gough and I were the grade nines.  We won a lot of races that year.  I was really fortunate to be in that boat.  I remember at the Early Bird regatta, we were in the starting gates, and I realized that I didn’t know how to steer straight!   I remember saying into the mic, “girls, we gotta go, because I’m going to hit boats”.  We crossed the course horizontally twice, and we still won.  They were just so strong that we got ahead of everyone and it didn’t matter.  I loved competition, the culture, and the camaraderie that our coach, Andrew Pilsworth built, which made me come back. ​

I joined the SCRC club that summer.  It was so cool, I think we had seven Jr. B Women’s eights.  It was really fun to see how good I could try to get.  I made it into the top boat, but it was really hard and very fulfilling.  We didn’t do well at Henley; in all my years of junior, we never won a medal at Henley.  But it was such a neat experience.  In grade 10, we did really well again, this time moving up to senior.  We won everything in grade 11. The whole program did so well that year; it was an amazing group of athletes. 

I’m from a pretty average, middle-class family-- rowing for SWC and SCRC opened a lot of doors for me, which I am very grateful for.  The first three years instilled the passion that comes and goes to be honest, and  that was what made it fun.  My experience of growing up and coxing in St. Catharines is what established my foundation for the sport. I think it [the culture] was a pretty special thing that the club offered  me, it gave us all meaning in our daily lives.

LK:  Yes, we are so lucky that there are so many schools in our area that foster rowing, because that is quite rare generally speaking.

KK: Absolutely, and from the funding side of things, it was fairly inexpensive for me to participate, and I don’t see that in many other places in the world.  It’s pretty amazing what the club does to work with the high schools to have co-ownership with the equipment and such, because it’s making so many opportunities available for students.

LK: We have met very briefly once before, at the 2017 NRCs.  You knew my coach, Michele Fisher, from the national team circle, and struck up a conversation while we were practicing before the regatta.  I recall that you thanked her for her advice to wear hats in the boat at the Sarasota World Championships because of the torrential downpour. Going off of that, how do you feel about rowing, and any sport really, being a constant learning process in which collaboration is crucial?

KK: I’ve relied a lot on athletes and coaches to help me in the learning process. I always tell coxswains, you have to be a rowing nerd to become a good one.  I have this very curious part of my brain that’s always learning what I can do to help my boat find speed.  I’m really hungry to learn and do my best.

I also learn a lot from my teammates.  Every boat and every group has its own personality, and even if the people stay the same, the personality of the boat will change, because people change over time.  So I always try to support and adapt, and try to be the best athlete I can be.  I think that’s what will help me for Tokyo if we get to race.  I had a bit of an up and down four years leading up to Rio.  There were moments when I felt like I had the choice to either keep doing the same thing, or push myself to find new ways to discover that speed, and better support my crew.
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In terms of collaboration for myself, I’d love to use my experiences to help other coxswains.  I mentor coxswains now, and it’s great.  I genuinely believe that you can have all the information in the world, but in the moment, you still have to be able to make the right decision.  It’s hard as a coxswain if you don’t have a model, so I’m happy to pay it forward.  I  don’t want it to be a sheltered, individual process. 

LK: What excites you about rowing? How do you maintain that passion in the midst of the pandemic?

KK: It’s been different; we broke the day after Canada pulled out of the Olympics, and we were largely on our own in a quarantine situation until June.  I race road bikes professionally, I was on a UCI, professional contract for two years with InstaFund Left Prima racing in Vancouver.  That really helped  me with the mental side of racing.  I used to run half marathons, but then I started injuring myself, so I bought a bike.  I use the bike as my training tool both for weight as well as learning how to keep a consistent wattage under the pressure of lactate!  There’s a lot of carry over between cycling and rowing in terms of performance and racing. As a coxswain, I don’t really get to race that much, so the bike gets me more race starts!
  
In the pandemic, the bike allowed me to explore and adventure in a safe way, and I still do that now that we are back training full time.  It’s a great mental release.  I’m choosing to not race before the Olympics because the risk of injury is not worth it. I do train 15-20 hours on the bike a week, and I try to do  similar workouts  to the women. It helps me to understand the mental side of consistently putting in your best effort day after day.
 
