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Aug 1 2019

The EURow Regatta in Linz, Austria

Friday

On Friday, July 26, we drove our trailer to Ottensheim near Linz. That’s a very easy 3.5 to 4 hour drive, down to Vienna and then basically following the Danube upstream, passing beautiful Melk and other nice places.

Romana and I parked the trailer on the race venue, claimed rack space by putting our boats on it, and then drove back to Linz to find our accomodation.

The regatta course in Ottensheim – photo by Natascha Kral

We had a small 1 room apartment about 2km east of the center of the town. It was past 7pm when we wanted to get something to eat, so I pulled out my phone and looked for the nearest place on Foursquare. This turned out to be some place with good reviews, about 700m of walking in the southeast direction.

That turned out to be walking 1500m, because of some construction sites blocking the shortest route. And when we arrived there, in the middle of an industrial area, the place was closed for the summer.

So I thought we should take a taxi to the city center and eat there. Well, there’s no Uber in Linz, and before I had figured out the phone numbers of a classical taxi service, we had a better idea. There was a big hotel close to our apartment, on the bank of the Danube. Why not have a dinner in the hotel restaurant? That worked out, but we ate later than planned, and we got a 3km hike as our exercise of the day.

Later, we found a piece of paper in our apartment, listing places to eat including opening times.

Saturday

Romana dropped me off at the regatta course in the morning, and then drove to lake Lipno on the Czech side of the border to pick up our son Robin, who had spent a week at a sailing summer camp.

I took care of my single. Then I had a coffee with Dave and Daniela who represent Wintech, Concept2 and Nielsen-Kellerman in the Czech Republic, to tie out some details about the September camp.

Then it was time to get ready to race.

The EURow regatta (I don’t like the name, by the way) is a revamped Austrian Masters Nationals. It’s open for crews from other nations, and they are marketing it as a EU wide regatta, sort of like Euromasters in Munich. As it is a new or re-branded event, and it is held on the same course as the World Rowing Masters Regatta (WRMR) in 2020, Romana and I (and a few other Czech Masters) thought it was a good idea to check out this regatta. My other motivation was that I have done very little racing in the single, in this season, and I know I need some race experience as a preparation for this year’s WRMR. The good masters rowers in Austria are fast enough to be a good trial. One always performs differently in racing conditions than in a training.

The format of the regatta was heats on Saturday (but the heat winner did get a medal) and finals on Sunday (with medals for the first three). As the Masters C 1x had only 6 participants, Saturday was a race for which lane you race in on Sunday.

So how did the race go? It was ideal weather, almost no wind, flat water, fixed start pontoons and I didn’t know 4 of my 5 opponents. So it was an ideal practice race. The only opponent I knew was Mr Helbig. Mr and Mrs Helbig are usually a few seconds faster than Romana and I in the mixed 2x, but I never raced him directly in the single. Also, I didn’t check his online results, but somehow was expecting him to be roughly as fast as I.

I had a great start. Some people were ahead of me and some were behind, including Mr Helbig. Based on my Critical Power curve of last season and recent trainings, I was aiming for around 315 to 325 Watts. When I took a first glance at the SpeedCoach, about 200m into the race, I was going at 350W. I decided to let that gradually drift down while keeping the stroke rate at 32, then wind up in the second half.

I succeeded beyond my expectations. I was able to hold the power around the 340W range.

Nobody passed me and I didn’t pass anyone else, although I tried hard to catch up with the guy rowing ahead of me. I finished third. As you can see from the picture, I was happy with the result.

Look, I had the most consistent splits from the first to second 500m of all competitors!

The picture also gives a really good impression of the nice flat water. According to the official results I finished third (no surprise) in a time of 3:48.

With that race a success, we spent the afternoon exploring the old town of Linz.

In the evening, I uploaded the race’s data to the rowsandall.com site. As expected, this did shift my Critical Power curve by about 25W around the four minute benchmark. Yay! I guess I have to move my target for the upcoming regattas.

We had dinner in the hotel restaurant again. This time, we walked straight to it, instead of doing a 3km hike.

Sunday

So Sunday would be a repetition of Saturday’s program, but two hours earlier (and divided in “big” and “small” finals for those disciplines that had more than 7 competitors). And then, at the end of the afternoon, there would be mixed racing. Exciting!

