race

Nov 17 2016

Jehnice running event 2016

A holiday today, the celebration of the Velvet Revolution of 1989. Czechs fall in a few categories in this day:

Those who go to their cottage for a long weekend
Those who go shopping
Those who participate in a sports event
Those who go to the main square to listen to political speeches

Then there is also a loud minority who take part in extreme right or extreme left demonstrations.

As every year, I chose option 3.

Same run as a year ago, but the weather was different. A year ago it was sunny and dry. Today, it was wet and misty, and 2 degrees above 0. In the past few days we’ve had this bad weather. Snow alternated with rain, and the temperature oscillating around the freezing point.

My goal was to beat last year’s effort. I had written down last year’s passing times for a few key points along the route, but during the run I failed to remember them. In fact, I was thinking that I was one minute ahead of my target time for most of the run, where in fact I was a minute behind.

A year ago, I ran 47:07 on dry ground. Today, it was 48:17 on muddy ground.

Strava link.

In terms of relative effort, this year I was 158th of 346 (56% percentile), 12:03 minutes behind the winner. A year ago, I was 170th of 422 (60% percentile), 12:19 minutes behind the winner. I conclude that the results are probably very comparable. Average heart rate was 171 bpm this year, vs 173 bpm a year ago.

The nice thing about these running events is that they’re so massive. As a rower who runs occasionally, you end up in the middle of the pack, but there are hundreds of people, and there is always someone slightly ahead to pass.

I also discovered that none of the running sites offer a comparison between two workouts. I would have loved to compare a pace vs distance plot for the 2016 run compared to the 2015 run. It’s so simple to make one plot with two runs overlaid.

A few pictures from the event:

Yours truly almost invisible (yellow cap behind bearded man). Mr “Always One Step Ahead” was one step ahead of me until the second climb where I passed him

Oh, and this, the first Empower Oarlocks are shipping. This is very exciting:

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 0 • Tags: event, race, running

Oct 9 2016

Hradiště Head Race and a Wooden Eight from 1934

Friday

No training. In the evening, Romana and I made the program for Hradiště, i.e. the instructions where everybody would be at any given point in time. It’s not easy.

There’s a small bus with all the rowers at the start. One by one they do their warming up, get ready to race, and row the 6km race. Somebody needs to bring their shoes and some clothes to the finish, especially when it’s 9 degrees and chilly. Then there’s three singles that are used in the morning and in the afternoon. So at some point in time we have to drive my small trailer from the finish back to the start for those three singles. Then Romana wants to be at the start to help her girls with warming up and race prep. And I will spend the morning on the bike cheering various athletes. One thing is easy. Head coach will be in the big turn half way with his stopwatch, a pen and a note book. He will record all times and give key info to the guys racing, how they stand respective to their competitors.

So our day was planned from 7am to 5pm with 15 minute precision. Well, it’s an important race for the youth. Their 6km OTW time is measured against a standard, and each participant who scores more than 100% will be invited for a 6k erg race and some further testing. If successful, the youth will be part of the “Youth Sports Center” for rowing, and the club will receive state funding for covering training costs.

Saturday

So alarm clock at 6, leave house at 7, drive to rowing club to get small trailer, drive the 70km to Hradiště, park trailer. Then Romana takes the car to the start and I hop on the bike.

My first task was to cycle with one of the juniors, cheer and give steering instructions. Mr Cermak had the luxury of having his parents on the bike, so I chose to bike with Mr Kuncak. (Sometimes the parents’ steering instructions are counterproductive, but Kuncak is our biggest Ace in the juniors field.)

On the right bank you can cycle the entire 6km. On the left bank you can only do the final 3km. I chose to cycle on the left bank with a better bike path, because I didn’t want to spend my race energy cycling through a stubble-field on the right bank. Picked up Mr Kuncak with 3km to go and started cheering and steering. When I passed head coach we got the information that he was rowing in 2nd place with 2 seconds loss to the fastest guy. So I cheered and cheered. Shouted at him to just keep rowing the same 30spm stroke and hoping it would help.

