double

Mar 19 2016

First row in the double

Yep. Romana and I went out in the double today. Just a technique session. And we nailed it. I think we were rowing pretty well after these 10km of different drills.

Our beloved light blue Salani double “Orca” was behaving very nicely. I think it was glad it got the dust washed off after a long winter of inactivity.

Then we loaded the trailers. Half of our club goes to Varese with the big trailer. I am towing my small trailer to Račice, the national water sports center, north of Prague. It is loaded with 2 pairs and 4 singles. On the way back we’ll have to add two bicycles.

Hoping the weather is going to be nice.

Lenka was rowing with a trial version of the RitmoTime Rowing app. She was happy but I wasn’t convinced. I have to look into an app that allows coaching as well. I guess you want the coach view to do fleet management, so you can instantaneously see all your rowers’ stroke rate, pace, perhaps even heart rate and some other parameters. Of course the fleet will be a mix of iphones and android phones. All the kids in the club have smartphones, so we would just have to get a bunch of watertight cases. Would be a nice way to collect their training data as well. Let me know if you know of such apps, even better if you have tested it.

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 1 • Tags: double, OTW, rowing, technique, training

Oct 4 2015

Saturday: Otrokovické Sprinty Race Report

The day started early. The Otrokovice sprint races are a big regional event for the kids, especially those who have learned to row over the summer. So in addition to the big club trailer, I had to tow my own little trailer with a few boats. We picked up the trailer and set off at 6:45. It’s about 110km to Otrokovice, which is east of Brno.

We had our traditional taking the wrong turn event 500m before the final destination. This is the third time I drive to Otrokovice and I haven’t been able to take the right turn in any of those times. I remember you turn at the gas station, but there is one turn before and one after the station. It’s the one after. Remember to read this blog, a year from now. Here’s a map of the race venue:

It’s about 450m on a very small lake. At the start, you are a few meters from the bank on one end. You cross the lake diagonally and after the finish line you have to stop hard to avoid bumping into the bank on the other end. The course is marked with white jerry cans on both sides, with 6 narrow unmarked lanes between them. There usually is a lot of bumping into jerry cans and crossing of lanes.

We arrived in time to join The Meeting. This was an important one, because the organizers had made some mistakes with the Czech version of Regattacentral, so many on-line registrations were lost … We went race through race with all the club representatives and happily deleted and added entries. Arriving at the men’s open 2x, I contemplated adding myself but looking at the field I thought it would be a waste of time. Too fast, those young guys. But Mr Akai from the Breclav rowing club raised his hand and said that their LW guy Mr Susky would like to start if there was a partner for him. So I raised my hand and said that if he didn’t mind rowing with a Veteran, I would be more than happy to race. Susky is a fast, 25 years young LW guy, so why not?

It’s that kind of race. Last minute crew formation. Anyway, that split second decision meant that I suddenly had only 45 minutes to the start time, so I headed back to the boats to rig the double and find Mr Susky. I succeeded in both tasks.

There was a strong cross/tailwind and quite some chop, especially on the second half of the course.

2x Men

We had a good start, quickly rowed out of the pack and were leading by a bit about 350m into the race. Bratislava was starting to overtake us, when the referee waved his flag and stopped the race. The local club, Otrokovice had crossed lanes and hindered another crew. We rowed back to the start for a second try. We had to wait a bit at the start, because they started off some other races before they had time for us. There was a bit of joking between the crews, accusing Otrokovice of trying to disqualify all other crews so they could win.

The second start was as good as the first one, but somehow we didn’t end up in the front. There were 2 boats in front of us. We tried to catch them back, but a slight steering error caused some flag waving by the referee, so we had to get back to our lane and row a few extra meters. We didn’t hinder anyone, so the race was not stopped. We finished third in 1:21.6.

Other events

My single race would be at 3:30pm, so I had a lot of time to watch the kids racing. My daughter Lenka rowed to a third place in the double, missing the aggressiveness that you need for these sprints.

There was a fun race between three boys’ 13/14 year pairs from our club. Unfortunately, the guys who were expected to win came in last because of a broken rudder cord.