My first race was at noon, so in the morning we took care of the double, had a coffee, watched some races, talked to friends. Had a really good time.

Then it was time to prepare for my race in the single. The weather was virtually the same as on Saturday, and I was up against the same opponents. However, I considered Saturday’s race a close result (except for the winner, perhaps), so everything was open again.

This time I was racing in lane 2. The first 200m seemed to be a repetition of Saturday (more about that later), with Mr Humbek leading, followed by Mr Hettler, and me rowing in third place. The difference was that my new target was 350W. When we were approaching the 500m mark, I thought I should try and pass Mr Hettler. I tried for 10 strokes, but was unable to get the power up, and I didn’t really close the gap.

As a consequence, I entered the third 250m interval with everything falling apart at the same time. The lactate burn peaked. The guy rowing behind me charged and was threatening to row through me. It was all very unpleasant, and all I could think of was somehow make it to the 750m without losing the bronze medal position. I did succeed in that, and then it was just a question of counting strokes until the finish line. Almost the same result as Saturday:

Here are the charts:

The orange is Saturday’s race. Green is Sunday. You can see that I pushed harder in the first 250m, but I paid for that in the third 250m. The average power was 5W higher on Sunday (+1%) but the time was 2 seconds slower (-1%). I thought the weather was identical, but seeing that everybody got a bit slower on Sunday, there may have been more of a headwind then.

Here’s pace. See the dramatic slowdown in the third 250m:

And here’s stroke rate:

I also studied the other metrics (stroke length, slip, wash, work per stroke) but they were nearly identical between Saturday and Sunday. Well, in WpS you can see the dip as well:

Here is me rowing (in the final 50m):

And here is the victory ceremony:

And a picture of Romana and me between my 1x race and our mix 2x race, watching other races:

And now it was time to prepare for the mixed double. Always a huge event. Romana and I hadn’t raced since Euromasters in July 2018. We also knew that Ostrava was keen on beating us, and we know that the Helbig family has historically rowed 2 to 5 seconds faster than we. We didn’t know any of the other crews.

We had a good start and by 500m we were in second position, but not by much. The Helbigs and Ostrava were a second behind us.

We kept pulling strong and we were rowing really well. Passing the 500m mark, I was expecting the other crews to fall behind, but that didn’t happen. It was one of those mixed double finals again. With 250m to go I upped the stroke rate to 38 (and higher), but Michael Helbig started his engine and the Helbigs pushed for an amazing sprint. In the heat of the race, we were also passed by Ostrava. Fourth place.

I guess we were a bit disappointed. However, we really had no idea whether we would be a fast or a slow crew, and looking at the times, and how close we were to the Helbigs, you can say that we are as strong as in 2017 and 2018. Now let’s work hard to gain a few seconds before the WRMR.

Then it was time to make a group photo with all the Czech participants:

We loaded the trailer and drove home. The last 50km was driving through a very heavy thunderstorm (at an average speed of 60 km per hour) and we were home by 10pm.

Oh, and just for fun, a map of my 1x race from rowsandall.com. It’s fun to add the water navigation overlay when we were so close to a big river.

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Jun 15 2019

Morava Race

It’s been a hectic and very exciting period, and that’s the reason my last blog post was from May 25th. Here’s a very quick run through the sessions starting on May 27th.

May 29th session 1: Weights. On Monday I was too tired, and on Tuesday I was too busy to workout. I do pretty heavy weights sessions, so I think this was a pretty heavy one.

May 29th session 2: Row in the 8+. One of the few preparation sessions we had for our short season. If I remember well, it was choppy. BoatCoach was misbehaving. I thought I had set it to splash guard, but it switched off during the row. The map also showing me taking a jump to North Africa during one or two strokes. It surely didn’t look like I was visiting the Sahara. It was more choppy, wetter, and less coordinated.

On June 30, I drove to Racice to pick up the boats for the camp. Here are Daniela and Dave from Czech Concept2/Wintech/NK:

May 31st: A quick row in the double. We simply ran out of time. It wasn’t very intensive, but it was a pleasure to row the double with Romana.

June 1: Morava Regatta on our home lake. Kazi and I rowed the heat of the men’s 2x. We came in fourth place . It wasn’t a very good race, and we expected to not proceed to the finals. It turns out our time was better than the winner of the second heat, and we qualified for the final on Sunday. We are trying to race faster crews in preparation for the Masters Worlds, so this was good. It was unfortunate that we couldn’t deal with the wakes from the umpires launches and that we couldn’t steer a straight course.

