OTW

Processed with Snapseed.

Sep 12 2016

Ode to the Small Regatta

This weekend, our club, and thus my family and me, participated in a small regatta in Brandýs nad Labem, a small town on the river Elbe, close to Prague. Having left Brno around 2pm, we arrived in Brandýs at 5pm.

This is Ondřej Synek’s club. The bronze (Rio) and silver (Beijing, London) Olympic medal winner and four-times World Champion of course trains in the Prague club Dukla, where most of the Czech  National Team train on the Vltava river or on the canal in Račice, but he is the president of the club where he started rowing and an inspiration to the local rowing community. Of course, this was one of the reasons why we had chosen to take part in this regatta, but also because there are many rowing clubs on the Elbe (Labe) river and it would be a good opportunity for the kids of our club to measure their forces with the kids from this region. In Moravia, our club is one of the best, but on the National level, the Prague and Elbe based clubs regularly beat us.

The joint towns of Brandýs nad Labem and Stará Boleslav. The island in the river Elbe is where the rowing club is located
The joint towns of Brandýs nad Labem and Stará Boleslav. The island in the river Elbe (top left) is where the rowing club is located

When we arrived, we were surprised by the humble conditions. We were wondering if it was possible to organize a relatively big “small regatta” on this site.

The Synek himself was laying out the buoys.

brandys-001 brandys-002

A few pictures (not taken by me) of the rowing club’s buildings:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

We unloaded the trailer and sent the kids for a training. After that we drove to our “hotel” Sport Centrum Brandys, which was a time travel back to the Communist 1980s. The rooms were depressing, brown, and worn down, but at least it was clean.

26326085

In the evening, we walked back to the rowing club for a party. The beer was on Ondrej Synek and we had a great time.

My race was scheduled for Sunday, so on Saturday I took my youngest son to the Prague zoo, just a 20 minutes drive from the race venue. We spent 5 hours at the zoo, and it was great, except for the heat. It was 31 degree in the shade. In the afternoon, we returned to the regatta. I had a beer and watched the races. Our tent was under a group of oak and birch trees on the East end of the island, so we were in the shade, but still it felt like being in a laundry.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Sunday started early, because the girls had their singles races at 9am. I managed to get a little 30 minutes practice row in, just to check if I would be able to race in this 2 year old bow-wing Wintech single. It was OK. Compared to my own single, this felt a bit more like rowing a tank, but I managed to get decent boat run.

Lenka’s race didn’t go well. She didn’t finish too far behind but did finish last, rowing a low stroke rate and looking tired. After the race, she told me she wanted to start rating up at the 500m mark, but got demotivated by seeing the 800 sign when she was expecting 500. A 800m sign? I checked it and found that just before the 500m mark there is a sign marking 800km to the river’s end in Hamburg!

Then there was a long wait for my race, which I spent watching the racing, or reading a book under one of the trees. It was hot, 29 degrees in the shade, but it wasn’t as humid as on Saturday. It was actually one of the nicest Sundays I have spent. On a river bank, under the trees, with a view on the houses and gardens on the other side of the river, early 20th century villas. Big houses from the 1910s and 1920s and smaller, but elegant villas from the 1930s. With gardens sloping down to the river banks, with large trees, nice terraces.

I should also compliment the regatta organizers. Even though there was a very full program with starts every 6 minutes, and just two motor boats, the organizers managed everything  easily and calmly. There was enough dock space to launch and land without problem. There were no queues at the catering tent, there was nice commentary, and the music was fantastic. Usually they just broadcast a local radio station, but at this regatta they had a complete musical program, starting with some jazz in the morning, moving to rock during the day, but instead of the usual pop, the DJ played music from lesser known rock bands and really helped to maintain the easy sunny weekend atmosphere. Just perfect.

Then it was time for my race. The line-up was:

  1. Malecky from Melnik (1977)
  2. Doubek from Brno (1974)
  3. Roosendaal from Brno (1972)
  4. Lacko from Roudnice (1972)
  5. Brezina from Litomerice (1969)

Before us, there were 10 heats of boys (14 years) doubles, starting at the 1000m just as we, so after warming up and a few practice starts, the Masters rowers could wait in the shadow under the highway viaduct.

