OTW

Masters3

Oct 1 2015

Masters Ranking 2015 – some thoughts about rankings

Masters Ranking

The Masters top 10 is a competition among Czech OTW rowing Masters. The rules are quite simple:

  • Points are awarded for all races authorised by the Czech Rowing Association that have Masters categories
  • Points are allocated as follows
    • First place: 6 points
    • Second place: 5 points
    • Third place: 4 points, etc
  • In a race with multiple age categories, points are awarded according to your relative result in your age category, but
    • If you are beaten by one or more competitors from an older age category, your points are reduced accordingly. So if you are the first Masters C but a Masters D has won the overall race, you get only 5 points.
  • You also get points if you are the only boat in your age category, under the condition that you cross the finish line.
  • For competitors with the same amount of points, the older competitor will be ranked higher, as well as those who achieve the points with fewer starts
  • For the Czech National Masters Open Championships, points are multiplied by 2

So here is the standing for Men with just a few races to go:

Rank Name Club Cat. Starts Points Alternative
1 Černák Vojtěch OSTP C 65 36 258 165
2 Knopp Jiří SLAV E 60 32 220 145
3 Pešat Jan OSTP E 56 30 187 125
4 Šulc Josef SLAV E 58 18 125 98
5 Burda Vladimír BOHM F 52 14 114 97
6 Řepka Petr ÚSTÍ G 49 12 90 81
7 Krejza Zdeněk MĚLN F 52 13 88 77
8 Vránek Pavel ŠTĚT C 72 14 87 74
9 Malecký Jiří MĚLN B 77 15 86 71
10 Viktora Milan HODN C 66 15 85 71
11 Šimůnek Jan ÚSTÍ G 48 12 82 74
12 Blahout Rostislav SLAV E 56 11 79 73
13 Roosendaal Sander ČVKB C 72 10 79 76
14 Vyhnal Jiří TŘEB I 36 10 78 75
15 Zoubek Václav VKSM H 44 10 76 73
16 Šnajdr Vladimír MĚLN H 42 10 75 72
17 Prachař Josef SLAV F 55 8 72 75
18 Štancl Jan SLAV E 57 8 72 75
19 Mitáš Petr UHHR C 71 6 68 80
20 Vránek Petr ŠTĚT C 72 11 68 63

I copied just the top 20. There are actually 348 names on the list. I did some graphs:

masters1

Masters2

A few observations:

  1. Apart from the top 5 there is a fairly large group of Masters rowers who rowed between 5 and 15 races.
  2. The ranking really is about participation rather than winning often. Apart from the Masters Nationals, most races are regional events, with about 20 to 30 Masters rowers participating in total, spread over various age categories and boat classes. There are 23 events that count for the ranking. The leader started 36 times in 7 events of the 18 that have already taken place. In contrast, I started 10 times in 4 events (and will participate in 2 more).

This got me thinking about an alternative way of ranking. One could, for example  simply calculate the number of points divided by the number of starts, but then there are a whole lot of people who won one race at the Nationals and thus collect 12 points for 1 start.

My current thinking is that a fair system would be to rank based on p2 = points/log(1+starts). That would (raise me to a ninth place and) give the following graph:

Masters3

Apart from the top 5 it seems to make it much more interesting to compete with the persons around your position in the ranking, and it makes it more interesting for somebody who doesn’t have time to go to all events. Also, it raises the important of head races where you cannot participate in more than 1 race per day, plus makes it easier for Masters who also double as race organizer or official to catch a few points.

But of course, the formula has a “log” in it, so it is scary …

Any thoughts of interesting ways to calculate a ranking?

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6km2

Sep 26 2015

And More Training Plan Musings. Plus weekly 6km in the single

Kraft

Thank you Boris for the links to the video in your comments to yesterday’s blogs. Here are a few examples of the circuit training that Fritsch/Nolte suggest. Apologies for those who don’t speak German. I suggest you throw the text in Google Translate.

