Jul 20 2015
Silver Saturday – Czech Masters Open Race Report Part 2
Pre-race
We got up at 6:30, had breakfast and headed to the meeting. As in many Masters sprint races, the races are split when the number of participants is larger than the number of lanes available. With 6 lanes and sometimes many participants, it was interesting to attend this meeting, hear the cancellations and get first hand information on how the races will be split. On top of what we know from Masters worlds, there were the following rules:
- If there are 4 or more participants in one age category in a given race, there will be gold, silver and bronze medals.
-
If there are 3 or few participants in one age category in a given race, there will only be a gold medal for the winner of that age category in that race.
How does that work in practice? Take for example the men’s single sculls in the A-C categories. There were 9 entries in the A category, 6 in B, and 12 in C. Easy. There are two races for A,with 4 and 5 participants, then a full field in B, and 2 races with a full field in C. As the bow number in your category is random, with 12 entries in C it was interesting to see who I would race against. It ended up with a “strong” race and a “weak” race (all on paper), and I was in the “strong” one with fast rowers.
More difficult was the ladies 2x, which ended up with a combined B/C race with three participants of each category and a gold medal handed out to the fastest B as well as the fastest C. You have to study this before you appear at the start, because you may get a medal even when you finish third.
I watched Romana win a bronze medal in the mixed eight (yay!), and then I headed back to my hotel room for some relaxation. My race was scheduled for 11:40 AM.
Single
11:40 time for my single race. Full field of 6 entrants. Absolute favorite was Petr Mitas on lane 2, with me placed second on paper in lane 3, but one should not forget Vladimir Milota over on lane 6. Dekanovsky and Brazda should not be underestimated as well. Suffice to say I was very nervous.
My race plan was to start fast, then do series of 10 strokes intervals rotating my focus between strong tap-down, not digging too deep, back swing, and back. As 500m I would assess my position in the field. If necessary to secure a medal position, I would do a set of ten strokes at 500m to go, and of course a strong last 250m if needed. Most probably Mitas would lead, and if I would challenge him would depend on how far he would be ahead of me. Hopefully I would not have to play catch-up.
The conditions were good. Slight cross wind. Air temperature 32C (very sunny and hot). Mirror flat water.
Ready – attention – row
I had a good start and did 10 very strong strokes immediately after that, then settling into my introspective technique focused rotation of sets of 10 strokes.
Of course I noticed that Mitas was half a length ahead and I was in a line with the others.
Fortunately, I started pulling away from the pack and after 200m I was rowing in a clear second position, one length ahead of Milota, with the three other rowers falling behind.
When I was through counting my sets and arrived at the 500m mark, Mitas was 2 lengths ahead of me, Milota was a length and a half behind me, and the rest was far enough behind to not be a threat.
I skipped the 500m intermediate sprint and started to watch Milota. Mitas was too far ahead. The only way to catch him was to row constant pace and hope that he would fly and die.
Mitas didn’t die. He won.
I came second, but I did have to do some work to counter Milota’s attempts to get closer to me.
Looking at the end result, it seems Mr Dekanovsky got close to Milota and perhaps he was more busy defending his bronze than attacking my silver:
SILVER!!!! HURRAY!!!
I was really happy with the result, and with the time. 3:38 rowed in a crosswind, I consider that my fastest race of this season so far. I have clocked faster times in the Hodonin and Slovakia Nationals but Hodonin is on a fast flowing river and Slovakia was with tailwind.
