Right about the time I'd like to be writing about how I have started to find easy speed in the single again, or how a particular combination is starting to click, I am actually about to write about being away from the boat for a week, training on the bike, with a chest/rib injury.
It's been eight days since I was last in the boat. Ben, Peter, Tom, and I were in the 4x and the task was simple enough: 45 min out, 45 min back. That particular morning brought uncharacteristically cool temperatures, gloomy skies, and a characteristically strong crosswind. It's difficult to say exactly how it happened but I began to feel pain in my chest as we went around a turn, powering up on port side to make the turn. In the side chop, the boat was fairly unbalanced and somewhere during that turn I took a stroke that caused immediate pain in my chest. My mistake was to finish out the row. I didn't speak up about some discomfort until we turned to go back home almost 13k from the boathouse. On the way back, I went very light and basically let the other three guys take me in. To their credit, they were clipping right along. When they learned they weren't going too slow without me, they really began to make me question how much I am actually moving the boat, rowing 1.38's at 22 with three guys as I laughed in bow. When I got out of the boat and stood up, the pain was obviously in my chest, maybe still a rib but definitely in my chest. It was painful enough that I couldn't get into pushup position.
Here we go. Back on the bike. It's not an unfamiliar place for me, I've been through similar situations before, but its obviously regrettable and not where I'd like to be 3 weeks before our first major race this season, NSR 1. Worst case scenario, I have a fractured rib, and I will be biking for 4-6 weeks. Best case, it is muscular or a rib subluxation( dislocation) and that will heal much quicker with the right treatment. The Clemson University sports med staff was nice enough to take a look at me on Monday and while they couldn't give me anything conclusive, their guess was that the injury was muscular and not in the bone. That would be amazing news if it turned out to be true. Still, I will prepare for the worst and hope for the best. Rib injuries are deceptively difficult because you don't realize just how much you use your ribs until you injure them. It hurts just to lie in bed or move around at all while lying down which makes sleeping a thing I both look forward to/ dread doing right now.
I have had a few notable rib injuries over the last few years but I am hesitant to characterize this one with the rest because it seems clear to me that this was not due to overuse or even an imbalance in my body. Leading up to this, I had been taking pride in having a stronger core than ever; an area that I felt like I could really improve this year. I had made some pretty big strides over the winter and my body felt as balanced as I'd ever felt for the first few weeks on the water down here. In the fall of 2012 AND the fall of 2013, I injured my ribs from overuse. On both occasions, I shut it down, got on the stationary bike for two weeks. Both times I felt like I emerged stronger physically and mentally. This is not to say that I am by any means excited to be stuck on the bike for an undisclosed amount of time instead of being on the water-- of course not. I am, however, searching for silver linings. Three weeks to go to our first selection race and I might have to do the majority of the work leading up to it on the bike. Or worse, I might not be able to race. I can't pretend like I am not grinding my teeth, watching my teammates doing pieces and taking important strokes-- making progress. I wake up in the morning geniunely excited to row in the morning, excited to have everyone together making progress, excited to make lineups, excited to just get out there and play around. I miss it deeply right now. Alas, the bike is what I have right now. Not the ideal situation, but I am committed to making the very best of it. I have a very clear path: rest the chest/rib and prepare my legs/lungs/heart/mind for anything. I have had some high quality sessions on the bike this week, including two workouts, 3 x 12' and 3 x 5' when I hit the highest HR I've seen on the bike. ( 184 HR on 12 min pieces and 185 on 5 min pieces). They say HR numbers should be slightly lower on the bike since you are only using your legs but I would argue that in some ways you are able to push harder. I am using my HR as my only gauge, so when its time to go hard, I just max it out. Excited to keep pushing it further.