Michal Doubek was telling me that I would win, but I wasn’t so sure. I didn’t know the other guys (and I didn’t check them), and with Masters rowers you can’t really tell from the looks. A huge guy who pulls 6:30 on the erg can be slower than me, a lightweight guy pulling 6:56.

The river was wide enough for five boats, but there were no buoys marking the lanes, just one line of buoys to separate the racing from the boats rowing towards the start. The course is almost straight, with a very slight turn around the 500m line.

brandys-mm1x-9-11-2016
The course. Fairly straight but still not easy to steer with 5 boats next to each other.

We were started off. My start wasn’t slow but I do faster starts in my own boat. It takes more strokes to get the Wintech going. Malecky was a length in front of me, and I was in second position. I prolonged the high rate start to try and come next to him, which I managed to do, but I paid a high price. About 20 strokes in I realized this pace was not sustainable, so I lowered the rate a bit and Malecky rowed away from me.

At the 500m mark I was just one length ahead of Brezina. As I started turning to row the final straight line to the finish, Brezina started to catch up with me, but he didn’t turn. The umpire was shouting at him, and at one point I also shouted “left”. Then he slowly started to turn, but he had already pushed me out of my lane. Rowing in a quite nice club boat, I didn’t want to risk, so I preferred taking the wider turn over risking a clash. In the final 250m we were rowing next to each other, but he managed to push his bow ball over the finish line before me. Of course I didn’t protest. This is a small regatta. A Masters single race. No reason to be overly serious. Also, I did receive apologies immediately after the race.

It was also interesting to see that the winner, Malecky, started in lane 1 and finished in lane 6.

download-7

Warming up and race
Warming up and race

So a third place. My measured time was 3:44. The river was almost standing still after the dry summer, so I guess that a stream corrected pace would be somewhere between 1:52 and 1:55 average 500m pace. Not good. Not bad. Probably according to expectations after 2 heavy weeks of training with a focus on head racing, no tapering, and an energy draining Saturday spent in a hot zoological garden. There were also a few beers on Friday and Saturday evening.

I just checked the results of the Masters Nationals, and Malecky was 9 seconds faster than I, rowing in the B field. Brezina didn’t start in the single. It’s an interesting fact about Masters rowing. Even when you win, you know there are probably dozens of faster scullers out there, who just couldn’t participate because of other priorities. It’s as much about showing up as it is about rowing fast.

So our son Dominik was the only family member taking some medals back to Brno. He steered the 14 year old boys 4x+ to a win and he won the boys 12 year old 2x with his partner Stepan. Among his trophy was the picture below and a rowing cap signed by Synek:

brandys-013
The Synek handing out medals. How inspirational is that?

I love small regattas. A relaxed atmosphere. Lots of racing going on. This is were future Olympians learn to race and get addicted to rowing.

By • Uncategorized • 2 • Tags: , , , , ,

download-6

Sep 9 2016

5 reasons to exercise in the very early morning

Admittedly, I constructed today’s blog title as click bait. Hopefully the content will satisfy you.

Here are my five reasons:

  1. You get to see the sunrise
  2. Less wind, which is a big deal on our lake.
  3. You have the lake for yourself (or just share it with other rowers). No swimmers. No ferries. No paddle boats
  4. On hot days, the temperatures are better
  5. It energizes me for the working day. One positive thing done first thing in the morning sets the direction for the rest of the day

Today was a shorter session than on Wednesday. For logistics reasons, Saturday’s session of 2x3km at head race pace had to be moved to Friday. The problem is that that is just two days after another heavy session, so would I be fully recovered? I wasn’t sure, but I figured the negative effect of not doing a session is stronger than the negative effect of doing a heavy session when not fully rested (and potentially not doing it as hard as it should be done).

I did an interesting experiment with myself. I promised myself to focus strongly on technique whenever my stroke pace would be higher than the average pace. So on the first 3k I set out at 2:03, and take a glance at the SpeedCoach every few strokes. If I would see 2:05 or 2:06 (or worse) I would focus on tap down, back swing or length at the catch instead of pushing harder with the legs. So just focus on technique, not working harder, especially not in the first part of the stroke.

It worked! Either the wind gods played with me and increased the tailwind (or decreased headwind) slightly to bring the desired outcome, or it really worked. I am going to settle for the second explanation.

