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Sep 17 2017

Bled – which photo to order?

Sportgraphics.com has finally published pictures from Bled World Rowing Masters Regatta. I collected all example photos I could find from our group. Now which photo do you like most? Let me know!

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Sep 14 2017

Masters Worlds – the last day (WIN)

Sunday. The last day of racing, entirely devoted to the mixed disciplines, and the day to drive home.

It had been raining all night, but when we rode the bike to the car park close to the rowing center, it was relatively dry. Our mixed double was scheduled for 12:33, but Romana was rowing in a mixed C 8+ with our joyful French friends, in the morning.

The same interesting ritual of determining who would row on which side and where to sit, and this time I took pictures of it. I am fascinated by people who, when they see someone taking a picture, snap into ‘funny picture for the internet’ mode, as demonstrated by the cox of the eight.

As expected, the eight was not rowing in the front of the field. As expected, they had a lot of fun. I did a quick inspection of our trailer and took this picture:

Around 10:30, the weather got worse. The light rain turned into rain, and later into heavy rain. Romana and I spent most of the time in the food tent, drinking coffee and eating donuts. 

Then, it was time to go. As Romana had already raced, her warming up routine differed from mine, and I really didn’t fancy running in the rain. So I made a change. After changing to race gear and dropping my back at the luggage drop off, I headed to the erg room, upstairs in one of the buildings in the rowing center. I jumped on a RP3 erg and rowed for ten minutes. I had no feedback on how hard I was rowing, but my routine was simply ten minutes row with a few speed bursts in the final five minutes. 

I do like the feel of the RP3. Definitely closer to on the water rowing than the static Concept2 erg. I enjoyed going higher rate and having the direct start of the drive, as opposed to the sloppy catch on a static C2. I even slightly started wanting to own such a machine, but I then reminded myself that I was going to put my money on on the water related gear. I also feel that a C2 on slides is a decent alternative, with the added benefit of using a PM which makes resukts comparable with C2 ergs worldwide.

I took a glance at the C2 dynamic in the corner of the gym, but refrained from trying it out for a direct comparison. 

I grabbed my umbrella and headed out, into the rain. 

Some friends helped carrying our blades, and just before 12:00 we were on the water. It was raining harder. Luckily, our two loops of warming up kept us warm. 

We were at the pre start about 15 minutes before our race time and waited. By now it was raining very hard. Martin and Jitka, a Czech Masters mixed double who we race on home races, were waiting in the same lane for the race after ours. Jitka is a professional fitness instructor and she does look like you expect a female fitness instructor to look. Including sun glasses planted on forehead. 

Martin turned around, a big smile on his face, and asked me if we had a hairdryer in our boat.

“Jitka’s hair has become wet. We do have sunglasses on board, but no dryer.”

We were all laughing. The joys of mixed rowing. 

Not long after that, we removed our soaked upper layer of clothing and tucked it away in the boat, where it would absorb the rain water that we had collected. Luckily, we didn’t have to wait for our race to start, because it was chilly in just a uni and a shirt.

We were on lane 6 and we didn’t know any of the other competitors. 

We had a good start. I timed it right, starting the stroke exactly when I saw the starter lowering the flag (which you can spot earlier than hearing the sound of “go”). The second start stroke was not ideal but we were there and gaining speed fast.

In fact, after about 100 meters, we were in front, with only one boat level with us. 

With 750 meters to go, Romana’s killer instinct kicked in and she called for a set of power strokes. I rated up slightly (back to 36spm), worried if the pace was sustainable, and we started to pull away slightly from the boat in lane 2 (Abingdon/City of Oxford).

That gave confidence, so with 500m to go it was me who called for another power ten, and this time we were able to break them. I could see it from how they rowed. They were hurting and mentally accepting a second place.

All the while it was raining hard.

