Saturday: 1x mM and 2x mM races; Skif Open

Two “1k” races for me on Saturday, the single and the double. And then the “Open Single” sprint at the end of the day.

Single

Masters single was broken into four “finals” with three competitors each, grouped by age. So I was up against Milan Viktora senior from Hodonin and Mr Milkov from Ostrava. Both should be easy prey. I was in lane 1, which is the outer lane. Here is a Google earth view. The start is at the bottom right of the picture and the finish is where the black and light blue trajectories meet. The line-up at the start is diagonal to compensate, but it is not enough. Normally, lane 2 is the best lane but because there was very little current due to the drought, lane 3 was the best lane this weekend. Viktora was in lane 3.

Breclavmap

Out of the start I was leading. Milkov fell back quite rapidly and I was also rowing away from Viktora. However, in each turn he cought back some space. The referee was sending me back to lane 1 when I tried to cut the corners a bit, so I ended up rowing the full lane 1 distance. At the last turn he came back to one length behind me, so I had to keep the pressure up until the last meters of the race.

The prize was a medal and a “City of Breclav” beer mug. My time over the “1k” was 2:55.58 and Viktora finished in 2:59.84, Milkov in 3:21.48. Clearly, the course must be shorter than 1km. Actually, it looks like 750m according to CrewNerd. My time was the 2nd time of all the races. Cernak rowed 2:47. 73.


|Dist_|Time_|Pace__|_SPM__|avg HR|max HR|DPS|Remarks
|01279|14:12|05:33.1| 19.2 | 140 | 178 |04.7|row to start
|00248|00:57|01:54.9| 35.6 | 180 | 186 |07.3|race 1st 250m
|00252|00:56|01:51.3| 32.8 | 187 | 187 |08.2|race 2nd 250m
|00246|00:57|01:55.7| 30.6 | 187 | 188 |08.5|race 3rd 250m
|00207|01:39|03:58.7| 19.7 | 171 | 186 |06.4|row to dock

breclav

Double

Two hours later we had to line up for the double race. We were in lane 2 with Neratovice in lane 1 and Ostrava (Cernak and Pesat) in lane 3. Ostrava are very fast and experienced guys who row the double together for ages. They are a bit older than we, though. I thought we had a chance to beat them.

We were out of the start fast and leading, but our technique was quite bad. Martin on stroke was rowing short and racing. I should have adapted but I stuck to my long and strong finish, with the result that I had difficulty following his high stroke rate.

At each turn they took back a little of our lead and by the last turn they were suddenly rowing in front of us. We couldn’t catch them any more on the last straight 250m. Smart rowing from the old chaps!

Skif Open

At 7pm I rowed the “Skif Open”. I gave my place in the masters 8+ to another guy in order to be ready for skif open, as I was rowing in the first heat. Nineteen single rowers had registered. I was the only Masters rower in the field. The rest was a mix of juniors and seniors.

This race is rowed on a straight line, and the total distance is a little over 300m. There were 7 heats with 3 or 2 rowers. The winners of the heats would be through to Sunday’s semifinals. The others would return to the start immediately to row the repechage. The four winners of the repechage would row back to the start immediately to row the “K.O. round”, to determine the 2 last semifinalists.

So the easiest way to progress is to win the heat, because surviving the repechage and KO round would be extremely hard.

Heat

I blew my start. The second stroke was unbalanced. I came in third place in 59.77 seconds. The winner was clear after 10 strokes (he finished in 53.30) and I was one length behind number two, so in the last 10 strokes I released the pressure a bit. Back to the start to join the other 12 losers.

Repechage

Up against two young guys. I guess I surprised them a bit. I rowed a very good start and was leading by a quarter length. I had to work very hard to stay ahead of the two other guys but I managed. The commentator commented that surprisingly, the Masters rower from Brno wins the repechage. ๐Ÿ™‚

It felt good to send those kids home. ๐Ÿ˜‰

My time was 56.92 seconds.

K.O. round

Back to the start to join the other 4 survivors. I had a disadvantage that I was up against the winner of the first repechage, so I had less time to recover.

This time my opponent was leading out of the start. In the first 200m I managed to stay within half a length of him but then my strength left me and he won. My time was 59.24 and he beat me by 3 seconds.

All in all a pretty tiring day but the sprinting was good fun.

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