Sunday June 2: Our final race on the double. We were bold and did something you should not try at home: We changed some rigging parameters on our boat just before a race.

And off we were to the final:

We raced a much better race this time, and managed exactly the same time as on Saturday, but this time we

  • rowed in a headwind (as opposed to Saturday’s tailwind)
  • managed to pass another crew which is always a great feeling

Here are some charts comparing the Saturday and Sunday races:

Looks pretty similar, but we had a tailwind on Saturday, and it all felt much more controlled on Sunday.

On the same day, my youngest son Robin (on the right in the picture below) won his heat and final in the boys 4+, and can now call himself Champion of Moravia.

My final race of the weekend was a 2k in our Masters eight. We raced better than we had ever rowed in a training and managed to win a bronze medal.

The picture shows our crew on the right, the winning Men’s crew from our club in the middle, and Lodni Sporty Brno taking silver on the left. There was a little competition going on of funniest pictures on the podium. We weren’t very good. I liked our Juniors 8+:

I took a quick shower and then it was time for the camp to start …

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Nov 8 2018

Novembervieren Race – battling on old battle grounds

Our CVK Brno/Naarden coxed quad was racing in block 3, so there was time enough in the morning. We arrived in Amsterdam around lunch time.

The water was nice and flat. I watched the races of Block 2 from the banks at the Omval, close to rowing club RIC.

The weather was nice, although humid and cold, but it wasn’t raining and there was a light tail wind.

Finally, it was time to launch. As we were the last boat in our division, we also launched last, so we received some comments from the umpires to not lose contact with the other boats steaming up to the start and receive an official warning.

As we were a relatively fast boat, there was no problem whatsoever. We steamed up to the start line in our usual 24 spm, about 10 minutes before the start of the first boat in Block 3. We quickly found our position among the large crowd of fours and quads, and waited.

The sun getting lower, and we ended up having to wait in the shadow. That made it a little colder, especially when we removed our turtle shells and prepared to race.

The chart shows only the race part, plus perhaps 100m of getting up to speed. As you can see we settled into 31-32spm and never lost that. The heart rate values are not correct for the first part of the race. I was fiddling with the Polar OH1 before the start, and I think it didn’t make good contact, until it snapped into place in the second kilometer.

It was hard work but at the same time I really enjoyed racing on my old battle ground. I was curious to see if I would still know every turn and every bridge, and I wasn’t disappointed. With every stroke, I knew exactly where I was and where the cox would turn the boat to. We had a great cox, by the way. Look at the line he took:

You can’t really steer this course any sharper. Here is us heading down the course:

I am not sure at which point this picture was taken. I guess from one of the bridges. The water was a bit rougher than I had expected. I think this had a lot to do with rowing as the last boat in our division, with 80 or more boats ahead of us.

Immediately from the start, our coxswain started encouraging us, letting us know that we were making ground on the crews ahead of us. Eventually it took until the Omval (1.5k to go) when we started to pass crews, but now we were passing them fast. We gained contact, quickly rowed through a crew, and sprinted to the next one. About 200m before the Berlage bridge I told Dennis that we could rate up a bit, which he did. I just wanted to let him know that I was ready to start emptying the tank. Now we had 800m to go. Rating up brought some unrest in the crew, so we stuck at 32/33spm. It was a long stretch rowing from the Berlage bridge to the finish at De Hoop rowing club.

Immediately after crossing the finish, our coxswain got his phone out of his pocket and announced that we were in the first 20.

In our division, we were 19th out of 63 boats. Not bad. Funny that we finished on a shared 19th position. The first 6 boats of our division were all rowing with formed elite rowers (mostly Olympians).

Happy faces after the race. In the background the Berlage bridge and the high rise office buildings at the Omval

We spent an hour preparing the boats for transport, and then it was time to get warm by taking a shower. I had some time for a quick coffee before I was headed to the airport. Took a flight to Munich, where I arrived at 1am, slept for a few hours and then continued with the 6am flight to Toulouse.

What a great race day!

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Oct 14 2018

Saturday Race Day: Head of Prague

We arrived in Prague at 8am. Actually, we were the first to order coffee at the bar of the Prague rowing club Blesk (“Lightning”). Coffee and cake, and then getting our boat ready for the race.

