Aug 22 2016
Vacation & Friday – first row after vacation
This Friday was to be the first row after a longer break. Almost three weeks of doing nothing. After the Euromasters regatta in Munich, I had to spend a few very long days at work to finish everything that needed to be finished before my vacation, and then the Roosendaal family drove down to the Istrian peninsula in Croatia for a week at the coast:
I did one 5km run with the Garmin, to gather evidence that our AirBnB accomodation was not 500m from the sea (as advertised), and not 1km from the sea (as told to us by the owner upon arrival). It was 2.5km from the beach. Front door to sea water distance. So I guess I can add a few 5km hikes to the exercise list as well. Otherwise, it was a perfect week. Nice weather. Lots of very picturesque places to visit, good food and wine and interesting Roman historical sites. It always amazes me how you can hop in a car, drive a few hours (across the Alps) and go from Middle Europe to the Mediterranean, including the different light, different food, different architecture, different landscape …
But Middle Europe is not a bad place for a vacation either. We returned from Croatia, relaxed a few days at home in Brno (including washing up and watching Olympic rowing finals), and then we loaded the trailer with two boats and four bicycles and headed for Třeboň in South Bohemia.
We were in Trebon to combine a few things. One, our daughter Lenka and her rowing partner Iva joined a rowing camp with the Hodonin Rowing club, and we had to bring the boats there for them to train on. Two, after a week of resting on the beach we were ready for a more active type of vacation.
We didn’t row, but enjoyed cycling. The region around Trebon is relatively flat. Because this area was close to the Iron Curtain, it is very sparsely populated and has a lot of pristine nature, covered with a web of narrow paved roads (used for Communist era border patrol vehicles, now transformed to bicycle paths). We would either ride direct from the camping site or take the train to a place 40-50 km away and then cycle back.
In the weekend, the local rowing club organized it’s annual regatta, so I decided that Friday was a good day to pick up the rowing again. First, I did a quick row in the double with my son Dominik (11 years) on the stroke seat, as a preparation for Saturday’s special 500m race in the “Masters+Boy/Girl (11-14)” category. I just wanted to get the footstretcher settings and gate heights right, and give Dominik peace of mind that he was actually able to stroke a double (and his dad to follow him). Mission accomplished.
After that I rigged and launched in the single. Rowed a 2km warming up, then a 3x250m/500m rest session, followed by a 1.5km cooling down. That was enough for the day.
Stats:
Work Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|00250| 056.5 | 1:53.0|31.9| 157 | 177 | 8.3
02|00250| 055.9 | 1:51.7|31.1| 177 | 183 | 8.6
03|00250| 054.4 | 1:48.8|30.9| 177 | 185 | 8.9
Workout Summary
--|00750| 2:46.8| 1:51.2|31.3| 170 | 185 | 8.6
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.
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