I happily collected my silver medal:
Here are the statistics from CrewNerd. I didn’t wear the HR belt so I have no heart rate data:
|Start|Stop_|Dist_|Time_|Pace__|_SPM__|DPS|Remarks
|00000|01820|01820|17:08|04:42.4| 18.2 |05.8|pre race
|01820|01916|00096|00:20|01:43.8| 36.2 |08.0|100m #1
|01916|02019|00102|00:21|01:42.6| 34.4 |08.5|100m #2
|02019|02118|00100|00:21|01:45.4| 32.8 |08.7|100m #3
|02118|02216|00098|00:21|01:47.0| 32.8 |08.6|100m #4
|02216|02318|00101|00:23|01:53.3| 31.8 |08.3|100m #5
|02318|02420|00102|00:22|01:48.2| 31.4 |08.8|100m #6
|02420|02520|00100|00:23|01:54.6| 31.9 |08.2|100m #7
|02520|02618|00098|00:22|01:52.0| 32.9 |08.1|100m #8
|02618|02720|00102|00:24|01:57.9| 32.4 |07.9|100m #9
|02720|02817|00097|00:22|01:53.1| 33.1 |08.0|100m #10
|02817|04261|01443|13:00|04:30.2| 18.3 |06.1|cooling down
Good to see the stroke rates. During the race, there was too much sun to see anything on the iphone, so I ignored it and just focused on good rowing. Happy to see that I sustained a 32spm stroke rate and higher. After the race, Petr Mitas told me his ambition is to row a 3:25 time this year in Hazewinkel. I wish him good luck but I hope my race will be without him.
The Quad
Then it was time to relax, recover, and prepare for the quad race. I spent my time sitting under a tree watching the racing, eating high energy food (apple, dried fruit, energy bar, and something that I call “bird food”). It wouldn’t have made sense to go for a full out lunch. I would be asleep by the time I would have to stroke the quad at 2:40pm, three hours after the single.
Watching the races was good fun. Also interesting to see how some older Masters have a very good service. I saw these two gentlemen arriving after their Pair’s race. Two bikini clad ladies quickly entered the lake when they appeared and helped them hold their balance while they got ready to disembark:
Notice the medals around their necks.
The quad race was a full field, 6 entries in the B category. Difficult to predict the result. We had won a year ago, but we had a less experienced sculler this year. Each of the other boats had a few good rowers and a few unknowns.
We launched 25 minutes before the race in bright sunshine and rowed towards the start. We did a few practice starts in the upper part of the lake, seeing a thunderstorm appearing from the south. One of the practice starts was rowed under distant lightning and thunder, which may sound interesting and exciting, but it is slightly scary as well. Hopefully, with the crosswind, the thunderstorm would not come near us.
Temperature at that point: 36 degrees C
Five minutes before the start time it started to rain. A few drops first. Big drops though. Then the rain density increased. Soon, it was a true, heavy downpour. The kind of rain where you see the drops hitting the water surface and creating a splash of a few centimers high. In the 2 minutes remaining to the start we were soaked.
Ready – Attention – Row
Stroking the quad, I had a very special experience during the first stroke. It seemed to happen in slow motion. At the “row” command I started to pull our first swelling, controlled half slide stroke, I heard the whooshing sound of the first stroke of all six quads and I just couldn’t help but enjoy it.
Wow! I thought. This is it. This is why we row.
After that moment of joy, there was business to take care off.
I had instructed my quad to row very focused, eyes in the boat, in the first 500m, and I followed my own instructions. There was only our own quad, CrewNerd and the rudder. I needed to steer a straight course! After the start and a few strokes I checked the stroke rate.
40 spm.
Time to settle.
Tried to settle. Settled for 38spm. Too much adrenalin.
After about 200m my field of fiew featured a few boats and I concluded we were leading. I focused on the boat closest to us, Blesk from Prague, two lanes to my left.
We were rowing away from them.
Cool, I thought. We are in a leading position.
At 600m to go, however, the dream ended. This is when I started to realize that something was wrong. There were only 4 boats behind me. Neratovice, directly to our right in lane 3, must be ahead of us.
A quick glance. Yes, there they were. Two boat lengths ahead of us.
Shit.
Our bow man was supposed to give the call for the final sprint, somewhere between 500m to go and 300m to go.
He gave it with 300m to go. Later he told me he was too exhausted to dare to call earlier. I understand that. After the singles race, my legs were jelly at the half way point as well.