Again, we were competing in the Mix 8+ category. No age restrictions, so we were up against combined Juniors crews as well as other Masters crews. For us, the Head of Prague is more a nice autumn experience than a “must win” race.

We had great fun rowing up to the start and enjoying the fine, sunny autumn weather along with 50 other eights waiting for the first boat to start.

We had some difficulty in the middle part of the race. Some tourists on a motor boat were going on in the middle of the river, at about the same speed as us, and for about 1500m we were surfing on their wake. I think we took about 100 Liters of water in that stretch. Sitting on 6 seat, both my oarlock and the stroke’s were under water a couple of times and we got a good share of cold water.

Then, “The Turn”. Our club president cheering on the bridge gaves us a 6 out of 10, with most other crews being slower but some remarkably faster.

The Roosendaal’s were well represented in our crew, named “Zrejme Dobrej Oddil” (= “Apparently a good club”). Romana rowed in 4, Sander on 6, and Dominik (13) was our coxswain. I think the following 10 minute video captures the race atmosphere well:

The video was my first experiment with a GoPro chest strap. I think that a head mount will be better next time. The main protagonists of the video are coxswain Dominik and our stroke man and walking encyclopedia of Czech Rowing Martin “The Turkey” Krocil.

My heart rate monitor had some issues in the first part of the race. Otherwise the stroke rate and pace is accurate.

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Jul 30 2018

The Euromasters Regatta 2018

Thursday, July 26th, the first day of the Euromasters Regatta 2018 at the 1972 Olympic rowing course in Munich. We’re here. This is it. The end of a long season of training and racing. The final regatta before the vacation break.

I had to be realistic. A busy (and deciding) year at work and time invested in the rowsandall.com site has cost me quite some training hours. Stravistix tells me I am 25% behind in training hours since January 1, compared to 2016 and 2017.

The regatta itself seemed 25% bigger than the previous edition. More boats. More people. More food stalls. More merchandise. An extra race day. Higher temperatures (highs well above 30C, not a lot of cooling off in the night).

I had been realistic and not signed up for too many disciplines. Here’s the back of my accreditation card with my schedule for the four days:

Day 1

At 14:21 in the afternoon, Kazi and I lined up in lane 1. I was nervous. If there was a race with the biggest chance of finishing first or second, this was it. It was a strong field, but Kazi and I row a nice double, and Kazi’s season is strong. We were lined up against Exeter on lane 2 (this year’s Henley Masters winners in the C category, as I was told on Twitter), our friends from Bohemians Praha, Germany, Austria and Spain.

Out of the start we were slow, but we quickly recovered and after 250m we were in second position, half a length behind Exeter.

At the 500m mark the field broke apart in two halfs, with Exeter and us in front, then water, and then the rest. This happened just after I started our attack on Exeter with about 600m to go. The attack brought us almost level, but we went past them only after the 500m.

They tried to come back but must have been slowing down more than we did. We defended our position. Their attack lasted for about ten strokes, and we could row the final 150m being certain of our win. True, Exeter was just half a length behind us but we had some reserves still, as the stroke rate chart confirms. Yes, I had to rate up to hold our position, but with Kazi behind me I could have gone up to 40 spm without the boat falling apart.

So the first race was a win! The time was not great, but we were rowing into a headwind, and times in Munich are in general not very fast. It’s a slow course.

Here’s the video of our row (forward to 1:28:00 where our race starts).

On Thursday evening, Romana and I did a quick 4km row to reset ourselves after the choppy adventure of Monday.

Day 2

The draw had been pretty strange for all races. On Thursday’s M 2x C race, we were up against Bohemians Prague, a double that I have raced already twice this year. On Friday’s M 1x C races, it was even worse. In one final, the two Bohemians guys were racing each other, and in the other final Kazi and I were.

Our fan clubs had given us orders to occupy the first and second position. Kazi had beaten me in Trebon at the Czech Masters. I knew he was a hard nut to crack, and I was sure there were some other fast scullers in the race.

There was only one option, perhaps. And that was to go out fast and be ahead of Kazi after 500m. He has given up in such positions in the past.

There we were, lining up at the stake boats, Kazi in lane 2 and I was next to him in lane 3.