They were not far behind with 250 meters to go and we had to continue rowing hard and avoid mistakes in order to win, but passing the 250 sign I was starting to enjoy the row. Somehow our stroke had felt rushed for the entire race and I spent a lot of time worrying if I should rate down to go faster or not, but now I didn’t care any more. Perhaps part of the rushed feeling was due to us being super precise at the catch and our stroke just felt fast and light. 

All the while it was raining hard.

Crossed the line first! Yay! 

Result MMixC2x

I had heard a comment at the rowing center earlier, from a multi-medalling rower, that mixed races don’t really count, but I disagree with that of course. 

We paddled to the medals ceremony dock where we met Míša and Petr, the Czech winners of the preceding race, and while we were waiting for them to get their medals, Jitka and Martin came by winning their heat by a very small margin. So apart from Karel and Vendula, who withdrew because of Karel’s back problems, the entire Czech Masters mixed 2x crowd won at the worlds. Mixed rowing is popular here and taken very seriously, and it showed.

While we were getting our medals, an older lady from our club, Darina, was trying to master her smartphone and take pictures. I have seen the pictures and even commented that Darina is a hidden journalistic talent, but unfortunately I forgot to get the pics off her phone. So for now, this is the picture I have: 

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Got the pictures from Darina’s phone.

Having received our medals, we paddled back to the rowing center, carried our boat to the end of the boat area (which was quite a challenge in the mud) and put the boat in slings. Our club members volunteered to prepare the double for transport, which was great because I was shivering by now.

I hurried back to the luggage area, where I received congratulations from our French friends, and then changed into dry clothes. 

Then I went to the parkking on top of the hill  to get our minivan, which had been parked on this muddy meadow for five days. I did make a mistake there. Instead of driving forward, over the sidewalk, onto the road, I backed up and tried to drive across the muddy field to the official exit of the parking. About half way, I got stuck in the mud and couldn’t move the car any more. I talked to the guy in charge of the parking and he was great. He called a friend with a tractor, which arrived about ten minutes later. Just enough time for me to read the manual and find the towing eye. 

I got to the end of a long queue of towing cars. 

About two hours later we were seeing our trailer. 

The issue was thst the trailers were on an extremely muddy field and the organizers had only one 4×4 and one tractor to tow. So it took about ten minutes per trailer. Some people had their towing car in line but their trailer wasn’t ready, causing more delays. We spent three hours in the queue. At 6pm, we departed to Brno.

We arrived home at 1am, after a long, rainy, but otherwise uneventful drive. I was in bed by 2am. 

It was worth it. It was a great regatta. I am proud of my two second places in the single. Not bad for a skinny guy like me. I am extremely happy with the mixed double medal. And I had a great time talking to all the people interested in rowing data. I met s jolly bunch of Frenchmen and got to row the eight. We had very good dinners in the local restaurants and great eveningss at the Bled promenade. 

This week

No rowing far. On Monday evening, we unloaded the trailer in the rain. On Tuesday I had to work long, and on Wednesday I left for a two day business trrip. I am typing this blog post on the international train Vienna – Warsaw. Tomorrow, I will start fall training.

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Sep 14 2017

Saturday – Bled Masters Worlds B1x

For Friday’s fantastic C 1x race, I wasn’t nervous at all. Saturday morning 9:00 was the scheduled time for my B1x race. Between 2am and 6am I didn’t sleep much. I was constantly replaying Friday’s race. I guess it was a consequence of being so close to winning. 

As usual in such situations, I dozed away just before the alarm clock rang. I did a quick breakfast in the hotel, already dressed in race gear, and then cycled to our car. This ride through and around Bled is a perfect warming up. There are a few short climbs, and it has the right duration. Romana rode with me and helped me, so the pre race routine was efficient and calm. I checked my heel straps. I was hydrated. I just felt tired. 

Romana snapped a pre-race picture and I rowed up the very beautiful Bled lake. The usual two loops and I arrived just in time for the start. I wasn’t nervous. At this point, I have enough race experience to be calm and focused. But I was tired. I had the feeling that everybody around me was going to be faster than I. Their practice starts and short pieces at race pace looked all really fast.