P1000542 — Winners on paper, but if you have a broken rudder cord … Disappointment after the race

There was also a lot of excitement about a coxed quad, because the kids had taken only 3 wing riggers, plus one wing rigger from another Wintech boat, which didn’t fit. The wings are in bags which are clearly marked. A lesson for them. We went to ask the referees if they were allowed to start as a 3x+. They allowed us, but insisted that the fourth guy sits on the boat, in order to have roughly the same weight. They rowed in this manner and finished second …

My son Dominik had been added to a quad during the Meeting, and because his coach had told the other coach that Dominik is very experienced, they put him in stroke seat. It was fun. They came in second place.

Iva and Tereza won the girls 13/14 double with a nice fight in the final 200m. Iva will go to Romana’s training group after this race.

Romana pushes off Tereza & Iva to the start

P1000546 — Now they have passed Olomouc and are leading! Yay!

It's a win, but first hold hard unless you want to crash into the bank — It’s a win, but first hold hard unless you want to crash into the bank

P1000565 — Proud coach Petra with the winning crew

Lenka rowed a single where she finished third. Slightly more aggressively rowed than that double race.

Dominik also rowed a single race where he came third. He rowed a bit more ugly then he usually does. I don’t have a picture of this race, because it was too close to my single.

Some random shots from the race venue:

My two sons and the daughter of one of our coaches

There was just one dock, so most of the crews launched from the ice-cold water

Masters Single

I focused on just one opponent, Mr Joška Akai from Břeclav. Right, he was the one who coupled me with Susky for the Men’s Open 2x. Apart from that, he also added himself to the Masters Single race. This guy was dangerous. He has beaten me on the Nationals in 2014. By quite a big margin. I wasn’t 100% fit for that race, having had just a few hours of sleep before the start, but still.

The others. I thought I could have them. And so did they, at least so they told me in the pre-race chat.

I had a good start and made sure I executed my race plan. Strong start, then immediately 10 strokes as hard as possible, followed by 10 more hard strokes. Repeat until finish. It was important to get a lead right from the start, because of the bad chop in the second half of this race. On such a short distance one bad stroke can be fatal.

Indeed, I managed to be half to three quarters of a length ahead of Mr Akai, with the others falling behind. When we arrived in the bad water, the Akai managed to come back to half a length behind me and I was nervously waiting for his final attack that would crush me.

It didn’t come and I crossed the finish line first. Yeah!!

I won a medal and some sponsor gifts. Two faux leather items that I will probably throw away, some energy bars that were eaten almost immediately, two tubes of hand cream.

The rich bounty – the edible parts already gone

Mix Double

There was an open entry Mix Double race. The entries were open until noon, so everybody could find a partner of the opposite sex and register. Age categories could be mixed. In the end they made three races, based on average age.

My daughter Lenka and I have an average age of 29 so we were put in the group with average age between 18 and 30. We were up against Mr Susky (25) with a 19 year old girl, two trainers from our club (42 and 20 years old). Our double had both the oldest and the youngest participant to the final.

First start was OK but the race was stopped after 10 strokes, because the boat next to us had hindered another boat.

Mix Double Race at the start. We are the crew on the right

The second start was great and we were in the race. We pulled hard and were rowing in front. Mr Susky and his 19 year old took the lead, but only by a length. Lenka and I were in second place. I thoroughly enjoyed this, because whatever the finishing order I really wanted this to be a real battle.

P1000600 — We are the second crew from the left. I believe this is the moment when the referee told us to move more to the right

There were some steering issues. The crew to our right was moving towards us, and we were moving towards the other Brno crew to our left. I let it happen, because we were leading and I didn’t feel we were so close that it was dangerous. I mean, their blades were more than 10 cm from their blades. Finally the referee thought it was too much and waved the flag. I corrected a bit and the referee was happy, and didn’t stop the race.

In the final 100m that Brno crew actually started to accelerate by a lot, and we were slowing down with Lenka’s fire dying a bit. I think they beat us on the finish line, but the speaker announced us in second place, so we’ll keep it at that!

P1000603 — Just after crossing the finish line. Second place official result: Not Bad

Great race and a great experience to race with my daughter.

