New Year's Eve

First off, I hope everyone has a healthy and happy new year's eve celebration with family and friends.

Finally got back to Hartford after some serious airplane delays and an overnight in NJ - met up with Pam and Brian at the boathouse and went for a December 30th spin in their new Hudson 2X -it was fantastic glass water, not too cold, and Brian did a great job of steering the river. It really showed me where my fitness and rowing skill separated. For all of the lifting, body weight exercises, and aerobic conditioning I'm doing, the actual skill involved with placing the blade and suspending for full length was a MAJOR limiting factor. Please be mindful of WHAT you are training for while getting better conditioned and think about the rowing motion continually.

Just finished another workout in the gym - 4 x 12 of deadlifts, pull-ups, ring push-ups and 1000m on the erg. I didn't time it but it was heavier than I've gone in a long time on deads and I went reasonably fast on the 1000s.

Stuff to take care of in the next couple of days:
1. Follow through on a Henley fund raising plan & contact parents
2. Get ready for the beta version of the new www.trinityrowing.org website
3. Contact recruits and touch base about regular decision and ED 2 applications

Here's to a great 2007 and an even better 2008!

On the Road Again

Heading back to Hartford later on this evening and thought I would fire off a quick post. There are many recruits who we will be speaking to in the next few days as the regular decision deadline approaches and students have heard about their ED 1 decisions. Please don't hesitate to contact us about your interest in the College!

Books read: The Innocent Man (Grisham), By the Time you Read This (Blunt), No Shortcuts to the Top (Viesturs), Game of Shadows (Fainaru-Wada & Williams) - Now I'm about to start what looks like a fascinating book entitled "Why are all the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?" And Other Conversations About Race by Beverly Daniel Tatum, PHD. I'm sure it has been assigned in many sociology/psychology classes. Has anybody read it yet? Basically, it's about the psychological development of race and whether or not it is possible to break through a general reluctance and discomfort with talking about racial issues.

Hope training is going well & please fire me an update when possible!

Dealing with Injuries

***Photo Slideshow Posted*** if you have photos you would like added to the slideshow please email me or set up a picasa album.

Received an email today from Sarah Millar '11 who has been battling a back injury since last spring. Sarah mentioned that she had her cortisone shot today and was resting comfortably waiting for it to take effect - I hope that if you get a chance you'll give her a shout of encouragement.

At some point, all of us will face an injury that impacts our workouts, our performances, and our daily lives. As rowing is a non-contact sport, and many of you are new to it, you don't necessarily expect that injuries are relatively normal. High incidences of ACL tears in soccer and basketball, stress fractures in track and field, shoulder injuries in baseball, and concussions in football are all somewhat expected. Rowers could be a lot better at understanding that injuries are an expected AND challenging hurdle to face. How we respond and deal with those injuries as individuals and as a team are absolutely critical.

Think about where you might fall on the following sliding scale of athlete injury response -
Selling yourself short - Cautious - Appropriate response - Risk-taking - Reckless.

Where do you fall? Do you have any tips for dealing with injuries in the past? Please share your comments!

Merry Christmas!

From the Trinity Women's Rowing family to you and yours - have a safe healthy and merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve - Hill Running

Can you find meaning in both of these?

I was speaking to a friend of mine yesterday about the difference between her undergraduate career and her time now at business school. What she said really struck a chord with me and might mean something to some of you who are applying to college or who are an undergraduate right now. She said "The academics during my undergraduate years were simply because I was supposed to have a college experience - the classes I'm taking for business school right now are for me - I really want to learn something from them." Her emphasis on learn dovetailed with how business school demanded an introspective effort to articulate WHY the two year's of study would be important to her future.

I think back to the 36 credits I took in college to graduate and how many universities and colleges have the same requirement - how many of them did I actually become passionate about and try to extract every last bit of knowledge from the material and professor? Conversely, how many of them seemed to just put up a barrier to getting an 'A' or was an inconvenience before doing something I really loved?