The last pieces I was a part of on the water was last Thursday morning( over a week ago now) in doubles. Peter and I were together, Tom/Ben, and then we were joined by the combo of Andrew Campbell/ Josh Koneizncy. Steve and Willy were both rowing steady state due to mild injuries.( They are both back now).Andrew and Josh had just finished a couple weeks of selection and look like they will be rowing together for the upcoming races this spring. They are both incredibly talented and humble guys and its really cool that they are now in the same boat pushing for Rio. Sky is the limit for those two. That being said, Peter and I like to row together too! Dan switched the combos up the day before the pieces, so we didn't have too much time to get a feel for each other, but its no puzzle. Ben and I rowed together and were doing very well, but I was curious to give it a try at pace with Peter. Peter taught me everything I know and I have only ever tried to row like him, so matching comes pretty naturally. Peter, Ben, Tom and I are all fairly interchangeable size wise and we have been having some notably fast quad rows with the four of us together. It definitely shows the value of having common length and genes, I guess. Watching Peter, Tom, and Ben walk around together is truly hilarious. Ben has no relation to our family, but he looks far more like Tom and Peter than I do (Dan calls our 4x the "Brothers quad plus John"). Peter and I were both a little apprehensive since this was our first time doing an open rate race piece this year on the water, but we also knew that it gave us a little bit of an excuse to be reckless, to try some things, and to not be too harsh on ourselves about the results. Since being down here, I have been eager to test our speed against the lightweights. A lot of the other guys are not so keen. Perhaps it is the former lightweight in me, but I see great opportunity in racing against a group of guys that is as hungry to prove themselves as those guys are. As a lightweight, there's nothing you love more than beating a heavyweight. As a small heavyweight, there's nothing you love more than beating much bigger people than you. So I consider myself a hybrid. Peter and I are probably two of the lighter heavyweights around, both of us are 180-182 lbs. Heavyweight, lightweight, bantamweight, paperweight; whatever the case may be, speed is speed and whoever has the most of it can call themselves whatever they want. Both camps are working towards seemingly impossible goals and we need the competition to push to the very uncomfortable truths of going really fast.
We did 3 x 1500m at base pace. No starts. There was a slight cross tailwind and a little bit of head current. In the first 250m, Peter and I went right to a long 35 spm and began moving away. We were both a little too aggressive early. As a result, 250 meters later, our stern was on everyone's bow. 500 down. Rhythm was excellent, speed was good, and we were open water up. I think Peter and I both anticipated that we could get the thing going without too much trouble, but how long could we sustain it? I was confident that we could spend less energy than our competition at race pace and continue to build a margin. We were focusing on sitting up, being strong in the lower back and core, and front squatting the boat. It's a crucial call for both of us to be strong in the core and not change our body angle as we compress into the front end. This allows us to put the blade in without extra movement--just placement with the hands. Early in the piece especially, our change of direction was pretty seamless and quiet. As we approached 750m down, all simplicity went out the window when a fishing boat blew by and its wake followed closely. In the outside lane we were hit by it first and our lead began shrinking. We did a nice job rowing through it, acknowledging that a wave is just energy and riding it. By the time we were completely through it, we regained our composure and only had about 500m to go. The once promising overall time was ruined by the wake, but we were able to keep it together all the way to the line finishing about 4 seconds ahead of Josh/Andrew. Unfortunately, after the piece I was struggling with a pretty bad case of fire paw, or puffy forearms. A result of gripping too hard. I thought about going in after the first piece, but also knew that it would not send the right message to anyone. No matter how shitty it felt, I needed to complete this workout and take my lumps, even if it mean't finishing out the back on the next two pieces. We were pretty conservative in the second piece, but still found ourselves slightly ahead of Andrew/Josh going into the last 250; however, when the pace got hot in the last 20-30 strokes, I was favoring my forearm and really struggling to keep my sculling symmetrical. We were unable to respond to their final push. I felt really bad for Peter, but I was unable to add much to the boat. We were going a little bit sideways and Andrew/Josh made us pay for it. They probably finished half a second ahead or so. A lot of credit to them for having gas left in the tank to make that push. On the third and final piece, a tailwind had picked up and Peter and I talked about just keeping it light and skeletal, not worrying about the other boats, given how my forearms felt. We stayed pretty internal for 500m, brought our heads up, and found that we were rowing a light 34 spm and had a decent lead. I called for us to reach with the seat, sit up, and spin the hands a little bit to get a little more cadence. At 36, it was wonderfully lighter and most importantly, faster. At 1k down, we were still talking about sitting up, breathing, and spinning it. So far, the rowing in the middle of this piece and some of the shorter high stuff I've done with Ben this trip sticks out as some of the best rowing I've done. If Peter and I can find a way to make this rowing repeatable and automatic it would be an extremely fast and dangerous boat to race. What was not very good, was my communication to Peter at the end of this piece. I called our last 10 strokes far too early and we ended up stopping before the other crews. Peter and Dan were both rightly so a little upset that we let the other crews eat up our margin in the last 5 strokes or so. My response was: 1. Yep, my bad. 2. My forearms freaking hurt. All in all, pretty good first bout of race pieces. Over all three pieces, the lightweights probably were only a second slower over 1500 on average which obviously is in their favor on World Record %, so we have plenty of work to do. They will likely race NSR 1 in the M2x and will be a formidable combo.
Ah, that was nice. Writing about rowing is the closest I have gotten to being in the boat for a while. I guess writing about it is a good way for me to keep it alive in my mind. I can't let myself forget the racing , burn of racing, or what I was thinking about in the boat before I got injured. More to come. Hopefully, I'm on the mend.
