The Torch

Woke up, glanced out the window, and there was snow on the ground. I'm realizing now that I didn't react much, I just continued on my morning routine without acknowledging that it was significant in any way. Maybe I am perpetually in winter mode up here or maybe I'm just tired. Either way, its significant to me now as I think about it within the context of the upcoming year. Winter is upon us and in a shortened season like this year is, the snow signals the end of 2015, and the beginning of a large body of work leading into the spring. We got back on Thursday from a week in Princeton where we were able to get useful work in on the buoys. The last three weeks have been fairly intense and we were able to learn quite a bit about ourselves through mixing and matching in doubles, racing singles, and testing in the 4x. We emerged as a physically tired but mentally and spiritually envigorated group  eager to put so called "selection" behind us and get down to the business of developing. When I say selection, it does not mean what the traditional USRowing term conotates. Instead, we evaluated ourselves. Everyone put themselves out there to be tested because we all have the same goal: making   the fastest M4x we possibly can. The combination that won the blind taste tests, 2x matrices, and 4x time trials, was the combo of Ben Davison, Ben Dann, brother Peter, and I.

I obviosly know Ben Dann and Peter very well, the three of us rowed the 4x together in 2014. Althogh Ben Dann and I ultimately did not continue to pursue to the M2x after not qualifying in Aiguebilete this summer, nothing has changed about my level of confidence in his ability to race at the highest level. While I surely dont tell him enough, I have been really lucky to get to row with him the last few years and I am very excited to see what we can do together again this year.  We went after the double with everything we had last summer and had many special high moments that made us believe we could be a consistent A final 2x, most notably was our heat in Varese at WC2 when we were rowing the best technically we ever had and found ourselves ahead of Worlds silver medalist Italy and clear water over the rest of the field. Our mistake was ever looking up and around during that race. The lesson there is to race your own race all the way to the finish line,  you might be surprised where you are when you look up at the end. On the other hand, there were also the moments when we laid down in the boat together and asked ourselves," what the hell are we doing?" Looking back and also knowing how things are different now, I can confidently say that many of our dissapointments were strongly tied to the difficult situation we had going on with our team. In Lucerne, we were rowing terribly. Neither of us knew what was wrong. God bless Ken Jurkowski and Julie Nichols for trying to help us, they did everything imaginable to try and help us out of our funk, but it was much deeper than technical or rigging changes. It was not our boat or oars--it was in our heads. Things weren't good at home. Our team was in shambles. It just wasn't right for us to be out on our own trying to qualify the double for the Olympics without the people that shared that dream with us during the long Vermont winter. As much as it was exactly what both of us wanted to be doing, racing at World Cups, trying to measure up against the best doubles in the world, trying to become one of them, the spirit of our pursuit was soiled by the tarnished dreams of those who were at home, wishing they were with us; wishing we were in the 4x, wishing that we just could have continued on our trajectory from 2014. Being in Lucerne in 2015, watching the A finals from the shore (after finshing fourth in the B Final)and having the memory of standing on the podium there last year fresh in our minds, we couldn't help but ask each other  " How did we get here?" Sure, improvement is not always linear, but it just felt like we were off course. After not qualifying the boat in France, both of us still felt like we could qualify through the last chance qualifier in 2016. Despite not getting the result we wanted I reminded Ben that we went as fast as we aimed to go. We wanted to improve a length every year beginning in 2013 and we did. Regardless of what we decided to do for the Olympic year, I just wanted to make sure we both took a step back and realized that we had made substantial progress and while it is difficult to detach ourselves from the result of not qualifying for the Olympics, all was not lost.  In 2013, we went 6:18.8 in Korea, in 2014 we went 6:16.2 at NSR 2, and in Aiguebilete we went 6:14.1. That same time at 2013 Worlds would have put us in 4th place in the A Final. We dropped two seconds ( a length in a 2x is about 1.5 seconds)each year since we began rowing together and that trajectory is still very promising. What we could not plan for is the immense depth of the M2x field and that there would be an entire B final full of boats that could go 6:10. The A final is now a club of sub 6:10 doubles, with the medalists all under 6:05. Amazing. It shows how the speed increases as the quadrennial goes on, peaking at the Olympic regatta.  The bottom line is that we didn't feel like we underperformed. We certainly had conversations where we were ready to just commit to the 2x for all of this year, because we thought that staying the course and not changing boat classes was a smart move, but I would say the doubles matrices this fall and in particular, Ben Davison changed our mind. We already knew Peter's great worth. He was undoubtedly our captain and technical leader in 2014, the clear voice and player/coach of the 4x; a role that was and will be a vital part of the development and success of our quad.  But what we didn't know was how impressive Ben Davison was.  Ben is quiet, determined, technically advanced beyond his years, and very powerful. Not to mention, I feel like he has grown in just the last month. When Peter and Ben Davison nipped Ben Dann and I over a 1k piece during one of the seven 1ks we did during  our matrix it definitely got our attention. He has continued to show that he is not phased by the challenge ahead of us by really making his contribution felt in the three seat of the 4x. His quiet confidence and talent have been a welcome and necessary addition to a boat that will need to be very special to acheive it's goals. I have really enjoyed the combination of talents and personalities in the boat so far. 

Last week in Princeton, we did some rate controlled 2ks and jumped in for 2 x 3 miles at 28 with the training center pairs.  I thought we had solidly fast times on the 2ks, but the truth of our quest in the quad is that no time is good enough. The boats we will be facing are not going to be blown out of the water, margins in the 4x are always so tight, we can only hope to prepare well enough and become efficient enough that we can get to the last 500 in the mix and then sign our names on every stroke to the line. The 3 mile pieces showed us that we can hold a solid rhythm for a long period of time but there is a lot of work to do on making it more uniform.  Larry has been on us about cleaning up our releases, so that will continue to be a big focus for us. Especially in the quad it's important for us to define the release and exit without any drama. Since we have been back, it's been pretty cold. We have been doing a good deal of strength work in the gym and then getting on the water once it warms up in the late morning. Its feels good getting in the weight room and building power, we need it badly. This is an area that we can improve a lot in and have unfortunately neglected for a long time. Right now we are lifting heavy three times a week and measuring peak power once a week. Everything Larry has us doing has a specific purpose in relation to the way he wants us moving in the boat and offers the athletes a clear reference point in the boat to draw upon. I think this has the potential to carry over well into the quad because it provides a commonality to the stroke that we have been missing. With the reintroduction of weight lifting as a key component to our training it will be really important that we establish a good strength training set up in our warm weather training site.

We will spend the next couple of weeks until Thanksgiving up here in Vermont and then will be travelling down for a two week camp in Sarasota, FL. My guess is that we will be off the water pretty soon up here so it will be time to relocate. We will come back for some skiing in early Janurary and then head back down to FL for Feb, March, and April leading into Olympic Trials in late April. I'll see if I can get some video of us rowing up soon. 

Clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose. 

(I'm hooked on Friday Night Lights right now)