Coach Thrasher
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 |
Bumps Racing in Boston
Reid Kleckner, PARC alumni, has some excellent shots of his MIT friends sinking the the Peking University eight at Head of the Charles this year. Good going guys! :)
It pays to have an experienced coxswain in situations like that. It's was really great thinking of the Chinese cox (who is an MIT grad student) to stay with the boat while it sank. The rowers should have stayed with the boat as well. You can hear people yelling in the video to "stay with the boat". Imagine one of the next 8's cruising through the bridge and right over the swimming rowers! Yikes!... that would be crazy: watch out for the skeg. I guess the Mandarin translator missed the regatta.
What's a coxswain to do? Humm... how high of a stroke rate can the MIT boat go to? But more realisticly, the Chinese boat should have never hit the MIT guys.
Posted at 09:27PM Oct 28, 2006 by jason in Rowing |
Force Timing in Small Boats
We're rowing small boats now, and in the frenzy of every morning practice and quest to obtain maximum water-time, I don't have time to talk about all aspects of rowing that I want to. So check this out:
When we're rowing 2x or 4+ boats, even power application TIMING by each rower is critical. What do I mean by this? Well, as a picture is worth a thousand words, check this out:
There are two images. In the top one, the FORCE TIMING of the 4 is matched, and in the bottom image, it isn't. The force applied to the boat is the SUM of everyone rowing. If we can sum the peak-power for each rower at the same point in time, we'll get the MAXIMUM force applied to the water to move the boat forward the fastest. The higher this maximum force, the faster the boat will go, but the maximum force the sum of everyone's efforts, so it's important to time it well. (Obviously there are many factors that contribute to boat speed as well, but this force-timing really important in small boats.)
Repeated strokes with matched force-timing of the rowers (translation: lots of strokes with good timing) will cumulatively make the boat go faster. So, the more strokes taken with matched force-timing, the faster the boat. Where is this really important: head racing, where we take many more strokes than sprints due to the longer course!
Note an important aspect of this: the boat will go faster by having the best timing, not by hammering the oar through the water! So a weaker crew with better timing will go faster than a stronger yet sloppy crew.
Thanks to PARC alumni, Reid Kleckner for sending the link to the pictures.
Posted at 04:09PM Oct 28, 2006 by jason in Rowing | Comments[1]
Rowing Loans on Prosper
After listening to Chris Larsen speak about Prosper Marketplace on the Stanford Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders Seminar podcast, I had to check it out. Lo and behold, there's a group for Rowers and Scullers! But, there are no members? Who needs a loan for a new boat or new boathouse? Probably lots of people.
In the podcast, Larsen was talking about people making loans to groups that they had some connection with - like college alumni funding a loan for a new stadium at the college. Normally a bank would fill that need, but with Prosper: the public is the bank. This is a really fascinating idea: why couldn't college alumni fund a specific program at their school though?... like just rowing, and no other. Personally I don't have a huge attachment to the football team anyway, but crew was special. He mentioned that lenders with high affinity to borrowers generally give them much better interest rates.
Groups on Prosper seem to be set up in order to market their members to the Prosper community. Wouldn't the granularity of the group's purpose affect the number of potential lenders willing to fund their loans? The best strategy for a group would be to cast a net as wide as possible market their members, and get funds coming in. However, if I'm a lender that wants to target a subset of the group I'd have to search for an individual borrower in the group that met my stricter criteria. That's a pain.
This will be interesting to watch. I'd like to see what the first rowing loan is made for: food, beer, boats, or?? Definitely not coaching.
Posted at 10:54PM Oct 26, 2006 by jason in Rowing |
St. Ignatius STOP ROWING
From the "I spend too much time on YouTube dept": St. Ignatius crew's coxswain shows what not to do! This should have never happened: the officials in the follow boat should have flagged to the crew, and the stroke seat should have told the coxswain to pay attention to the chase boat. Communication is a good thing.
Posted at 03:29PM Oct 20, 2006 by jason in Rowing | Comments[1]
CoxCam
The PARC guys weren't too interested in getting coxwain video this year because they didn't like the sometimes crotch-ish shots with our camera rig. I don't blam them. The cox can't see where the camera is pointed with our setup because the video camera is in a waterproof bag, and a bullet-cam with no viewfinder is all that's exposed. All of this cam to mind after seeing a good CoxCam on YouTube.
