Coach Thrasher

End of the Season

Wow, I can hardly believe it, the rowing season is over. We started off with 8 varsity rowers and 8 novice rowers, and finished with 6 varsity and 6 novice, with two novice coxswains. Nobody was cut from the team, but as often happens with rowing, it's so much work that people naturally opt-out when they need to.

Championships were held at Lake Natoma on Saturday and Sunday. Of the 7 men's boats entered, 4 of them made it through heats to the finals. Those 4 boats were all varsity sculling boats: 1x, 2x, 2x-LT, and 4x. Our MN4+, MV4+, and MN8+ didn't make the finals this year. The sculling boats that made it, did very well. They effectively placed in the top half of all boats in the Southwest USRowing region.

Official results have been posted for Saturday and Sunday. For Palo Alto Rowing Club, our results are as follows:

M2x Heat1: 3/7, Final: 5/6, Overall: 5/13

M2x Lt Heat1: 3/6, Final: 6/6, Overall: 6/11

M1x Heat2: 2/7, Repechage: 1/7, Final: 5/7, Overall: 5/26

M4x Heat2: 2/5, Final: 5/6, Overall: 5/14

MV4+ Heat3: 6/6

MN4+ Heat3: 5/7

MN8+ (this boat included two novice girls to make an 8) Heat2: 7/7

The 2x, which had rigging issues in the last podcast, was fixed by raising the rigging up about 3/8 of an inch using stainless steel washers as a spacer. The boat ran really well with the riggers raised.

I have a considerable amount of video from the regatta that I'll put up on the podcast once I get around to editing it.

Posted at 11:50AM May 23, 2007 by jason in Rowing  | 

Morning sickness, Rowing style.

There's a totally sick map of "who is sick", based on Google maps at the Who is Sick? website. Our team's sicknesses (colds anyway... and "pre-practice" morning sickness) tend to spread through everyone in waves. Few seem to be immune, except for us coaches. I've had a runny nose and sore throat at may practices, but I've only been out from practice two days this year from actually being too sick to coach. Is this because my adult immune system is whooping all of those young'n bugs before my body gets sick? Or because we need some more hard-coreness amoung ourselves? Hum.

This makes me want to create a Google mashup called "http://www.WhoMissedPractice.org" that will highlight who missed practice, and where they really were, with tags for what their excuse was. *evil grin* Maybe there'd be a plugin to link to "http://www.WhoIsSick.org" as well. The difference between the two maps would then link to "http://www.WhoIsAFlake.org". Anybody appearing on the "Who is a Flake" website would owe the team an hour of power to make up for it.

Posted at 12:14PM Apr 23, 2007 by jason in Rowing  | 

PARC Web Toolbar

Following the lead from Tech Crunch I created a web browser toolbar for Palo Alto Rowing Club. You can download it from http://paloaltorowingclub.ourorganizationtoolbar.com/. It includes quick links to our calendar, regional SWJRA info, USRowing info, and rowing blogs. It also includes a Google search box, and allows quick searching of the PARC website. Neat!

Posted at 08:41PM Apr 06, 2007 by jason in Rowing  | 

Regatta Report: Capital Regatta

The Varsity boys were quite excited about the first race of the spring season. There’s such a long period of time from the last head race to the first sprints race that often we lose sight of what we’re training for. This week prior to the regatta was a refocusing time, as everyone tried to get things together for regatta day. Our entries consisted of: MV4+, MJV4+ (racing as a lightweight 4), MLt2x, and M1x.

MV4+, 6th of 6 boats
coxswain: Saskia
stroke: Tito
3: Robert
2: Edward
bow: Colin

This was our first race in this lineup. Tito was leading the boat as a 3-rd year rower. It was Saskia’s first race. Colin, a lightweight, was sitting in for Alex in bow seat. Saskia was getting lots of input from everyone, as this was her first race, and it was a varsity-level event. There are 10^6 things to think about and check, and she seemed to be drinking from the fire hose in stride. The primary goal was to execute the race plan, which Olivia had worked out with her. She was to be the mental voice for the rowers. We all tried telling her what to do, and I became worried about her nervousness as the boat left the PARC tent on it’s way to the starting line.

