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What they were thinking: Making a splash

Coxswain Alison Blaine, a senior from Santa Fe, N.M., leads the Trinity College women’s fours despite getting splashed by a teammate at the Head of the Charles Regatta, Oct. 18, 2014.Stan Grossfeld/Globe Staff/Boston Globe

Every Sunday, Boston Globe photographer Stan Grossfeld asks the subject of one of his photos to explain what’s happening in the shot.

What’s up today: Coxswain Alison Blaine, a senior from Santa Fe, N.M., leads the Trinity College women’s fours despite getting splashed by a teammate at the Head of the Charles Regatta, Oct. 18, 2014.

Blaine: “I’m probably a foot above the water so I get a lot of backsplash in the face. It feels pretty cold. I wear sunglasses a lot because it stops the water from getting into my eyes. I’m not a big fan of the dirty water, especially when it’s cold outside. But when we are racing I can usually ignore it. At that point I was telling them it was the last 750 meters of the race and it was time to leave it all on the course. I used to be shy but you definitely have to be more aggressive to be a coxswain, especially on the Charles. I started out rowing my freshman year but I soon realized that 5-3 wasn’t a very good height to be a very fast rower. I love the Charles, it’s by far my favorite race. They say it’s a coxswain’s race — a lot of thinking and anticipating. There’s a lot of sharp turns to make and if you don’t have the right line going into the turn you can easily lose a race. At a course of this caliber the coxswain can make or break a race and the rowers are often relieved they don’t have to worry about steering or crashing into a bridge.”

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Stan Grossfeld can be reached at grossfeld@globe.com.