Beispiel fuer ein allgemeines Kraeftigungsprogramm

45s Pause zwischen den Sets – Gesamtdauer ca. 45 min

  1. Kniebeuge Langhantel – 4 sets 15-12-10-8 Wh
  2. Ruecken – 3 Sets 15-12-10 Wh
  3. Latziehen – 4 Sets 15-12-10-10 Wh
  4. Einbeinige Kniebeuge mit KH – 3 Sets 15-12-10-10 Wh
  5. Armdruecken auf Pezziball – 3 sets 15-12-10 Wh
  6. Oberer Ruecken – 3 Sets 12-10-10 Wh
  7. Rudern mit LH in Vorhalte – 3 Sets 12-10-10 Wh
  8. Brust – 3 Sets 12-10-10 Wh
  9. Crunch Pezziball – 1 Set bis zur Ermuedung
  10. Reverse Crunch Pezzi – 1 Set bis zur Ermuedung

Romana’s circuit training, all stations 12 repeats (they will do 15 later)

  1. Hanging on ribstole – legs
  2. Lying pullup  bar
  3. squats on bosu ball
  4. Back
  5. Bench press 25kg
  6. Bench pull 25kg
  7. Leg press 70kg
  8. Sit ups
  9. Rowing motion
  10. Jumping over a bench

My inventory of what I have at home

  1. Jumping rope (used now for quick hotel room workout)
  2. dumbbells 2kg
  3. Pezzi ball
  4. A pull up bar to put in a door opening. It doesn’t work because our 1920s doors are too wide

Perhaps the addition of a sandbag, and maybe a simple fitness bench will be enough to create a simple improvised circuit training for when I don’t have time to go to the gym/rowing club. The idea would be to do a 30-40 minute circuit training, then erg. All critique/suggestions/comments welcome!!!!

Today’s rowing

Nice weather: 15 degrees C, windy and medium to medium/big chop. Overcast.

I did my weekly 6km hard distance row, but the lake was really choppy at the Sirka end. My time was over 28 minutes … 🙁

6km2 6km1

The stats are as follows:

|Dist_|Time_|Pace__|_SPM__|avg HR|max HR|DPS|Remarks
|02298|13:55|03:01.7| 18.3 | 148 | 163 |09.0|warming up
|00999|04:12|02:06.1| 25.0 | 173 | 179 |09.5|km 1
|01000|04:16|02:08.0| 24.5 | 179 | 180 |09.6|km 2
|01001|04:22|02:10.9| 24.1 | 179 | 181 |09.5|km 3
|00998|05:27|02:43.8| 23.2 | 179 | 182 |07.9|turn & km 4
|00998|05:00|02:30.3| 23.8 | 182 | 185 |08.4|km 5
|00999|04:52|02:26.2| 24.4 | 183 | 184 |08.4|km 6
|02267|14:31|03:12.1| 17.2 | 143 | 184 |09.1|cooling down


dist_____|time_____|_pace___|_HR__|_SPM__|_DPS|comment
2298_____|_13:55____|_3:01.7|148|18.3|9.0|warmup
5995_____|_28:09____|_2:20.9|179|24.1|8.8|Main set
2267_____|_14:31____|_3:12.1|143|17.2|9.1|Cool down
10560____|_56:35____|_2:40.8|163|20.9|8.9|_Total

Slow, sloppy and choppy … not a good day. Tailwind didn’t speed me up and the headwind slowed me down by a lot.

My Garmin Forerunner 220 froze after 33 minutes of rowing. I had to reset it after the training. Luckily, that worked. Even though, I was already fantasizing that I had a good reason to buy a new GPS watch … 😉
I am glad I build in the redundancy with the CrewNerd / Garmin combo.

I am using tapiriik now so I have all data on Garmin Connect, SportTracks and Strava. Used the Strava segments for the first time to look at my historic data on the 6km. I have defined a 5.8km segment in Strava that should capture my 6km efforts without having to line up on exactly the same starting location every time. Here are the historic data that I captured:

stravacapture

I took a GoPro video of the effort. Will upload it once done processing.

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lenka2

Sep 25 2015

More training plan musings and a double outing

Training plan musings

dasbuch3

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.

kracht

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:

kracht2

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.

kracht3

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.

lenka2 lenka1

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.

aka

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.