When Mr Kuncak finished, I cycled back to wait for the race of my daughter Lenka. I saw Mr Cermak in passing, with his father cheering.

Had to spend more than an hour on the 3km point. The autumn sun disappeared and I did a few kilometers of cycling around the local villages just to stay warm.

Lenka arrived on our single. I measured the distance to the girl ahead of her. With 1 minute between starts, Lenka arrived 50 seconds behind that girl, so that was 10 seconds to the good. There was a big gap behind her, so a very positive situation to cheer and steer. Lenka was rowing 26spm, but that didn’t bother me as I knew she had been ill a week ago and the 26-27spm reflected her fitness. I think I cheered her through the tough part between 4km and 5km, and then got her rating up in the final km. Today, she told me she didn’t hear me well, and she didn’t understand what she heard. OK, so far for the coaching. 🙁

Mr Kuncak finished third in the Junior’s field, 5 seconds behind our club’s Mr Cermak, who surprised us all by coming second, just 0.5 seconds behind the winner. Lenka finished somewhere in the middle of her field, but her final time was good for a >100% score, which means she is still in the game!

Our club also won the Men’s single, the Boys 15/16 pair, and got a third place in the men’s lightweight single. Because of the points earned for all youth categories and the U23 rowers, this was a huge success in a race with very strong competion.

It was time to return to the small trailer. Three singles (including my single “Dolfijn” which was rowed by Lenka) were prepared. Romana arrived just in time with the car, and we drove to the start, where we unloaded the single, rigged them, and then drove back with the trailer (and some bags with shoes and dry clothes).

Then we took the car back to the start, and it was time for me to get ready for my own race.

Two years ago, I won, with a few seconds lead. Last year, I lost. Mr Polasek gave me 5 seconds. Unfortunately, I had found out during the morning, that Mr Polasek had cancelled. He had a cold last week and didn’t feel like it. At the start, I also found out that the two guys from Ostrava had cancelled. This kind of reduced the tension of the race. My club mate Eduard was the next fastest guy on paper, with me being the fastest. The other participants were three guys from the rowing club in Hradec Kralove, who looked like newbies in the Masters Rowing field, and Mr Bejbl from Brandys, who I estimated to be slower than me.

I found out it is good that I have pre-race routine with a lot of reserve time. Only when I put the single in the water, I found out that I had forgotten to move the footstretcher from Lenka’s position to mine. That is a problem, because one of the nuts is normal one, and you need a tool to unscrew it. Luckily, Romana was still on the bank collecting our slings, so I could get to the car and get the tool. I still had time enough to do a 2km warming up drill on the water.

Here is the full race video:

I made a terribly bad starting stroke, which made me smile and shake my head. Then I was off. After a few start strokes I dropped to my well-tested 27spm and didn’t dare to go higher. I think I made a wise decision. Looking at the power plot, corrected for the river’s current and the headwind, I more or less rowed a flat row in terms of power (Watt).

Pace helped by the river current, but in a slight headwind from 12 minutes onwards.

The guy starting 60 seconds before me was a 68 year old Masters rower. Just a year younger than my father! I passed him in the first kilometer, and then I had enough space to focus on my own rowing. I think I steered well. Perhaps the big turn at the beer brewery was a bit wider than could have been, but the river was really the fastest in the middle. Whenever I got closer to the banks, the pace numbers started to worsen.

After the big turn I was rowing into a light headwind, and I had to tell myself that it was a headwind, and not worry too much about the pace creeping up above 2:00 minutes per 500m.

In the final 1000m I started counting strokes, and in the final 500m I had company of our friend Ludek on the bike, which was very good because it helped me rate up to 28, 29 and then 30spm.

I did a 1km cooling down and when I was taking the single out of the water, I heard the speaker announce the results. I had won!

Second place was for my club mate Eduard.

