Head of the Hosmer

After 24 hours of travel, Ben and I made it to Burlington, VT at midnight on Tuesday morning. We were greeted by coach Roock who drove us weary travelers back into the woods to Craftsbury. It is remarkable to wake up in Lucerne, SUI and fall asleep in my bed in the quietest place I know, Craftsbury, VT. We have both been very energetic in the mornings and zombies in the afternoons; however, we have still been able to get some decent training in amidst the grogginess. We have rowed singles every day so far and come up with a few drills that we are both working on in the single to make us match up better in the double. The first drill is body over pause, trying to establish the hip pivot and weight on the handle before approaching the stern. Combined with the body over pause is the 3/4 slide pause on the square. This teaches us to get everything done by 3/4 slide so that all we have to do is tuck the seat and let the hands rise into the catch. The combination of these two drills has been very helpful to us both and I think we have both found that the individual work in the single is incredibly useful. As I mentioned briefly in my last post, we ended up racing the Head of the Hosmer yesterday as our first bout of high intensity exercise since returning. There is a good energy amongst the team right now as the U23 Nat'l teamers prepare to leave for Bulgaria and the Sr. teamers prepare for trials in a couple weeks. The quad is not totally set, but the lineup of Peter, Willy, Erik, and Steve has been rowing together and raced yesterday. Along with the quad, we had the U23 M2x, the newly minted P. Washburn/Reed M2-, Ben Dann, Ben Davison, brother Tom, and myself in the 1x. This is what makes it so fun to train here. Showing up on a Thursday afternoon for this incredibly painful 2.8k race is my favorite part of the week because of the energy of the 50+ campers, coaches, and 20+ elite athletes.There is banter from the moment we all arrive at 4 pm to the start, at which time everyone has their game faces on. I think that the Hosmer along with the Tuesday night ski races in the winter are what have taught me to truly love racing. My first Hosmer was in 2009 when I was rowing the 2- with Eli Roxby, the first summer of the Small Boat Training Center in Craftsbury. I think my time in the single was around 10:30. When I came back the following summer in 2010, as the lightweight men's single for U23's, I was able to get my time down to 10:16. In 2011, some U23 kid named Ben Dann who was beating up all of the senior teamers in the single that summer, became the first person to go sub 10 min, going 9:59, shattering the record. Ben went on to win the Champ 1x at Canadian Henley that summer, an amazing feat for a Junior in college.  In the fall of 2012, I too went 9:59. In the spring of 2013 after winning the M1x at NSR1 and before going overseas to race World Cups in the M1x, I went 9:48 and lowered the record substantially. The next year we mostly raced in the quad, setting the low mark at 8:10 in that boat class. That translates to around 1:28 split, or 5:52 pace for 2.8k. There were not many opportunities to race the single last year, but the one time I did, I went 9:52, four seconds slower than 2013. I felt like I should have been faster at the time, but the Hosmer is honest. The lake doesn't get any longer or shorter, we just get faster or slower. So when I went 9:38 yesterday and broke my own record by 10 seconds I knew what it meant. It mean't honest, objective, and substantial improvement. Dan has a list of "World Best Hosmer Times"which consists of times for each boat class that reflect what the gold medalist in the event would go over the 2.8k course. For the M1x, it is 9:26. So, yesterday I was 97.9 % of the Hosmer WBT. Haha, unfortunately World Rowing does not recognize these metrics as legitimate. The 4x had the next best % in 97.0, finishing in 8:13. Ben finished in 9:52, Tom in 9:55.  Obviously a piece like this does not yield any medals or Olympic qualification but it provides a much needed confidence that I have the tools I need to pursue those goals. Also, the confidence to trust myself and bring it to the double. Three years later and 21 seconds faster, we would be selling ourselves short to not believe we can do this. Long live improvement.