P1000611 — Yours truly and his daughter in an unelegant position, trying to leave the double, stepping into ice cold water, and trying to avoid being blown onto the beach by the strong wind. All at the same time.

Then we prepared the boats for transport, drove the trailer back to the club and the Roosendaal family ended the Saturday with a success celebration dinner at the local Thai restaurant.

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 4 • Tags: double, OTW, race, rowing, single, sprint

Sep 25 2015

More training plan musings and a double outing

Training plan musings

Supplementary Training. Here are my notes from reading the book:

Endurance Training
- Ideally 5-7x per week, more than 30 minutes per session, throughout the year
- Recommended sports: Bike, mountain bike, cross country skiing, running and swimming

Well, that’s interesting. I am thinking of I would work that into my training program. During winter, I frequently run. I have lovely hilly forests starting just behind my home, so trail running is always a pleasure. Also, running is my go-to cross-training when on travel. Running gear doesn’t add much weight to my travel luggage.

With my recently purchased second-hand mountain bike, the mountain biking is nice as well, although I must say I am not really a downhill MTB hero. Too scared to fall. I have also been experimenting with replacing some of my car or public transport commutes with the bike. It is great, although it does come with breathing car exhaust, microparticles, etc. At least under the new city council it has become slightly safer (a few more bike lanes). With showers and a locker at work, the infrastructure seems in place. Just wondering how this plan is going to hold when ice and snow make it difficult.

I love cross country skiing and plan to do this in weekends in the winter. It’s perfect cross-training. I also plan to have at least one week of vacation/training camp in the mountains.

All in all I think I can get in 2.5 hours of cross training per week.

For strength training, Das Buch has the following remarks.

Strength training is very important for Masters rowers to limit muscle decline with age
Different types of strength training have different effects. For Masters rowers, the most important type is the one that improves energy flow to the muscle. This can be achieved by:
- Boat/erg training
- Circuit training – 1 set at each exercise, go to next exercise, repeat
- “Station Training” – several sets of each exercise, then go to next exercise
Das Buch recommends 2-3 times per week, 2-3 sets of 10-12 repetitions, 4 exercises for the upper body, 4 exercises for the lower body
At another page, Das Buch talks about 2 times per week, 40 minutes each, emphasize core and shoulder
Introduce variation. Not always the same exercise per muscle group.
Do not do strength training after an exhausting endurance training

Here is my summary of the strength trainings that I found in the book:

I also learned a few German acronyms that were unexplained in the book, so I had to Google them. I copy them here for fun:

KA = Kraft Ausdauer
SK = Schnellkraft
IK = Intramuskulaere Koordination
MK = Maximalkraft

Romana does a circuit training on Friday afternoons with her training group of 15-18 year old girls. I could try to join them. Perhaps the weights will be a bit on the light side, but I could do more repeats. More than half of the exercises on Romana’s circuit training use own body weight anyway.

For the “station training” I could try to visit a fitness club in the neighborhood.

Alternatively, I could buy the basic stuff and do circuit and weights at home.

Not decided yet.

Finally, Das Buch describes how to improve coordination. The book recommends to work on this 2-3 times per week, 4-10 exercises, and suggests playing games, dancing, other sports and “proprioceptic training”. They also comment that OTW rowing falls under coordination exercise, but needs complementary training.

Well, I have a fitness ball at home, so I could do situps and pushups using the fitness ball. Is that enough coordination training? I don’t know.

Today’s training

I had steady state on the training program. Next weekend, I will row a sprint race in the double with my daughter Lenka. So we took out our double and did 12km of steady state, including technique drills and start drills.

Nice steady state training. Tomorrow: A 6km head race simulation in the single.

After the training I helped bring a launch from our Lake Center to the River Club House, using my trailer. Coming Wednesday, there will be the first Brno Academic Rowing Races. Two eights will row a race on the river Svratka in Jundrov. One eight filled with students from the Technical University, the other one with students from the Masaryk University. The 2.5km race course is quite narrow and has many turns.

The idea is to make it a tradition and stimulate student rowing in Brno. I am slightly skeptical, but if it succeeds it will be great.