Anyway, we were doing a “leisurely” 36spm at that point (remember we had difficulty getting above 34spm in our trainings) and I increased the stroke rate to 38spm.
Still in the heavy rain.
Blesk was still two boat lengths behind us.
Somewhere around 200m to go we had reduced the margin to about just over a boat length.
Martin, in 2 seat, nearly caught a crab but managed to keep hold of his handle. However, he caused an imbalance that made me slap my blade on the water.
S L O W M O T I O N …
I couldn’t hold of my right hand scull’s handle.
Suddenly it disappeared.
Damn! Stupid rain and very slippery handles.
We were very lucky our Wintech quad doesn’t have forestays. The scull did a 360 degree rotation around the oarlock pin. The blade disappeared under our hull, then surfaced again.
In slow motion, I saw the handle approach me. All this in a heavily shaking boat, as our two bow men tried to row on while Ondra on three couldn’t row and I had just one scull.
I managed to grab it.
Ondra called “We still have silver!” and we started to sprint for the line.
|Start|Stop_|Dist_|Time_|Pace__|_SPM__|DPS|Remarks
|00000|02828|02828|20:40|03:39.2| 24.4 |05.6|pre race
|02828|02924|00096|00:15|01:17.9| 40.3 |09.6|100m #1
|02924|03027|00102|00:17|01:23.1| 37.9 |09.5|100m #2
|03027|03130|00103|00:18|01:27.4| 37.0 |09.3|100m #3
|03130|03225|00096|00:17|01:28.9| 36.6 |09.2|100m #4
|03225|03325|00100|00:18|01:30.4| 36.2 |09.2|100m #5
|03325|03429|00104|00:20|01:36.0| 36.0 |08.7|100m #6
|03429|03526|00097|00:18|01:32.5| 36.3 |08.9|100m #7
|03526|03628|00102|00:20|01:38.3| 37.7 |08.1|100m #8
|03628|03728|00100|00:21|01:45.4| 35.3 |08.1|100m #9 Crab
|03728|03829|00101|00:19|01:33.8| 36.8 |08.7|100m #10
|03829|04999|01171|23:27|10:01.0| 20.5 |02.4|cooling down
I think we exceeded ourselves and despite the crab I am happy with the result. Close enough to 3 minutes in neutral conditions. Faster than we have ever rowed. Holding 37spm average in heavy rain.
The medal ceremony was done in heavy rain at double the speed. The poor girls in their pretty dresses were soaking wet and cold.
We weren’t cold. Actually, getting the shower during the race is quite refreshing.
So two silver medals. Happy with that! Is that the end of a good first day of the Championships? No.
Romana came second in the ladies double C category, but this was a combined race with 3 boats in C and 3 boats in B, so no medal for her:
Romana and I had dinner in a nice restaurant in the historical town:
Then we met some more Masters rowers and we all went to the Historical Brewery, where there were masses of Masters rowers and we had a few beers.
Then we watched the fireworks over the island behind the finish line at 11pm.
Then we went to bed but the hotel room was too hot to sleep even though we had all three windows wide open (no airco) and there were drunk people discussing loudly in the hotel courtyard.
Ideal race preparation for my two races on Sunday, the Men’s Masters B 2x and the Mixed Masters C 2x. More about that in part three of this blog.
Jul 21 2015
Sunday – Czech Masters Open Race Report Part 3
Some more thoughts on Saturday’s results
Going through the results, I have a few things to note on Saturday’s results.
In the singles race, I hoped to be the fastest sculler from our club. I ticked that box, by a very narrow margin. It’s always difficult to compare results between races. Some guy may be winning easily or give up, but still, here’s our club’s Veterans ranking in the single:
Also worth noting is that there were two “C” races because there were 12 entries. Here are the two races compared:
So I would have won the second race against the Slovenian, though one has to note that he won by a huge margin. I met him at the dinner restaurant, where he was sitting at the table next to me. In rudimentary English he explained that the single had been a tough race because of the heat and the sun. Well, who knows.
