Jaunting

August 30, 2017

When Ben and I crossed the finish line at Trials, we knew that our work was just beginning. I don't want to belittle the act of making the National Team because I remember what it felt like to make my first U23 team, my first Senior team, and its a very special feeling. But deciding to pursue this double together was not about just making the team. When Ben got back from U23's, we only had 10 days to get to a reasonable speed and it was very impressive to watch how seamlessly Ben picked up sculling again. Sure there was plenty of residual imbalance from rowing sweep for the last year, but for the most part he looked at home in stroke seat, laying down rhythm and I really enjoyed having him back. Right off the bat he wasn't quite as smooth as he was last year stroking the quad but it was obvious to me that I was rowing with a bigger, stronger, and more mature version. Since Trials he has only gotten smoother and we have enjoyed having the time to really dig into the details of melding together.

Before I get into specifically what we have been doing, I should mention that we named my brother Peter as our Coach for Worlds. Larry Gluckman will also be helping us, but Peter will be with us all the time. I think the blend of Larry and Peter has been excellent for us because they both bring different things to the table but the main thing that we wanted out of this entire project was maximum continuity from the quad project last year. We felt like we really found something that worked last year in the quad and that we didn't need to reinvent the wheel, we just need to keep perfecting and executing the same technical points, focuses, maintaining the attention to detail, and just not starting over from scratch. Leaving Lucerne last year, I had a long conversation with Larry about continuity and about how that is what makes a boat like the German 4x so successful. I don't think they have anything that the other quads in the event don't also have other than time together and a proven system that they trust. By keeping our team together, I really feel like we are starting from a much better point than we did in the Fall of 2015. Larry, Peter, Ben, and I are all speaking the same technical language and have trust in the same process.

While we are confident in where we are aiming and what the end game is technically, Ben and I have both faced unique sets of challenges individually. Ben is obviously just looking to get more comfortable sculling after a year rowing in exceptionally fast sweep boats and I am faced with the nuances of matching another's stroke and adjusting to the speed of the double. I would say one of Ben's great strengths is his ability to row a stroke that is highly effective at race ratings. He does a really good job of rowing the suspension and not messing around with anything that is not actually moving the boat. He keeps his hands flowing and keeps the work in front of his body and always attached to the front end. Rowing with Ben reminds me that if you're rowing well, there is no back end, the entire stroke happens at the front end. Right away, Ben and I matched up very well at race rates, just thinking about rowing the quad rhythm, but paddling around at lower rates it was challenging for us to find commonality. I am used to cruising around in the single and spending a lot of time letting the boat run at the finish and Ben is doing a really good job of keeping everything moving. Gradually, as we get more time together, that rhythm is becoming more natural to me again but its clear that coming from the single my hands were slow and not assertive. Peter has done a really good job running us through drills that pin point our trouble spots in the stroke and expose them. Sitting in bow, Peter was our voice in the 4x last year and was able to see the slight differences in each of our strokes. He is very good at troubleshooting problems in the boat; listening to feedback and making suggestions. Specifically with Ben and I, he knows well what it feels like to row with each of us in the double and knows how to match us. This intimate knowledge of each of our rowing styles is invaluable because it feels like the changes are not abstract ideas, they are rooted in experience.

At Trials, we were struggling with feeling off balance in the boat and since then Peter has been able to give us both small changes to get us both sitting in a neutral position and feeling even in the boat. For me, he hypothesized that if I led out with my starboard hand more and reached with my left hip that would get me sitting evenly on the seat and free up the boat at the catch. Last week this was a big breakthrough for me. I felt like I was able to press evenly on my feet and catch evenly from side to side. This has made rowing the double much more enjoyable for me. Peter has done an excellent job of getting video and showing it to us immediately after practice. It has helped tremendously to be able to see what we're doing and for all three of us to collectively be on the same page about what we are seeing and how we want to change.

The first two weeks we were in Craftsbury, we went straight through without any rest days. This was a very tough block of high volume, lifting, lower rate power( 4 x 10' and 4 x 2k @ 24), and our test pieces being the Head of the Hosmer( 2.8k) and 4 x 1500m at base rate. This was a highly productive two weeks that I thoroughly enjoyed. Part of this is because we have barely rowed together this year, but it just felt like we were getting tangibly faster everyday and getting really high quality work in. Having Peter with us every step of the way and holding us accountable for getting the work done has shown me just how valuable that is, as well. For instance, two afternoons a week right now we are doing 60' bike erg/40' erg and it would be very easy for us to skimp on that, but its been great having Peter there to remind us of why we are doing it and why its important not to cut corners. We are paying a lot of attention to recovery because we know that arriving to the AB Semi and the A Final having our best race is as much about recovering between races as it is about our raw speed. We need to make sure our aerobic systems are at their very best so that we can recover better than anyone. We might have medalist speed, but can we arrive to the A Final on Sunday with 100% of our speed? That's something I've been working on a lot this year but even at Henley this year I felt like I arrived to Sunday's Final maybe without with my full bag of tricks.

60' bike erg/40' erg

There is definitely a palpable sense of excitement every time we do pieces in double because it feels like every time out we go faster than anything I've done previously. I am confident in what I bring to the table but there's no question Ben has brought this boat to another level of speed that I haven't seen. Across the board, our numbers are just in a different category than what I'm used to and as you might imagine, that makes this really exciting and fun. The workout that was most notable to me was last week's 4 x 2k @ 24 spm on 5 min rest. We went right at 90% of GMS on our second and fourth piece, both in tailwinds obviously. Ben Dann and I always hovered around 87-88%, so I thought this showed some real aerobic power. Another staple workout has been the Head of the Hosmer, but instead of rowing into it we have been doing a starting 250, shifting to 30 spm for 2250m, then sprinting for 250m. The idea of this is to teach us to hold rhythm and speed for an extended period of time after a full start and also to be able to sprint under massive duress. Tomorrow we will do our third all out trip down the Hosmer and this time we will be doing a finishing 500m instead of 250.

This period of newness and ebullience is bound to end soon but I think we are in a unique position to be able to show up to Worlds with this sense of freshness and eagerness that maybe some of the other boats are lacking after a full season of racing together. Tomorrow will be our last day here in Craftsbury before heading down to Princeton for two days of pieces and then finally to Florida on Saturday afternoon. We are doing a 2k on the buoyed course in Princeton and then we will be training in Orlando for two weeks. We will be staying with Ben's family and rowing at Moss Park. It will be great to have the support of Ben's family while we are down there. I have found memories of staying with them last year and having mandatory viewings of " The Highlander", Ben's Dad's favorite movie( and now mine). This is a home World Championships for all of us but for Ben it truly is. He grew up racing in Sarasota and has competed on the course countless times as a junior. Obviously we spent quite a bit of time on the course last year in the quad and it will be familiar to me too, but this will be particularly special for Ben.

Below are a couple video clips and pictures from the last couple of weeks. I will update once we get settled in Florida. Thank you to everyone who has donated to our fundraising page, we have been humbled by all the support we have gotten so far. If you would like to contribute, click here. Thanks for following and GO USA!