Favorite Practices

Many times, practices seem to blur together; a couple of weeks will go by with the same rhythm. Race work this day, steady state the next, technical drills done two or three times a week, and by the end things seem a little stale.

Some practices stand out in sharper contrast. Lewis & Clark was fortunate enough to have a talented photographer on our squad from 2004-2007; she rode in the launch one day and captured one of my favorite practices on film.

In late March of 2006 we moved our squad up to Vancouver Lake on the last day of spring break and the day before the NCRC Invitational Regatta. The Women's Varsity 8 and JV8 did two trips up & down the course and did three sets of six by 15 on at race pace, 10 off. I remember this workout because the sun was shining, the lake was perfect, and the boats moved tremendously well and keyed off each other to perfection.

It is a great joy of coaching to watch two fast crews challenge each other.

See the photo set here. All pictures are credit to Chelsea Henrich 07'.

Time Away

It seems somehow appropriate that the first post on this blog should be about vacation; what we do in summer is take a deep breath, step back, evaluate all that happened last year and work to make changes for the future.

I spent the last 10 days away from home in a place where there is no phone or e-mail. It was a wonderful place, very quiet and very big. Surprisingly, when I'm so far away, much of what I think about is rowing and I find that it's a fantastic time for working through things in my head. Much thought was given to training for next year and what has worked well in the past.

In the office again today I found my mind was clear again and things were very productive; we have several projects with our boats and launches that will start this week. Most exciting are three new boats in Seattle which need to get picked up and the twelve sets of sculling blades which are on their way.