It took us about 30 minutes to get the boats ready for transport, and then we walked over to the club house to receive our medals:

We arrived home around 8:30pm.

Sunday

Around 2pm we drove to the rowing club. We unloaded the trailer. I washed my single, and then we watched something very exciting.

Our club was founded in 1912, and in the old hangar at the river club house we have a few very old wooden boats. A few of our older club members have made it a project to restore these old boats. Their first piece was a 1944 clinker eight, one of the few left in this part of the world. Today, after more than 50 years, it was the first row for a 1934 clinker eight, a lighter and faster boat than the 1944 one (and made of better quality wood).

This was no easy restoration. A big part of the middle of the ship was rotten and had to be replaced completely.

By the way, 1934 was also in the time when Czechoslovakia, in the middle of a worldwide economic crisis, warmly welcomed German refugees, antifascists and jews escaping Nazi Germani. A bit of a contrast with the political climate of today. 🙁

My workout of today was cycling home from the rowing club. It was rainy and cold, but it was a nice recovery workout:

https://www.strava.com/activities/739596293

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 4 • Tags: head race, OTW, race, river, rowing, single

Sep 30 2016

University Eights in Brno (CZ) – tradition renewed

The Czech town of Brno has two universities, the Technical University and the Masaryk University. In 1937, the two universities raced each other in eights for the first time.

World War II came in between.

The race was held again in 1946 and in 1947.

The communist took over power. Rowing was an “elite” sport and the universities race did not happen any more.

Last year, in 2015, our club ČVK Brno, organized the “zeroth” edition of the renewed university eights, which was won by the Technical University.

This year, we have enhanced the program. On Friday, the two local universities race each other. Tomorrow, on Saturday, we have three more eights. There will be 1:1 heats, repechages, semifinal and final.

The race is rowed on the river Svratka. Narrow, and twisty. The entire event is pretty small. Here is a video impression.

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 0 • Tags: brno, cvk brno, eight, race, university rowing

Sep 12 2016

Ode to the Small Regatta

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

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

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

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

The Synek himself was laying out the buoys.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Malecky from Melnik (1977)
Doubek from Brno (1974)
Roosendaal from Brno (1972)
Lacko from Roudnice (1972)
Brezina from Litomerice (1969)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 2 • Tags: masters, OTW, race, rowing, single, sprint

Aug 29 2016

Sunday: Training & Racing

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

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

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

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

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

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

I managed to sneak back to the rowing club just before the 1500m races would start. Got a friendly reprimand from one of the umpires for rowing on a course that was closed for training. He was right of course, but I just wanted to do some steady state.
Work Details #-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS- 01|00817| 04:00 | 2:26.8| 18.5| 140 | 150 | 11.0 02|00649| 03:00 | 2:18.6| 20.7| 153 | 159 | 10.5 03|00368| 02:00 | 2:43.0| 20.5| 153 | 161 | 9.0 04|00231| 01:00 | 2:9.8| 23.0| 160 | 165 | 10.0 05|00828| 04:00 | 2:24.9| 18.8| 144 | 152 | 11.0 06|00646| 03:00 | 2:19.3| 20.7| 158 | 162 | 10.4 07|00423| 02:00 | 2:21.8| 22.0| 162 | 165 | 9.6 08|00218| 01:00 | 2:17.6| 23.0| 166 | 168 | 9.5 09|00779| 04:00 | 2:34.0| 19.0| 145 | 153 | 10.2 10|00596| 03:00 | 2:31.0| 20.7| 153 | 157 | 9.6 11|00400| 02:00 | 2:30.0| 22.5| 159 | 162 | 8.9 12|00206| 01:00 | 2:25.6| 23.0| 162 | 165 | 9.0 13|00815| 04:00 | 2:27.2| 19.0| 139 | 148 | 10.7 14|00635| 03:00 | 2:21.7| 20.0| 152 | 156 | 10.6 15|00421| 02:00 | 2:22.5| 22.0| 157 | 161 | 9.6 16|00222| 01:00 | 2:15.1| 23.0| 164 | 168 | 9.7 Workout Summary --|08254| 40:00 | 2:25.3| 20.3| 151 | 168 | 10.2

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

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

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

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

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

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

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 3 • Tags: eight, OTW, race, river, rowing, single, steady state, training

Aug 29 2016

Saturday – racing in single and eight

Friday

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

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

Saturday

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

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

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

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

My son Dominik going for a training on Saturday morning

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

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

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

That was the theory.