Attention – Go! We were both very well out of the start and after 200m, it was Kazi slightly in front and me rowing in second position.

I tried very hard to stay close to him, but unfortunately he had a really strong day and just steamed away, creating a boat length of light between us with 500m to go. I was also busy defending my second position against a Sankt Petersburg from Russia.

My third 250m was really bad. I saw power values going to 280-290W and I just didn’t find a way out of that. Some steering issues as well. The Russian guy passed me. With 250m to go I refound myself and I passed the Russian again. Romana told me later that Kazi in front was now really struggling with the consequences of going out fast as well. Apparently, we were catching up fast.

Unfortunately for me, the Russian guy caught up and beat me on the finish line:

A great race, except for a badly executed third 250m. Perhaps the penalty for going out too fast? The times were slow because of head wind.

The charts are quite clear.

Earlier that day, Romana came fifth in the double. Here’s a picture of Romana and Veronika going to the start:

When my racing was done, Romana and I went swimming in a nearby lake. That was really nice. Clean, cool water. After that, Romana still had a quad to race:

The girls were second after a strong Austrian crew.

Day 3

At 8:12, Romana and Veronika rowed a great race in the double. They were third, but against some really strong crews, and their technique and race strategy were exemplary.

On Friday evening, Kazi had been teasing me with his medal from the single. Well, on Saturday I had another chance to row the single. This time I was up against people I didn’t know, although I had heard that Carsten Brzeski from Wiking Berlin was pretty good (had won the C 1x a day before, one heat before us).

This time I decided to adhere to my prescribed power levels and ignore the other rowers. With 750m to go I was last. Between 750m and 500m I passed two boats and rowed in third position. Brzeski was out quite far, but Halle was a bit closer. I sprinted the entire final 300m at 36spm and almost caught up. Still a third place:

Average power was still only 300W. I had hoped it to be 20 Watt higher. Need to train more consistently.

This 1x race was also the one with the funniest comment shouted at me from the shore. Radek, one of my 4x crew cycled alongside me, together with Romana. With me rowing in third position and the winner far in front, he shouted: “Save some energy!” right at the moment when I rated up to 36spm. Romana commented that I apparently didn’t listen to Radek.

That 4x- race was almost immediately after the single. The start times were just 65 minutes apart. I quickly changed dress to Hodonin colors (this regatta requires uniform dressing), drank some water and had some sugar.

In the quad, I rowed on bow seat, replacing one of the Hodonin crew that had come third (after us) at the Czech Masters. I really enjoyed this race. We were in front at the start and then rowed away from the Germans. The Italians were a bit too far in front for us to catch, especially as Radek is a less experienced rower, so we couldn’t go all crazy with stroke rate in the final stages of this race. Second place at this regatta is not bad for this crew.

Day 4

As we were scheduled to race at 15:46, we had a long day of waiting in the heat. We spent the time watching other races from the grand stand.

Fabrizio Tucci, one of the winning crew of our quad race, was lined up against Romana and me in the C category Mix 2x. They really looked confident at the start, and so did the Leicester/Nautilus Anglo-Dutch combination.

Our start sequence wasn’t executed perfectly but we were still the first boat after 10 strokes, so I kept the stroke rate high for another ten, which gave us a lead of one length.

In the next 250m, we built out the lead by another length. Our rowing was not the best. Romana was catching slightly early, which I tried to anticipate, but that resulted in us going in a pretty high stroke rate. I shouted “Calm down” but Romana understood “Go!”. So she started to push even more.

We were leading by two lengths and, this being the fourth day of racing, I was really getting tired. We got awfully close to the lane buoys but we managed to steer back again.

You can see all that on the video (fast forward to 2:39:00 for our race). Still we won by a large margin and were really happy.

The stroke rate chart tells the story. No power tens. No sprinting. Just keep going at 35/36 spm.

After loading the double on the trailer, we went for a swim, and by 5pm we were on the road driving back to Brno, where we arrived at 11pm. And that, dear readers, is the end of the sprint season. Time for vacation. I am looking forward to taking a two to three week break from rowing and structured training plans.

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Jul 19 2018

More Close Finishing – Trebon Czech Masters Regatta Day 2

There are a few people missing on this photo, taken on our Friday evening get together in Trebon, but this group of members of CVK Brno, plus a few “affiliates” who have a license to row with us, form the core of the group that was responsible for the largest number of starts on this big regatta.

