The Torch

After a week of cross training and resting my rib, I have been back on the water in doses over the last couple of days. While at first it was a novelty to be off of the water, hanging out on the bike, enjoying some time out of the boat, it has surely worn off. The weather the last week or so has been pretty cold, so I haven't been complaining about being indoors training, but with the Speed Order in Princeton about a week away, it's time to get my feel for the water back. Yesterday's rowing was pretty rocky. Its easy to notice that I am just not as slick after taking a week out of the boat. I love this quote from a violinist I think it is, could be another type of musician, regardless: " If I don't practice for a day, I notice. If I don't practice for two days, my wife notices. If I don't practice for three days, the world notices." Love it. If the world had watched me rowing yesterday they would have noticed that I wasn't moving too well. I feel pretty fit after doing quite a bit of volume and hard pieces on the bike, but it doesn't matter if I can't use it to lever the boat. The good news is that today during our row I felt pretty normal again. We did a 6k that was supposed to be at threshold, so for me around 175 HR. Each person on the team seems to do the piece a little differently but I definitely enjoy trying to go as fast as possible under a certain exertion. I think it makes you very aware of how to move the boat sweetly without  just trying to use power for speed. I was able to have a pretty solid piece around 28 spm without an pain from my rib. Hopefully by Monday I will be operating on all cylinders. We are going down to Dartmouth on Monday to do some long distance rowing on the CT river. I am definitely excited row continuously for a long period of time, since that is one of the draw backs from training here in Craftsbury--we are always turning around.
After the Hanover trip, it will be a couple of days before we venture down to Princeton for the Speed Order, probably the final sculling race of 2013. Excited to light it up one last time this year.