Goodbye

Today is the last day of the 2014 U23 World Championships. After today our boat will no longer be a thing. We are both going to compete in the Champ 1x at Canadian Henley in about a 2 weeks, and then that is it for the summer. We ended up getting 14th overall, which is not the result i was hoping for. However, we did all we could do, and now the only thing to do is to try to get better. Tomorrow morning we fly back the States and return to Craftsbury where we will start training in singles again. It will be nice to be back. Thank you to everyone who rooted for us and helped support us.

C Final

This morning's race was an exciting one. The C final included us, South Africa, Latvia, Denmark, Austria and the Czech Republic. Denmark started off quickly and led the race through the beginning portion. At the 1000 we started our move and led the race until the sprint. Latvia, a crew we saw several times throughout the week put on a sprint we were unfortunately unable to keep off. We finished the race in second with a time of 6:36.

Overall, while it would have been ideal to make the A/B semifinal and see what we could do from there, we  can hang our hat on the fact that we beat more crews than any U.S. double since the first double that came from the United States to U23s in 2009.

The experience has been both incredible, but also a huge learning experience. We could not give enough thanks to all of the people that have donated to the National Rowing Foundation page. These donations made this whole experience a lot easier and allowed us to focus more on the rowing and less on finances. We are grateful for all the help and support from the donations, but also Craftsbury Sculling Center and of course our coaches Steve Dani and Dan Roock.

Once we're back in the States, Walter and I will be getting in the single and competing in the Championship Single at the Canadian Henley from August 3rd to August 10th.

Thanks again to everyone who donated and hopefully Walter and I will be able to see you all to tell you about our experiences in-person.

From Varese, ciao!

Erik

Semi

Our C/D semifinal went as of planned this afternoon. We looked to focus on the first 500 to 1000 of the race and get ahead quick. With each race our rowing has been clicking a little bit more and hopefully we can put it all together for tomorrow's C Final tomorrow morning at 10:54.

The C Final includes crews from South Africa, Austria, Latvia, Denmark and the Czech Republic.

Reps

The race this morning felt much better than heats yesterday, but we were still unable to find a way to beat Italy for the second position. Italy jumped ahead quickly on the start and was able to stay ahead through the duration of the race.

This afternoon at 3:56 we have the C/D semi. To move on to the C final we have to get third of four. Our race includes us, Brazil, Austria and Latvia. Of the three crews Brazil is the only team we have yet to face.

The C and D finals are both tomorrow.

Check out our GPS data here:

http://www.worldrowing.com/assets/pdfs/U23WCH_2014/ROMB22851_MGPS.pdf

Heats

We had heats this morning, marking my first international race and Walters first international race at the U23 level. Spain and Russia jumped out quickly, while we stayed in-front of the rest of the pack. It seemed like we were going to walk on the Russia boat, but they maintained their lead throughout the middle of the race. It was certainly not our best race and we are looking forward to the Repechage tomorrow morning at 10:33.

We are facing crews from Hungary, Italy, South Africa, the Czech Republic, and Austria. First two move on to the A/B Semi and everyone else goes to the C/D Semi.

This afternoon we're going out for a short row.

You can check out our Repechage here: http://www.worldrowing.com/assets/pdfs/U23WCH_2014/ROMB22851_C51A.pdf

Look at our race splits from this morning here:
http://www.worldrowing.com/assets/pdfs/U23WCH_2014/ROMB22901_MGPS.pdf

Tuesday afternoon

On Tuesday afternoon we did a quick lap of the course practicing some starts and race pace. It all felt good and we are ready to go on Thursday. Also, Heat sheets were released by the time we got back to the dock. We are in the first heat at 10:30 Italian time in one of the middle lanes. We get to go up against Russia, South Africa, Latvia, and Spain. It will be a tough race. One boat scratched from our event making it a 20 boat event, which means that now the top 2 boats from heats goes straight to the A/B semi-final. The opening ceremony was also that afternoon. It was help in the garden of a palace in the city. It mostly involved an orchestra and quire playing a bunch of songs including all the major songs from Pirates of the Caribbean. 