I also had a coxswain coach, as well as a variety of Olympic medallist coxswains mentor me in the last year.  I’m always trying new things to stay sharp.  In rowing we can plan for everything but something can still happen, be it equipment malfunctions, weather conditions, or extraneous circumstances. So I try to amass as many tools in my toolbox as I can (an idea my old UBC coach, Craig Pond, put in my head).​

Outside of rowing, I’m working on my undergrad.  I also work part time at a financial startup doing research (Collective2Financial).  My first U23s was in 2009, so I’ve been pretty focused on rowing for a long time.  This will be my third Games if Tokyo happens and it’s really good to have a focus outside of rowing, because when things are going well, it’s such a rush, but when things may not be going as well, it can be really low.  So it’s great to have something outside of rowing to balance it all out.
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It’s also important to be honest about how difficult it is right now.  Everyone is struggling in this very crazy time.  I’m seeing a lot of positive content out there on social media, but it’s also important to acknowledge that these are hard times.  Many coxswains especially haven’t been in a boat in such a long time.

LK:  Absolutely. But if I’ve learned anything in the last year that if you hit a major roadblock in training, it doesn’t mean you’re done for as an athlete. Obviously you need to keep training, but with situations like this, your athletic career isn’t over. I certainly struggled with that when everything closed up in thinking that it would be so difficult to recover from this, but as athletes, we are resilient and can make a triumphant return.

KK:  Yes, just make the most of what you have and move forward.

LK: What lessons have you learned from rowing that are also applicable to other aspects of your life?

KK: The big two that I like to share are: The first is, ‘why not me?’ Someone has to fill the seat, so why not you? I’m not from a sporty, or extremely affluent family (I’ve noticed rowing is still a very wealthy sport in many areas of the world).  My family worked really hard to get me these opportunities. There are a lot of reasons why you can’t do something, but ultimately, why not you?  There is always a way for you to be able to do something if you really want it, or at least be able to create a silver lining out of the situation you may find yourself

The second is that I make a lot of mistakes, and I fail a lot, but I still show up.  I’m a perfectionist, and I’ve had to work on over the years.  I’ve realized, I don’t have to be perfect, I just have to do my best. Failure is not failure if you refuse to let it remain so.
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I think SCRC is a special place for rowing, and we all have to actively work to keep it like that.  I have a faint memory of when Jean Chretien came to St. Catharines for the 1999 Worlds. I didn’t even know what rowing was at the time, but I have this strong feeling of hometown pride from that event.  It’s exciting to think that a new generation is going to experience that in this decade.  There’s the mega Worlds in 2024, and the Canada Games in 2022.  These  are amazing events and the more people that are engaged that aren’t directly tied to the club, the better.  Mayor Walter Sendzyk is doing such a great job, and I hope the club continues in this positive direction.  I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for the St. Catharines Rowing Club and Sir Winston Churchill, they did so much for me.  ​

LK: Well speaking of inspiring people, could you talk about your recent 100k erg you completed for your friend, Nick?

MF: The idea for that kind of came from my new interest in running, that was really forced by the pandemic.  I had done a few marathons, a few half marathons, and then I had the crazy idea to do a 100k run, so I ran from the Service Road, all the way to Toronto.  My right knee was really acting up in the last 5k, so I had to walk a bit of the last 5k, but I did it.  So that was my big accomplishment for running, and then shortly after, my buddy unfortunately had a stroke.  We went to primary school together, and I wanted to do something to help him recover faster.  So when thinking of what to do a fundraiser for him.  I wasn’t going to run again, but I realized that the erg was the next goal.  So I got permission from his family to do a 100k erg, and I didn’t really train for the piece, the longest I had been on the erg for recently was about 30k, and before that all I had been doing was short pieces.  So we broadcasted the piece on Facebook and Instagram, my mom was my little nutritionist, she kept bringing me fruit.  We had a lot of people come over, cheering me on, spraying water on me!  But the goal was just to raise money for him, and he’s recovering extremely fast!  I always post updates about him, he took a swing at a golf club the other day, and he’s making a quicker recovery than most expected.  It was just something I could do to help a friend out.