Off the start, the boys were up a seat or two on everybody in the field. However, within the first 10 strokes there was a problem with the steering. PARC collided with Capital, and had to stop rowing to detangle oars. Tito pushed the bow-deck of the Capital boat away to get clear. After 10 seconds wasted, and adrenaline now pumping stronger than ever, they began again. The race never paused though, and they were now down nearly a length. The second collision suddenly occurred with overcorrected steering, and they had to stop again. Once clear of all of the boats, being off the back, they started again together.

The race plan was now compressed, they had fewer meters to work with, and they just waned to get back in the game. They worked through the middle thousand meters uneventfully, trying to crawl back into contention. As the crew passed the stands, the guys looked okay, technique wise, but we had no idea why they were so far back on the field until we found out about the start later.

The results aren’t representative of the rowers ability. The main thing I would have changed for this race would be to coach the coxswain less. I think we all tried to give her loads of input because we were worried that she wouldn’t be able to handle it. It’s very stressful at the varsity level because some coxswains are in their 4th year, with 3 years of trial-and-error behind them. Saskia has now been thoroughly initiated. At the end of the day, people can do amazing things, we just have to let them do it on their own.

We’ll be working on race starts and steering over the next several weeks. Saskia has demonstrated a lot of skill and a great willingness to learn. The guys like and respect her as a coxswain as well. I’m really looking forward to the next time this boat is on the water.

MJV4+ (lightweight), 3rd of 6 boats
coxswain : Matylda
stroke: Will
3: Keith
2: Andrew
bow: Colin

This boat was entered among many junior-varsity heavyweight 4s. It was the only lightweight boat in the event that I know of. This lineup represents our best hope at a competitive lightweight 4, so I was really excited to see how we would do. Unfortunately Andrew has been sick on and off for most of the season, and the boat had never rowed this lineup. Andrew would have normally been in stroke seat, but with his sicknesses, I had to move him to 2. This was interesting because it allowed us to have Will and Keith as stern pair, which is their same lineup as in their 2x. Having the same lineup lets them work well together as a pair. Colin was again in bow seat with his consistent and predictable rowing style. We had a pinch-hitting coxswain, Matylda, working with us as we were crunched for time and for people to fill that seat. She is a novice coxswain like Saskia, but had raced in the head races last fall.

The boat had a clean start and reported being first off the line. This is actually typical of lightweight boats since there is less mass to accelerate forward. They worked as much of their race plan as they knew. They reported that the speaker system in the boat made it hard to hear their coxswain, and the coxing style was different than they are used to (Matylda hasn’t coxed the boys since last fall).

Generally the technique in the boat was quite good. As the video shows, we were missing water at the catches, and will need to work on this.

I’m really impressed with the results as they are though. Having never rowed this lineup, they did very well with 3rd place of 6 boats. If we can get Andrew out with them more, this boat will go much faster.

MLt2x: 3rd of 6 (heavy), 1st of 3 (light)
stroke: Will
bow: Keith

There were three lightweight boats and three heavyweight boats in this race. The results weren’t split between heavy and lightweight, but we won the lightweight group!

The guys reported a fast start. As the boats started to separate between light and heavy at the 1000m marker, the chase boat started to wake our 2x (and the other lightweight 2x entries). What to do in this situation was unclear, so Keith just kept going straight, which was okay. They did have the option of changing lanes as long as they weren’t cutting off another boat, or in danger of colliding with another boat. As this is a somewhat obscure rule, and based on a judgment call that the rowers have to make while working at 100% exertion (i.e. not necessarily thinking clearly), it’s not always a good idea to take advantage of this rule.

As they progressed by our PARC camp, I was able to get some video of this boat (see the podcast on iTunes). What I can see is some of the best rowing by Will of the season. He made a fundamental change this week, based on input from Renee and Julie (National Team rowers that we visited with last week), and based on a boat lineup change we made this week. He is getting good reach at the catch, which had been missing from his stroke. With this change, Will and Keith are matched very well as a pair.

M1x: 2nd of 6
stroke: Tito

This was Tito’s first sprint race in a single. The single is a very personal race where there’s no one else to push except for you. The goal was to focus on his own race, and race his own plan, without getting distracted by the other boats or officials.

He ended up rowing very well. According to his own race report, he focused on his stroke rate, and the speed-coach, and found that he was faster at a 30 spm, rather than the race-planned 32. It’s great that he made the correct judgment call to change rates in the race. This shows that it was absolutely his own event.