The weather was colder, and a bit calmer than on Friday. The cross wind was virtually absent. Ideal conditions. 

Attention/go. When I checked, about 10 strokes later, I was somewhere in the middle of the field, with the Dutch guy sticking his bow out a bit further. I shortened the high power phase and tried to rate down to a sustainable pace. 

Half way, passing the island with the church, was somewhere in the middle of the pack. And that was really the last time I checked. I was in lane 1 and some of the fast guys were over on the far lanes, so I just focused on my rowing and my SpeedCoach. The SpeedCoach was not telling me good news. I was having trouble keeping the power over 300W and Work per Stroke was way under the 600J value that is my target. 

As I neared the 250m to go mark I could hear Romana. She was standing on a little balcony-like pontoon right next to lane 1. As you near the finish, the lake suddenly becomes very narrow, and in lane 1 you almost have the feeling that you are going to hit the bank. The little pontoon there is an ideal point to see the rowers from very close and cheer for them in the final 250 meters. I also heard a woman shout “Hop hop hop” and I assumed that was for a competitor. 

I focused on a point far behind my stern and just tried to squeeze out my remaining energy, pulling good strokes. I finished fourth, or so I thought. Rowing back to the rowing center, Natasha Kral took this great picture:

 

Natasha Kral, the wife of Andreas Kral, a friend from the rowing scene in Vienna, has many great pictures of Czech and Austrian rowers on her Facebook page. By the way, my club CVK Brno were the first in the Czech Republic to have the club name on our long sleeved race shirts. Now many clubs are doing it.

At the rowing center, I performed the hardest part of the race, carrying the boat back to the rack. When I returned for my blades, I met Romana who told me I was second, which I didn’t believe. Apparently, I had raced a fantastic race catching up and passing two guys in the final stretch. I was completely unaware of that, but that is maybe better. Here are the official results which confirm my wife’s assessment:

Result MB1x

The Dutch guy had rowed a controlled race, but I had beaten the rest of the field. My time was worse than on Friday, but seeing my name on second place immediately made me feel better about the effort.

Here is a comparison between the two races in the single:

It was raining and I was cold. Romana and I rode back to the hotel. There was no more racing for us on Saturday, so we rested, then went to Bled for a coffee and a Kremšnita. Then we spent some time in the boat area getting the single and two pairs ready for transport. I also picked up a Roseman single belonging to a German guy, for taking it to Brno for a repair. 

Got a message from Quiske that they finally had their experimental virtual reality system ready, so I had to try it out. Kristina took a few pics of me trying out the future.

I shall be honest. I don’t see the benefit over streaming the images to a normal big screen or external monitor. We rowers are used to taking quick glances. It is nice to see the metrics in front of you but I feel the Virtual Reality glasses cause eye fatigue, are unpleasant when you are sweaty, and currently need too much pre row fiddling with. Streaming the metrics from your rowing app to a big screen does make a lot of sense, though. 

The weather got slightly better, so we went to the grandstand to watch some racing. 

Zuzka’s water bottle rolled into the lake and her trying to recapture it was an entertaining intermezzo between the races:

She succeeded eventually. No risk of a water bottle causing a racing crew to crab, and the beautiful Bled lake was spared of plastic waste.

Around 4pm, I had finally digested the kremšnita so we headed to Grajska Plaža,  a restaurant with a lake view, for an excellent late lunch.

Wr ended the day on the promenade, but this time Romana and I went to bed really early. With the mixed double race and the drive home, Sunday would be a long and tough day. 

Just because I just discovered them, I am adding two photos by Natasha Kral, taken back in May at the Piestany races. I won the single there.

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Sep 13 2017

Friday – Racing continues in Bled

In a sense, this was the day I had been preparing for for two years. At the end of the afternoon, I would row my Masters C 1x race.