Draw

This afternoon we got news of who would be in our heats on Thursday. We will be lining up against Spain, Latvia, Russia and South Africa. Top two move on to the A/B Semifinal and get the day off and everyone else goes to Repechage to race on Friday.

Interesting fact, I'm the oldest athlete in our heat and Walter is the youngest in the heat.

http://www.worldrowing.com/assets/pdfs/U23WCH_2014/ROMB22901_C51A.pdf

Article

Here is an article from my hometown newspaper the Fosters Daily Democrat, thank you to Nick Stoico for writing it.

http://www.fosters.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20140722/GJSPORTS_01/140729867/0/SEARCH

Afternoon Practice Tuesday

We had a very short row this afternoon, but it felt like things finally clicked. We got on the water before the course got too crowded and were able to do a few starts along with some strokes at base pace. Rowing aside, we were out there in style with our Craftsbury uniforms. The unique uniforms appeared to draw some attention from the Italian team.

Tuesday Morning Practice

With most teams here, the course today for practice was packed. Are attempts at 250 meter pieces had to be done in bumpy wakes and between slow singles. We did our best to get out of the traffic by rowing in the long-distance lane. This was the best water we got the whole practice.

We have a practice this afternoon and one more tomorrow morning before Wednesday afternoon races begin. After that, it will be a long wait until our heats Thursday morning.

By the end of today we'll know who's in our first race and tonight is the opening ceremony.

Monday round one

This morning we did a starting 1250m with the light 2x and the women's 4x. The piece went pretty well, it definitely was good to take some more hard strokes at pace in the new boat. To finish the workout we did a last 500 with the light 2x. Things are feeling better in the boat as we are ironing out the last of the rigging. This afternoon we are going to try lengthening out our oars a little to see if we can get some more mechanical advantage without loosing the feel we have in the boat, or having to lower the rate.
More teams are arriving and the weather is cooler after thunderstorms last night. Also, the haze has cleared showing us the Alps on the lake. It is truly awesome. Heat sheets come out soon then racing begins. Wish us luck.

Video from Sunday Practice

Here's some video from our Sunday practice. Rigging is a little off here. Thanks to USRowing!

Sunday Afternoon Practice

We continued to adjust the rigging on the boat today and getting the kinks out. Getting it setup right is harder than we expected. The meter total was light again, but we did our best to take advantage of the flat water.

More countries are showing up, as different colors can be seen out on the water.

Tomorrow morning we will be doing pieces with the women's quad and the men's lightweight double.

Rigging

Today we finished rigging our Filippi 2x. Afterwards we rowed it for the first time. The boat is a slightly smaller size than the one we have been using, and it has carbon fiber wing riggers. The course had nearly perfect water.  It is fairly well protected from one side but is completely open on the other.

Everyone on the team is really nice. So are everyone else on other teams that I have talked to so far. Varese seems to be a very nice city. There are a lot of old stereotypically Italian looking buildings. There are also lots of churches, all of which have bell towers that ring at seemingly random times. The hotel we are staying at with the rest of Team USA is very modern, and has a horse track right outside. Yet, there aren't any grocery stores within walking distance of either the hotel or course. Italy is a lot more humid than I expected.

This afternoon we are going for another quick row, just 2 loops on the course. We are going to throw in a few more 15s building to and above race pace. After that we will do so start and sprint work to finish off the row and see how the rigging is at high rates.

Only a few more days till our first race. Wish us luck.

Hotel Room

Here's an odd photo that is above our bed. Looks like some kind of low budget Hollywood movie.

Sunday Morning

Back at the course we spent more time fine tuning the rented boats rigging. Thankfully, Filippi has been more than helpful with our problems.

