Teaching and Learning

I've started heading out with the Lake Oswego masters program three days a week, filling in while they go through a coaching transition. It's been nice to be back on the river again, if challenging to pull myself out of bed. My favorite part is simply getting back to teaching the stroke; how to place the blade, how to set the body, developing connection through the lats, the rhythm created by run. They're a long way from their next race and we're able to slow down and make each session varied and hopefully help them develop better skills for their fall season.

Meanwhile I had a learning experience myself this weekend. On the bike I did a race I had hoped to do well at and quite frankly bombed; it was a frustrating and disappointing performance. Looking back on the training I've been doing the last few weeks it became easy to see why. I've been racing often and recovering often, but neglecting the all-important development of the aerobic base. You can never do to much base work, you can never have too big of an engine-- and when you leave it alone your fitness plateaus rapidly and results suffer.

This is something to remember for next spring as well. It's always tempting to bang out more 500's at a racing cadence in the spring, but it's vastly important not to neglect the aerobic base.

So for me it's back in the launch, teaching, and back on the bike, learning again to put in the long miles and rebuild my base for cross racing this fall.

As the mercury creeps towards 90 on the first day of July in Portland I wanted to give a shout out to two of our women's team alumni from the class of 2005 (05' Women's Varsity shown above).

Abby Broughton (two seat) continues to tear it up on the national rowing scene; she won a gold in the women's lightweight quad and silver in the women's lightweight double at the USRowing National Championships that finished up this past weekend. Read all about it.

And in the coaching ranks, Becca Carlton (stroke) was just named assistant coach at the University of Minnesota. Becca has some solid coaching chops already and I expect we'll see great things out of her in the future.

Congrats to both!

30 Years.

Frenchwoman Jeannie Longo first won a national cycling title 30 years ago.

Why is that important?

Because today she won her 56th title at the age of fifty.

I had the fortune of watching Longo race at the Mt. Hood Cycling Classic last year. She's an inspiration to anyone who hopes to remain fit regardless of age, to be competitive regardless of the numbers of years that have passed. I'm in awe.

Grip

Went for another nice row with Max this morning-- a perfect way to start the day. About 65 degrees, sunny, very little wind, just pushing the boat along. It's been a long time since I rowed on even a semi-regular schedule. I'm realizing it's healthy to reconnect with my own skills in the sport as a basis for how to talk to the team about their rowing.

Today I was playing a bit with my grip on the blade. A strong hang on the drive and a light, easy carry up the recovery is the hallmark of good grip. I started to get several strokes again today where I could feel the water touch the blade on the recovery but had no disturbance in the run; good stuff. I still need to do quite a bit to get the finish cleaned up; not the best part of my stroke right now.

Were I coaching myself, I'd say: "Self, you have excellent connection on the front end. However, you're lifting water as you turn the blade a little early during the extraction. Concentrate on holding the release against the footboard and pushing the blade out of the water square."

So that's what I'll work on next time.

Quote of the Day

"The goal in the end is to row fast, which does not necessarily mean nice."
- Hartmut Buschbacher, US National Team Coach 1995

Guest Coaching

Tuesday and Thursday this week I took on a guest coach role for the Station L rowing club masters men. Peter, their coach, is a past L&C coach and alum and good friend of our program; it was a pleasure to fill in while he was out of town.

The role of guest coach is always interesting. You have two days to work with an established group and try to help them reach their goals in a short time. For these guys in particular the masters regional championships is just a week away; minor technical changes probably are not the answer to helping them find more speed. Instead I worked with them a bit on their competition psychology and how to approach their racing.

Today they did some pieces against the masters women from the same club. One of the primary things we worked on was relating to the fastest crews-- making the choice not just to race the crew closest to you, but to race the crew that is pushing for the lead. I think they made some solid strides with that concept and I got to watch some fun racing. Good times all around.

On another note, on Tuesday we launched with the downtown seawall looking the same as it usually does. By the time we had returned, this guy had shown up. Not something we normally see in downtown Portland. I can testify from up-close examination that this ship is LARGE.

Nifty. . .

I actually went for a row this morning; Max & I took out one of the Lewis & Clark doubles and did a short spin up behind the Island and back. It's been a while since I was out in a boat and it was nice to be out there; now everything is sore and lots of new (old?) muscles got recruited.

I was playing around during the row with this;


That's right-- a speedcoach app for the iPhone. With the phone safe it a waterproof case, we got strokerate, splits, and distance for the whole practice. Very nifty. My understanding is that there's going to be an update soon for a 'coach mode' which will be handy for running practice from the launch. I'm stoaked.

Check out the map from our row today!

My geekdom knows no bounds.