LK: It’s such an incredible thing to do, especially for a friend.  We’ll attach the link to the GoFundMe to this article in the event that anyone wishes to donate.  Between that erg, and the 100k run you did earlier that month, what motivates you to complete these extreme athlete challenges, and how do they compare to a typical rowing event?  What did you do to occupy your mind in the middle of those long pieces?
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Her reputation speaks for itself; having entered into the sport in the year of high school at Denis Morris SS, she quickly made up for any notion of lost time in the numerous international titles she collected, from a 2007 Henley victory in the 8+, to a silver medal in the 8+ at the 2012 Olympics. Her athletic career at Syracuse University is no less decorated, earning an All-American accolade in her senior year. 

I first met Natalie Mastracci at the 2015 SCRC Captain's Dinner, though I had heard her name long before. Still fresh in my own rowing career, I had looked to emulate members of the Canadian National Team and the tenacity with which they pursued their Olympic goals. Meeting a member of this team, after her acceptance of the Distinguished Alumni Award no less, was quite a memorable event.

I sat down with Natalie on December 2nd, in the ordinary fashion of this year, over Zoom, to discuss her extraordinary history in sport. Overall, she was consistent in her appreciation of the beauty of our sport, and remarked on the unique aspects of teamwork and diligence that are required in elite rowing.

LK: You began rowing in your final semester of high school, and your life was changed significantly for it, as you accepted an offer to row at Syracuse University shortly thereafter. Why did you initially choose to row at this point in your life, and what convinced you to stay and pursue a scholarship?

NM: So many people have asked me this question over the years, and you would think I would have some greater reasoning by now, but it’s still because I thought I wanted a basketball scholarship. I thought I needed to get more athletic and all my friends rowed, and kept saying to me, “just come row with us”. There was always something missing from basketball for me; it’s a team sport, but you don’t really have to be a team. And rowing spoke to me in a way that I had been missing in basketball, just, giving yourself up and turning yourself over to a team to work together and make something happen that’s really great. I still love that; I miss that every day.

LK: That’s such a good point about the team aspect, because it’s easy to think of rowing, especially this year, as the erg, or the single, but in reality, the majority of the sport is done in team boats where synchronicity is demanded. You are so dependent on your team. Personally what comes to mind is that we had a practice once (at Notre Dame), about a year ago, we were in an 8+.  And we spent the majority of practice working on the roll-up. and that was all we did that practice, just a plethora of square up drills, because it was so essential to our process, regardless of how minute it may seem, only a half second of work, but it is a team sport, and it matters.

NM: That’s funny that you bring that up because one of the most indelible moments over my career was when we were preparing for 2012 (Olympics), and my coach had us do that same thing, of working on the square up. And it is only a half second, but you can feel it when it’s off. At some point, you begin to feel things behind you, in front of that you can’t see, if you tune into it. And that’s another part of the beauty of this sport, you tune into another person. 

LK: Absolutely, it might seem impossible to sync up to someone so precisely, but the more time you spend in a boat, especially with those same people, the easier it is to do just that. With that being said, I'd like to return to the point in your life when you signed a full scholarship to row at Syracuse months into your novice year. What did you do to prepare for the transition to NCAA rowing; did your high school coach prepare you for it, and if they did, how so? ​

​NM: I feel like I was gently guided into the sport. There are so many people at SCRC that love rowing to their core, that it is just impossible to go to that place and not feel the love. Everyone is just so wonderful, but I can't not talk about Kathy Boyes. She was absolutely instrumental in passing on that love to, scores of women. Did Kathy ever coach you?

​LK: How has rowing shaped your life, during competition and now in life after rowing? Furthermore, what did your daily life look like when you were training on the National Team?