The first place rower is Craig, from Delta Blades. Craig had rowed all of last year in the 1x, and has a considerable amount of experience.

I think that Tito can go faster, but we’ll need to create a good plan to do so. It is a challenge to work up at that level on our team because there isn’t anyone that is nearly as fast as Tito on the erg. This causes him to look inward for motivation at all times. There’s a good interview with Tito’s own words on the event in the podcast here:
PARC Video Podcast
or:
Tito Balsamo Interview

Posted at 02:39PM Mar 11, 2007 by jason in Rowing  | 

US National Team visits Palo Alto Rowing Club

We had an awesome morning on the water today. Palo Alto Rowing Club had US National Team coach Kris Korzeniowski come for a visit, on the water. Having leadership of that caliber available to our junior rowers, was a fantastic privilege for the program. The US Women's Lt 2x also joined us, consisting of Julie Nickols and Renee Hykel. The kids asked numerous questions and had good opportunities to interact with Kris, Julie, and Renee. It's extremely rare to have this kind of interaction with elite level people, it will be remembered for a long time.

After practice all of the coaches, and Renee and Julie, went to Hobbies in Palo Alto for some local coach's breakfast grub. It really struck me while we talked that the US team are very down to earth: they are real people. Sometimes I feel I miss that when seeing them in the media. We shared stories and talked about rowing and coaching. They've had a great journey to this point. Renee and Julie: Good luck in Beijing in 2008!

Posted at 04:00PM Feb 24, 2007 by jason in Rowing  | 

Wow, Attendance Works

I'm impressed that Thursday, we had everyone accounted for, and one call-in that couldn't make it. Our coxswain, though late out of bed, did get to practice just in time to get the boat off the racks. I'm very happy with the progress.

Today, Friday, we did fairly well again, with everyone on time, and one absent/missing in action.

We still haven't rowed a varsity eight.

Let's keep improving and get to full-expectation setting levels next week guys. Call-in if you really are sick. Set those alarms loud enough, and get to bed on time. Everyone is counting on you!

Posted at 11:16AM Feb 09, 2007 by jason in Rowing  | 

Erg Sprints, Studio Sprints, and the Missing Rower

Today I announced that Tito, Keith, and Will are going to represent PARC at the Peninsula Indoor Regatta this Sunday. Everyone else will still participate in a Studio Sprints, at the erg studio. This will give everyone a chance to show how well they can perform athletically. The results from both venues will be a factor in boat lineups for the first water regatta.

Why isn't everyone going to compete at the Peninsula Indoor Regatta? We generally aren't ready for the event on many levels. People have had poor attendance due to various causes: being sick, behind on homework, on travel, or just flaking out. When I look to the attendance record, it dates back to the beginning of November, not just the last couple of weeks. This long term perspective is required for proper training. Some reasons for missing are legitimate, but the majority balance are not. Being behind on homework is not legitimate, for example. Why did you get behind?

To this point, I have held off on judgment of "is this justified, or not". I expect that you are all reasonable and honest, and I want to treat you all as adults, and expect the same from you.

We have instituted a policy whereby anyone that misses practice, and doesn't notify the coaches appropriately, will sit out the next rowing session. This has greatly improved our communication, but hasn't yet improved the overall attendance rate.

Let's fix this. It's time to call "B.S." on missed practices, communication or not. Our spring competitive schedule starts this weekend with the Peninsula Indoor. We need to get in gear to row, as a whole, complete, team, without absences. People not showing sufficient commitment won't be racing. If that means we enter a couple of singles at regattas, well, it'll be awesome for those singles and everyone else will watch from the shore.

I'm looking forward to having a dedicated group of athletes. I want you to succeed, and be competitive at the highest levels. To do that, everyone needs to create a plan to succeed. Every Sunday, you need to sit down and map out the next 7 days of your life. You need to take the time to do this, because it will improve your school, and rowing, and social life.

Think about this, and what I'm asking of you. We'll discuss it further after Thursday's water practice.

Posted at 09:47AM Feb 06, 2007 by jason in Rowing  |  Comments[1]

ChipIn to Cal Crew

Cal Crew is a national powerhouse in rowing. They've got a great Video Podcast that has been delivering news to 10,000's of people around the world. To support that connection to the community they are doing a little fundraiser this year and are raising $30,000 for their video production services.

