Back in Boston!

After a all-too-brief break, we are back in Boston and hitting it hard.  So many little aches and pains arise in my body form these first few days of getting back into the grind of three sessions per day - looking forward to the future when they will be gone and I will feel back up to speed.

I spent my break in Seattle, mostly with Keara, but also catching up with friends at the various boathouses (because I don't have many non-rowing friends left in Seattle).  I left some gear behind so I could travel a bit lighter for the rest of this adventure.  I am digging the new bags we scored.

The eight is just such an amazing challenge for me.  I thought I was finally getting OK at the single and then BOOM! New boat that is way different to handle.  I am reflecting on those simple winter days this year of just grinding it out at SRC.

Equipment

Sounds like we're going to get some support from a couple of great North American companies, with a shell being provided by Hudson Boatworks and oars provided by Concept2.  This sort of equipment support makes a huge difference in the burden on athletes and can often be one of the most challenging logistical problems to solve.  To have support from two such reputable companies with such fantastic products will be great.  We used a Hudson at Trials this year and I rowed a Hudson 8+ in college (it was our top varsity boat).  Of course, C2 is probably the most common oar brand in the United States and has been my go-to choice when racing my single for years.

So excited for these two companies to be on board!

Trials, Respite, and Support

Last Wednesday we complete our racing at Senior I trials.  We are now the official lightweight 8+ for the United States National Rowing Team.  The lead up to our race was pretty straight forward.  We were able to make weight and cam down the course without error.  We completed the 2K in 5:52.  This was not as fast as we had planned.  Earlier in the week, we had done a casual 1K from a dead stop in sub-world record time, with all hands agreeing that there was plenty more to give and that the pace felt sustainable.  But winds and temperatures can be fickle, and a little rain and slower wind speed can greatly affect on-the-water speed.  We definitely had the slowest conditions of the day.  Our goal of a medal stand finish, we believe, is in reach.  Our boat motto: 5:35 or bust!

Knowing that we will be in a long and challenging training cycle until the World Championship regatta, Bruce has given us until July 5th to train on our own without organized practices.  We have strict orders to only cross train - no erging, rowing, or lifting.  I have flown home to Seattle to see Keara and reconnect with my community.  This last weekend I was at the Northwest Regional Master's Championship Regatta, seeing friends and volunteering as a launch driver.  It was a pretty nice way to spend the hot days.  Through in some shorter runs just to stay loose.

This week I am ramping up my cross training and meeting with potential supporters.  Because we are a non-priority event, our boat will receive no support from USRowing.  We have to fully fund our travel and expenses to participate in the World Championships.  Since most of our athletes have relocated for the summer and we have to train 6 hours per day, 6 days per week, working full time is not a realistic option.  I am doing some private tutoring to fill in a few financial gaps and reaching out to friends, family, and enthusiasts to help make our trip to France possible.

You can give a tax-deductible amount to us via the National Rowing Foundation here.

My goal is to raise $7500 for my share of our team.  This should cover all non-emergency expenses that may arise (USRowing fees, air travel, equipment costs, living expenses while training, etc.).  The support of my community will help take us across the finish line!

The Lightweight 8+

I was initially quite hesitant to buy into the light 8+ camp.  Historically, the light 8+ for the USA had not done particularly well in international competition.  Further, when I had attended the light 8+ camp in 2011, I was quickly cut due to a lack of erg power.  However, with the 4x no longer a viable option and my desire to race as part of Team USA still strong, I decided I had to go for it.

This year the the light 8+ was being put together by Community Rowing Incorporated, under the supervision of Bruce Smith.  CRI has run two of the last three light 8+s and Bruce has coached several light 8+s at the international level.  And with the 2x, 1x, 4x, and 2- events seemingly on lock down by the top athletes in our sport, the camp was able to attract a large pool of talent, consisting almost entirely of post-collegiate scullers with some amount of international race experience.

We had 12 rowers in the camp, making for some solid seat racing action.  We were grinding it out in coxed fours in the mornings, doing 1000 and 1500 meter pieces ranging from 32 to 36 strokes per minute with athlete switches between boats to measure individual skills.  I was seat raced once early on and won by a sufficient margin to not have to defend my position again.  Most of my time was actually spent stroking the fours.  It was not easy for me - I like to race at lower rates with longer strokes so trying to hit a 36 took some big changes.  Luckily, I had no problem making the weight cutoff (161 lbs to be seat raced), so I was able to stay pretty charged up day-to-day.  Afternoons were spent in various four and eight lineups to help athletes row with each other and find an effective common rhythm.

After two weeks of grueling racing and lots of double checking to give all athletes the benefit of the doubt, we established our lineup.  I will try to provide a bit of information about the guys, but I am still getting to know my new teammates.

The light 8+, messing around on a trip to the Basin.

Jack Carlson: Our coxswain, Jack is finishing his PhD at Oxford this year and is author of the book Rowing Blazers.  He has coxed internationally for the USA light 8+ in 2011 and the USA 2+ in 2014.  He has won Henley, Canadian Henley, and Head of the Charles.  He has coxed for the Oxford-Cambridge Reserve Boat Race.  He is a Massachusetts native and an alum of Georgetown.  A solid leader on and off the water, I roomed with Jack at the 2011 light 8+ camp.