Stroke rates were still only at 25 spm, but that will be the focus a couple of weeks from now. First, I need to build a good basic head race stroke.

download-6


Work Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|03000| 12:28 |02:04.7| 25.0| 173 | 181 | 9.6
02|03000| 13:16 |02:12.7| 25.7| 177 | 182 | 8.8
Workout Summary
--|06000| 25:44 | 2:08.7| 25.4| 175 | 182 | 9.2

During the tailwind interval I thought that I was rowing very well in what I thought was just a very light tailwind. It was a bit disappointing to see my pace hovering around 2:13 / 500m in the headwind interval. In that one, pace drifted to 2:16 when I didn’t focus on technique and I managed to get it back to 2:09-2:11 when I did.

Both 3km intervals went by much faster than I thought they would. Actually, they were rather enjoyable. Painful they were of course, but no thought of giving up. I guess the technique focus kept my mind focused on something else than the pain.

By • Uncategorized • 1 • Tags: , , , , , ,

sunset-landscape-lake-brno-prigl-orange-ship-1

Sep 7 2016

A hard workout 3km/2.5km/2km OTW – glad I have that one behind me

I got to see the sunrise today. That was a really nice reward for having to get up really early. I had the alarm clock at 5am, because my work schedule wouldn’t allow me to train in the evening (business dinner) and to do a session before work, I needed to push off the dock a lot earlier than my usual, relaxed morning sessions at 7am.

Pushed off at 5:53. Things take a bit longer at the rowing club when you’re the first one there, have to unlock doors, etc.

I knew this would be a hard session. In this mesocycle I am doing one or two of these “hard endurance” or “L2” sessions a week. After a summer of sprinting and then letting my fitness degrade, my body hates these sessions. I know it will get used to it, but right now I would prefer any short and sprinty stuff over this. Both types of hard sessions are painful, but I am not mentally prepared for the “long hard distance” pain that sets in slowly but drains you long before you have the end of the session in sight.

So I am allowing myself pretty long rest periods between the intervals, gradually shortening these rests as the weeks go by, to be ready to do a 6km race in October. Today’s session was a classical Pete Plan (Wolverine Plan) session: 3km / 2.5km / 2km at 5 minutes rest. But on the water, each 500m takes 20 seconds longer, so this is actually harder than OTE.

I wanted to do the intervals with increasing stroke rate. The race pace will be 28/29spm, but I cannot do that right now, so my plan was to do the 3km at 25spm, and then increase by 1spm with each interval.

After a 2.2km warming up I turned the boat at the northwest end of the lake and took off.


Work Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|03000| 12:40 |02:06.7| 24.7| 171 | 180 | 9.6 - tailwind
02|02500| 11:19 |02:15.9| 25.2| 169 | 179 | 8.8 - headwind
03|02000| 08:26 |02:06.6| 25.7| 158 | 175 | 9.2 - tailwind
Workout Summary
--|07500| 32:26 | 2:9.7| 25.1| 167 | 180 | 9.2


Summary for your location at 2016-09-07T04:27:43Z: Clear. Temperature 54.46F/12.4C. Wind: 1.18 m/s. Wind Bearing: 39 degrees

I don’t fully agree with the weather report, though. I think the wind speed is pretty accurate. The kind of headwind that you feel, but you (wrongly) get the impression that it doesn’t help you much in the tailwind parts. I took the liberty to change the wind bearing from 39 degrees (NE) to 340 degrees (NNW). I felt that this was a straight head/tail wind with no crosswind. Wind direction is a very local thing, especially in hilly country.

My HR meter seems to misbehave in the second and third interval. Perhaps it’s time to replace the Wahoo Tickr’s battery. You can also see from the graph and from the data that I was a bit more conservative with the stroke rate than the plan. I really was afraid I would give up the session. The distances seemed long. In the end I managed, even without too much stroke counting. Counting strokes for 3000m seems demotivating to me, so I rather pick landmarks and divide the interval in sections. Pass the Lodni Sporty Rowing club. Pass the playground. Pass the slight turn. The restaurant. Rokle. That’s three km divided in 5 sections that are not equally long, but each of them is short enough to be manageable.

When counting, I started to practice something I saw an American Olympic sculler do in a video. She counts ten strokes. Then she doesn’t count for two strokes. Then ten strokes again. Of course you count two strokes, but it nicely disconnects the series of ten. Ten strokes always seems doable, and by separating the strings of ten, I tend to focus more on the ten itself then if it is the third set of ten out of 11 sets of ten. I am not sure if I am expressing myself clearly, but you should try it.