But first, the eight! Through Facebook, I had linked up with some French rowers and promised them to row an eight in the C age category. Racing at 11:13, the meet up was at 9:50 in front of the place where you get bow numbers. It was interesting, as I didn’t know any of them, but in the end we found each other. They were a jolly bunch. We spent about 25 minutes counting to eight, because people were constantly disappearing and reappearing (toilet visit, greeting friends, other vague things that are apparently highly important an hour before race time) and figuring out the distribution of bow and stroke side rowers. In the end, one of the French guys called all stroke side to his side. So we had a group of five and a group of three, so I ran over to bow side. 

Then we determined the order. Nobody wanted to row stroke seat, but eventually a volunteer was found, and then we just lined up behind him in random order.

Then we went to find our boat, an older Sims (?) eight. Carried it off to the dock, waited for boat and crew to be identified and checked and en launched. With three minute race intervals and eight racing lanes, you would expect the dock to be a mad, chaotic mess, but to the credit of the organizers everything went calmly and there was hardly any waiting. And that is getting 160 boats on the water per hour.

I was seated on 7 (or 2 as the French called it) behind stroke seat. Our stroke did his best but I am not sure thst we didn’t have a better stroke on one of the other seats. We did have a lovely and very good cox, and because 2 in the crew didn’t understand French and some of the French didn’t understand English, I got to listen to every command in two languages. We did a few practice starts and ten stroke pieces and discovered that setting the boat was our biggest challenge. We also decided to row a slightly lower stroke rate.

 21556963_352838858486485_476714497_oWe were last out of the start and we consolidated that position. For the entire race, we were trailing about one length behind the next boat and were unable to take them back. We didn’t lose any ground either, we just rowed and rowed and that was it. The photo was taken just before the finish line. I am on the far right. Stroke seat is outside the picture. This photo made it to the World Rowing site. My first picture on World Rowing!

Spirits were high though and our cox made a fun picture:

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Everybody was happy!

Then I had a few hours before my main event. I helped Romana with her ad hoc French/German/Scottish/Czech quad.

And a quick post race picture, using beauty filter 4:

 

With all that and some race watching it quickly became time to prepare for my own race.  With the large distances between our boat rack and the water, this requires careful planning. Carry sculls to dock: 7 minutes. Drop bag. Five minutes waiting in line. Warming up run. Fifteen minutes. Waiting in line to get bow number. Five minutes. Back to boat. Seven minutes. Carry boat to dock. Ten minutes. Romana was racing the double thirty minutes before me, so she wasn’t around to help me. 

I was about to take my last sip of water, some fast sugars in gel form (for their placebo effect) and carry the boat to the dock. I put the single in slings and checked the heelstrings. Damn. They were not secured. So i had to take out the entire footstretcher and readjust the heel strings. Without heel strings in order, I wouldn’t pass the boat safety inspection (and rightfully so). So that was another few minutes lost. Not a big deal, except that I forgot to take my sugar and water, so I was pretty thirsty rowing to the start.

The good thing was that I wasn’t nervous at all. I didn’t know any of the other competitors in my heat and could not predict where I would end up. I was hoping to row in front, i.e. The first three boats, but who knew?

After two loops between the 2k point and the start at 1k I was ready, waiting for my race to be called to the pre-start. I was racing in lane 1, where it is difficult to see the people in lanes 7 and 8. 

“Race Uniform. Come to the start.”

I backed into the starting pontoon and aligned the single slightly diagonally because of the crosswind. 

“Two minutes.”

I knew that in Bled, two minutes is about 30 seconds. 

“Quick start.” (That means they are not calling out the boats individually. Good for me. They should always do that.)

“Attention.”

Then a long wait, then the starters flag went up, then a long wait. 

“Go!” We were off. The start was good. I was with the others.

“Ding ding ding dimg ding!” A loud bell called a false start, and we stopped and rowed back into the starting pontoon. Lane six got a yellowcard. I don’t blame him. The long waits between attention and ready are torture, especially in a cross wind.

I had a little chat with the boy on the starting pontoon and then concentrated again,

So we repeated the “quick start”, “attention” and “go” and my second start was superb. The first one was good but this one was better.

