May 8 2015
Day before the race
Our hotel.
race
May 3 2015
Race Preparation
We are rowing the Slovak Championships, next week in Piestany, Slovakia. It may turn out to be an interesting regatta, with participants from the Czech Republic, Austria, Hungary and of course Slovakia.
It has all categories in one weekend, from 12 year olds rowing a 500m to Elite, to Masters rowing a 1km.
This lovely Spa town will be the site of my son Dominik’s first rowing race. He is taking the preparation very seriously. He is just a beginner in the single, but now he refuses to take a single light stroke during his trainings.
Let’s hope the weather will allow him to row at all.
Here are some pictures from yesterday’s training.
As you can see it needs a few more kilometers, but the most important thing now is that he is thoroughly enjoying it.
Apr 18 2015
Spring Races, Women’s 2x, Girls 2x, Men 1x Final and 8+
It was a long wait between the 1x heat at 11:30 and the final at 15:52. But I wasn’t bored. As I said in the previous blog post, the weather was traditional spring race catastrofic windy weather. So a 14 year old girl took a swim on the finish line. The rescue squad brought her to our clubhouse and she took a hot shower. Then they brought her single, which was entirely filled with water, from bow to stern. Eda and I took care of it.
Around 2pm it was time for the Women 2x. Romana rowed our Orca with Zdiška and they came in second place. A few pictures after the race:
They reported that our double Orca has perfect rowing properties in wild water. The pictures don’t show it, but the conditions today were quite difficult.
I missed my daughter Lenka’s race in the double because I was busy warming up on the erg, preparing for my own singles final. They came in second place, a fraction of a boat length behind the winners. I consider this a big success because Laura, Lenka’s double partner, is preparing for exams and skipping a lot of trainings. I am pleased to note that both girls showed the right fighting spirit and managed to row to a second place that nobody expected. No pictures, unfortunately.
Then it was time for my singles final. We had to wait forever at the start because the rows before us were 13 year old quads 500m. As the final 500m of our lake were hell today, it was difficult for the race organizers to align the boats at the 500m line and hold the races.
The singles final was passing the time doing start practices and chatting. There were 6 boats in the final, 2 Masters rowers (including me) and 4 young guys, aging between 18 and 20.
Finally, we were aligned and started.
5 boats were out of the starting blocks on a line. The other Masters rower was behind by a length quite rapidly.
After 300m the waves started. We were all still on a line.
After 500m one of the young guys started to fall behind. I was still in front with three others.
Unfortunately between 500m and 1000m I lowered the rate and pace a bit too much. Somehow I completely forgot my race plan to do 10 strong strokes at 500m and 1000m. Even though I rowed the heat in a lower pace, I still felt the effort during the final.
So there I was rowing in fourth place, a few lengths behind #3. As we hurried down the race course, the waves became higher and higher.
With 500m to go I somehow got inspired again and managed to increase the rate. That helped. For a few strokes I had the feeling I could even beat the guy rowing in third place, but he somehow managed to stay ahead of me. Still, rowing higher rate in Kamikaze style, my arms flying in all directions as in a weird 1980s disco dance because of the waves, I managed to come close to #3.
Finished in fourth place though. Still, I beat one kid and one Masters rower in the final and ended the races in fourth place of 11 rowers.
As you can see from the graphs, the HR is quite low, but really after 500m the lake was unrowable today.
Another snapshot from the races:
At the end of the day I rowed the 8+ as a guest rower in the Pardubice University eight. It was quite an interesting experience, rowing with guys who are training on a river and have just 5 months of OTW practice.
May 10 2015
Piešt’any – Open SLovak Championships – Day 1 long read
Friday
Left Brno around 11am. We took the shorter but windy road to Uherske Hradiste, then up into the White Carpathian mountains, crossing the border pass and then down into Slovakia through some valleys with scattered cottages that could have been from a fairy-tale. Then we drove into the valley of the river Váh towards the spa town of Piešt’any on the banks of the river Váh, where the Open Slovak Rowing Championships would be held.
One has to understand that Slovakia is a proud but small rowing country. There are 5 clubs in total, but about 8 Czech clubs and one Austrian club were participating as well.
Each of us did a brief 30 minute row and then we were off to the hotel, which turned out to be a lovely place with great food, great wine and a garden terrace to dine. Also they gave us bicycles, on which we could bridge the 4km between the hotel and the race venue by a very pleasant bike ride along the lake.
Saturday
A day full of races. First to go was our daughter Lenka who had to be third or better in her single to qualify for the final on Sunday. When I took her picture at the 500m point she was in fourth place but she managed to secure a place in the final.
I took the picture from the 500m because our son Dominik was already waiting for the start. Here he is in lane 2, at the moment of the start:
I wanted to cycle next to him on the bicycle, but after 10m the chain fell off, so I had to spend a minute to put it back on, then chase him on the bumpy path. The chain came off one more time, so I saw Dominik finish third only from the distance. Here is a picture of our bronze winner:
Then it was time for a quick lunch. At 13:55, the Masters quad was on the program. We had to wait for the 4- to finish (they came in 3rd place) to rig the boat with the quad riggers. A warming up run, and on the water.
The quad race was a 2 boat affair. Bratislava, the third contender, had withdrawn. They wanted to save energy between the 4- and the 8+ race. We had two guys in our quad who had already rowed the 4-, and so had our opponent, the local club Piešt’any. We were out of the starting block head to head with them. In the first 500m they managed to stay about half a length behind us, but then they started to fall behind.
My first Slovakian title. We each got a small “gold” medal and a bottle of “Schauma for grey hair” shampoo:
Two hours later we were launching the eight. We were up against Piešt’any proper in their best boat, against Bratislava who had withdrawn from the quad race to save energy for the eight, and us. In exchange for a liter of home-made Slivovice we were allowed to borrow their worse eight and two of their Masters rowers who hadn’t qualified for their proper eight.
We took our Junior sculler as a cox. He is taller than I and has a bit more than 55kg.
Of course the race organisers had put us in the slower lane 1, with less tailwind and less current.
Out of the starting blocks we were half a length behind and drifting into lane 2. We were almost clashing oars with Piešt’any when our cox finally managed to turn the boat. We got our stroke together in lane 1 proper and started to make some gains. I was in bow seat, and we were one man behind Piešt’any who were leading. Bratislava was half a boat length behind us.
Apparently the cox called three strong 10s during the race but I couldn’t hear anything. We were driving from one end of the lane to the other. I later heard that the rudder was almost impossible to control.
At the 500m mark we managed to pass Piešt’any and clear a boat length. With 250m to go we were a boat length and a bit in the lead but in lane 3, Bratislava was suddenly making quick gains.
We pulled hard for another 25 strokes. The cox managed to not park our eight in the bank and we managed to pass the finish line a second before Bratislava. The eight, our least expected win.
The Piešt’any crew took their loss very sportly. They accused their men who had rowed with us of not having fulfilled their secret mission to slow us down. Who knows … In the end they invited us for a beer, which became two beers.
Then we all cycled back to the hotel and had a great dinner in the garden.
By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 1 • Tags: eight, OTW, quad, race, rowing