We finally got on the water and did two laps on the course. The lake is beautiful and the course is well done. There was a crosswind today and after the 750 meter mark there appeared to be a slight potential for waves flowing parallel to the course.

Most of our practice was composed of adjusting foot stretchers and oar lock heights to make the boat fit us just right. We also threw in a few high strokes and finished out the practice with a 20 at 40 strokes per minute.

This afternoon we get on the bus to the course at 4 p.m. and hope to spend more time actually rowing than fiddling with the boat. After practice Coach Steve is stopping by a grocery store to get our favorite pre-race and post-race foods. Fingers crossed that they have blueberries.

Flat Water on Lago di Varese

First Day at the Course

We arrived in Milan this morning and bused to the hotel in Varese, right next to the city horse track. To get to the course we decided to stretch out legs as the three of us set out by foot across Varese to get to the course. We underestimated how long it would take to get there and we ended up spending 90 minutes walking. It was all in all good to get the blood pumping.

Once at the course we adjusted our USA marked oars and began work on rigging the rented Filippi. Walter and I also went on a 30 minute run to loosen up, but unfortunately we were not able to get out on the water. The course looks beautiful though and we promise to bring a camera at some point to get photos.

To get back to the hotel we rode the bus, making the 4-5 mile trip slightly easier. We're both feeling the 3 hours of sleep last night more than the jet-lag and don't expect any trouble falling asleep tonight. We hit the water tomorrow morning.

Leaving Tomorrow

It seems unbelievable that we are already leaving tomorrow. Our first race is in a week - which is slightly good for our piece-of-mind, because we still have a few fine tunings to workout before we race. That said, entries for our event came out yesterday and it seems more real than ever. See the entries here: http://www.worldrowing.com/assets/pdfs/U23WCH_2014/ROMB22000_C32C.pdf

We depart Craftsbury tomorrow around 7 after following an early "silent row." We will fly out of Burlington and have a lay-over in Newark before we head across the ocean to Milan. Coach Steve had us get compression socks to enhance blood-flow in our legs during the flight.

Before we can leave Craftsbury though, we will have a proper Craftsbury goodbye this afternoon with our weekly Head of the Hosmer. The winds are already going in typical fashion for the 2,800 meter piece. It should definitely be an interesting one, as well as a good way to finish up our training here at the center.

Stay tuned for more updates in Varese and especially once we start racing.

Ciao!

New Gear

With a lot of anticipation we've been waiting for the UPS truck to come to the center, but finally our gear has arrived. The most prized possession of the lot might be the camo trou. Thank you to Boathouse Sports and others for the sweet attire.

Here's a photo of Walter in a mixed double way back in 2010. Seems like his stroke seat is facing the wrong way.

Reverse Ratio

Today for practice we worked on our high strokes blade-work with a reverse ratio drill. Generally reverse ratio is something that rowers want to avoid. It consists of being fast on the recovery and exerting no pressure on the drive. This in turn allows the rower to focus on what we're doing with the blades instead of having to put pressure on behind the handles. Afterwards, when we brought the stroke-rate up and put on the power, we definitely saw the benefits of the drill.

Stay tuned for a series of us talking about everything from trials to chocolate milk breaks.

U23 Announcement

Here's a list of all the athletes that will be joining us in Varese. We're excited to meet them and see them compete!

http://www.usrowing.org/News/14-07-11/USRowing_Announces_2014_Under_23_National_Team.aspx

New Faces

After qualifying for Junior Worlds on Lake Mercer, the Long Beach Junior Heavy 2- is up in Craftsbury for the next three weeks leading up to their trip to Hamburg, Germany. The crew is composed of Allen Reitz and Luke Khoury, coached by Tom Graves (brother of GRP scullers John and Peter Graves). We started Thursday off with 40 and 50 stroke pieces and it was nice having a boat or closer speed next to us to work off of. Since trials most of the rowers still in Craftsbury have been going out in singles. For practices involving pieces a double has been thrown together for us to compete against. Now that the junior pair is here, it will make it easier to find competition on the water. Hopefully both crews will benefit from rowing alongside each other.

