Sarasota

After a solid week in Inverness, we met back up with the rest of our team on Sunday in Sarasota and have been rowing the quad, sleeping, or eating ever since. We spent the first half of the week in Ft. Hamer where there is enough distance for the quad to really stretch out its legs. We haven't quite made it to Tampa Bay yet, but it's been a treat to be able to row 10-15k in one direction. For all of the amazing training capabilities we have in Craftsbury, this is something we cannot do on our body of water. There is a level of relaxation that comes from being to row continuously for longer than 10 minutes at a time. I certainly understand that there are those out there that believe it is unhealthy for the human body to be doing the rowing motion for periods greater than 10 or 20 minutes at a time, but it seems to me that without the distance work, we will never truly be able to shed the unnecessary parts of the stroke to unveil the essential. Like a sculptor that begins with a block of marble and subtracts to reveal the sculpture,  we leave the dock every practice with the intention to find that form together. Some days there is more marble to remove than others, but the important part is that no matter how windy or choppy it is, we find a way to collectively arrive at the same stroke. When we shove off the dock at Olympic Trials, the Final Qualification Regatta,the Olympics, and the pressure is on,  we want to be able to rely on this process to guide us to our rhythm and our speed. This is the focus of our rowing right now. We have the time right now to articulate to each other what we are feeling, to ask questions, and to understand fundamentally our identity in the boat. We are still relatively new to this combination, but we have already logged more kilometers together than any quad from Craftsbury did last year( it didn't take much). On Tuesday afternoon, we logged a 25k row that was particularly memorable. The attitude of the crew has been to actively seek out uncomfortably challenging conditions and this row gave us everything we were looking for. As we got out of the protected canal and ventured out into the open bay we were faced with 2-3 ft cross chop. Rowing in cross chop is not a pleasing sensation, but I was getting a different type of satisfaction from being apart of crew that was being proactive about improving its weaknesses and leaving no stone unturned. When we get in the boat it hasn't felt like just rowing, it's felt like preparation. As we made it back to the protected water again, we were treated with glassy water and an increasingly red sunset off the stern. The boat felt perfect to me. I could get all the length and relaxation I wanted at the front end and the release was accelerated and crisp. The image of all eight puddles flying away from the stern into the red glow of the sunset as we cruised on target speed and right on my target heart rate is what training can be and feel like at it's highest moments, but the convergence of all these factors together at the same time is fleeting and rare. But this is what we are after when we go out for 90 min or 100 min of steady rowing. Repetition of the highest quality strokes we can muster.

After three days of distance at Ft. Hamer, we loaded our oars up and headed down to Benderson for the remainder of the week. This is the course where Olympic Trials will be held in late April.  We are fortunate enough to have two very good quads so we don't have to move the boats between the two locations. On Thursday, we did 6 x 1500 m at 30 spm in the morning and rowed 75 min in singles in the afternoon. The 1500s were a great chance for us to push ourselves deep into fatigue and see where the rhythm breaks down. There was a lot of learning going on during these pieces. I thought we rowed the most solid collective rythym on the last piece and it also ended up being our fastest.  On Friday morning, we rowed 75 min of steady state on the course in the quad before coming back for 12 x 500 m at 32 spm in the afternoon. Here is a clip of us rowing steady in the morning on Benderson. We are working on carrying over what worked for us in the 1500s to our low rate rowing. We are working on keeping everything connected to the feet and the handle, 50/50 connection between feet and hands, while also keeping bodies up. Boat speed is about 1:43-1:44 at 20. There is plenty to work on, but this boat has very good natural matching through the drive which has given it a lot of speed very quickly. However, to do the things we are aiming to do, easy matching is not enough, over the next few months, we have to create an entirely new organism that moves, thinks, and breathes together. A quad that I love watching and that we look to for inspiration is the Aussie 4x from 2011-2012, with stroke man and technical magician Dan Noonan. This is a great little video following the crew from 2010 to the London Olympics. Love the two finger taps that they do in this video.

Aussie 4x

That's all for now, but I'll be sure to update again as we get to the end of the week. We will be doing some benchmark pieces on the course on the weekend that I'm excited about. After this week, we will be off for the Holidays then back to Craftsbury for a couple weeks of xc skiing before heading down to Canal 54 for Feb, March. Thanks for reading and for all the support.