About 150m in I was in first or second position, with lane 2 next to me and the others slightly behind. As we continued, the gap between the two of us and the rest of the field widened slightly. I took a quick glance to the far left to check lanes 7 and 8 but they were OK as well. I brought down the power on the SpeedCoach to values in the 3000-400 range, which I knew I could maintain, and battled on.

Lane 2 was not rowing away from me, but he passed the 500m line slightly ahead. That is where I opened my first attack, and I managed to pass him and lead by … perhaps 10cm. 

“Don’t mess it up, I really want to win.” That is what I thought. 

Unfortunately, lane 2 had a similar intention and he slowly caught me back, and 250m before the finish we were even. I rated up. I guess he did as well. Everything became very painful. I stopped checking his position and just rowed and rowed. I screamed, I think, of pain, a few strokes before the finish line, and in the end I didn’t win. A small but significant margin. 

I looked at the Brazilian in lane 2. It was clear that he had had to work very hard for his medal. We were both still breathing hard when the other boats crossed the line and we were told to clear the finish area immediately.

Result MC1x

Slightly disappointed, I rowed past the victory ceremony pontoon. Then it dawned on me that i had rowed a pretty damn good race.

 

In the next heat, my friend and long term opponent Kazimir was racing, and he was leading. I cheered for him and he won! In absolute tikes, he beat me by a second, which is good for him, because I beat him by a large margin at our Masters Nationals. 

Carrying the boat to the rack, I nearly collapsed and two friendly Dutch guys carried the boat for me for the last 300 meters. Then I walked back to the rowing center, picked up my bag, bought a beer, had a chat with Mike, and picked up my sculls. That beer tasted good.

Romana had come fourth in her doubles race, but apart from her it felt like the entire Czech community had watched my race. Lots of congratulations, it almost felt like a win. 

When I found Romana, we pushed our bikes up the hill to the car park, took some clean clothes and rode back to the hotel for a shower. We had a pretty nice dinner in Bled and then joined the festivities on the promenade.

I tried to limit the wine and get to bed early because I would race at 9am the next morning. I didn’t succeed entirely. It is also good to relax with friends.

 

 

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Sep 12 2017

Thursday – World Rowing Masters Regatta – my first race

On Thursday, my brother-in-law Tomas and I would race our B 2x race. Tomas had come over the evening before, would race with me and then spend a few days biking in the Alps. When we launched, it suddenly started to become windy, and the lake became a little choppy.

We haven’t done many sessions together, but I was hoping that our race experience from Trebon would compensate for that. Unfortunately, it didn’t.

Our start was great. This was the only race of the five I did on this regatta where the traffic light system was actually working. I did go off when I “felt” that it would go to green. We were slightly early. The guy on the starting pontoon looked at us in surprise, but the race was started and they didn’t call us back.

Rating down to the middle part of the race, we were not able to find a good rhythm. We were fifth, but a few boats were just in front of us. In the second 500m, I had hope that we could pass one or two boats, but unfortunately that didn’t happen. Too bad. Fifth place.

Our time was very disappointing. With this tailwind, we should have been able to go under 3:30. We clearly didn’t manage the chop.

Result MB2x

 

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I thought we were sixth because we beat two boats. According to the official results we were fifth. The Vikings didn’t show up.

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Romana and Veronika rowed the A 2x and were happy with a fourth place.

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In the evening, I walked up to the Triglav hote, where a small crowd of rowing data fans gathered. Before the talk, I took a picture of the boat area (above) with a million boats. Our boats are not in the picture. They are more to the left.

The seminar on data analytics for rowing was a success. I presented for about 30 minutes, and then we talked for about an hour.

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Sep 12 2017

Tuesday & Wednesday – Travel & First Training in Bled

I haven’t blogged in more than a week. The reason is the World Rowing Masters Regatta. There was simply so much racing and stuff going on and no time to blog. But there was certainly a lot that I want to blog about. So here we go. A series of posts about the most important regatta of the season.