While this may seem like a lot of money for podcasts and video to the uninitiated, what you don't know is that it takes more than just $30k to run their podcast. It takes the time and love of Cal Alumni John Duhring to put it all together.

How does the video podcast ultimately benefit the program? Well, by keeping alumni (who have always been the most generous donors) connected through video, they plan to increase their connection to alumni and bring in MUCH MORE money through new donations. Hum, invest a little: get a lot.

Checkout how they are using video at the California Crew Homepage.

Subscribe to the Cal Crew Video Podcast.

Checkout donation progress on their ChipIn page:

Good luck Cal, and for the Palo Alto Rowing Club Alumni at Cal!

Posted at 12:00AM Feb 05, 2007 by jason in Rowing  | 

Open Row Days

Palo Alto Rowing Club is having Open Row Days this weekend. Anyone who has never tried rowing, or would like to try, is invited.

Dates:
Saturday, February 3, from 8:30am - 10:00am
Sunday, February 4, from 8:30am - 10:00am

It's a two day event, and people are asked to come both days if they are able. If you already have something on the schedule, please come on the day your are free. Attendance is free, but if you are under 18 years old, you need a parent to sign the swim waiver:
Swim Waiver

Find out more on Facebook's event page:
PARC Open Row Day

More info:
Palo Alto Rowing Club's Open Row Day

Posted at 11:44AM Feb 02, 2007 by jason in Rowing  | 

Clocky: Alarm clock for Rowers

Dig this concept: an alarmclock that runs away from you when it goes off in the morning. This prevents you from hitting snooze, and missing practice! Great idea!

I was watching the the Rocketboom Podcast featuring MAKE magazine and found out about clocky. Neat!

It's a very novel approach to more detail oriented clocks that I mentioned before. Personally I use a Timex T307S which has dual alamrs for M-F and Sa/Su. It works well, and it's cheap.

Posted at 02:02PM Jan 30, 2007 by jason in Rowing  | 

Two PRs on the Erg

Awesome job today guys. Two PRs: Robert and Will. And two sick guys: stop licking your hands! :) At least you followed through and put in your best effort.

Robert has won the first Grand Prix for this week. He dropped over 10 seconds off his 2km erg piece. Nice job man! That's huge!

Posted at 09:15PM Jan 25, 2007 by jason in Rowing  | 

Thursday's Erg Test, and Men's Grand Prix

We are doing a 2k test on Thursday afternoon (tomorrow).

Please get a good night's sleep tonight, and eat a healthy meal tonight, and for breakfast and lunch tomorrow. Keep your carbohydrate intake up, and the fat intake down. It will make a significant difference in your score. Bring a carbohydrate/electrolyte drink to the Erg Studio as well.

We will be doing technique at practice on the water, so you are not fatigued for the afternoon erg.

I also want to announce that we will have a "Men's Grand Prix" erg challenge starting tomorrow. This is a performance contest, and award, for the Varsity Men. I have a nice plaque for the occasion, and your name could go on it.

The Men's Grand Prix will be awarded to the fastest power improvement, per body weight. That means (delta)Watts/Body Mass. The biggest improvement in Watts/Body Mass will win the award for any given distance. The "delta", which means "difference in" will be taken from your last erg at the given distance.

We're going to use the metric system! (So your mass won't be measured in pounds.)

Each erg test, and each erg practice, there will be a chance to unseat the current reigning winner. Therefore, the award may change hands each week!

Note that this is not an award for the "fastest erg". This is an award for the best improvement, balanced with your previous performance. So, the fastest person could win it, or the slowest person, depending on improvement from week to week.

The Grand Prix will be contested in all common erg distances: 500m, 2000m, 5000m, 6000m, 10,000m, Hour of Power. Like distances will always be compared, so that we'll never compare 2000m watts/kg. to 10,000m watts/kg.

What are these numbers?
watts: this is your average watts (power) for the erg piece (not the watts of the last stroke, the computer must say "avg watts")
kg: kilograms of body mass, measured by my scale. At sea level, we can convert to lbs (pounds) like this:
sample calculation
delta: the last erg watts/kg of the same distance.