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

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

Grab handle mid air.

Tonda rowing away from us.

Left blade stuck in the water.

My single started to turn towards Michal’s.

My single starting to capsize.

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

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

Me capsizing more.

Me somehow recovering from that.

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

No red flag. Nothing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 2 • Tags: OTW, race, rowing, single, wine

Aug 22 2016

Sunday – Rainy Thriller (Masters Mix 2x)

Just one race for us on this Sunday. The Masters mix 2x with my wife Romana.

It had rained all night and was still raining when it was time to launch. Actually, the light rain changed to hard rain, to very hard rain. Temperatures had dropped from 35C to 15C. The wind was now a strong cross/tail wind.

So, the Masters Mix 2x was about to start and the Trebon lake featured twelve very wet doubles rowing up and down to stay warm. I didn’t have any long sleeve clothes in my luggage so I really had to keep moving to stay warm.

Two heats. A combined A/B heat and a combined C/D/F heat. Four boats in our C category, two of which were dangerous. Melnik and Ostrava (with Mr Cernak, the guy who had beaten me in the single).

For the first time this weekend, I managed to not mess up the start and Melnik and us were leading by a length after 5 strokes. I “lowered” to 36/37spm.

By 200m to go we were half a length behind Melnik and the rest of the field was not in the race any more.

We started to push and managed to come level to them.

My legs started to hurt.

My daughter and her double partner Iva were screaming from the bank. (They were positioned half way between the boat area and the finish line. Their race was 20 minutes after ours, so in case we won, they would jump in the boat on the medal ceremony dock. They had to watch the race and decide whether to run 250m towards the finish or not.)

I heard Romana shout “go” to indicate that she was still able to accelerate.

I remembered Damir Martin and the Olympic final against Drysdale. I heard the race speaker commenting “an interesting battle between Brno and Melnik”, and I shifted to a higher stroke rate.

Beep-beep. At the finish line, I thought we had them but I wasn’t 100% sure. I saw the girls sprinting towards us. We quickly turned the boat, and while we were waiting for the official result, I lowered the gates (moving two C rings) for the girls race. Then we heard our names announced and we paddled to the medals dock, jumped out of the boat, got our medals, removed our bow number and put in the girls’ number, smiled to the spectators on the grand stand, and left the stage.

The girls paddled away in a boat a lot of water.

That’s when it stopped raining.

Stroke rate and pace close up for the 500m

mix2x — Win by 0.34 second. Fastest time of the two heats.

After that we waited for the girls to race. They got their revenge from the bad Saturday race and came in third place, beating crews that had beaten them on Saturday. We loaded the trailer and went for lunch. Then we drove home to Brno, where we had to take some back roads to reach the rowing club, because many roads were closed because of the Motor Grand Prix, and all the Valentino Rossi fans blocking the other roads. It’s not nice driving very narrow roads with a trailer, but we managed.

A nice end of the vacation. First day at work today.

Also, I need to make a plan for the coming season. I will do another sprint race coming weekend, but more important is a 6km head race in 6 weeks which I need to prepare for.

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

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Jehnice running event 2016

Hradiště Head Race and a Wooden Eight from 1934

University Eights in Brno (CZ) – tradition renewed

Ode to the Small Regatta

Sunday: Training & Racing

Saturday – racing in single and eight

Sunday – Rainy Thriller (Masters Mix 2x)

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