Aug 31 2015
Sunday: mix 8+
As I wrote here, the organizing club registered a composite crew for the mix 8+. They wrote 8x N/A on the start list and it was our task to show up at the start somehow. When we arrived to Breclav on Friday, Slavka, the local trainer, immediately approached my wife Romana to ask if she would row the mix 8+.
“Only if I am in that boat as well,” I answered.
“OK”.
That basically secured my place. When I talked to Slavka later that day, she talked about exchanging some Breclav men with faster men from Ostrava, because the Breclav guys were not such good rowers. The ladies were secure, selected by secret selection criteria, but the men were selected by Slavka on boat moving qualities. I presume. Survival of the fittest.
Anyway, on Sunday noon we lifted the very old and very heavy boat and put it in the water. Our competitors, a crew from Hodonin who train on the mixed 8+ each Wednesday evening, were already rowing to the start. I ended up on stroke side in #6 seat. I prefer to row bow side, but I can row both, so no problem. Rowing to the start we did one practice start and that was our race prep.
We were in lane 2, our competitors in the faster lane 3. We were fastest out of the start and the 14 year old boy who coxed us turned out to be an excellent cox. He managed to steer the ideal line and shout tactical orders to us at the same time. Really a good cox. A good cox is basically the reason why I love to row the eight.
Despite the disadvantage of the outer turn we stayed ahead of Hodonin. They tried a few 10 stroke sequences but we reacted promptly. Turning into the final straight 300m we led by a length and in this head wind straight section we managed to widen the gap to two lengths.
We won a few bottles of wine and a nice big medal. Hurray!
Team pictures were made but they haven’t shown up in my Inbox yet, so instead I show you a picture of the beer mug I won, the first time I used it. On Sunday afternoon, after loading the trailer, driving it to our rowing club, and then finally arriving at home:
May 19 2016
Good sprintervals in the eight, and a few words about coxing
We had a very good outing in the eight. The head coach accompanied us during the training and made us do a 4km long warming up, including technical drills. This really made the boat come together. After that it was time for the 15 stroke on / 10 stroke off training (2x3km).
Timing is everything. When we had the timing right, there were hints of boat speed. 🙂
The first 30 minutes were warming up. I had the feeling we were doing higher rates than the 32spm that the plot shows. Still, I felt surprisingly comfortable on stroke side (not my preferred side), and the coach’s instructions were good and helpful. The rowing stroke is subtly different than the sculling stroke. Actually, for a sculler it feels as much less subtle but I guess there are different subtleties. One of the things I need to pay attention to (even more than in sculling) is to first push on the legs and then use the back swing to help the arms. Otherwise, the blades pop out of the water, the boat stops accelerating, and suddenly everything become much more difficult.
We had a new cox, the son of one of the rowers. I think he will be good at it, but of course today he made the classical beginner’s mistakes. Too much steering (oversteering) and not enough talking. Can’t blame him. It must be scary for a 16 year old to be suddenly in charge of 8 old men. Here’s the result:
If you think that’s not so bad, compare it with my trajectory in the single:
As said, he will eventually learn it. 🙂
Tomorrow a long racing weekend will start. First, on Friday, there is the CEFTA, or the “Rowing Regatta of the Olympic Hopes” as it is called with a beautiful English name. This regatta is for 15 and 16 year olds, from former Communist Eastern European countries only. The regatta used to be organized under communism, and after the fall of the iron curtain it just continued under  a different name. The location is different every year, but this year it will be in Brno.
Then on Saturday and Sunday there is the Brno International Youth Regatta, an annual event on our lake for rowers in the 15/16 and 17/18 year old categories. My daughter Lenka will row in a quad.
So while we were out on the water about three trailers, two clubs from Prague and a trailer from Poland (I believe) arrived and the club was busy with youth. Also the lake was full of young rowing teams. Nice atmosphere.
In other news, I received an email from David at Concept2. He will check what I am sending to the Concept2 Development logbook server and when he finds it ok, we will migrate rowsandall.com to the real thing! Exciting!
He also lifted the data limitation on the Concept2 logbook server, so we can now upload each and every stroke, up to 9 hours of rowing. Exciting. It will be a challenge to do a row which exceeds the Concept2 data limit!
By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 0 • Tags: 8+, coxing, eight, lake, rowing, sprintervals, training