In the D-F category nobody rowed faster times than in the A-C category, but these were rowed in the afternoon. The fastest time was by Akai (50 years) who rowed a 3:41.50 beating Cernak by 1.8 seconds. Both are excellent scullers. Fastest time in E was 3:48 and only from F upward the results were above 4 minutes. There is a bunch of fast scullers in this country. I would also like to mention the oldest single sculler, 73 years old, who rowed an excellent 4:37 time.
On to the quads. The first heat, A category, was won in 3:04, with a 6 seconds margin. We rowed 3:05.70. I think my crab cost us 2-3 seconds. We missed about 4 strokes but the boat was going fast and doesn’t stop immediately. What is interesting is that in the C category there was a Austrian/Czech composite with 2 scullers from our club who wanted to make a fast quad and went abroad to find some fast scullers. They rowed in the same rainshower as we did, 10 minutes behind us, and finished second place, 3:09.71, four seconds behind the winner in their category, and 4.2 seconds behind us. As their race was a combined race with 3 C boats, one D boat and one F boat, they didn’t get a silver medal. Suffice to say they weren’t very pleased.
Sunday’s results
Masters Men’s Double, B category
This was the fun race of the weekend for me. I am rowing with Radek, a self-taught sculler from the other side of the lake. I am happy with how we row but of course there is room for improvement. I considered ourselves an average competitor in our B race of 4 boats, the 7 entries divided in two races of 4 and 3 boats respectively. We were starting against Neratovice (one guy from the quad that had beaten us on Saturday), Breclav who we had beaten easily in Hodonin (but they claim they are much faster now), and Blesk (unknown).
This was Radek’s only race of the weekend. A year ago he started in the single and had flipped, rowing in third position. This year he lacked the confidence to start in the single and decided to row only the double with me. Of course he was nervous as hell. And when he is nervous he tends to push too hard, dig his sculls deep and waste a lot of energy in the first half of the race. So I told him the race plan was a fast start but then settle quickly in a sustainable pace and focus on light catches, blades not too deep. We would start “racing” at the 500m mark. I told him to not watch the competitors and keep his eyes in the boat.
Conditions: 25 degrees at 10 AM. It felt more like 30. Slight cross/headwind.
We started well but the “false start” sirens went off and we had to get back to the starting line. Blesk in the lane next to us had moved very very early.
Our second start was slightly worse but acceptable. I lowered to 32spm and started to focus on technique. We were in first position and gradually pulling away from the others.
With 500m to go we were leading by a length and a half. I decided to not increase the pace, just continue to row. With 300m to go I noticed that Neratovice were gaining on us so I called “finish” and increased the stroke rate. I was comfortable but Radek behind me was already out of energy. Still, we won with a 4 seconds margin. 3:34.50 is not a fast time in the double but it was enough to win. We would also have won the other B race (winning time 3:41).
Picture of happy National Champions, competitors in the background:
Race stats:
|Start|Stop_|Dist_|Time_|Pace__|_SPM__|DPS|Remarks
|00000|00259|00259|05:29|10:35.0| 15.8 |03.0|pre race
|00259|00356|00097|00:18|01:33.2| 33.6 |09.6|100m #1
|00356|00459|00103|00:21|01:41.6| 33.2 |08.9|100m #2
|00459|00560|00101|00:21|01:44.1| 32.3 |08.9|100m #3
|00560|00655|00095|00:20|01:44.9| 32.0 |08.9|100m #4
|00655|00758|00102|00:22|01:47.4| 31.5 |08.9|100m #5
|00758|00859|00102|00:23|01:52.9| 31.2 |08.5|100m #6
|00859|00956|00097|00:21|01:48.3| 30.9 |09.0|100m #7
|00956|01056|00100|00:22|01:50.3| 31.8 |08.5|100m #8
|01056|01160|00103|00:23|01:51.1| 32.6 |08.3|100m #9
|01160|01254|00094|00:21|01:51.2| 33.1 |08.1|100m #10
|01254|01309|00055|00:24|03:38.5| 28.5 |04.8|cooling down
Mixed Double
The mixed double race with Romana was scheduled at 14:10, three hours after the double race with Radek. So again I settled in the shade under the tree and tried to recover, rehydrate and get some quick energy in my body.