I'd like to think that we will continue to recruit and develop scholar-athletes who love the feeling of becoming stronger, more able, more knowledgeable, and passionate about rowing - who don't see training as something to "get through" or drudgery to be endured before we get to racing. So in the spirit of giving, I hope you give yourself a chance to see the training you're doing as for you regardless of what it is.

On the training side, another Premier workout (but only had 1 hour before closing) - 10 down of bench press / overhead squats / burpees with 20' of either 40" on/20" off on the treadmill or 30" on / 30" off. Highest elevation & tolerable speed. Treadmills get tippy when they're set all the way up!
Merry Christmas everyone.

Turkish Get-Ups

A pretty slow day altogether. Did a number of body weight exercises for time to try and keep on the right track. Also received a question today about our rolling get-ups and the Turkish get-up. I've attached a java slideshow link here as a reasonably good example of how to do it with an Olympic bar. If you look at it frame-by-frame you can see how it combines a number of different exercises in one dynamic whole. Please check out this Youtube example of the Turkish get-up - I would prefer that we perform the step in five stages as opposed to the slide show demonstration of four stages. Find that point where you are looking straight up at the weight with your arms in a straight line. Try it with your shoe or a 5 lbs weight to begin with and gradually progress to a kettlebell or barbell. Should be really challenging!

Workout at Premier Fitness Club

Worked out today at a Premier Fitness Club in Toronto...a gym with a whole lot of people on cardio machines going slowly and a lot of big bulky people doing machine weights. I did some interval work on the treadmill to warm up, followed by a 21-15-9 of deadlifts, pull-ups, and overhead press mixed in with some sumo/narrow squat jumps. After going through pretty quickly, a guy who looked like a boxer/fighter said - "Are you doing that ******* program?" - I replied "Not the whole way, but I'm using some of the ideas." He said "I use it too, a lot of these people don't even know what it is - they're big but they're not fit."

Interesting stuff. Finished it off with 20' of elliptical and 10' of running intervals of 20" on /20" off with treadmill elevation at 12.5 and running speed of 8.0. Wiped out afterwards but felt that I was becoming more efficient in my running style.

What's your idea of fitness? Are you training towards that way?

Waddell vs Drysdale

New Zealander Rob Waddell is the 2000 Olympic Champion in the 1X and Mahe Drysdale is the 2006-2007 World Champion in the 1X. Waddell left the sport after 2000 to race in New Zealand's America's Cup team and has since returned to rowing in a big way. In a recent race Waddell defeated Drysdale by a little over 4 seconds. There is some debate over how to best select who will represent New Zealand at the Olympics (knowing that the sculler will have a reasonable shot at a gold medal). The US uses a best-of-three scenario to select small boats for the Olympics and World Championships. What do you think is the best way? Post your thoughts to comments.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4331451a1823.html

Trinity Women's Rowing: Know Your Teammates

I've started receiving the questionnaire responses from many of the team and they are awesome to read. You'll certainly have a chance to get to know your teammates better. The aim is for everyone to have a personal page with action picture and head shot. Here's a quick smattering of responses (anonymous for now):

Please describe your most memorable racing experience at Trinity College:
The first one was my freshman year when the novice 8+ was the JV 8+ that competed in New Englands. As a boat, I don't think we thought we had any chance of medaling. Down the race course, during the final, our coxswain called a 10 for the "gold medal dock" as we pulled away from the second place crew. We won gold that year and about 25 betting t-shirts!

What cartoon character do you identify with?
I would say Jerry from the Tom and Jerry Cartoons. Tom spends all his time trying to catch Jerry, but Jerry always wins because of his craftiness and cunning abilities. I think Jerry is admirable because 1) he is fast 2) he is good at dealing with difficult situations (like someone trying to eat you) and 3) he is smart and witty.


What teammate would you like to trade places with for one day and why?
I would like to trade places with Remi Evans. Because she is jacked and I could therefore spend ALL day simply admiring my guns as I rowed along. And she's a black belt. So I would pick fights with people. Because I would totally win.

What teammate would you like to trade places with for one day and why?
I would like to trade places with Steph Apstein to see what coxing is like and to weigh under 100lbs.