I used to count like this: 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-2-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-3-2-3-… etc. I would know exactly where I was, and I would in general be frustrated by seeing that after 50 strokes the meters countdown was less than 500m.

Now I count: 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10 nothing nothing 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10 nothing nothing etc … and by some magic the meters seem to go by faster. Try it. It might work for you as well.

Power estimation and wind corrected pace
Power estimation and wind corrected pace. I have to correct the y axis on the pace chart to show the equivalent erg pace. Still, very much in line with what I would expect to do on the erg.

Here’s a better plot:download (5)

And, as said, a beautiful sunrise seen from the single.

This is actually a sunset picture, but you get the idea
This is actually a sunset picture, but you get the idea

By • Uncategorized • 2 • Tags: , , , , , ,

download (2)

Sep 3 2016

Saturday: 2x3km – head race preparation

Another beautiful summer day at the lake. The temperatures are not so hot any more. A pleasant 25C and almost no wind. Flat water, except for the wakes that I had to row through.

First a 2km warming up:

I did 2x3km at 3 minutes rest. Yesterday’s bike ride was more exhausting than I thought so I was wondering how to do this workout. In the end I decided I would be happy if:

  • I would row both segments at faster than 2:13 pace
  • I would focus on technique and boat run, achieving the pace through a light stroke at 25spm, not using power

I succeeded.


download (2)

download (4)
Looks like 1:55 equivalent erg pace on average, which I think is about right. Some wake in the first interval. I pushed a bit harder in the final 250m of the second interval


Work Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|03000| 12:59 |02:09.9| 25.3| 171 | 179 | 9.1
02|03000| 12:50 |02:08.4| 26.4| 176 | 186 | 8.8
Workout Summary
--|06000| 25:50 | 2:09.1| 25.9| 174 | 186 | 9.0

After that I was very tired. I did a very slow row back to the club:

At one point I had to speed up a bit to stay ahead of the tourist ferry. Almost bumped into a swimmer there. I stopped and gave her a lecture on the rules. No swimming more than 150m from the bank. Sometimes I am like that. I am generally friendly and greet other lake users, but this lady irritated me. I was trying to stay away from the ferry trajectory and she just came swimming into mine.

At our rowing club, you have to carry your boat uphill after the training. This was one of those sessions where I really wasn’t looking forward to that. I did everything in slow motion. Carry boat. Wash boat. Back to the dock for the sculls. Bring boat inside.

In the mean time, our club house and park was being turned into a wedding chapel. We make a little money to pay for new boats and repairs by renting our beautiful location for team buildings, parties and weddings. I have mixed thoughts about that. Usually all goes well and everybody is happy. Sometimes the neighbors call because of too loud music, or you arrive at the club for your morning session and have to climb over drunk people sleeping in the grass.

But these folks seemed to be very well behaved, happy and nice. They are very lucky with the weather, and will do the ceremony on the grass. I had a little chat with them while I was locking our boat hangars. I also casually mentioned that the lake consumes a drunk swimmer now and then. I hope they have a very good time and no accidents happen.

By • Uncategorized • 2 • Tags: , , , , ,

download

Sep 1 2016

Sprintervals with long rest – OTW

Finally an OTW day again. Couldn’t do the row in the morning, as it is the First Day of School after the vacation, and I didn’t want to miss the breakfast with the kids this morning.

Arrived at the lake around 5pm. It was warm, around 28 degrees, and the lake was calm. There were fewer swimmers and paddlers and other recreational vessels than during the vacation, but there was still enough for me to be nervous and wear the mirrors.

The problem is always the same. Nobody estimates the rowing boat’s speed correctly. There is a very simple way to determine if you will pass in front of or behind a vessel, or are on collision course. If the other boat is moving forward relative to a fixed point on the shore (horizon), you will pass behind it. If it is moving backwards relative to the shore, you will pass in front of it. If the horizon doesn’t move with respect to the other boat, you are on a collision course. Assuming none of the vessels changes course or speeds up/slows down.