One of the many Mix 8+ races being started (photo Natascha Kral)

Is it a big regatta? Yes. We are not aware of it any more, but our friends from Ruderverein Donaubund (Vienna) do admiringly remark on their blog that this is one of the few regattas in the world where it is taken for normal that there are 17 entries in the Mixed 8+ category. Similarly, in the Men’s Single category, there were 53 entries. Mixed 2x had 39 entries. And the Men’s 2x had 32 entries, which brings us to my first race on Sunday.

A few hours before the race, I was sitting in the Ostrava rowing club tent with a few friends and reading them the lineup for my race. Lane 1: Kazimir & Mitas (nr 1 and 2 in my 1x race respectively). Lane 2: Novotny and Franz from Brandys. Lane 3: Prihoda and Urban from Pardubice. Lane 4: Schreiner & Helbig from Vienna/Graz. Lane 5: Kral & Milodanovic (fastest time in the single with 3:30) from Vienna. Lane 6: Cernak and Roosendaal from Ostrava/Brno. When I finished reading, it was silent for a few moments.

With an average age of 49.5 years, we were the oldest of the field. Medal candidates were in lanes 1, 3, 4, 5 and 6. Of all the doubles races, this seemed to be the heat with the most closely matched boats.

Because we hadn’t rowed much together this year, except for a less than ideal race at the Vienna International Regatta, Vojtech and I had done a 30 minute training with a few practice pieces in the morning. All was well.

There are never enough practice starts, so just before the race, we rowed up to the 2k start line, turned the boat and did a practice start. It turned out to be one of the top 3 starts I had ever done in a double. It was so sharp, well timed and fast that there was no chance we would produce a better start at the race, even though the Trebon lake was as flat as a mirror on this hot Sunday morning.

Turned out the race start was good. Very good. But of course not as good as that practice start.

It also turned out that all 6 boats had a pretty good start. First 200 meters and nobody was moving, except Mitas & Nedoba who were slightly in front. Then Pardubice started to lag behind a bit. With 500m to go Mitas & Nedoba were leading slightly and there were three boats chasing them, including ourselves. So we all started accelerating.

Well, all except the unfortunate Viennese double Kral & Milodanovic. It turned out Mr Kral had not completely tightened his wing rigger and it was starting to come lose, so they were limiting the power and stroke rate.

The pictures show Petr and Kazimir leading, with us behind them in lane 6. I don’t know where we were relative to to Schreiner & Helbig on lane 4. I didn’t want to look. I just kept increasing the rate, just as I had done in two races on Saturday.

We ended up rowing the entire final 150m at 40spm, trying to close the gap with Mitas & Nedoba and hopefully also pushing our bow in front of Schreiner & Helbig.

The speaker announced a win for Mitas & Nedoba, a second place for us and a third for the Vienna/Graz double. So we cheered for the winners, waited until they received their gold medals, and then landed on the medal pontoon to receive the silver medals.

Waiting for verdict (photo Natascha Kral)

At that point, the ceremony was interrupted by the jury announcing that they were studying the finish video.

A few minutes later, there was still no verdict, but they did invite the Austrian double to land on the medal pontoon as well. I wasn’t sure if that was a bad sign for us, but somehow I was expecting my luck to be balanced, so after the 0.09 sec lead in the 4x on Saturday and our 0.5 second win in the mixed double, would this be our turn to be 0.1 second behind them?

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Turns out that it was a dead heat.

The official results show it clearly. Both boats were exactly 2.79 seconds behind the winners, and both boats would receive the silver medal. According to the regatta speaker, we were the first to achieve this since 1966. I bet the video system wasn’t as advanced back in 1966.

What a race! We had good fun with the Austrian crew receiving our medals. And then we had to row back to the club fast, because Vojtech was also rowing a double with a 82 year old local guy, the oldest participant to the regatta. It was probably a great cooling down for him.

After that it was busy time for me. I hopped on the bike and rode back to our hotel, where I picked up the car to park it closer to the venue. Then I prepared the single for transport. All in very hot temperatures. Then, finally, it was time to watch the MW 4x- with Romana take a bronze medal:

My final race of the day was in the eight. There were 7 eights in the C category, so we were divided over two heats, with two B boats added to ours. In principle, we could ignore the B boats in lanes 1 and 2, and focus on beating the other C crews, but our goal was of course to pass the finish line first in this last event.

