The Torch

After a few practices in Newport Beach, Peter and I put the double on the car and ventured down to the Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista, CA for some rowing down on the buoyed course. Our goal was to get some more objective data about how we are moving right now in the boat. US Men's head coach Bryan Volpenhein was nice enough to let us in our their workout this morning- an opportunity we were very grateful for. While Peter and I think that with some training and proper preparation we can be a top 2x, there is not a whole lot of reason for us to be fast right now in Feburary 2013. Since competing in London, Peter has taken a lot of time off and has only very recently started to train again. I, on the other hand, have been training hard, but I have been doing almost all of it on skis and on the erg. It takes a little bit to transfer that training into boat speed. Needless to say, we were excited to mix it up in the pieces with the boats down at the Training Center, but our expectations were pretty low. So we went out at 7am with the fleet of lightweight straight fours for a 12k easy row. After about an hour row, we came in, refueled, then went back out at 10 am for  2 x 3k @ 26 spm. In the morning's intermission, Peter and I perched up at Starbucks. Coffee: The lifeblood that drives the dreams of champions! We hit the water again in the company of two fours containing a few of my Craftsbury friends. Even in the warm-up, Peter and I were making a lot of good technical changes. It really is amazing having Peter behind me coaching me. I trust him more than anyone, especially when it comes to rowing technique. So I am completely willing to be molded as he sees fit. At this point, it just feels inconsistent. But it feels like I am knocking on the door of some big speed. In rowing, a small change to your stroke added up over 2000m has very large implications. After a 4k warm up, we blasted off on Piece 1 into a typical Chula Vista cross headwind. We started behind a Lighweight pair and ahead of the two lightweight fours. In this head style piece, you really don't know how you have done until the coaches tell everyone the times after practice. Before the pieces, Volp told the squad that he wanted everyone to front load their races. He said that internationally you do not have the luxury of starting slow. You need to get yourself into the race and then go from there. He talked about getting brave in the middle of the piece. I was very happy to blow out the first part of the race for Volp. He's an American Rowing legend and a Cincinnati native! So on the first piece, we lost to the 4-'s by 20 and 10 seconds respectively. I wasn't too pumped about that, but we still beat them on World Record %. It felt like we put down a good first 2k, but then lost the rthym a little bit. That would be my fault since I was stroking. We regrouped for the second piece by focusing on length and early suspension. The rowing was a very high caliber on the second piece. Less effort and more run. When it was all said and done, we beat one of the fours by .5 seconds, ( being stroked by Will Daly), and lost to the other Four by 15 seconds. I think we can be quite a bit faster than this but it was nice to get on a course,do some quality work, and make improvements. I head back to Vermont tomorrow. Then a couple weeks of skiing until we head down to Clemson, SC.