Good water today and the Tuesday/Wednesday closure of the river to the salmon fishermen left us with some great conditions for racing this morning. We boated a pair, our novice four, and a JV4 and headed out to do some pieces.
Two pieces off a start (five minutes, then four minutes) provided some excellent opportunities to learn about being aggressive while seeking to find a rhythm that's sustainable. In the first piece the novice four was super aggressive and stayed very close to our JV4, holding them at the gap we started the piece with. In the 2nd piece their aggression cost them a bit while the JV4 used their experience to relax a bit and took a big lead. It was nice breakthrough for this crew and I'm hoping it translates into excellent racing in both the four and the eight this weekend.
We then did three by three minutes on the way back to the dock with paddle recovery. One of the areas where I still see room for improvements is in allowing the boat to run with small energy expenditures; this was clear on our paddle rest. Our pair, two of our more experienced athletes, would take a few lengths on the paddle and still get rest, while the JV4 let the boat slow down too much and left themselves with lots to do. As crews gain experience, they learn to let the boat run and slow down less. The advantage in this, of course, is that there's much more speed to be had in adding power if the boat is running better to begin with.
There's education to be had in all of this, and in the end it all relates back to good racing speed.
(Disclaimer: the above picture is not of our river. It looked a lot like that this morning, though.)
Two pieces off a start (five minutes, then four minutes) provided some excellent opportunities to learn about being aggressive while seeking to find a rhythm that's sustainable. In the first piece the novice four was super aggressive and stayed very close to our JV4, holding them at the gap we started the piece with. In the 2nd piece their aggression cost them a bit while the JV4 used their experience to relax a bit and took a big lead. It was nice breakthrough for this crew and I'm hoping it translates into excellent racing in both the four and the eight this weekend.
We then did three by three minutes on the way back to the dock with paddle recovery. One of the areas where I still see room for improvements is in allowing the boat to run with small energy expenditures; this was clear on our paddle rest. Our pair, two of our more experienced athletes, would take a few lengths on the paddle and still get rest, while the JV4 let the boat slow down too much and left themselves with lots to do. As crews gain experience, they learn to let the boat run and slow down less. The advantage in this, of course, is that there's much more speed to be had in adding power if the boat is running better to begin with.
There's education to be had in all of this, and in the end it all relates back to good racing speed.
(Disclaimer: the above picture is not of our river. It looked a lot like that this morning, though.)