Matthew Lenhart: A BU alum, this is Matt's first year of post-collegiate racing.  He is a West Coast guy, a native of the Bay Area, and trains at California Rowing Club.

Dave Smith:  Dave and I go way back, having raced the 2x together in 2012 at Olympic Trials.  Dave has been on two national teams in the light 4x and is an alum of Dartmouth and the Harvard School of Design.  Currently, Dave is training in Charlottesville under Frank Biller.

Jack Devlin: Jack raced in the U-23 lightweight 2- for the USA in 2012.  He hails from Virginia and is a Georgetown alum.  He currently trains in Washington D.C.  Jack's parents were both high performance rowers; his mom was a world champion in 1984 in the lightweight 8+.

Chris Lambert: Chris has raced as part of the 2007 U-23 light 4x and the 2011 senior light 4x.  He is heavy-hitter in our boat in terms of raw power and erg score.  He currently trains out of Malta Boat Club in Philadelphia and is from Florida.

Peter Schmidt: Peter currently trains out of Riverside and was part of the 2014 light 4x.  He is a solid sculler who is from Rhode Island and studied at Drexel.  He works as an engineer in Boston and was kind enough to lend me a suit for my brother's wedding the weekend before trials.

Phil Henson:  Phil has been mostly been sweeping since college, trying to make his mark in the light 2-.  In 2011, Phil raced in the U-23 light pair for the USA.  This was Phil's first year focused primarily on the 1x.  He trains out of Craftsbury and his parents live in New Jersey.

Tobin Mcgee:  Tobin is from New York and currently trains at Riverside.  He has been on two national teams: once in the U-23 light 4x in 2010 and once in the lightweight 8+ in 2013.  He currently works as an engineer.

And then there is me to round out the lineup.

It is a solid group of guys.  Lots of experience, with a great coaching staff and rowing community to back us up.  Trials has already started, but we are racing unopposed.  We will come down the race course on Wednesday morning at 7:00 AM to secure our berth.  We will be racing with a focus on practicing a good rhythm and getting a measure of our speed.  I am so close to attaining this 11 year dream, is is surreal.

Riverside and Pan Am Trials

I went to Riverside along with Phil Grisdela, Phil Henson, Jake Georgeson, Pete Schmidt, and Tobin McGee to try and put together a competitive men's 2x for Pan Am Trials and, we hoped, a men's light 4x for Senior Trials.  Margot Shumway was still coaching there, which I think is terrific.  Margot is one of those amazing coaches who is undervalued - her athletes benefit a great deal from her presence and involvement.  We tried to get Hugh McAdam and Matt O'Leary into our group as well, but they paired up into a double without selection.  Can't blame them for it - they just had a different belief into what and who would make a fast boat.

So we grinded through two weeks of seat racing in 2xs.  At the end of it, Pete and Henson were out with rib pain.  Jake and I were double together, and Tobin and Gris were doubled together for Pan Am Trials.  I was very happy to get Jake as a partner.  He had done the best in seat racing, and we had trained and raced together in 2013.  It was pretty easy for us to get the boat moving well together and agree on a race attack.

We got to Princeton the day before the time trial.  USRowing has started shifting time trials into the afternoon.  Nothing is quite as much fun as having to make weight for a 6:00 PM race - you spend the whole day eating little or nothing, throw on a bunch of layer in muggy weather, and grind it out for a few ounces on the warmup erg.  Yay.

Our time trials was probably our best rhythm of the weekend.  We felt like the conditions and out focus really helped us find that light and quick blade placement that allowed us to really tap deep into our aerobic system without getting tight or muscley.  We finished third, behind the Malta/CBC combo and the Hugh and O'Leary double.  Given our results from NSR I, this was no surprise.

Slugging out a great rhythm in our time trial.

We finished second in our heat to Colin and Austin, which forced us into the Reps that afternoon, which we won easily with a rough row to get a spot into the A Final along with Tobin and Gris, Matt and Hugh, and Colin and Austin.  We knew it was going to be toughed, but we had big dreams.  Unfortunately, those dreams did not materialize.  We had an OK race for our final, about 5 seconds off of Colin and Austin and 2 seconds off of Matt and Hugh.  We would not be the Pan Am 2x.

Shortly after the conclusion of the regatta, we also learned that Colin, Austin, Matt, and Hugh were going to race the light 4x at Senior Trials as well.  Now, I am a big advocate of always having a belief in yourself that winning is possible.  But I am also an economist and statistician by training.  I weigh my expected costs and benefits.  So those of us who had been training out of Riverside for the last four weeks decided we would abandon our goal of racing the 4x internationally this year.  Instead we would be making a leap for the lightweight 8+.

SoCal and NSR I

I headed to Long Beach in order to enjoy a more focused training environment.  By staying with my mom, I could ease financial constraints.  By staying in a warmer climate, I could get more excited to train outside all day.  I was logging tons of miles on the water with my buddy, Will Young, at both the Long Beach Rowing Association and with the SoCal Scullers Club.  Plus I got to enjoy some wicked cool bike trails.

Riding with Tristan, who has been kicking my butt around since we rowed together at UPS.

I always love training in Long Beach.  The weather is always amazing, and the people in the rowing community there are extremely generous.  Plus it is nice to be in the comfort of a family home.  I was there for about two and a half weeks before flying out to Princeton to meet up with the SoCal team.  For the first at an NSR, I was going to use my own shell to race, having gotten it out there with the California Rowing Club's trailer.  I was also staying with the SoCal gang with a host family in Princeton.  I am always grateful for this kind of hospitality - the cost of a week in a hotel can be a deal breaker for regatta travel.

I was feeling good going into the race.  I was managing a hip flexor pull well, and though I was nervous for the time trial, I knew I could be competitive with the athletes there.  I also knew that my small size was always an advantage for these multi-race regattas.  I never have to watch my weight when I row the 1x, so when my peer are dieting and sweating daily, I am going back for seconds at the dinner table.

The time trial went well.  I was in the middle of the pack and confident I could do better in side-by-side racing.  However, due to inclement weather the next day, our heats were canceled so we were all advanced directly to either the A/B semifinal or the C final based on our time trial results.  This goes to show: ALWAYS RACE EACH RACE LIKE IT'S YOUR LAST.  I ended up on the good side of the cut and went to a semifinal.

I knew I was in for a hard race in the semifinal.  Jake Georgeson and Phil Grisdella were going to be the guys I knew I had to knock out, and both had beaten me down hard at Head of the Charles this last fall.  The weather was a rough tail wind, so times would be fast, but not too fast due to the chop.  I focused on rowing a controlled and clean race to the 1500 meter mark, basing at a 31-32 stroke rate.  I looked across and saw Jake just barely up on me; Phil had fallen back.  I shifted rhythm, rowing my shorter, "loopy" strokes that I save for these conditions.  I took the rate up to 37 and kept my hands low to avoid the waves.  I built speed and walked through Jake, finishing 3rd in the semi by about 3 seconds and advancing to the A-final.  It was a hard race, to say the least.

Flying off the line in what was a great semifinal race.

My expectations for the A-final were a little shapeless.  I felt that the guys I was racing were, in general, faster scullers than me.  I came out hard and tried to maintain pace with the top guys.  This strategy can either help you find a new limit, or slam you against the wall.  I hit the wall at 1000 meters and fell well off pace, catching a small crab in my last 300 meters.  Still, I was very satisfied, being able to walk away 6th overall, my second time in an A-final at a US selection regatta.

After chatting up with all the usual suspects, I decided the place to be was going to be Boston.  I enjoyed some celebrations that night, bought a train ticket, found a place to crash, and started getting ready for the next stage of my Spring: Pan Am Trials.

Winter Training and Planning

I started getting everything planned out for my season in December.  I made arrangements to go on-leave from my department at the University of Washington for the Spring quarter and to have a replacement hired to continue my research assistance.  Once coaching at Holy Names died down, I added a few more tutoring clients so I could keep bringing in cash.  I figured if I could end March with $7K-$8K in savings, I would be able to cover my living and training costs for the summer (excluding international travel).

I did the bulk of my training in Seattle for December.  Seattle Rowing Center organized a training trip to Florida, but I have never been one to get into those sorts of things.  Seattle water stays liquid all winter, and traffic dies down significantly as it gets colder, so I find the training conditions pretty ideal.  I sleep in a little more, enjoy holiday parties, and bulk up my "winter coat."  I traveled to OKC for a little bit to visit with my Dad's family and to Long Beach to see my mom, briefly enjoying both as training venues as well.

As the racing season got closer, the sense of urgency becomes stronger.  I was hoping for a big breakthrough at Ergomania this year, but did not break 6:25.  Sort of a medium performance for me - not my best or worst in the last year.  I chalked it up to nerves - all of my training and practice data suggested my fitness and strength were greater than ever, so I took the result in stride.

Our first race as a training group is the Elk Lake Spring Regatta.  This one is always a blast, as it is an opportunity to mix it up with some elements of the Canadian Training Center guys.  This year's regatta was made extra special since Keara was coming along to race as well and we were able to get a solid hotel room close to the course.  I signed up for both the heavy and light 1x races in order to maximize my trips down the course, and the racing was great.  I finished 3rd overall in the light 1x, finishing behind a guy from the Canadian National Team sweep group and a top development guy who had finished second at Canadian Henley last year.  We were all within two seconds of each other across the line.  The heavyweight final also ended up nicely, as I was able win a rematch against the winner of the light 1x and finish 4th overall.

At the end of my Winter quarter, I had my single shipped down to Long Beach via Crew Classic, and when March ended, I said goodbye to Keara and my team to head to Southern California where I could prepare for NSR I in a focused environment and stay with my Mom.