Posted at 11:58PM Jul 14, 2006 by jason in Rowing | Comments[0]
2- Collision with Dock
Ugh, the crunching sound of carbon fiber was heard today at Bair Island. I had just completed a 2000m piece with a group of two 1x, and a 2- about 500m off my stern. The group was obviously working hard, and gaining on me through the piece. After the finish everyone sat for about 30 seconds before taking it up again and the 2- immediately hit a dock. What a sad sound! Bow seat was pretty upset, but the real trouble started when the bow deck started to sink lower and lower in the water. The guys had to back it in to the Stanford dock, with the deck completely submerged. That's got to hurt.
Posted at 10:58AM May 31, 2006 by jason in Rowing | Comments[0]
7-day Alarm Clock for Crew
Rowing at 4:45 in the morning has it's challenges. Having different wakeup times in different parts of the week usually means resetting the alarm every night. Reid Kleckner solved the problem with an alarm clock from ThinkGeek that allows for different alarm times for -each day-, so no resetting is required. Here's what he has to say:
http://www.thinkgeek.com/homeoffice/lights/788e/ . It's called the Neverlate. It has settings for each day of the week, and you adjust the time via a dial instead of with hour/minute buttons. This means when you go one past your target time you don't have to click it 59 times, you can just dial back 1. I think it'd be cooler if you could set it to do different stuff to wake you up, but it just has the standard radio + buzzer and volume control. Also before you go to bed you can hit snooze and it flashes the next scheduled alarm time and day.
Hope that helps with some of your sleep woes, Reid
Posted at 01:34PM May 16, 2006 by jason in Rowing | Comments[0]
Yoga Session Results
Meredith, Tito, Bryce, Teddy, Reid, Keith, Patrick, Edward, Colin, Alex, myself (we had 11 people total) were able to attend the session. Stretching was good! Breathing exercises on our back worked our abs, as well as breathing and leg rotations. We did a lot of "downward dog", which really worked the hamstrings. We used straps around the ball of our feed to pull the hamstrings out. We did the elephant, for our hip flexors. The warrior (1), warrior (2), and warrior (3) worked our inner thighs, back, hams, and the top of the calves.
I'm really not too swift with the names of poses, but we learned many new positions. Many of the positions were very similar to our regular stretches, but with nice variations for extra support.
Everyone seemed to enjoy it, and Catherine, the instructor, kept everyone engaged. I think it's worth doing again.
Posted at 06:07PM May 09, 2006 by jason in Rowing | Comments[2]
Tuesday Yoga Session
I've setup an optional Yoga session for the boy's team. My hope is that they are able to learn how to improve their flexibility and balance. Yoga came as a recommendation from some of the varsity parents and I think this will be a good learning experience for everyone. It also gives us some good variation as we ramp up our rowing intensity in preparation for championships.
The time and place are:
4pm Tuesday (today)
654 High Street
Palo Alto, California 94301
See here for directions in downtown Palo Alto: http://www.darshanayoga.com/location.html
This is an optional workout that is being run as a private lesson by Darshana Yoga. As such, there is a $15.00/each fee that is charged by the yoga studio. I think this is well worth the price for the experience that we expect to have.
Please don't forget to bring $15 (cash is best)!
I'll see you there,
Posted at 12:35PM May 09, 2006 by jason in Rowing | Comments[0]
ARCNAV Rowing Lights
I noticed one of Kent Mitchell RC's boats with an odd LED light last week. It was on when I arrived at our compound, and no one was around. They must have left it on after practice. Just now I happened across the website of the group that sells these things. They are called ARCNAV.
It's a pretty nice little led design. However, I still like my simple plastic putty-knife design with bicycle LEDs. There are 4-8 LEDs on each bike light, and two bike lights per device. While ARCNAV only has 2 LEDs... 2 just doesn't seem like enough for $75.00. I'll have a picture of our putty-knife design up soon (it's $15 total for the parts).