I was still struggling with the SpeedCoach workout menu. I wanted to do 20×30″/60″ rest. Being lazy, I thought I could program that as 10x(30″/60″/30″/60″), so the rest periods would also be captured. However, I forgot to change the rest between the series. I discovered that after the first two 30 second speed bursts, when the SpeedCoach went to a “break” of 10 minutes. I stopped and reprogrammed, reducing the rest between “sets” to the minimum of 30″. I guess the right way to program this workout is to do 30/60/30/60/30/60/… etc, at least if you want the rest period to be recorded. Here are the plots for the 18 intervals I did after reprogramming:

download (1)
Power estimated through the algorithms on rowsandall.com

download

Workout data for the first 2 intervals:

Work Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|00129| 00:30 | 1:56.2| 32.0| 145 | 170 | 8.1
02|00193| 01:00 | 2:35.4| 21.0| 166 | 172 | 9.2
03|00129| 00:30 | 1:56.2| 32.0| 164 | 164 | 8.1
04|00190| 01:00 | 2:37.8| 20.0| 167 | 170 | 9.5
Workout Summary
--|00641| 03:00 | 2:20.4| 24.3| 161 | 172 | 8.8

and for the 18 intervals (removed the 60″ rest intervals):

Work Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|00131| 00:30 | 1:54.5| 34.0| 150 | 157 | 7.7 - headwind
03|00129| 00:30 | 1:56.2| 32.0| 166 | 176 | 8.1
05|00135| 00:30 | 1:51.1| 34.0| 165 | 169 | 7.9 - tailwind
07|00134| 00:30 | 1:51.9| 34.0| 173 | 182 | 7.9
09|00135| 00:30 | 1:51.1| 34.0| 174 | 176 | 7.9
11|00139| 00:30 | 1:47.9| 32.0| 172 | 179 | 8.7
13|00105| 00:30 | 2:22.8| 22.0| 151 | 154 | 9.5 - forgot to sprint
15|00138| 00:30 | 1:48.6| 34.0| 163 | 173 | 8.1
17|00135| 00:30 | 1:51.1| 32.0| 163 | 169 | 8.4
19|00138| 00:30 | 1:48.6| 32.0| 171 | 174 | 8.6
21|00137| 00:30 | 1:49.4| 32.0| 167 | 173 | 8.6
23|00123| 00:30 | 2:01.9| 32.0| 160 | 162 | 7.7 - headwind
25|00127| 00:30 | 1:58.1| 32.0| 162 | 165 | 7.9
27|00129| 00:30 | 1:56.2| 32.0| 169 | 173 | 8.1
29|00127| 00:30 | 1:58.1| 32.0| 150 | 153 | 7.9
31|00124| 00:30 | 2:00.9| 32.0| 168 | 170 | 7.8
33|00125| 00:30 | 1:59.9| 30.0| 164 | 169 | 8.3
35|00129| 00:30 | 1:56.2| 30.0| 159 | 159 | 8.6
Workout Summary
--|05500| 27:00 | 2:27.2| 23.1| 166 | 186 | 8.8

The setup of the SpeedCoach confused me in such a way that I forgot to sprint during one of the 30″ intervals.

I didn’t go all out on the sprints but tried to reach a good boat speed by technique, especially trying to accelerate slightly in the last part of the recovery. I think I am seeing a boat speed improvement doing this, but it is too early to proclaim victory.

By • Uncategorized • 2 • Tags: , , , , ,

dsc_2961

Aug 29 2016

Sunday: Training & Racing

Sunday breakfast in the beautiful garden of our friends’ house in Břeclav. Their garden is really a miracle. I am afraid we will never even approach this level of perfection. I am too sloppy and not really interested in gardening, and Romana doesn’t have enough time. Still, my doubles partner Radek, who is a garden architect, has redesigned our garden and we will implement the new design. But having breakfast looking at this garden in Břeclav, with nice people, was a treat.

My first race was in the afternoon, and I decided to do a light steady state session in the morning. There is a canal branching off the river, so I figured I could do the training there without hindering the ongoing races.

Of course I managed to mess up this plan a bit. Instead of doing a steady state as a “just row”, I decided to try out the 4x(4/3/2/1m)/3m rest that I had programmed into the SpeedCoach. That was OK but on the first interval I found out that the canal is a dead end, shorter than 10 minutes. So I had a turn in the first interval, and the second interval brought me back on the river for three minutes.

Luckily they were doing 500m races at that point in time, so I had the river for myself.