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51Eu2ObMi-L._SX342_BO1,204,203,200_

Sep 23 2015

Das Buch Review

Just before Hazewinkel …

 

Hey, I got a few new Hazewinkel pictures from Arjan today. Here they are:

DSC_1110 DSC_1108

The second picture nicely captures the organized chaos around the pontoons.

But where was I? Yes, just before Hazewinkel I bought this book, “Masterrudern: Das Training ab 40” by Volker Nolte and Wolfgang Fritsch. I have been reading it during my stay in Belgium and here is my review.

The back cover text promises to discuss the theoretical basis for training methodologies based on the most recent insights from the scientific literature, give concrete advice and tips for training for racing and fitness, as well as discuss learning to row at an older age, how to improve technique and how to rig the boat.

In my mind this is the first flaw of the book. It is trying too much at once. The first part basically just tells how great rowing is as a sport for “older” people. I guess most buyers of the book don’t need to be convinced about that. The second part, about learning to row at an  older age, should in my mind have been a separate book. Now I feel I have paid for only one third of the book, the part about training for Masters rowers.

So the part that I am really interested in starts at page 137 and is roughly 100 pages long. After a brief introduction of how training works (the overcompensation effect) and the different training aims that Masters rowers may have (race performance vs just slowing down declining fitness with age), the authors introduce the following categorisation of different training forms:

dasbuch1

The quick translations from German are mine, so don’t blame the authors for that. They then proceed to describe different training intensities and give rough OTW pace indications for the different intensities, based on either your steady state pace or your 1000m race pace. I believe a description of lactate or HR based determination of training intensities should have been appropriate here. Then the authors describe the rough proportions of the different training intensities in a balanced training program, as a function of age.

That’s where it become interesting. This is really the problem I am trying to find an optimized solution for:

Given my age, my time constraints, and my training goals, what is the optimum mix of boat training vs other types of training, and the different training intensities, for each part of the year?

I understand the authors cannot give a straight answer for a population ranging from 27 years to 90+, with training goals varying from “general fitness” to “winning the Masters Worlds” and training backgrounds varying from “couch potato” to “former OIympian”. I understand that. I want to closely read the book, collect the wisdom and then try to apply it to my own situation.

What made that a bit difficult to do is the sloppy writing style of the two authors (or the bad job done by the editor). They are switching back and forth between different names for the same (or roughly the same?) thing. For example the reader suddenly gets to read a text on threshold training, without finding threshold training as such in the breakdown of training forms (see above). It may be on purpose to stimulate a very close reading and good thinking by the reader, but I am more inclined to think that this is the result of two authors not fully coordinating their nomenclature. I believe that the text should have been written much more rigorously, with a very strict breakdown in categories. This would also make it much more easy to quickly look up a certain part, for example if you need inspiration for an “intensive endurance” boat training.

Regarding the recommendations for the different types of training (Compensation/Extensive Endurance/Intensive Endurance/Strength/Race specific), it would be interesting to see a discussion of the priorities and choices to make for athletes who have a limited time budget. The authors describe three (or perhaps more, it varies a bit from page to page) types of strength training, but how to build this into a program that has to limited to four days?

At the end, the authors do give an example of a typical week of training for exactly this case, a rower who has time for four sessions a week. Unfortunately, when I try to calculate the time spent in the different training zones/types, the result does not add up to the recommendation that I read 100 pages earlier. Are the authors contradicting themselves or did they implicitly make a prioritization based on the limited time?

Because, to be honest, if we want to follow exactly the recommendations, we either have to do 12 training units per week (which is perfectly fine for some, but not realistic in my case), or combine some things into one session. An alternative would be to smear out the distribution over several weeks, but no, the authors talk about two strength sessions per week, so that’s no alternative.

A hint is given in that famous 4 days per week training plan. For example, one Monday session consists of

  • 30 min Strength 3 sets 5 repeats, 80% (1) clean (2) leg press (3) bench pull (4) bench press
  • 30 minutes steady state OTW

Honestly, this is not practical in my case. Granted, our rowing club has quite a nice gym, but it takes me 25 minutes to drive there from work (and 15 from home), so when I do make the effort to go there, I want to spend more than 30 minutes on the water, especially when changing from indoor gym clothes to winter rowing, bringing in and out the boats, and other things add some overhead time to the entire duration.