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 8 • Tags: double, OTW, rowing, steady state, training, training plan

Sep 16 2015

World Rowing Masters Regatta: The Hazewinkel Report (longread)

The regatta in general

As expected

A classic Masters Worlds. Thousands of competitors. A race every three minutes. A very friendly atmosphere. Overall very good rowing. “Oldies disco” at the Masters Party. Lots of merchandise. Nerves. Lots of very enthusiastic volunteers (thanks guys!).

Better than expected

The weather (it remains Belgium after all). Food stalls accepting tokens purchased at a central place, thus almost no queues. Our accommodation’s very central location directly next to the finish tower. The food in the cafeteria (we had half board). The relaxed attitude of the organizers: you could come somewhat early for your bow number. Trailers could be left were you wanted as long as they didn’t block access to anything. The organizer’s responsiveness to complaints: After day 1 they regularly cleaned the duck poo from the docks.

To be improved

Duck poo on the docks on day 1. Overweight children on the starting pontoon causing damage to boats. The commentary was absent or uninspired. The top level of the boat racks was too high to reach for ordinary humans.

There was a headwind. 🙁

Next time I will refuse to tow an unknown trailer. We wanted to take my own trailer, but one of our teams made a last moment decision to take a four and use a bigger trailer. They convinced me that it would be inefficient to tow two trailers. I agreed, when it was time for my part of the towing (the Hazewinkel-Brno leg) I found out that this trailer is a bit too long and unstable for my car (even though it is supposed to be OK on paper). I ended up having to drive 80 km/h to avoid snaking, so the drive home took 14 hours.

The doubles races

As an experiment, I am going to tell the story by boat type, not chronologically. I think it is interesting to have the “similar” races close together. So here we go.

On Thursday afternoon we had our first race of the championship, the Masters B 2x, which I rowed with Radek, my regular double training partner. We have won easily in Hodonin and at the Masters Nationals, but I did not consider ourselves as victory candidates. Expectations for the race were to execute the race plan well, fight for a good place, and row a faster time than 3:35. This last requirement was a bit arbitrary, as I had no idea how the headwind would affect our pace.

The race plan was to row “at 90%” the first 500m, then do a 15 stroke push. The “at 90%” is not real, but I found out that Radek has a tendency to fly and die. What felt like a mild headwind at the finish turned out to be a quite strong head/crosswind in the starting blocks. Radek was constantly paddling to keep the boat pointing slightly into the headwind.

I think we rowed this race quite well and I am happy with the end result, even though it is not below 3:35. We did a good start, settled for race pace, and crossed the 500m in third position. In my memory, the Germans next to us disappeared into a strong lead immediately. We were rowing quite well in the pack. Our push worked, in the sense that it kept us in third place at a point where the British started to row away from us but the guys behind were trying to catch up with us. Our race was really about protecting our third place against the three boats behind us.

In terms of virtual medals, with our time of 3:43 there were 5 heats (out of 13) that were slower and we would have won, a few heats where we would be very close to the winner (and leading at 500m), and 2 heats where the finish time measuring system failed, but looking at the 500m times we would have been close. The very first heat of Masters Men B 2x actually rowed into the preceding heat of Women’s D 4+, resulting in an unmeasured time.

Radek’s parents have filmed our race, but it will take some time to get the files from the tape.

My second doubles race was on Friday afternoon, after the first quads race. This one with my old rowing buddy Arjan, with whom I have trained less than 20km together, 13km in one session earlier this year, and 4km on Thursday morning.

Again a head/crosswind. Perhaps slightly weaker than on Thursday. I wonder if there is an easy way to find old weather reports so I can check. Anyway, rowing on lane 6 which was less protected than the lower bow numbers. Again, I knew we couldn’t win this. We were up against Dynamo Moscow with Ovechko and Yurchenko. Ovechko is really fast and they won their race on Thursday (in an unmeasured finish time but giving us 10 seconds at the 500m mark). These Dynamo guys train like they participate in the Olympics, and actually many of them are former Olympians. Ovechko himself rowed the Lightweight 2x in Athens.

We had a very good start, especially given that we had practiced three starts in total. The Russians disappeared quickly but we were rowing in the pack.