The third and fourth interval were on a quite narrow and windy part of the river, and paces were all over the place, mainly because I had to steer a lot. Also, wind and current varied a lot. I tried to do some estimates of the current on rowsandall.com, but I am not sure if I got it right. Still I can say that I rowed between 150W and 220W, and that is also how it felt, 3 on a 10 point Borg scale of Rate of Perceived Exertion. Or is it Perceived Rate of Exertion? Or Perceived Exertion?

The “Training with a power meter” book says that you should use the Borg scale at the beginning of the earlier intervals, so I guess that means that you have to estimate how hard it feels, not how tired you are.

I managed to sneak back to the rowing club just before the 1500m races would start. Got a friendly reprimand from one of the umpires for rowing on a course that was closed for training. He was right of course, but I just wanted to do some steady state.

Work Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|00817| 04:00 | 2:26.8| 18.5| 140 | 150 | 11.0
02|00649| 03:00 | 2:18.6| 20.7| 153 | 159 | 10.5
03|00368| 02:00 | 2:43.0| 20.5| 153 | 161 | 9.0
04|00231| 01:00 | 2:9.8| 23.0| 160 | 165 | 10.0
05|00828| 04:00 | 2:24.9| 18.8| 144 | 152 | 11.0
06|00646| 03:00 | 2:19.3| 20.7| 158 | 162 | 10.4
07|00423| 02:00 | 2:21.8| 22.0| 162 | 165 | 9.6
08|00218| 01:00 | 2:17.6| 23.0| 166 | 168 | 9.5
09|00779| 04:00 | 2:34.0| 19.0| 145 | 153 | 10.2
10|00596| 03:00 | 2:31.0| 20.7| 153 | 157 | 9.6
11|00400| 02:00 | 2:30.0| 22.5| 159 | 162 | 8.9
12|00206| 01:00 | 2:25.6| 23.0| 162 | 165 | 9.0
13|00815| 04:00 | 2:27.2| 19.0| 139 | 148 | 10.7
14|00635| 03:00 | 2:21.7| 20.0| 152 | 156 | 10.6
15|00421| 02:00 | 2:22.5| 22.0| 157 | 161 | 9.6
16|00222| 01:00 | 2:15.1| 23.0| 164 | 168 | 9.7
Workout Summary
--|08254| 40:00 | 2:25.3| 20.3| 151 | 168 | 10.2

In the afternoon I rowed two races in the eight. I rowed the mixed Masters eight, where we had the pleasure of rowing in Břeclav’s new Empacher and won. At the end of the afternoon I was drafted for a 300m sprint in a Men’s eight. We were up against the locals (with seats 7 and 8 taken by the Czech Pair who came 7th in Rio) in their new boat, and our boat was a mix of Juniors and Masters from various clubs, in the heavy 1987 Hudecek. Of course we came second (they beat us by a length over 300m), but we got a few nice bottles of wine for giving the Břeclav men competition.

In other races, daughter Lenka rowed two finals. They came third in the girls quad Final in a race that was re-started when they were leading after 500m and the two other boats clashed (umpire being the trainer of one of the quads in the clash). They also came third in the doubles Final.

My son Dominik enlarged his medal collection by steering a winning boys quad and winning a boys double final.

That was the end of a nice small regatta. While I was out sprinting in the eight, the kids had loaded the trailer, and apart from a small Sunday afternoon traffic jam into Brno the trip home was uneventful.

Dinner on our terrace, still 30 degrees at 7pm.

Břeclav rowing club. Finish "tower" and final straight part of the course
Břeclav rowing club. Finish “tower” and final straight part of the course

By • Uncategorized • 3 • Tags: , , , , , , ,

Breclav 002

Aug 29 2016

Saturday – racing in single and eight

Friday

Rowing related activity: Driving the “small” trailer to Břeclav.

Břeclav is a small town in the middle of the Moravian/Austrian wine region. It has a long rowing history and the club is very active and successful. Lukas Helesic of the Czech Pair who came 7th in Rio, winning the B final, rows for this club. I drove the trailer there with Romana, then we headed for the nearest “Vinoteka”, where we found one of the local rowing coaches in the middle of a wine tasting. So we were welcomed and “were forced” to taste a few different bottles. The Czech Republic has a zero tolerance alcohol and driving law, so as the driver, I had to do the wine tasting proper, so just tasting and not drinking (ok, two sips), but we bought a few bottles to take home.