NM: As a person, I definitely grew, having that opportunity to train with the national team. I came into it as a sensitive person, and I still am, but I took things very deeply, and you just can’t do that when you’re getting feedback constantly; it’ll tear you apart. I guess at the beginning, I was taking things in too personally, and the experience taught me to be stronger. You have take the objective things that are being said, and then reposition them in the mind. You need to learn to say to yourself, 'someone is giving me feedback because they want me to improve! They think I can, so I should take that feedback and try to be better'. To try and have that more objective position, and I’ve taken that into other areas of my life as well. To separate myself from the feedback is a little superpower, so I’m thankful that I had that opportunity. 

LK: Could you talk a bit about being a woman in sport?

NM: It is interesting to be a woman in sport, because as women, we can feel societal pressures to look, act and behave a certain way, and rowing really gave me the freedom to concentrate on a certain level of excellence without having to care about that. It was refreshing, my body had a function, and that was to be strong. If it wasn’t about being efficient, or strong, or fast, then, it didn’t matter to me. In this life, now, I don’t get that kind of pass, you’re in society’s little box now. So, it’s very interesting to be a woman in sport, to be free of that for a moment. You just get to be excellent.

LK: I never thought of it that way. One of my best friends is not an athlete is 5’2" and I tower over her; and then when I go to rowing clinics, or events of some kind, I look like I'm 5’2". And I think that just goes to show how subjective body image can be, especially for athletes. 

NM: That’s another thing too; only being compared to other women in the sport is something else. It’s a beautiful meritocracy, that in rowing, everyone is pretty much the same, to be plain, and it’s very interesting that speed and determination is the dividing factor. It’s a very interesting little microcosm to be a part of, even though, that should probably change.

LK: In regards to competitions, I would be remiss if I didn't ask you about your experiences at the 2012 and 2016 Olympics, in which you won a silver medal at the former. Could you speak a bit about your experience there?

NM: It was really interesting, the first time I went to the Olympics, because it wasn’t anything that I thought it would be. It was really, just a race. There were people I would normally see there, I had my team, there was the course. And as rowers, we have to be near the lake, so we were kind of away from the Olympic village because of travel, so you don’t really feel like you're at The Olympics. And in rowing, we have the beautiful luxury of being in the first week, so you get to compete, and then you cross the finish line and are like, “I’m at the Olympics!” And then you get to go do all this fun stuff, and meet a whole bunch of people. So it was a really beautiful experience.

LK: I’m sure that mind set really helped you, instead of having added internal pressure and anxieties of being at the Olympics, because when stripped to the barest of examinations, it really is just a race. Did you typically have a pre race routine, or a pattern of emotions? Personally, I’m super nervous until I get on the water. I’m a ball of nerves for the run, the meeting, the dynamic stretching, and then when I get on the water, it’s all fine. Did you have anything like that?

NM: Our warmup took six hours. They were set up to prepare the body and the mind. So, you don’t really have time to get nervous, or think of other things, which is great. You just get on your little train car, and you pass all the stations, and then suddenly you’re in your seat, and then it gets to the race, and you just have to do what you always do.

LK: Would you have any advice for athletes in preparing for a race? Is there something that you did before a competition that helped you get in the zone?

​NM: I think it was different every time. But I always try to listen to music and really hear the lyrics. Then I would journal my thoughts the night before. And at the time, journaling feels like a waste of time, but looking back now, it’s such a great keepsake from that time in my life. As silly as it may feel, do journal things. 

LK: I'd like to close up this conversation with parting advice you might have for athletes at different stages in their competitive career. What would you say to kids who are interested in rowing, but have never done it before?

NM: Just try it. If you’re interested in it, just try it. The least you can do is make some friends, and the most you can do is find a different way to believe in yourself.

LK: What advice do you have for high school rowers who want to pursue post-secondary rowing?

NM: Be very choosy about where you go. Think about what you want to get out rowing and try to find those likeminded people. Make sure that you meet the team, you sit down with the coach and that you really feel excited about going to that school.

​LK: Advice for athletes who want to go to the Olympics?

​NM: Don’t try to go to the Olympics. If you try to go to the Olympics, it’s probably not going to work. But, if you keep trying to be a better version of yourself, there is no ceiling as to what you can do. Do just make a blanket goal of going to the Olympics, because you don’t actually know what it entails. Just keep trying to be a better version of yourself, and keep trying and see where you end up