Scrimmage

Scrimmage
Early season training session, Fall 2009

Monday, March 5, 2012

Elk Lake Summary

These regattas always pass by in such a blur, particularly when I am as race-focused as this one. The emotions and thoughts in the moments are hard to recover and often clouded by the reactions to race outcomes.

Dave and I had a fantastic time trials in our 2x. We finished 4th overall, just a few seconds behind the Canadian Light 2x. The wind was a light cross-head, and we race the piece at a 32 with moves at the beginning and end that saw us scratching a 34 and 35. We were very excited and full of bravado. We sealed the event with a 20 minutes cool down on the ergs and some rest time spent derigging and loading boats.

We then both ventured forth into our throw-together 4x race, which we won handily, but not handily enough. Chris and Aidan did an excellent job as the book ends for the boat. The strategy was haphazard, but the result within acceptable bounds.

Finally, Dave and I went back out for the final of the Open 2x, racing three Canadian National crews, a Canadian club crew, and the SRC heavyweight 2x. We were unable to repeat the morning's performance and finished in a distant 5th,, well off the winning pace. I attribute this fall in our performance to two causes: nerves brought on by high-level racing and insufficient fitness to race at max effort three times a day. The worsening water only added to the air of nervousness and flustered reactions as we were unable to respond to the speed from other crews. Back to the drawing board for a touch.

SRC as a whole did very well. The top three finishes in the Open Women's 4x were all SRC, and we had strong finishes in other open, lightweight, and junior events throughout the day.

Next on the calendar: Dave and Jon travel to Chula Vista to race in singles at NSR I. I will remain in Seattle and race at Green Lake in the 2x with Steve Souvall, a former teammate of mine from my Puget Sound days and current coworker at LUC. Then we have a brief period before we are off to Long Beach on March 31 for our final push to Trials. In the interim, I have a number of Holy Names regattas to which I need to attend as well: the HP Development Camp this weekend, Green Lake the next weekend, and Oakland for two regattas on the 24th and 25th.