It's been eight days since I was last in the boat. Ben, Peter, Tom, and I were in the 4x and the task was simple enough: 45 min out, 45 min back. That particular morning brought uncharacteristically cool temperatures, gloomy skies, and a characteristically strong crosswind. It's difficult to say exactly how it happened but I began to feel pain in my chest as we went around a turn, powering up on port side to make the turn. In the side chop, the boat was fairly unbalanced and somewhere during that turn I took a stroke that caused immediate pain in my chest. My mistake was to finish out the row. I didn't speak up about some discomfort until we turned to go back home almost 13k from the boathouse. On the way back, I went very light and basically let the other three guys take me in. To their credit, they were clipping right along. When they learned they weren't going too slow without me, they really began to make me question how much I am actually moving the boat, rowing 1.38's at 22 with three guys as I laughed in bow. When I got out of the boat and stood up, the pain was obviously in my chest, maybe still a rib but definitely in my chest. It was painful enough that I couldn't get into pushup position.
Here we go. Back on the bike. It's not an unfamiliar place for me, I've been through similar situations before, but its obviously regrettable and not where I'd like to be 3 weeks before our first major race this season, NSR 1. Worst case scenario, I have a fractured rib, and I will be biking for 4-6 weeks. Best case, it is muscular or a rib subluxation( dislocation) and that will heal much quicker with the right treatment. The Clemson University sports med staff was nice enough to take a look at me on Monday and while they couldn't give me anything conclusive, their guess was that the injury was muscular and not in the bone. That would be amazing news if it turned out to be true. Still, I will prepare for the worst and hope for the best. Rib injuries are deceptively difficult because you don't realize just how much you use your ribs until you injure them. It hurts just to lie in bed or move around at all while lying down which makes sleeping a thing I both look forward to/ dread doing right now.
I have had a few notable rib injuries over the last few years but I am hesitant to characterize this one with the rest because it seems clear to me that this was not due to overuse or even an imbalance in my body. Leading up to this, I had been taking pride in having a stronger core than ever; an area that I felt like I could really improve this year. I had made some pretty big strides over the winter and my body felt as balanced as I'd ever felt for the first few weeks on the water down here. In the fall of 2012 AND the fall of 2013, I injured my ribs from overuse. On both occasions, I shut it down, got on the stationary bike for two weeks. Both times I felt like I emerged stronger physically and mentally. This is not to say that I am by any means excited to be stuck on the bike for an undisclosed amount of time instead of being on the water-- of course not. I am, however, searching for silver linings. Three weeks to go to our first selection race and I might have to do the majority of the work leading up to it on the bike. Or worse, I might not be able to race. I can't pretend like I am not grinding my teeth, watching my teammates doing pieces and taking important strokes-- making progress. I wake up in the morning geniunely excited to row in the morning, excited to have everyone together making progress, excited to make lineups, excited to just get out there and play around. I miss it deeply right now. Alas, the bike is what I have right now. Not the ideal situation, but I am committed to making the very best of it. I have a very clear path: rest the chest/rib and prepare my legs/lungs/heart/mind for anything. I have had some high quality sessions on the bike this week, including two workouts, 3 x 12' and 3 x 5' when I hit the highest HR I've seen on the bike. ( 184 HR on 12 min pieces and 185 on 5 min pieces). They say HR numbers should be slightly lower on the bike since you are only using your legs but I would argue that in some ways you are able to push harder. I am using my HR as my only gauge, so when its time to go hard, I just max it out. Excited to keep pushing it further.