Posted at 05:18PM May 03, 2006 by jason in Rowing | Comments[0]
Wake Analysis
There are some really neat pictures of the predicted wave action of a women's heavyweight 8+ traveling at various speeds at the Cyberiad website.
It's interesting that as speed increases, the rowers near the stern may be catching/releasing in a wave trough or crest. I think this would take more skill to adapt to the variation in waves if you sat in the stern 4. Does that mean we should put more skilled rowers in the stern?
I've always thought that bow pair and stern pair should be the most skilled in the boat since they can impart an axial flex in the boat with bad technique that propogates down the boat until it's dampened out. This isn't to say that the engine room has no skill (hey, I usually row at 6!), but a flop/crab/etc by them seems to affect the boat's set less. So should we put more skill at stern 4, and novice at bow pair to avoid wave action variations?
Posted at 01:33PM Apr 28, 2006 by jason in Rowing | Comments[1]
Rowing Video
Cruising the net, I've found a few other rowing video shots. I really like these since they show newbies what it's like. I sometimes have a hard time telling a football player that rowing will get them into top shape without showing them the movement. I've found that video really helps with the explanation. Anyway, check it out:
Rowing a single (camera fixed to stern deck)
Weybridge Juniors Interviews
Posted at 10:26AM Apr 20, 2006 by jason in Rowing | Comments[0]
Regatta Report: Delta Blades vs. Palo Alto, North Bay
Regatta Date: April 8, 2006
Men's Entries: V4+, JV4+a, JV4+b, N8+, N4+, 2x, 1x, Mixed 8
Course: 2000m, straight, 4 lanes
Conditions: calm winds, partly sunny, 65 deg F
Results:
MV4+
1. Palo Alto 7:32.4 (c: Meredith, Tito, Bryce, Reid, Keith)
2. Delta Blades 7:42.2
W2x
1. Delta Blades 8:59.1
2. Palo Alto 9:23.5
3. Palo Alto-B 9:51.7
WN4+
1. Delta Blades 9:03.8
2. North Bay 9:13.0
3. Palo Alto 9:25.2
MJV4+
1. Palo Alto 7:51.0 (c: Meredith, Sam, Alex, Patrick, James)
2. Delta Blades 8:03.4
3. Palo Alto-B 8:37.2
4. North Bay 8:51.2
Mx2x
1. Delta Blades 8:16.4
2. Delta Blades-B 8:32.2
3. Palo Alto 8:55.0 (Tito, Sarah)
WV8+
1. North Bay 7:55.3
2. Palo Alto 8:04.5
MN8+
1. Delta Blades 7:03.3
2. Palo Alto 7:44.7 (c: Nadav, Andrew Z., Alex, Sam, James, Patrick, Will, Andrew O., Gordy)
3. Delta Blades-B 7:52.0
M2x
1. Delta Blades 8:14.1
2. North Bay 8:30.9
3. Palo Alto 8:41.8 (Reid, Bryce)
WJV4+
1. Delta Blades 8:26.4
2. Palo Alto 9:00.7
3. North Bay 9:08.5
MN4+
1. Delta Blades 7:55.3
2. North Bay 8:11.0
3. Palo Alto 8:18.1 (c: Nadav, Andrew Z., Alex, Will, Gordy)
M1x
1. Delta Blades 8:47.4
2. Palo Alto 9:33.8 (Sam)
WV4+
1. Palo Alto 8:38.3
2. North Bay 8:45.0
Mx8+
1. Delta Blades 7:07.8
2. Palo Alto 7:20.9 (c: Meredith, Andrew, Alex, Reid, Bryce, w, w, w, w)
3. Delta Blades-B 7:39.0
We raced North Bay and Delta at this regatta: two teams that have the same experience to our men's program at Palo Alto. We've all been rowing for two years, so it was an opportunity to gauge our progress against similar teams on a level playing field.
We had all of the varsity/junior varsity guys except for Teddy who had planned to miss this regatta with me nearly 4 months ago. Looking at our 8 varsity/jv guys, we're really two groups: 4 heavyweights, and 4 lightweights. So we split into 4s, and subed Alex (our Hour-of-Power novice leader) into the LT4 (which made it heavy, thus it had to race as a JV4+). Keith moved from the LT4 into the V4 (heavy) to fill Teddy's spot.