On the positive side, the book has helped indeed in my thinking about my next training plan, but only after I made a powerpoint presentation to myself with all the collected wisdom from the book. I basically had to write an excerpt, reorganize the different topics, and do some interpretation before it became useful. As I enjoy playing with plans and schedules and the general engineering approach to problem solving, it was time well spent for me. But I am not sure this appeals to all rowers.

I will discuss my training plan for the coming winter in a next blog, coming soon, but one of the things I am thinking about is to increase the percentage of compensation, extensive endurance and pleasant cross-training in one sweep by introducing a bike commute a couple of times per week. I have recently bought a second-hand mountain-bike, which is a big enabler. My sturdy but heavy Dutch city bike was not the right thing for hilly Brno. Also, in the past year a number of new bike lanes have emerged around my route to work. My daily commute takes 20-30 minutes by car, 30-40 minutes by train and about 60 minutes by bus/tram. With the new bike, I can be under one hour including a shower at my destination, so this would be an effective way of introducing some more training kilometers in a time-effective way.

This morning I did a test ride.

Road 9-23-2015, Elevation

commute

I had forgotten how different a city commute between car exhausts is from a nice Sunday mountainbike ride through the forest, but looking at the heart rates this could qualify as a nice way of cross training.

In the afternoon I left the bike at work and returned by public transport. Tomorrow I will do the ride home, followed by an intensive erg training. That should really put this plan to the test.

I am still thinking about other ways to add a running training, two strength sessions, and divide the rest of the weekly sessions sensibly over the different training zones within the time that I have for sport (including driving to and from a rowing or fitness club), and I will keep you updated on my progress. Throw in a few business trips per month and you can see how everything I do is really a compromise.

The verdict: I don’t regret buying the book but I think a revised edition could be much better.

 

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hrad1

Sep 22 2015

Interesting CrewNerd+XGPS160 glitch – Kraftausdauer

I left my backup Garmin at home but I spotted the anomaly anyway.

Today, I had headwind for the entire outing. On the way towards the castle I was rowing with a bungee, so it feels like rowing into a headwind. I removed the bungee for the headwind stretch from the castle back to the club. There was a strong wind and the stretch around the nude beach was quite choppy. When I was rowing with the bungee, the splash I created combined with the chop made the water flow over the XGPS160, which it obviously didn’t like, because suddenly i had 2600m done, where I am usually around 2km. Looking at the data now, somehow the way towards the castle was 1000m longer than the way back. Also there is a suspicious pace peak starting at 1300m, exactly around the nude beach.

Here is a close-up of a very suspicious part of my trajectory:

XGPS glitch
XGPS glitch – my real trajectory was very close to the smooth one taken on the way back

hrad2 hrad1

On the way back you can see that area around the nude beach as the dip in pace where I go slower than 2:50.

My training plan said Steady State but in the fall I like to take out the bungee and make it more like a Wolverine L4 workout. Rowing towards the castle I was between 16 and 18spm.

My book “Masterrudern. Das training ab 40” calls this “Kraftausdauer”.

All good. I am preparing the review for you, dear readers.

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Holky 001

Sep 19 2015

Shock Therapy: 6km OTW trial and testing new Rowing In Motion feature

The update of Rowing in Motion (RIM) has a new feature: programmable workouts. I wanted to try it, because I love the stroke analysis of RIM and combined with programmable workouts it would be a great app.

It works a bit different than CrewNerd. In CrewNerd you can access the “workouts” at any time, so you can warm up using “Just Row”, then dial up an interval session with pre-programmed rests (say 8x500m) but you could also just dial up a 500m, row it, rest a bit, then dial another 500m etc. I didn’t discover this feature in RIM, so if it has it, it is well hidden. In RIM, you program the entire workout before you start to row, so I had to program:

10 minutes warming up

5 minutes rest (with some extra reserve time)

6km trial

5 minutes rest

10 minutes cooling down

I never know if my warming up is going to be 9 minutes or 11 minutes. It depends on the wind, on the exact course taken on the lake, and a few other factors. Also, when starting a set, one may want to wait until another crew has moved out of the way, or until the wake of a large boat has disappeared. I’ll send some comments to the RIM forum.