Who do you think has been most influential in your life and why?
My mom because she was always there for me and was a strong athletic woman for me to look up to. I get a lot of my strength and personality from her.

What teammate would you like to trade places with for one day and why?
Loren Massimino because of her constant drive to win on and off season, dedication to training, and daring personality. All traits I wish I had more of.

What does this mountain represent?

On the flight from Philadelphia to Toronto I ended up talking to a semi-pro soccer player/graduate student who is training youth soccer players to prepare for collegiate level athletics...she had some fascinating things to say about training.

Our discussion was about how she trains aspiring soccer players using a combination of treadmill running technique and conditioning, agility drills, strength and core exercises, and soccer skills. All of the fitness work related back to how well you can play soccer. She also mentioned how very often less talented teams would play up to the level of their competition and play their best against better teams and worse against lesser opposition.

How would you approach that situation and prepare for it in training?

For our team, with no on the water rowing option to try and make boats go fast, our training needs to prepare us for all of the different aspects of physical and mental fitness that are tested on the water. Even though there is a tremendous amount of variety in our training activities I hope you can link them back to the mechanical rowing motion AND challenge your mental limits.

Early Decision I Candidates Accepted!

I'd like to welcome four new members of the Trinity Women's Rowing team! These four candidates were accepted early decision I and are our first members of the Class of 2012!

Sophie Hollingsworth - Saint Pauls School, NH (Shaker Heights, OH)
Katie Joachim - Whitefish Bay High School, WI (Whitefish Bay, WI)
Elizabeth Levine - Pine Crest School, FL (Lighthouse Point, FL)
Kelsey Moody - Lawrenceville School (Whitehouse Station, NJ)

Congratulations on earning your spot at Trinity next year!

Locker Room Project Underway

Coach Besteman and I sanded, primed, and painted a portion of the locker room today in preparation for the spring season. While we were doing that Associate Athletic Director Robin Sheppard was setting up for the Athletic Department Holiday Party to be held tomorrow evening at the boathouse. The place looks amazing with new HOCR photos placed, holiday decorations up, and progress made in the locker room.

I head out to Toronto for a week over Christmas but will be available by phone and email - I'll try to call everyone at least once to speak about training and leadership ideas.

Head of the Charles 2007 Video

Do you love rowing?

If you are an athletic high school senior or junior we want to get to know you! Please click here to visit the following link on our team-run website

http://caribou.cc.trincoll.edu/orgs_bantamboat/womens_recruit_form.htm

Midst of Exams

This is always a challenging time for student-athletes as they are combining training, preparing for exams, and finishing final papers. It's actually inspiring to see how much academic and athletic work that people can produce in such a short time.

Some other ideas of note:

1. 12 athletes completed the 42,195 marathon and 10 athletes completed the half-distance of 21,100. Over 717 kilometers rowed in one sitting...Pretty amazing stuff and congrats to all who completed their piece.
2. We're going to the Henley Women's Regatta from June 13-22 and we are looking into ways to help fund raise for the trip. One suggestion was targeting Hartford area business for corporate sponsorship
3. Courteney Coyne ' 10 who coxed our Club 8+ at the Charles underwent successful knee surgery yesterday. It was a "good" 4 hours according to her in the OR and we wish her all the best for a speedy recovery and a strong rehab back.

Trinity Women's Rowing Blog Launched

Dear All,
I have launched the Trinity Women's Rowing blog where you will have an opportunity to read my insights and perspectives on what is happening with our team as we prepare for the 2008 spring season.

Eventually I would like to have a couple of the juniors and seniors also have an opportunity to write and make their thoughts known - this team is made up of some extraordinary individuals but we will only go so far as our collective (and consistent) efforts allow.

I'm going to attempt to update the site at minimum every 2 days with new thoughts, ideas, and updates on our progress I would love to read your comments - please keep them coming.

You can reach this blog by using any of the following urls:
www.wesleyng.com
www.wesleyng.org
http://www.coachng.net/

For the official team website please visit www.trinityrowing.org or for the official Trinity College Hartford website please visit www.trincoll.edu/athletics.

Fast rowing.