Fall Wrap Up, Winter Update

It has been a long time since my last update - I have been busy working extra to get the bills paid from traveling so much last Summer. Now I can try to do a quick recap of how the last few months have been.

Head of the Charles was great - I finished 7th, stronger than last year and beating a few people who had beaten me in 2010. It was a strong race, but not quite where I wanted to be. John Winter rocked it out, kudos to him. The rest of SRC did well: Dave Smith finished 11th, Liz Robinson finished 5th, and Lindsey Meyer finished 3rd in their respective events.

I managed an 8 second PR on my 6K this Fall and have dropped half a split on my 60 minute test.

For Head of the Lake, Dave and I teamed up to win the Open 2x, my first HotL victory in the 7 years I have raced it. It felt damn good.

I have begun a regimen of Creatine, Glutamine, and Beta-Alanine supplementation to see if I can eek out performance benefits that I am not rocking through training.

Winter has been productive, with a pretty even split between rowing, erging, and cross training. Huge strength gains, getting my dead lift up to 300 lbs for two rep and holding 1000+ joules on average for 10 minutes on the RP.

Lots of fantastic new people around the boathouse for the holidays: college kids coming home, new juniors, and a few new faces with the development group.

This is also the first Winter during which I have taken a long break away from Seattle and the boathouse. I just spent a week in Long Beach, CA with family, doing some light rowing bust mostly getting my bronze on and catching up on sleep. I feel recharged, ready to hit the training hard again. My mindset for this Spring is as such: I will be the scourge of my competitors. I will continue to pour as much work and effort as needed for every bit of speed gain. No cost is too high.

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