Environmental Editorial

So this isn't related to rowing directly, but. . .

I was reading this, specifically this line: "Other likely effects include increases in the intensity of extreme weather events". . .

Thinking about this last winter.

And now feeling the effects of this.

So are these unusual or extreme weather events related to "global climate change"? I don't know, and I'm certainly not qualified to make that judgment.

I do know it's REALLY hot.

Morning on the River

Hot days in Portland mean perfect mornings on the river. The day before I head out for a week-long vacation the water was awesome and the temperature just right. Summer rowing at its best.

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!