It seems that most teams did a push with about 600m to go, because that’s where I noticed that we were losing ground. Unfortunately our 500m time is not recorded, but I think we passed with only 2 boats behind us, in 6th position. At the 500m mark I called for a push, and that brought us back in the field.

I didn’t actually end the push, but kept on rowing at the higher rate. Before the race I was afraid that my legs would be tired after the quads race, but all felt good. I have the CrewNerd data somewhere but didn’t look at them yet. I didn’t look at CrewNerd during the race but feeling wise I was doing 33-34 spm. In the second half of the race we managed to push away from the Germans and Peru behind us but we didn’t catch up with the Polish. Fourth place, right in the middle. The Russians won easily.

Compared to the other heats, our 3:35 time was not bad. There were four other heats where we would have won and 2 where would have been within a second. It’s a pity that the draw put us against those pesky Russians.

Pictures were taken by Arjan’s wife, but I haven’t received them yet.

The quad races

Two quad races, the Men Masters A 4x (Saturday) and the Men Masters B 4x (Friday morning). We have raced one race together, the Masters Nationals, where we took the silver medal. We have trained on our club boat, but decided not to take it to Belgium and borrow a boat from the Prague based club Slavia instead. I have rowed on this boat, the Sergej, in Varese, and it was good.

Unfortunately, when we took it for a short row on Thursday evening, we discovered that it is rigged too low (even at the highest setting) and I also suspect the height difference between the left and right oarlocks was not good. Having rowed Varese in bow, but now stroking the quad, I also found out that this boat has quite a big rudder, so in the practice I ended up bouncing from buoys to buoys instead of taking a nice center course down our lane.

So the Friday race was a painful event. We started off badly, rowed at the back of the field. The Italians took the lead, but as I had predicted they started to fall back already before half way. We struggled our way back into the field and passed the 500m mark in fourth place just before the Austrian Masters Nationals champions (rowing with one Canadian sub). Rowing at the high stroke rate usual in the quad and with the bad rigging, I really started to feel my legs giving up with about 400m to go. Last 250m was just pain. We finished fourth. All other heats were faster than us.

Our Saturday race was only 2 hours after my race in the single. So I sent the guys for a warming up run but decided to not join them, picking up the bow number instead.

When I arrived at our borrowed boat, I was approached by Slavia guy who told me that the rudder was broken. The boat is an older Vespoli and they have the rudder cables above the stern deck. Apparently, the rudder construction had hooked under the starting pontoon, and when it got lose, the entire rudder axis was at a backward angle of 10 degrees, leaving the stroke unable to move the rudder.

So there I was, alone, with my crew gone, and a broken boat. I chartered some people to help me put it in slings and contemplated how to quickly repair this. It seemed the only way was to take a pipe and to force pull the axis back in position, at the risk of breaking the little aluminium rod, which would leave us entirely without rudder. In the end we did just that and managed to get it back somehow. I tried to steer with the foot and I was able to get some response.

Rowing towards the start, I had some time to try out the “repaired” rudder. I had to use a lot of force to turn it and it had basically three positions: Ten degrees to the left, 30 degrees to the left, and 20 degrees to the right.

I spent the time waiting at the start explaining to the starting pontoon kid that I forbid him to pull the stern under the pontoon. In the end he had instructions to do it anyway but he promised to push the stern into the water at the starting signal. Also, he was a small, lightweight kid, so there was about 1 cm of space between the top of the rudder and the lowest point of the starting pontoon.

Bouncing from one side of the lane to the other we made our way to the finish. We rowed a slightly faster time than on Friday, with a slightly slower start. Still, 3:20 is slow for a quad.

My legs were trash during the entire race. Probably tiredness from the singles race and the two preceding days. This time the Austrians beat us on the finish line.

The singles race

This race was on Saturday morning, at 9:34. My only singles race. I didn’t know what to expect, not knowing any of the other competitors. I was super nervous.

Met Ben Redman when I picked up the bow number and we chatted a bit. He looked nervous as well. He rowed the race before me. I saw him doing his start and first 10 strokes, which looked mighty agressive. I was too far away to get wet, but it was quite splashy.

Fast out of the start. My plan was to do a push with 600m to go, as was the fashion on these championships. The expectation was that depending on the strength of the other guys, I would be either somewhere in the front or somewhere at the back.

First 400m of the race all boats were rowing on one line, but when I actually started my push, I was starting to fall behind with a few others. The result of the push was that I stayed “somewhere in the middle”.

In the second half of the race two boats started to fall behind by a lot, two boats passed me and I ended up dangling at the end of the pack. I decided to not save anything for the quad (knowing that was a badly rigged boat) and kept pushing to at least row a reasonably good time.

Comparing with the other heats, I would have ended up 5-10 seconds by the winner in most cases. One heat was slower than my time.

The mixed races

Sunday was mixed races day. At 11:30, we would start in the mixed quad in a rented boat from Filippi. In the end I was glad that Slavia wanted to return home on Saturday and couldn’t borrow us their boat, and I was looking forward to a nice Filippi.

We arrived at the rental location early. Officially they don’t give you the boat until 30 minutes before the start, but as I know the German representative of Filippi, we got a VIP treatment and were told to chose any boat of our liking. In the pictures above we are looking for a good boat in our weight category. In the end we chose a quad with carbon front wing riggers, with CZE printed on the side. Apparently it has been used by a Czech team in the past. Unfortunately, we discovered that the bow ball was missing. As told above, I had friendly access to the highest boss of the boat renting business, who immediately sent an Italian guy to bring me a bow ball.

In the past, Filippi didn’t allow any rerigging of their rental boats. They were all rigged to the same rigging numbers, and the only thing you were allowed to move was the foot stretcher. This time they allowed to move sculls as well. So it was a nightmare to find four sets of sculls of approximately the same length. We ended up changing a few, but due to lack of time we couldn’t do more than set all scull lengths to 287 and inboard to 88.5.

Panicky scull rigging — Panicky scull adjustments

After all that stress we launched the boat. We arrived at the 2km point with 15 minutes to go before our official start, but somehow the referees kept urging us to go to the start immediately. It turns out they were trying to start the races ahead of the official schedule. I don’t know why, but I suspect some bad weather was approaching. It didn’t work out anyway because the Japanese team in the doubles race before us had a broken boat and were allowed 10 minutes to repair.

Light headwind at the start, but less windy than in the previous days. Both the Polish to our left and the British to our right looked very impressive. Compared to Radek’s 65kg and my 73kg their guys were definitely giants, and also their girls looked very athletic. I am afraid we looked underwhelming.

It was Lubica’s first international race since the W4x final at the Barcelona Olympics, and she was thoroughly enjoying it (and also admiring the strong guys in the other boats). The officials did a fast start “because of the weather” so it was Attention – honk and off we were. We had a fantastic start and were rowing right in front with the Polish and the British, and the Austro-Hungarian boat. One German boat was right behind us, followed closely by Chile. The second German boat closed the field.

With 600m to go we were starting to lose, so I called for a 15 stroke push. Lubice on 3 supported me by emphasizing a fast hands away and our stroke rate shot up to 36. In 15 strokes we were back in front. I focused on the steering and didn’t dare to look next to me too much, but I saw the sterns of the Polish and British in my peripheral vision.

With 400m to go I called for another push and I think we were briefly in the lead. The Polish started to push away and Romana, feeling a possible victory, called for a final sprint. In the final 250m I believe we rowed half a length behind the Polish and one or two meters in front of the British.

Honk – The Polish were in

Honk Honk – The British and us. I immediately knew they were a fraction in front of us. Must have passed us in the final three strokes. We cheered three Hurrays for the winners (a Czech tradition) and congratulated ourselves on a fantastic effort. Really a brilliant race. We were much better than we had imagined.

Radek’s parent have the final 250m of this race on video and I will certainly post it once I get my digital copy. With our time of 3:24 we would have been second in the second heat and could have easily won heats #3 and 4. :-/

We didn’t have much time to recover. The quads race was at 11:30 and it was delayed by 10 minutes. We had to row back to the 1000m to leave the boat at the Filippi boat rental. We walked/hiked the 1000m back to the finish, just to flush the lactate a bit. Then we had to immediately launch for our doubles race at 13:00.