We were up against some pretty quick couples and Romana was quite scared. I was joking that we would win easily. First, Romana has made a lot of progress on the erg over the winter. Second, we have a lot more training kilometers together than a year ago, and last but not least she’s rowing with a fast sculler.
I had an eyewitness report that the lake was full of mixed doubles practicing on Saturday evening, when we were enjoying good food and wine in the historical town center. I found that comforting. The mixed double is a difficult boat to row because the stroke profile is a compromise between two rowers with very different power and usually also different length.
One of our competitors, a Mr Zeman, was constantly walking around us, showing his impressive torso and his very minimal swimming trunks. We also met our friends from Pardubice/Olomouc Mr Karel Nevrala and his partner Vendula Vecerova. They beat us a year ago by a minimal margin of 0.5 seconds.
The wind had changed to a clean tailwind, causing quite significant chop on the lake. Temperature was a “moderate” 33 degrees C.
There were 10 competitors in the Masters C category, so they had broken it in 2 races with 5 entries. In our race, they had added the single entry in the A category. These guys just had to row the course and get a medal, and their result wouldn’t influence the results of the battle in the C category.
Rowing up to the start, Romana was telling me who the competition was and how fast they were. Basically, they were all dangerous. Our practice starts were dramatically bad in the chop.
Ready – Attention – Row
Luckily, the real start was back to our normal standard and we were fast away from the starting line. Lane 1, the A category, was leading, we were in second place and Karel/Vendula were just slightly behind us, immediately followed by Ostrava and Smichov (the “impressive torso” man). Neratovice was falling behind quickly.
But I had a good feeling. Romana, when she’s working hard, has a very distinct breathing out just before the finish, so we were rowing like a steam train. Our ORCA double was jumping forward on each stroke and we were slowly but surely rowing away from Karel and Vendula.
The A boat was half a length ahead of us.
By the 500m mark we had beaten all our C competitors in theory. In the chop, one mistake by us would bring them back in the race.
This being our last race of the day, I decided that I wanted to beat the A’s as well, so I asked for a “10 strong strokes” when we were passing the 500m mark, and we passed the A boat in lane one.
Now we were leading by half a length.
The chop increased towards the finish line and the A boat was catching us back. I called for a finish with 200m to go but our steering was a bit erroneous. In the final 5 strokes we ended up in the buoys and the A boat passed us.
I wonder if we would have fought harder if they would be C’s. I dare to say so.
Anyway, we did it. YAY!
And look at the fast time! Granted, rowed in a tailwind, but, on the other hand, in difficult, choppy conditions. Our home lake can be choppier, but still this was not easy.
Of all the mixed doubles that started that Sunday, we had the second time. The other C race was won in 3:35. The B’s was won by Mitas/Tomastikova in 3:29 and the fastest time in the D-F mix races was 3:39.
No race stats. I forgot to press start in the CrewNerd app. Too much focused on the race.
I had a victory beer and started to prepare the boat for transport, but Romana had to row another race, the C ladies quad, one hour after our start in the mix. She was stroking it.
They brought home a bronze medal:
Three hours of driving home, including a dinner half way. Then we could sit down on our own terrace and enjoy a glass of white wine and discuss the event. It was a very good weekend. Look at the harvest:
Radek wasn’t pleased that we had actually rowed faster in the mix than in the men’s double race. 🙂
By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 2 • Tags: 1000m, Czech National Championships, double, race