This was Delta's first regatta and Joan had put a lot of work into setting up the venue, coordinating with marshals, and coordinating with teams. The only major hickup we had was before the first event: a cement plant moved a barge over the course and we had to delay for ~60 minutes.
Our men's 4s had a much better race this week than previously. Both the V4 and JV4 won their event. On review after the race the guys reported that they could have gone faster if they hadn't lost their focus/adrenaline due to the 60 minute delay. The MV4 was sitting on the water through the delay and didn't know what was going on. My own observation of their race was that we must continue working on catch placement - we're missing water at higher rates.
The N4+ rowed as a JV4+b boat to get some additional racing experience. They did pretty well coming in 3rd of 4 boats considering they're mostly lightweights AND novice.
We've had a few novice rowers missing practice regularly so I've made it a rule that people missing practice will not row at regattas. As a result, we only had 5 eligible novice rowers to row the N8. It was a similar situation for Delta, so we agreed at the coaches meeting that it was ok for JV rowers to row in the novice eights. We used our lightweights: Sam, James, and Patrick to fill in the boat.
On an interesting note: Sam rowed in 3 events: JV4, N8, 1x, and he went out for a quick practice row in the 1x before the regatta started (since it was his second time in the boat). So, he was really tired for the 1x race and was out there to have fun. He reported that the 1x was a very personal race, and that despite the result, it was a lot of fun. He talked with Craig (the Delta 1x) a little on the water after the event, and back on land, and found that that interaction really added a different dimension to rowing.
Thanks again to parents for providing food and support for this event! Being Delta's first hosted event, I thought it went fairly smoothly. Thanks for being such good hosts! Parking was stright forward, there was no traffic, the weather was nice, the water was calm, and all of the North Bay and Delta parents and rowers that I met made some great conversation.
Posted at 12:00AM Apr 08, 2006 by jason in Rowing | Comments[0]
Erg-A-Thon Report
Palo Alto Rowing Club held its annual Erg-A-Thon fundraiser on Saturday at Lytton Plaza in downtown Palo Alto. The program holds the event once a year in the spring as a fundraiser and exhibition for the program. Athletes in the program ask friends and family for a small donation to help fund their rowing program. The athletes in turn pledge to row for a full 60 minutes, non-stop, on a Concept II rowing machine - which takes some athletic prowess.
Our goal was for each athlete to get 20 people to donate $50 each to their 60 minute effort. If everyone in the club did that PARC would easily be able to purchase a new 8+ from Hudson with the income. As it is this year, we're debt-servicing our loans for boats purchased from Hudson, but not yet fully owned by PARC. It's like buying a new car - we're not able to pay for it all at once, but over a few years it'll finally be paid off. I think it's a difficult decision to do that given that new rowers next year will have to pay debt-service on equipment that some rowers get to row in, as new, this year. As a new and building program, there's really no alternative short of a large donation from a family or corporation. These boats run nearly $30k US, fully equipped.
So how was it organized to get everyone on our limited equipment? We had around 12 ergs set out under folding tents to keep the sun/rain off. Rowers were assigned a time to start, and we had 5 teams that had to arrive 30 minutes prior to their start to warm-up and stretch. We started at 7am, and finished around 1pm. Transitions between teams lasted about 15 minutes as people gathered themselves up off of the ergs.
We had nearly every member of the program out for the ergathon. Some of the athletes were trying for a PR. One of the novice boys, a freshman named Alex, averaged better than 1:57/500m splits for the whole hour. Go Alex!
I'm happy to say that this year Georgia, my dog, was well fed by many rowers at the event. She especially liked the homemade powerbars from Donna, and the banana bread with blueberries (from who?). The parent and booster volunteers kept a food/information table well stocked with food for people, and information for people passing by on the sidewalk. (I think we picked up a few donations from people that had rowed elsewhere and were happy to see rowing growing out here on the west coast.) The food at this event really keeps people around to cheer on everyone else suffering through their 60 minutes.
Posted at 09:35PM Apr 02, 2006 by jason in Rowing | Comments[4]