Monday: Rowing a quad with the girls

Romana had to be in Pardubice for work. Usually she has her appointments in the morning and is back in time to coach her girls, but today I volunteered to look after them.

They had scheduled 1500m intervals (3 of them) on the erg, which was sensible given the predictions of freezing temperatures and a 4 Beaufort wind, which can throw nasty chop on our lake. However, when we arrived at the rowing club, it was sunny and the wind direction was such that there was a lot of rowable water. Three girls: Lenka, 15, and an experienced rower. Iva, 14, who has rowed in the girls 13/14 category, and Klara, 17, who is just learning to row. I decided to take them in the quad and do technique/extensive Steady State. I promised them I will explain to Romana. I also promised they will not escape from the OTE intervals.

I put the “girls double” on 3 and 4, Klara on 2 and I rowed bow position to take care of the course and to keep an eye on Klara as the least experienced. But she picked up quite well. We did rowing by pairs on the first 1km. Then we used the second warming up km to work our way to a full stroke, starting with hands only, etc. After 3km we were rowing steady enough that we could add some pressure. So the training ended up to be low stroke rate (17-18spm) with high pressure and a sloooow recovery to feel the boat run (and give Klara some time to sequence everything right).

Worked out pretty well and it was fun to do. Turns out, I thought I was doing nothing myself, but when I did some stretching this evening I found out that I had taxed my muscles a bit. So far, so good.