How do you distill a whole season into a blog post? I'm not sure you do. I've been putting off the writing of this post for a few days while I tried to figure out exactly what I thought about all of it, and of course I'm still not there in my own head. I also got a root canal this morning, so not all of my head is entirely here.
On the positive side. We had incredible team spirit this year, both on the men's side and the women's side. The Pack of Wolves, "Nice Lace, Radies", "orange & black, attack, attack", and so much more. I feel that the crew bought into the ownership of the team much more completely this year and that's something I hope they'll build on in the future.
We had our best races at the end of the year. This is something you can't always take for granted and often is harder to achieve then it might seem up front. At WIRA we had two crews on the podium, one win, and all boats involved in aggressive, tight racing in both heats and finals. A good way to end the year.
To work on? Squad sizes were small on both sides. In some ways this is fine. We don't need fifty or sixty or seventy people to make this team successful. But it does lend itself to risk; injuries become much more serious issues, and it limits our racing options.
Personally, I had a good deal of frustration at our results on the women's side. For the first time in my career I felt that the end results were not indicative of our starting potential. I'm taking a long look at the training we did, the technical process, and everything else to try to determine why this is so. I place no blame on this on the team; it's something I need to sort out for myself and I fully plan to come back next fall ready to build up and get back at it.
Overall I'm happy with the year. As I mentioned, the team spirit and enthusiasm at practice was excellent from day one on. If we keep anything going forward that's the one thing that will make the biggest difference.
In closing, what not to do, from our trailer drive north:
On the positive side. We had incredible team spirit this year, both on the men's side and the women's side. The Pack of Wolves, "Nice Lace, Radies", "orange & black, attack, attack", and so much more. I feel that the crew bought into the ownership of the team much more completely this year and that's something I hope they'll build on in the future.
We had our best races at the end of the year. This is something you can't always take for granted and often is harder to achieve then it might seem up front. At WIRA we had two crews on the podium, one win, and all boats involved in aggressive, tight racing in both heats and finals. A good way to end the year.
To work on? Squad sizes were small on both sides. In some ways this is fine. We don't need fifty or sixty or seventy people to make this team successful. But it does lend itself to risk; injuries become much more serious issues, and it limits our racing options.
Personally, I had a good deal of frustration at our results on the women's side. For the first time in my career I felt that the end results were not indicative of our starting potential. I'm taking a long look at the training we did, the technical process, and everything else to try to determine why this is so. I place no blame on this on the team; it's something I need to sort out for myself and I fully plan to come back next fall ready to build up and get back at it.
Overall I'm happy with the year. As I mentioned, the team spirit and enthusiasm at practice was excellent from day one on. If we keep anything going forward that's the one thing that will make the biggest difference.
I'll likely be posting less frequently from here out this month and less frequently then that in June & July; occasional updates may find themselves popping up but no need to check back daily. Thanks to all our readers and have a great summer!
In closing, what not to do, from our trailer drive north:
