Bad first. . . the conditions today were downright terrible. We have several options as to where we can row and on our coaching staff we have about twenty five years of coaching experience just out of the Oaks Park boathouse. Somehow today we called it all wrong and went upstream instead of behind Ross Island. Stupid mistake; we dealt with logs, wind, chop, current, and tons of river traffic in the form of fishermen in hugely expensive boats going way too fast. To anyone on the team reading this I apologize again for putting you guys through that.
Thus the ugly-- it's pretty hard to row well when you've got a wake to go with wind and an eddy as well. The rowing was what I would call 'functional' today-- get the blade in and get pressure on it, because lord knows you're not going to have sublime set and run. Meghann & I had several wince moments today & I've edited audio out of the video as our running commentary was. . . colorful at times.
Good? Well, we don't always race on glass flat water. I was very impressed that we were able to get a solid workout done regardless of stupid coaches and funky water. This bodes well for those 'interesting' early spring races. The team dealt with the conditions and did as we asked; focus on the pressure, get the blade connected, and stand on that sucker for all it's worth. The best part for me was the short erg set post-row where we saw several people hitting some really good numbers, including a number of novice making big breakthroughs in what they're seeing on the screen. Very cool.
Video below and in HD on Vimeo. Not our prettiest rowing, but getting it done.
PS- watch through to the end. One of our men's pairs got REALLY excited about being on camera; so excited they almost ran into a fishing boat.
Thus the ugly-- it's pretty hard to row well when you've got a wake to go with wind and an eddy as well. The rowing was what I would call 'functional' today-- get the blade in and get pressure on it, because lord knows you're not going to have sublime set and run. Meghann & I had several wince moments today & I've edited audio out of the video as our running commentary was. . . colorful at times.
Good? Well, we don't always race on glass flat water. I was very impressed that we were able to get a solid workout done regardless of stupid coaches and funky water. This bodes well for those 'interesting' early spring races. The team dealt with the conditions and did as we asked; focus on the pressure, get the blade connected, and stand on that sucker for all it's worth. The best part for me was the short erg set post-row where we saw several people hitting some really good numbers, including a number of novice making big breakthroughs in what they're seeing on the screen. Very cool.
Video below and in HD on Vimeo. Not our prettiest rowing, but getting it done.
PS- watch through to the end. One of our men's pairs got REALLY excited about being on camera; so excited they almost ran into a fishing boat.
Practice 2.28 from Sam Taylor on Vimeo.