Saturday

My first race was the Men’s Masters. There were a few entries. The race course has only three lanes, so the race was divided in an “A”, “B/C”, and “D/F” race, with two boats in the A race, three boats in the B/C race and three boats in the D/F race.

The race is on a river. The 1k course is actually 850m long, and there are big differences between the lanes. Lanes 1 and 2 are close to the middle of the river, so they profit from more current, but lane three is on the inside of the turn. Lane three also has a trap, where in the final straight part the river widens and then gets narrower again, so if you follow the bank on your right hand side you end up in the reed.

The organizers try to compensate for the turn by aligning the boats diagonally at the start, but I am not sure if this is really done well. I would have preferred to race in lane 2, but the draw put me in lane 3, against two younger rowers.

Still, I was expected to win this easily. Tonda in lane 1 had rowed 4:10 against my 3:46 a week ago and Michal, who is from the same club as I, is roughly in the same 4:10 area as well.

My son Dominik going for a training on Saturday morning
My son Dominik going for a training on Saturday morning

The weather was hot. The race was at 12:24 and I estimate it was about 35 degrees. At least there was a quite strong headwind, especially on the last straight bit of the course.

We spent some time aligning the boats at the start and I tried to get my bow in the right direction. Then it was time to concentrate for the start. Being in lane three, I was aligned behind the two other boats, and my plan was to try and get them before we would go into the turn, and then the rest of the race would be easy, because I would have the advantage of the inner turn.

I also didn’t want to hug the bank too much because of the stream, so I would push as much towards lane 2 as the turning buoys would allow.

That was the theory.

I executed a very good start and was doing nice high stroke rate.

Bang. I banged my scull into Michal’s, and lost it. This is where perception of time made everything go slow motion:

Grab handle mid air.

Tonda rowing away from us.

Left blade stuck in the water.

My single started to turn towards Michal’s.

My single starting to capsize.

The force on the blade being to strong for me to hold the handle.

Me managing to not let lose of the handle, but the scull now being almost parallel to the boat.

Me capsizing more.

Me somehow recovering from that.

Now I was expecting the umpire to stop the race and re-start. The clash was probably my fault but Michal had a right to a re-start.

No red flag. Nothing.

Having come to a full stop, I did a race start as soon as our boats were disentangled, and started to sprint to catch up with Tonda.

Somehow I managed to do that at half way through the turn. I continued to row hard to get a lead, which I had by the “500m” point. Now rowing into a strong headwind and the water becoming more choppy, I lowered the stroke rate and just controlled for the rest of the race. I clashed my blade on the final turning buoy and started the final straight part. I had to look around a few times to avoid going into the “pocket” and ending up in the bank.

Looking at the data, I think I was running at around 500W in the sprint after the clash, and things were hurting too much to continue rowing any decent race pace. Luckily for me, Tonda didn’t manage to speed up and I passed the finish line.

I was expecting a red flag or a disqualification, but to my astonishment the umpire waved the white flag indicating that according to him the race had been regular.

So I landed the boat, apologized to Michal, and went on to pick up my medal.

In the afternoon there was a boat christening of the Břeclav rowing club’s new Empacher eight, followed by the Masters Men’s 8+ race. Břeclav’s Masters team, with an average age of 70 years,  rowed the new Empacher, and I rowed in “the other boat”, consisting of eight random Masters picked from 5 other clubs, rowing a 1987 Hudecek (a Czech brand).

The average age of our eight was around 40, so it was clear we would win. At the start line, it was secretly agreed with the other crew that we would row next to each other through the turn and then just speed up a bit during the final straight part in front of the crowd. This was more an “exhibition” than a race, and for the local crowd (and the members of parliament and local politicians who had been invited) it would be nice to see two eights “racing” next to each other.

The plan was executed as agreed. We rowed next to each other, and at the start of the straight part the cox of the local eight shouted “go” and we took up the stroke rate from 25spm to 27spm. I think we still pushed a bit too hard because we won by a length.

In other races, Dominik picked up two medals. One for a singles race where his opponent didn’t show up, so he just rowed the course and got a medal. The second one for a quad race where they won by half a length (over 500m).

Breclav 003

In the evening, our local friends took us to an open air cinema in a nearby (wine) village, so we had a great evening tasting wine and watching a movie.

 

 

By • Uncategorized • 2 • Tags: , , , ,

«< 29 30 31 32 33 >»