Example calculation:
On Jan 1, Bobby pulled a 6:55 for 2000m, and he weights 200 lbs (90.7 kg). From the erg's computer, his average power was 207 watts.
So his watts per kg is: 207 / 90.7 = 2.3 w/kg

On Feb 1, Bobby pulled a 6:49 for 2000m, and he weighed 195 lbs (88.5 kg).
From the erg's computer, his average power was 225 watts.
So his watts per kg is: 225 / 88.5 = 2.5 w/kg

His delta is 2.5 - 2.3 = 0.2 w/kg

So, if he has the highest delta compared to everyone else, then he takes the Grand Prix for that erg.

Note that, because of the calculations, Bobby could have the same erg score, and average power, in February as in January, but have lost 18 lbs, and still have the same delta (I'll leave the math as an exercise for the reader :). So, you can win this by loosing weight, and by increasing your power (erg score), and you can also win by using different stroke rates.

Where the heck did Jason come up with this crazy math from? Well, it's actually a medically accepted way to measure athletic capacity. For comparison, Lance Armstrong can sustain 6.8 watts/kg!!! See more info here:
NY Times on Lance

Posted at 07:29PM Jan 24, 2007 by jason in Rowing  | 

Working it off

I just got back from our winter vacation and I'm sitting here looking at results from 2006 indoor regattas, and thinking about what I'm going to pull at the 2007 indoor regattas. It's times like this that I kick myself for not working out every day. Ugh!!! Can I loose the 13 lbs I've gained over the past year in one month and be ready to kick some erg booty? LOL! UGH!!! This is what happens when you (I) don't have a training plan, training partner, or even a team.

Well, the first training workout was 60 mintues at a 1:59.5 avg, followed by a 60 minute spinning class. It kicked my ass, so I'm going to have to try again tomorrow.

Posted at 01:47AM Dec 29, 2006 by jason in Rowing  | 

California Rowing Club

I'm watching the Friends of Cal Crew video podcast, and the 10/13/06 episode discusses the new high performance rowing team: California Rowing Club. What the heck? Could this be a non-university, west coast, performance-focused, rowing club? Awesome!

The podcast has an interview with Aussie, Tim McLaren, the head coach. He seems to be quite a humble guy. He says they're not exactly sure what direction they're going, but that he's accepting emails at tmclaren at carowingclub.org. The website doesn't appear to be up just yet.

Posted at 07:46PM Nov 03, 2006 by jason in Rowing  | 

Regatta Report: Head of the American

Today I rowed in six seat for the Redwood Creek master's eight at the Head of the American. Results have been posted. With a whopping two 1.5 hour practices, over a stellar two week period (that's 3 hours on the water over two weeks!), we finished 4th of 9 boats with a time of 17:32, and average age of 44 (29s handicap).

Weather was nice: smooth water, no clouds, noon start time, about 70 degrees F.

We started last of the nine boats, and passed our first boat within 20 strokes. We passed 3 more boats through the race, and were 2 seats down on the 5th boat right at the finish line.

We started off with 10 strokes high at a 38, lengthened to 36 for 10, then 10 at 34, 10 at 32, and maintained 31-32 for the body. The boat was off to port for quite a bit of the race and Simona kept calling for port to raise our hands. We really needed to focus to keep it set in our borrowed boat (thanks UC Davis!). It was most likely the rowers and not the boat causing the problems.

Simona's coxing was excellent. It was her second time out with this crew. She seemed to steer her own course the whole time and took the big turn to starboard smoothly. She was also right on the crew for every single stroke of the race, motivating us to go harder. We need to get her out again soon!

All in all, I'm happy with the row. Obviously we need more outings to row together well, and the results are encouraging to that end. The fastest men's open 8 of the day was UC Davis at 16:18, and their average age is 21. I actually think we're in striking distance of those guys... if we only had time to train!

The lineup was:
1 Michael Hindery
2 Valery Axelrad
3 Lance Cowell
4 Graham Barnes
5 Bill Malecki
6 Jason Thrasher
7 Kent Perkocha
8 Kirk Krappe
C Simona Chin

Notable: Bryce Atkinson, PARC alumni, rowed to a win in Berkeley's MN8+. Great job!

Posted at 10:12PM Oct 28, 2006 by jason in Rowing  |