Going into this afternoon we will be rowing in the weekly "Head of the Hosmer" (2.7k). We a praying for favorable winds, as it seems like every week conditions are blustery.

No Silent Row

Today marks our one day this week that we don't have to get up for a 6 a.m. row. These rows, deemed "silent rows," are an additional practice to our two mandatory practices. They are called silent rows because it is early enough in the morning that we don't want to wake the neighbors, but in some ways they are silent metaphorically. During this time we are able to just focus on our technique and not worry about how fast we are going. At this time in the morning Great Hosmer Pond is usually flat as glass and between the loons and the rising sun, very picturesque. Today was a refreshing change being able to get up a little later, but we'll be back to the silent rows Friday and Saturday. Next week we plan on getting up early for the 6 a.m. practice towards the end of the week to help adjust us a little bit more towards Italian time. The less we can minimize the 6 hour time change's effect on our bodies the better.

A Little Video

Tuesday.

Today we had a short early morning row working mostly on starts. After that and breakfast we headed back out for our main workout of the day. We warmed up to the top of the lake, with a rope on the boat for half of it. Then we started our first of four 9min pieces full press at a 30. The first piece with a tailwind was our shakiest, but we made some solid improvements in our second piece in the tailwind. The other two pieces were both into a head wind. Following the four pieces we cooled down with some easy steady, individual rowing, and some rowing on the square.

Plyometics

To accent our on-the-water workouts we have been doing plyometric circuits to work on muscle fibers not used as much on the water. Plyometrics is defined as "a form of exercise that involves rapid and repeated stretching and contracting of the muscles, designed to increase strength." Every other day or so, between morning practice and lunch we complete the six exercises two or three times through. These exercises include high jumps, skips, frog jumps, rope jumps, box jumps, and hill hops. It comes out to about 20 minutes straight of jumping. At first if was a shock to the muscles. Each time we've done it the circuit has become more manageable as our muscles have developed to execute these quick movements. At the very least, it's has been a quick way to jack up our heart rates.

As with any drylands workout, we hope to translate our work with plyometrics to the water. An interesting observation we made was that when you try to do hill hops (feet together jumping up a hill) most of the work feels as if it is done in the hips more so in the legs. Initiating the drive from the hips, lower back, and thighs has been a focus of our rowing in the past week. It was interesting feeling this while doing the plyometrics.

Sunday Hike of South Twin

Half of the double and the rest of the SBTC rowers hiked South Twin Mountain in New Hampshire this Sunday as their "day off" from rowing. The trip came out to be 10.5 miles round trip, up the White Mountains' eight tallest peak. We met up with SBTCer Mary Carmack's college friend from Harvard, Harry, who works in the Galehead Hut. The excursion was just a warmup for what should be a grueling week before the pre-worlds taper.

Gondola/Comfort Day

To become more comfortable in a single shell, Walter and I, along with some of the other Small Boat Training Center athletes and Green Racing Project athletes hit the water in some durable Peinert singles for "Gondola Day." Troy Howell, managing director at Craftsbury, showed us an assortment of drills and tricks to do in the boat. The purpose of these exercises was to get more used to being in a tippy boat. Some of the drills included chop-chop, letting go of one handle (and if we were brave, letting go of both), "use-the-force" drill, flipping the oar all the way around the oarlock 360 degrees, trying to row with the blades in our hands, and many more. The culminating drill/trick was gondola rowing. We had to stand up in the boat, put one oar handle under our foot, undo the other oar and then paddle with loose oar. With the one oar there for stability it was easier than one might suspect.

These drills along with a few falls into the water helped us realize that there is no reason to tense up just because we're in a tippy single. We hope to apply these things to our rowing in the double and look to keep smoothing out our stroke.