Aug 6 2017
Sunday – Wonderful Steady State in the double
We drove home from Pardubice in the morning, arriving home around lunch time. It was raining in Brno. Temperatures have dropped by 15 degrees C overnight.
But Romana and I found a window without rain by carefully studying the online weather radar and we used it to the max. It was quite windy and choppy but that didn’t stop us from doing a lot of technique drills. As a result, we managed to row well in the chop and when we reached the quiet areas of the lake, we were flying (at steady state pace).
We got enthusiastic and did a race start, and two race pace intervals of 15 strokes each.
A nice row. When we were cleaning the boat, it started to rain again.
The two rows in the double of this weekend were both great, and they confirmed one thing. As a result of rowing with the Empower Oarlock and the constant direct feedback, combined with the analysis done at rowsandall.com, I have gradually made small incremental changes on my technique, trying to make the boat go faster. Both Romana and Tomas confirmed that I have made a fundamental change in my stroke, and they had to get used to it. But both confirmed that when they managed to fall into the same groove as I, we were going relatively fast.
Rowing in the double without the Empower Oarlock, I set up the SpeedCoach to show meters per stroke. I find that this metric really shows effectiveness of rowing, with two pitfalls:
- Do not compare meters/stroke at different stroke rates
- Do not compare over longer distances
It is a useful metric to monitor stroke to stroke differences at constant stroke rate. In the headwind intervals, we were rowing well when we reached just over 10 meters/stroke at 21 spm. In the tailwind intervals this was about a meter further.
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.
I thought we were sixth because we beat two boats. According to the official results we were fifth. The Vikings didn’t show up.
Romana and Veronika rowed the A 2x and were happy with a fourth place.
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.
By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 1 • Tags: 2x, double, OTW, race, rowing