Tuesday

Finally! We are off to Bled. Picked up the rowers at a parking in Brno, then the trailer at the rowing club. Our lake showed its most mirror-like water, so we were tempted to unload the boats and go rowing, but traveling to Bled won.

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The drive was uneventful, luckily. I would hate an “eventful” drive with a boat trailer. The only point where I was a bit nervous was when we chose the left lane at Graz, and were diverted into a very narrow temporary highway lane, separated from upcoming traffic with concrete blocks. Romana was driving and she managed the 7km of driving in this lane with perfect calm. Millimeter precision steering, with a few cm on both sides of the trailer, or so it seemed to me.

Driving into Bled town, my passengers started to make phone calls to announce our arrival and go for a training in the afternoon.

Too early.

We were caught by the organizers and put on a temporary trailer holding area.

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After about an hour of waiting, we were allowed to drive to the venue. So, all in all the wait wasn’t long, and it was a good move by the organizers. If they hadn’t done this, they would have created a traffic jam of trailers on the venue.

Boats were unloaded, and the official Bled 4×4 pulled our trailer to the trailer parking. Romana and I hopped on the bike and rode to our hotel. We checked in, took a shower, and then went into Bled for a nice dinner.

Wednesday

I went for a quick training in the morning. The official training times were between 8am and 10am. First, I took some time to rig the boat. Then I had to carry it about 500m from our rack to the dock. I did two loops of the entire lake. A few practice starts and a few 20-25 stroke intervals.

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In the afternoon, we rode around on the bike. We had a nice lunch on the lake. The racing had already started, but we weren’t racing today, so it was nice to see the boats rowing their warming up.

 

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After that, we watched some races from the grandstand. I saw a regular follower of my blog win, and watched Tom Carter race the Masters A 1x. I also took the opportunity to look around the booths and chat to rowing electronics vendors.

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Sep 3 2017

Goodbye Prygl

Prygl is the nickname of the Brno reservoir. Today was the last training. Tomorrow we’ll load the trailer and on Tuesday morning, we’ll drive to Bled.

On the map, it looks like an easy drive. The familier route to Villach. Then turn left to the Karawanken tunnel, pop out of the tunnel on the Adriatic side of the Alps, a couple of hair pin turns, and we’re there.

Romana and I launched at 5pm in quite rough conditions. We decided to take shelter in the Gorge. In the Gorge, the water was flat but the wind was unpredictable. We did a 5 minute rate ladder, 3 minutes at 26spm, 1.5 minute at 30spm, 30 seconds at race pace, in mostly headwind conditions. We weren’t entirely happy. It’s a fine balance. Sometimes we get that light catch and we’re very close to flying. Sometimes, the timing is off just slightly, and it’s a slog. You don’t see it in the boat speed immediately, but the rowing is without a spark, it’s not playful, and it tires the body much faster than when the fire is on.

We turned around at the Castle, and on the way back we did a few start practices and short race pace pieces.

Then we crossed the lake in a fantastic strong tailwind, with very heavy chop. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Romana enjoyed it less, but she wasn’t as uncomfortable as usually. I just need to set the oarlocks a touch higher when there’s chop, on our double.

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Oh, and I forgot to blog about what I did on Friday and Saturday. On Friday, I cycled to work, through the rain.

At work, I moderated a strategy workshop for the full day. Then I cycled home, through the rain.

On Saturday, the weather was slightly better. I took a lazy day and the only exercise I got was a short cycle tour with my son Robin. We rode into Brno, had a drink at the Selepka pub in the park, and then rode home.

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On Saturday evening, we went to the movies, to see a new movie by Jan Sverak. The English title is “Barefoot on Stalks” and it is a great, slightly nostalgic, movie, telling the childhood memories of the director’s father, from occupied Czechoslovakia in WW II, seen from the perspective of a child. Here is the trailer.

So … goodbye Prygl. We’re going to Bled.

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