San Diego and Erg Movement

This weekend, we took the Holy Names Academy team down to San Diego Crew Classic where they face some stiff competition and threw down their best races yet. Our Varsity 8+ finished 11th, the same position as last year, the Junior Varsity 8+ finished 11th, two places back from last year, and our Light 8+ finished 6th, a first showing for HNA at this regatta. It seems as though the athletes rose to their highest level - they were technically proficient and rowed to exhaustion. We have the greatest depth in athletic talent that we have had in years, so this leads me to scratch my head and wonder how it is we are so far back on the curve. We will be tinkering with training and rigging throughout the next 7 weeks in the lead up to Regional Championships.

Today, I hit my PR on a 2K erg test and at a lower weight than I usually train at. Pretty jazzed about this, especially so close to NSR I and II. I plan on being on fire in Princeton this year.

Hope to get some pictures up soon from this weekend. I am super proud of the girls and had a great time down there - San Diego is always such a pleasant getaway at this time of the year.

Green Lake and Pocock Scrimmage

Pretty good weekend for rowing - Saturday really felt like the first day of Spring for the Pacific Northwest. Yesterday was the Green Lake Regatta, the opening sprint race for Northwest Jr. and Master teams. Both Seattle Rowing Center and my own girls at Holy Names Academy were well represented, taking home a number of top 3 finishes. I am particularly hopeful for my JV and lightweight athletes, both of which had strong performances while missing 4 of their heavy hitter due to injury. It made me optimistic both for San Diego and for Regionals in May.

David Smith was around this week and it was my first week back on the Row Perfects and water full time. My back is feeling great; certainly much better than a month ago. I am getting very jazzed for NSR I in late April. Today we did some 1500 meter pieces at a 30 against the folks at Pocock. Helen cleaned up the women pretty nicely and I held onto to Warren North pretty well - having never beaten him or been within contact of him on the water, to duke it back and forth and barely get taken at the end is a huge improvement for me over the last 12 months. And Ryan rocked out their big guys, though none of those PRC heavies are particularly stellar.

Looking forward to the next 4 week push - one month to the big one. I have my weight sitting at 153 and am looking to find some big guys with whom I can battle out in team boats.

Elk Lake Spring Regatta

Pretty awesome weekend up in Victoria for Seattle Rowing Center. We brought up a hefty contingent of junior and elite athletes. All level performed well. Our junior team won the women's Jr. 2x and the Men's Jr. 2x. We had strong contention in other events, with a number of second and third place finishes that came down to the wire. Our elite team won the women's Open 1x. I raced in the Open 1x against the big boys and finished 3rd with some pretty hearty (and exhausting) racing. I was quite proud of my effort and composure in a gnarly cross wind. I lost only to the largest and fiercest of fat-weight rowers. I also finished 2nd in the lightweight 2x, in which my partner was a Junior with an erg score barely under 7:00. We lost only to the Canadian national team. Our Open 4x race was run uncontested with little to write home about. All and all, and fantastic event. The host were well organized, and though the venue was muddy, the weather was reasonably quality with no meaningful delays. I always enjoy a trip up to The Promised Land: Canada!

Ergomania

I won the lightweight division for the 2011 Northwest CRASH-B qualifier. I went 6:28.1, which is not a PR but is a season best. I think I was much better prepared for this test than others; I was more warmed up and had better nutrition and race planning/pacing. I busted out the best sprint I have ever had on a 2K. It was great.

SRC did well as a whole. We won the lightweight collegiate, openweight junior girl, and took second in the open men and open women events. My Holy Names girls made a strong showing and took 3rd in the lightweight junior girls event with a number of PRs in both the openweight and lightweight events.

We just bagged a bunch or Rowperfects for the boathouse and Carlos Dinares is moving in to provide coaching to masters in the Seattle Area. Folks around here should get excited as Carlos is a quality technical coach with access to tremendous resources. Seattle U has also moved into the boathouse. The club is doing an excellent job of diversifying its revenue sources without expanding costs.

I am getting pretty pumped for our opening Spring regatta in Victoria in a month as well as for more erg testing. The goal is 6:23 or fast this season.

ID Camp

Sam and I went to the Northwest Senior/U23 ID camp yesterday at the UW boathouse. USRowing sent out Sloan DuRoss to run the testing. We conducted a 30 second, 500 meter, and 30 minute test. I was under the bar for the shorter, sprint tests and brought the heat for the 30 minute test, as I would expect. I did not set a personal best for the 30 minute test, but I came very close and with the rate caps I was happy with my performance. We had to set our drag factor to 125, much heavier than Sam and I are used to (I am usually at 115). My 500 meter test was a personal best.

I had the good fortune to get boated in an 8+ after the erg testing. I had not rowed sweep in a serious boat since Spring of 2008. It was a little disappointing, to be honest. I was hoping that more of the top Huskies would be out for the camp. As it was, it was mostly younger athletes mixed from UW and OSU, including a couple of other small guys. I Have this assumption that a boat like an 8+ should just be set. There is no excuse for less than perfect rowing on such a stable platform. However, we were far from perfect and far from stable. Thank goodness I scull and don't have to deal with such hodge-podge lineups.

We have our next 2k test this Friday and after that I leave for a weekend in Long Beach to visit my family and girlfriend and to do some rowing under the sun.

Winter Training

We are deep in winter training for the 2010-2011 season and it is a slug fest. My teammate, David Smith, summarized it best: "some programs focus on high intensity, others on high volume. [Coach] Conal does both at the same time!" We are gobbling up 150K a week between the erg and water, plus mileage running, biking, and time getting huge in the weight room. Video review is becoming more regular, and the presence of visiting athletes during the holiday season increases the competitive intensity of the boathouse.

We recently completed a battery of erg tests - everything from 60 minutes to 10 strokes - in order to find athletes' weaknesses and strengths. I am looking forward to several weeks focused on maximal power.

Next on our race agenda is Ergomania to cap off the winter season. After that we will undergo a long stretch to prepare for the NSR regattas which begin in late April.

In the mean time, the focus is on developing fundamentals and avoiding injuries.

Head of the Lake: Intro to Winter

I had and excellent Head of the Lake in the 1x this year; I finished second, my best performance ever. I beat out Meenk and Austin, both of whom had beaten me last year. Meenk finished 5th at Charles too, which leads me to believe that my race performances was not as superb as it felt. I was happy to also finish ahead of Van Bolt, a smaller UW rower who seems to be training at Pocock. Warren North was the only one to finish ahead of me. He continues to lead me in our on-the water encounters, having also beaten me at NSR I and Head of the Lake last season. My internal sense of my own race performance suggests that I had a lot of room for improvement by simply calming down and turning my focus inward. I became frantic during the race and lost a lot of time as I turned my attention to my opponents' performances rather than my own. I must learn to focus better.

Lindsay Meyer finished 10th at the World Championship Regatta. We are all very proud of her and wish her a well-deserved rest as she gathers herself for a return to Stanford in the Spring.

Sam and I now go into winter training until the next NSR I in late April. One of my goals is to make it through all of my workouts this winter and avoid any injuries that may inhibit my training. Already I have some agitation in my shoulder reminiscent of an injury I suffered my third year of college. But I persist. The goal is sub-6:20 by Ergomania and sub-20:12 for my 6k test. I would like to finish somewhere in the B final or better at NSR this year, which to me means breaking 7:15 on the Seattle 2K course. I am very excited for this season.