Because of back injuries and vacations, our Brno eight was rowing with four substitutes from rowing club Hodonin. We had Jan Brazda, Milan Viktora, and Kazimir Nedoba, as well as Renata Nedobova, Kazi’s wife and Milan’s daughter, coxing. She was a great coxswain by the way. With a lovely and clear voice she announced dreadful things like “power tens”, but she also gave us info on the relative position of our competitors, on top of calling the catch and finish for timing during the entire race.

We were great out of the start but one of the young B boats decided to take the lead. In the final 500m, we did catch up with them but it was not enough. We tried a final desperate scramble for the finish line, but that destroyed our rhythm entirely and probably slowed us down. Still, a gold medal for winning the C race.

Photo by Natascha Kral

It was a great weekend. Here’s the score:

Three times gold, one bronze and one silver. Not bad. And here are a few random pictures from Saturday that emerged on Facebook today, all by Natascha Kral:

Green/Yellow De Laak blades: Petr Mitas. White boat: Kazimir Nedoba. Blue blades: Me
Trebon lake

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Jul 17 2018

Czech Open Masters National Championships – Saturday Race Report

This is it. The end of the sprint season is slowly arriving. This is my #2 race of this season, the Czech Open National Championships for Masters. My #1 race is the Euromasters in Munich, in the last weekend of July.

It’s actually hard to tell which race is tougher. The Euromasters regatta attracts more rowers, but that also means that races are divided in multiple heats, and that means you are not always up against the fastest rowers. The Czech Open attracts rowers from Slovakia, Czech Republic, Austria and Germany, but especially from the Czech Republic there are a few Masters rowers who only compete in the Czech Republic, and they are pretty hard to beat.

I had three races scheduled for Saturday, the single at 11:40, the quad at 15:00, and the Mix 2x at 17:40. The weather was gorgeous. This is how the lake looked before the start of the racing, and when I raced my single, it was pretty much the same:

Race 1 – MM 1x C

Starting with a race in the single is always hard. It’s the boat type I train in most often, it is closely watched by everyone, and it’s the first race of the regatta. This one requires a very thorough warming up and strong nerves. By the time it is time to boat you see a lot of very serious looking masters rowers walking around the venue. “You look like you are about to go in front of the firing squad,” I heard one of the single scullers being told. The guy answered that he might prefer the firing squad.

I considered myself an outsider. My training has been less consistent that I planned, mainly because my work and travel has become busier than anticipated, which is a good thing for me but it conflicts with training consistency. Also, I have done fewer “practice” regattas this year, so missing some race sharpness.

After a long warming up, we lined up at the start. I had a nice lane 4, with the two strongest competitors Petr Mitas on lane 6 and Kazimir Nedoba on lane 3. A strong rower also was Alexander Farkas from Piraten Wien, who had beat me by 8 seconds at the regatta in Vienna.

After a strong start I found myself leading for the first 250m, but Petr and Kazi were just a few meters behind me. In the second 250m, as I was slowing down a bit to find my sustainable pace, they rowed through me. With 600m to go, I rated up a bit, but Kazi was fending off pretty well. Then, with 300m to go, Alexander started to push pretty hard. I guess he wanted a bronze medal. And I didn’t want him to take it, so I rated up again. That brought both of us a bit closer to Kazi, but he managed to fight both of us pretty well. It also seemed that Alexander was not pushing any more, so with 150m to go pretty much nothing was happening any more in this race.

So here is the end result. A bronze for me. I think it was the maximum achievable in the circumstances, and looking at the time, I am pretty happy with the result. The 3:42 would have been competitive in the Masters A and B categories as well, although the fastest time of the day was an amazing 3:30 by Marko Milodanovic from Donaubund Vienna.

Here are the power, pace and stroke rate charts.

You can clearly see the points where I upped the stroke rate. The 310W is 10W above my target, and looking at the data I am wondering whether I can gain a bit by not dropping the power and stroke rate as much after the initial 150m as I did in this race. Good preparation for Munich. In one of the races there, I will be up against Kazi again.

Race 2 – MM 4x B

My second race of the day was postponed by one hour because of a thunderstorm approaching the lake. For about 30 minutes, the lake changed from mirror flat to heavy wind and waves with white caps. Racing was suspended for one hour , postponing everything.