The last pieces I was a part of on the water was last Thursday morning( over a week ago now) in doubles. Peter and I were together, Tom/Ben, and then we were joined by the combo of Andrew Campbell/ Josh Koneizncy. Steve and Willy were both rowing steady state due to mild injuries.( They are both back now).Andrew and Josh had just finished a couple weeks of selection and look like they will be rowing together for the upcoming races this spring. They are both incredibly talented and humble guys and its really cool that they are now in the same boat pushing for Rio. Sky is the limit for those two. That being said, Peter and I like to row together too! Dan switched the combos up the day before the pieces, so we didn't have too much time to get a feel for each other, but its no puzzle. Ben and I rowed together and were doing very well, but I was curious to give it a try at pace with Peter. Peter taught me everything I know and I have only ever tried to row like him, so matching comes pretty naturally. Peter, Ben, Tom and I are all fairly interchangeable size wise and we have been having some notably fast quad rows with the four of us together. It definitely shows the value of having common length and genes, I guess. Watching Peter, Tom, and Ben walk around together is truly hilarious. Ben has no relation to our family, but he looks far more like Tom and Peter than I do (Dan calls our 4x the "Brothers quad plus John"). Peter and I were both a little apprehensive since this was our first time doing an open rate race piece this year on the water, but we also knew that it gave us a little bit of an excuse to be reckless, to try some things, and to not be too harsh on ourselves about the results. Since being down here, I have been eager to test our speed against the lightweights. A lot of the other guys are not so keen. Perhaps it is the former lightweight in me, but I see great opportunity in racing against a group of guys that is as hungry to prove themselves as those guys are. As a lightweight, there's nothing you love more than beating a heavyweight. As a small heavyweight, there's nothing you love more than beating much bigger people than you. So I consider myself a hybrid. Peter and I are probably two of the lighter heavyweights around, both of us are 180-182 lbs. Heavyweight, lightweight, bantamweight, paperweight; whatever the case may be, speed is speed and whoever has the most of it can call themselves whatever they want. Both camps are working towards seemingly impossible goals and we need the competition to push to the very uncomfortable truths of going really fast.
We did 3 x 1500m at base pace. No starts. There was a slight cross tailwind and a little bit of head current. In the first 250m, Peter and I went right to a long 35 spm and began moving away. We were both a little too aggressive early. As a result, 250 meters later, our stern was on everyone's bow. 500 down. Rhythm was excellent, speed was good, and we were open water up. I think Peter and I both anticipated that we could get the thing going without too much trouble, but how long could we sustain it? I was confident that we could spend less energy than our competition at race pace and continue to build a margin. We were focusing on sitting up, being strong in the lower back and core, and front squatting the boat. It's a crucial call for both of us to be strong in the core and not change our body angle as we compress into the front end. This allows us to put the blade in without extra movement--just placement with the hands. Early in the piece especially, our change of direction was pretty seamless and quiet. As we approached 750m down, all simplicity went out the window when a fishing boat blew by and its wake followed closely. In the outside lane we were hit by it first and our lead began shrinking. We did a nice job rowing through it, acknowledging that a wave is just energy and riding it. By the time we were completely through it, we regained our composure and only had about 500m to go. The once promising overall time was ruined by the wake, but we were able to keep it together all the way to the line finishing about 4 seconds ahead of Josh/Andrew. Unfortunately, after the piece I was struggling with a pretty bad case of fire paw, or puffy forearms. A result of gripping too hard. I thought about going in after the first piece, but also knew that it would not send the right message to anyone. No matter how shitty it felt, I needed to complete this workout and take my lumps, even if it mean't finishing out the back on the next two pieces. We were pretty conservative in the second piece, but still found ourselves slightly ahead of Andrew/Josh going into the last 250; however, when the pace got hot in the last 20-30 strokes, I was favoring my forearm and really struggling to keep my sculling symmetrical. We were unable to respond to their final push. I felt really bad for Peter, but I was unable to add much to the boat. We were going a little bit sideways and Andrew/Josh made us pay for it. They probably finished half a second ahead or so. A lot of credit to them for having gas left in the tank to make that push. On the third and final piece, a tailwind had picked up and Peter and I talked about just keeping it light and skeletal, not worrying about the other boats, given how my forearms felt. We stayed pretty internal for 500m, brought our heads up, and found that we were rowing a light 34 spm and had a decent lead. I called for us to reach with the seat, sit up, and spin the hands a little bit to get a little more cadence. At 36, it was wonderfully lighter and most importantly, faster. At 1k down, we were still talking about sitting up, breathing, and spinning it. So far, the rowing in the middle of this piece and some of the shorter high stuff I've done with Ben this trip sticks out as some of the best rowing I've done. If Peter and I can find a way to make this rowing repeatable and automatic it would be an extremely fast and dangerous boat to race. What was not very good, was my communication to Peter at the end of this piece. I called our last 10 strokes far too early and we ended up stopping before the other crews. Peter and Dan were both rightly so a little upset that we let the other crews eat up our margin in the last 5 strokes or so. My response was: 1. Yep, my bad. 2. My forearms freaking hurt. All in all, pretty good first bout of race pieces. Over all three pieces, the lightweights probably were only a second slower over 1500 on average which obviously is in their favor on World Record %, so we have plenty of work to do. They will likely race NSR 1 in the M2x and will be a formidable combo.
Ah, that was nice. Writing about rowing is the closest I have gotten to being in the boat for a while. I guess writing about it is a good way for me to keep it alive in my mind. I can't let myself forget the racing , burn of racing, or what I was thinking about in the boat before I got injured. More to come. Hopefully, I'm on the mend.
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