Arriving at the start after such a thriller of a quads race, we didn’t expect to win. I told Romana we would race the boat that would end up next to us, just to enjoy a good fight. Next in the starting block was an Austrian mixed couple from Vienna who we know, so we wished them good luck and then concentrated on our race.

Again we had a brilliant start and to my surprise the first 500m was quite comfortable. The Austrians took the lead. The French and the Germans started to lose immediately. The rest was rowing in the pack. To our left was a Dutch club with a lady who had already won 4 or 5 events in the past few days.

I tried the 15 stroke push but that proved a bit too much for our legs. The Portuguese had a better push and passed us. We ended up rowing just behind the Dutch (who I had expected to be more in front) and that inspired me to call a final sprint and increase the stroke rate with 250m to go. Romana made some desperate sounding noises on the bow position. She was starting to fall apart. So was I but with the last of our energy we managed to pass the Dutch and keep our bow ball in front of theirs. Hurray, we had beaten them!

I am happy with our time of 3:57 considering that we were very tired after four days of racing, the great mixed quad race just before this one, and the fact that the headwind was stronger again.

The trip home

After the mixed doubles we had a cooling down consisting of the four strokes between the finish line and the dock. Then we prepared the double for transport, put it on the trailer, and went to get the car. I changed to normal clothes on the parking lot, without showering, got the car in front of the trailer and off we drove.

Driving on the regatta venue was quite challenging with 10 trailers trying to enter it, and 5 others trying to leave it at the same time. By driving slowly and having friends walking at each end of the trailer, I luckily managed without any damages.

We left at 2pm, one hour after our start on the mixed double.

The first surprise was on the highway towards Antwerpen. I decided to take over a slow car (it was doing slower than 70 km/h) and driving at around 100 km/h I noticed that the trailer started to snake. I reduced speed and at the first gas station we tried to improve the driveability by moving some weight to the front of the trailer. It didn’t really help. In the end we had to drive around 90 km/h on good roads and around 80 km/h where the highway had ruts. The whole trip took us 15 hours. We arrived at the Brno rowing club by five in the morning. In bed at 5:30 for four hours of sleep before I went to the office. On Tuesday morning, I really hated having to sit in the car again to drive to meetings in Prague on Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning.

The conclusion

A good regatta. A few very nice races and good times, but unfortunately no win. I am starting to think that the regatta date early September is not ideal for us with school-going children. It’s the second week of the new school year, but more importantly, this regatta is inevitably immediately after the summer vacation. I believe I had better form in July. This is also the reason why I will probably not go to Copenhagen in 2016, but compete at Euromasters in Munich in July.

And I will never again tow an old, unknown trailer. Strictly my own which was designed and made by a certified trailer builder with safety and driveability in mind.

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 9 • Tags: 1000m, 1km, double, hazewinkel, OTW, quad, race, rowing, single, world rowing masters regatta

Sep 10 2015

Hazewinkel Day 1

long stories will follow later. M B2x. Strong headwind and difficult to row. We were good out of the start and kept with the pack for the first 500m. The Germans rowed in front of the pack. At 500m to go we did a strong 15 strokes which brought us in third position. The Germans were too far ahead and won. We tried to catch lane 8 but failed. Third place in 3:42. Not bad given the weather.

Arjan rowed the C 1x. He rows 3:48 on calm water. Today he finished in 2nd place in 4:21.

An impression of our accommodation after the first day of racing:

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 3 • Tags: double, OTW, race, rowing

Sep 3 2015

2x750m in the double with Radek. Nice flat water. Temperatures around 19 degrees C. We had a pair to row against, but the pair is of course a lot slower than the double.