After a week dedicated to work, including a short business trip to Prague, and no training, I was back on the water again. I arrived at the club at 9am, rigged the single, and did the warming up. As I am defending a head race title on October 10, it’s about time to get used to head race pace. I decided to do the same as last year: row 6km trials on Saturdays. In fact, on our lake it is 3km, hard stop and turn, then another 3km.

6km

6km2


|Dist_|Time_|Pace__|_SPM__|avg HR|max HR|DPS|Remarks
|01891|09:58|02:38.1| 19.4 | 145 | 159 |09.8|warming up
|00392|05:00|06:22.2| 19.7 | 151 | 157 |04.0|rest
|01002|04:03|02:01.2| 27.3 | 171 | 178 |09.1|km 1
|01002|04:11|02:05.2| 26.3 | 178 | 179 |09.1|km 2
|00996|04:09|02:05.0| 26.3 | 179 | 183 |09.1|km 3
|01002|04:49|02:24.2| 26.6 | 180 | 183 |07.8|turn & km 4
|01002|04:38|02:18.8| 25.4 | 179 | 181 |08.5|km 5
|00998|04:25|02:12.8| 27.1 | 183 | 184 |08.3|km 6
|00362|04:59|06:53.1| 18.9 | 140 | 183 |03.8|rest
|01945|11:24|02:55.9| 19.0 | 144 | 155 |09.0|cooling down

Summary:

dist_____|time_____|_pace___|_HR__|_SPM__|_DPS|comment
1891_____|_09:58____|_2:38.1|145|19.4|9.8|warmup
6003_____|_26:15____|_2:11.2|179|26.5|8.6|Main set
1945_____|_11:24____|_2:55.9|144|19.0|9.0|Cool down
0754_____|_09:59____|_6:37.0|146|19.3|3.9|rest meters
10592____|_57:36____|_2:43.1|161|22.0|8.3|_Total

I set off in a tailwind and had no trouble reaching 29spm. Actually, after all the sprinting, that feels like easy and sustainable. After 1.5km I started to think differently about that. By the time I had to turn, after a little over 3km, I was definitely not looking forward to the second half of the course, to be done in headwind. I somehow survived km 4 and 5 and then counted the strokes in the 6th kilometer.

RIM behaves interestingly. During the row, it overlays the workout data (remaining meters, target stroke rate and time) in the top left corner of the display, over whatever you have programmed to be shown there (pace, in my case). The rest of the display is unchanged, so you can see total meters, and all the other parameters you have decided to be displayed. I think I prefer the CrewNerd way of doing, which resets the meters rowed for each interval in much the same style as the Concept2 PM3.

Also, I cannot find my time for the 6km set in RIM. It’s not in the app and it’s not on the analytics page. Luckily I am using the Garmin Forerunner as a backup.

I rowed 26:15. How does that compare with a year ago?

Date Time Avg HR Comment
19-Sep-15 26:15.0 179
5-Oct-14 28:10.0 175 HD
20-Sep-14 26:18.0 181
13-Sep-14 26:30.0 178
6-Sep-14 26:39.0 183

Not bad, I must say. And I really had difficulty rowing hard in the fourth and fifth kilometer.

Here’s the RIM analysis. Will be interesting to compare with next week’s session:

RIM2 RIM

After she finished her coaching of the girls, Romana went out with the ladies on the quad. Notice the sailing boat traffic in the background:

Holky 001

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OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Sep 16 2015

World Rowing Masters Regatta: The Hazewinkel Report (longread)

The  regatta in general

_MG_6516

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.

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2xa

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

Group picture before warming up
Group picture before warming up
Looking for a good boat
Looking for a good boat
Found a nice boat
Found a nice boat

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. :-/

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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.

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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.

Ready for the long trip
Ready for the long trip
Ready for the long trip
Ready for the long trip

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.

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