The lake didn’t return to its magical mirror flat quality after the thunderstorm, but when we were lining up for the quads, it was pretty rowable.

Five boats at the start and on paper no one was a clear winner. I was sitting on stroke seat. I have raced one quad earlier this year, as had Tomas and Eduard, but Ondrej was new to this crew. And because of my business travel, the only training we had together was the row to the start. In other words, our training attendance was 100%.

On our practice start, we lost one of the red C rings above the oarlock, so Eda on 3 was rowing with a slightly misaligned oarlock on his left hand scull.

Our first race start was called back for a false start by Blesk on lane 1, next to us. The second start was okay from the false start perspective, but in the fourth stroke of our start sequency, there was a big vibration going through the boat. Then I heard Ondrej shout “OK I have it” and we continued. After the race, I learned that he had lost his right scull but managed to grab it in the air.

With 500m to go we were five boats in one line. We may have been leading by a bit, but it was hard to see from the stroke position.

Then Blesk II (lane 5) and Hodonin (stroked by my friend Kazimir Nedoba) overtook us.

With one minute to go we upped the stroke rate, and we kept increasing it. With 100m to go we had passed Hodonin and were closing the gap on Blesk.

We kept increasing the stroke rate. In the final 10 strokes I was doing 38 or 39 spm and we just kept going like crazy.

Beep. We crossed the line.

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The speaker announced Blesk as the winner, we shouted our three hurrays for the winner and turned the boat, waiting for our turn to receive the silver medal. The commentator was going on about Tomas Karas (Olympic silver medal in Athens in the M4x) who was part of the Blesk crew. Blesk were getting their gold medals and hand shakes. Then, the speaker announced that the jury had come down from the tower to tell him that they were still studying the finish video.

Then, he announced us as the winner. Blesk didn’t believe it and demanded to see the video still. The Blesk stroke disappeared into the finish tower, only to turn up a few moments later admitting that they hadn’t won.

Their gold medals were taken back and they received the silver. And then it was our turn to receive the gold. We had won by a margin of 0.09 seconds! With our boat speeds, that is about 40cm.

The chart tells the story of the stroke rate. Average spm over the race almost 38spm. This was a great race. Exhausting also.

Winning Quad

Race 3 – MMix 2x C

Another strong field of C rowers. The Dekanovsky’s, the Prihoda’s, the Cernaks and us all being married couples (imagine the pressure). The Cernak’s were feeling strong after a recent international win at Trakai Sprints. The Dekanovsky’s had upgraded their boat, and the Prihoda’s were considered strong outsiders.

Initially, the race looked quite different. We started pretty strong, but Pardubice (the Prihoda couple) just jumped away from all the other boats. Over on lane five, they just disappeared from my vision. I was aware they were in front, but they seemed very far away. We were rowing hard to fence of the Dekanovsky couple, and over on lane six the Cernak couple was about level with us.

With 500m to go, Jan Dekanovsky started a push and they just rowed through us. We seemed to have no answer. I was already rowing 35spm and we seemed to have a good rhythm.

Then I started to push a little and we got back a little. Still, it looked like we were going to end in fourth place.

I was counting strokes, and every five strokes I increased the stroke rate by a small bit.

This killed the Cernaks who were now falling behind.

Three boats storming towards the finish line. I kept increasing the stroke rate. Romana on bow was following flawlessly and we kept pushing.

I didn’t look at the other boats any more and just kept pushing. I noticed how we managed to take back the Dekanovsky boat, but I was totally unaware that the Prihoda boat was now behind us. I had to listen to the speaker to hear the result. We won! By half a second.

I was still breathing hard while standing on the medal pontoon.

The stroke rate chart give you a good impression of how the race went. When we arrived back at the venue, we got cheers from our club mates. They had all cheered us from about the 500m mark, and one lady apparently had commented that “she wouldn’t want to sit on bow in my boat”. Yes, it was tough, but Romana was able to follow and we pushed through them. The Dekanovsky couple was happy as well. The Prihodas were not so happy and the Cernaks were silent.After this pretty heavy Saturday it was time to relax. We went to a nice fish restaurant with the entire CVK Brno representation, and after that we went to the beer brewery to meet the other rowers. We also met the Blesk quad there, and of course we had to buy them a few beers.

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