The first 750m was rowed at 90% effort and a lower stroke rate. The second one was at race pace. I reset CrewNerd after 2500m of warming up with a few high stroke rate bursts, so the data are without warming up.

|Dist_|Time_|Pace__|_SPM__|avg HR|max HR|DPS|Remarks |00245|00:51|01:43.9| 32.6 | 150 | 173 |08.8| 250m |00250|00:53|01:45.9| 30.5 | 176 | 178 |09.3| 250m |00250|00:54|01:47.8| 30.8 | 179 | 180 |09.0| 250m |02971|18:57|03:11.4| 19.1 | 140 | 180 |08.2| rest |00249|00:51|01:42.3| 35.2 | 157 | 177 |08.3| 250m |00250|00:52|01:43.9| 32.6 | 179 | 181 |08.9| 250m |00247|00:53|01:47.3| 32.1 | 182 | 182 |08.7| 250m |02233|13:37|03:02.9| 19.0 | 134 | 182 |08.6| Cooldown

dist_____|time_____|_pace___|_HR__|_SPM__|_DPS|comment 1493_____|_05:14____|_1:45.2|171|32.3|8.9|Main set 2233_____|_13:37____|_3:02.9|134|19.0|8.6|Cool down 2971_____|_18:57____|_3:11.4|140|19.1|8.2|rest meters 6697____|_37:48____|_2:49.3|143|19.2|9.2|_Total

Quite happy with the rowing. The paces are slightly disappointing, but technique wise this was more than OK.

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 2 • Tags: double, lake, OTW, rowing, training

Aug 28 2015

Looking forward to fun races

Coming weekend I am competing in a fun race in Breclav, an hour drive from Brno. The picture above is the event poster. The text is fun:

“BE THERE! The SLovacko rowing club organizes traditional rowing races:

Slovacko regatta 2015
29 and 30 August 2015 * BRECLAV *
Area above the weir

The best rowers from Bohemia, Moravia and Slovakia
* Dramatic races for traditional prizes
* Saturday heats starting 11:00, Sunday finals starting 9:00″

The entire happening is also a fundraising event for a few good causes.

Here are some pictures from last year:

The race is held on a river. The 2km course is more like 1700m long and is a big S curve. The 1km course is also a bit shorter than 1km and is one big curve. With the drought, there will be low water levels and not much current. Still, lane 2, the middle one of the three lanes is the fastest, especially when they forget to cut the branches of the trees on the bank (lane 3). Sometimes they put four boats on the three lanes, and usually the “random” draw puts the local crews in lane 2. It’s just a fun race, where everything works in a very friendly atmosphere and nobody makes a big problem out of these small irregularities.

On Saturday, I am competing (in order of start time):

1x men Masters
2x men Masters. I bet they will put us in lane 3 with the tree branches. We have already beaten the local Masters 2x twice this year.
8+ men Masters. The locals put us on the starting list without us knowing about it, so we will try to collect eight Masters rowers during the day, meet near the boat they will assign to us and row.

Also I intend to sign up for the “single open” which is an interesting format. The race is over 300m and it’s a knock-out format, one single against one single. In previous years, if you won your heat, you would immediately row back to the start for the next round. This year they seem to have planned heats on Sunday morning and semifinals and finals on Sunday afternoon. To enter you pay a whopping 100 Kc (5 USD) and the winner gets 10,000 Kc (500 USD) prize money. I have never rowed for prize money, so this is pretty exciting. Not that I stand a chance to win, but I would at least like to advance by one or two rounds.

Also on Sunday is the mix 8+ where our club has an entry (again, put there by the organizing club without informing us), so I will probably spend a big part of the weekend addressing random women at the race venue and try to convince them to join a mix 8+. 🙂

Above, I wrote that we beat the Breclav Masters 2x twice, but this is not entirely true. I did beat them twice, but this weekend I am not racing with Radek, my regular 2x partner. He has to be in Prague for a (personal development) training, so I row with Martin, one of the guys from our masters quad.

Yesterday we took the double out for a quick training. I put him on stroke seat. I always row stroke, so I really wanted to row bow for this occasion. Also, I think I have a little more ability to adjust to Martin’s stroke than the other way round (even though I stroke the quad). He’s a converted sweep rower. In the first part of the outing, the double was bouncing around quite a lot when we tried some race pace stuff, but we managed to adjust quite a bit and I am looking forward to a fun race on Saturday. Tree branches, here we come!

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 2 • Tags: double, lake, OTW, race prep, rowing, training

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double

First row in the double

Saturday: Otrokovické Sprinty Race Report

More training plan musings and a double outing

World Rowing Masters Regatta: The Hazewinkel Report (longread)

Hazewinkel Day 1

Looking forward to fun races

Calendar

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