Anchorage rower reaches great heights — at Flattop

When Jack Sexauer of Anchorage saw Instagram photos of his University of Michigan rowing teammates doing summer workouts in picturesque spots around the country, his natural competitiveness kicked in.

One of the photos shows a guy on a rowing machine with a mountain range in the background. Nice picture, Sexauer thought, but why row in front of mountains when you can row on the top of a mountain?

And that's why one day last week Sexauer and Dan Tiggleman, a teammate visiting from Grand Rapids, Michigan, hauled a rowing machine to the top of Flattop.

Once atop the 3,510-foot peak, each man did a 20-minute workout. Then they disassembled the machine and carried it back down.

"We got a lot of really weird looks from people on the way up," said Sexauer, a South High graduate who next month will begin his sophomore year in Ann Arbor.

"We started climbing the mountain at 2 or 3 in the afternoon, when lots of families were bringing their kids up," he said. "Every single person we passed gave us this look of utter disbelief."

Sexauer said it took about 45 minutes to make the 1.7-mile, 1,300-foot climb to the summit.

The rowing machine isn't too heavy, he said, but it's bulky and awkward to carry. Though it can be broken into two pieces, Sexauer and Tiggleman kept it in one piece for most of the ascent, with one carrying the front end and the other holding the back end.

"We couldn't move as quick as some of the hikers, but we were kind up cruising up the mountain," Sexauer said.

"We were maybe going a little bit faster than we needed to because we're both pretty competitive. That's the reason we decided to bring the rowing machine up the mountain anyway — we had to show off by showing how fast we could move."

In the final stretch of the climb, where terrain is steep and rocky, they split the machine into two parts and each man carried one piece for the scramble to the summit.

Once they reached the summit, they assembled the machine and took turns doing brief workouts. While one man rowed, the other took photos.

"We wanted to make sure we had it properly documented," Sexauer said.

Sexauer joined the Michigan rowing team as a freshman walk-on. He ran cross country at South High but focused on debate, theater and academics — he graduated high school with a 4.5 grade-point average.

"I was known as the academic kid," he said. "Now I'm an athlete. It's crazy how things change."

Things changed when another rower spotted Sexauer on campus last year in Ann Arbor. A lean 6-foot-5, Sexauer has the perfect build for rowing and he was encouraged to join the team.

He earned a seat in the novice-8 boat and helped the Wolverines win their 10th straight team title at the American Collegiate Rowing Association championships (the NCAA sanctions women's rowing but not men's rowing).

Sexauer, whose boat placed fourth at the championships, said the rowing team trains 2 1/2 hours a day, six days a week, from September to May. The season runs from early April to late May.

He said the sport gave him a massive boost of confidence.

"It showed me that I can do anything I want as long as I put my mind to it," he said. "That if I put my head down and work hard, I can achieve this colossal goal."

Sexauer, who is leaning toward a major in environmental engineering, said he finished his freshman year with a 3.75 GPA.

He figures he and his friend Tiggleman aced summer, too. He doubts anyone on Michigan's 75-man rowing team will come up with anything that tops rowing on Flattop.

"I think we've got everyone else beat, at least for the rest of the summer," he said.