Merry Christmas Eve!

Flying Home

On my way back to Toronto this morning and am currently sitting in the Bradley International Airport after a pretty thorough security check...they swabbed my bag (must have found that exploded toothpaste), analyzed air from my clothing, triple-checked my passport and boarding pass and were generally pleasant. It was funny to see the passengers around me flustered by the demands of the agents and seemingly thrown off their "travel games" by an unanticipated request. I felt almost preternaturally calm (though the 5:30 AM departure could have something to do with that).

Does that seem like rowing for inexperienced athletes? The demands of training, every head race, and every 2000m race are very predictable...especially in terms of physiology and we can fully control our preparation for those demands each and every day. The unanticipated demands are those that are mental in nature - training during injury, academic stress, an incredibly close race, or a race that holds a lot of meaning. Dealing with these aspects of being a rowing athlete are also completely in your control if you are mentally prepared. I know we're looking hard at not getting thrown off our "game" by the demands of airport security or anything that the season can throw at us.

I hope everyone is having a healthy, safe, and happy time with their families and friends this holiday season.

Tuesday AM - Athlete Chats

Have had some awesome chats with athletes these past few days about what individually they need to work on during the holiday season. Their attention to detail has been impressive and we're examining things from a very holistic level...

Joy of Sculling Conference Day Two: AM

The day has dawned cold and incredibly sunny (partly because the automatic blinds in our room are stuck in the "up" position. We're starting up in the next few minutes for the second day of the conference and I'm looking forward to listening to Bebe Bryans, Volker Nolte, and Michiel Bartman. Yesterday's discussions about the entry and some sculling ideas were productive and there are some nuts and bolts things that we can implement. It was also fantastic to catch up with so many friends that had traveled from Washington, California, and Wisconsin.

Dinner was some cheese filled large ravioli in a tomato squash salsa - pretty good! The hotel coffee is absolutely delicious.

AJ Burnett & CC Sabathia...hmm.

Joy of Sculling Conference Day One

It has been a whirlwind of activity in the past 7 days as I headed to the US Rowing Convention in New Jersey and am now in Saratoga Springs, NY for the Joy of Sculling Conference. Conferences like these can be incredibly useful for generating new ideas and affirming old ones - but either way it's always useful to stretch the mind a bit. Here is a lovely image of snowy Saratoga from our hotel room...Food choice for lunch: the Country Kitchen restaurant - a Rachel sandwich and onion rings. Very moderate.
More later!

Resiliency of Steel

The Steelers moved to 10 -3 today with a victory over the Dallas Cowboys. It was a somewhat sloppy game played in frigid and windy conditions (sound like winter training anyone?) that both defenses dominated and made the offenses look miserable. The game really reminded me of a rowing race where two crews put each other under immense pressure until only in the last ten strokes was the race decided. The fun part of sports for me is that feeling in the pit of your stomach as you're getting ready to see the unknown!

Also returned from the US Rowing Convention in New Jersey and have a ton of new ideas to synthesize as well as some new points of view for the future of Division III rowing. I'll discuss some of those topics as we move through this reading week at the College.

Also the early decision notification date is coming up very shortly and I can't wait to hear from our recruits about what decisions they receive!

Ask the Experts

A few really interesting things happened today - first off my fitness class is coming to a close and it's funny to see that there is a little less interest because some of the workouts are not so new and challenging anymore. The newness and fear of new forms of working out were a great common starting point for these students and now that they've improved so much they're not as challenged by it (if only I could work with these same students next semester!)

Played basketball for the first time since the student faculty game a few weeks back and my ankle felt pretty good but wow was my conditioning terrible...also got back on the squash courts for the first time in five days and again conditioning was a huge factor. The points were longer because, believe it or not, our skills are improving, but it was a stark reminder of how five days off can sap your feeling of fitness.

The reason why I wrote "Ask the experts" is that Coach Bartlett, our women's squash and tennis coach, gave me some really amazing tips on how to serve. She has seen me play a little bit and I've asked her questions before about how to improve, what mind set is important for practice, and how to develop. She was incredibly patient and wouldn't let me move on to another skill until I had successfully repeated it.

Two things I notice from this. One, it's great to have awesome coaches and teachers that are generous enough to volunteer their time and expertise...but two, you also have to ask, be inquisitive, be willing to change, and have the desire to change! Coach Gluckman often repeats the phrase "When the student is ready the teacher will come" and I found that today.

As an athlete I don't think there's anything wrong in asking HOW do I improve this skill or asking to have somebody SHOW you their method of practice...Are Trinity rowers or rowers in general engaged enough to want to learn on their own or are they expected to perform so quickly that they simply struggle to keep up with the demands that their coaches and teammates put upon them? My guess is that because the pace of my learning squash is totally dictated by me that when I'm ready to learn I ask...but I think that readiness to learn can be cultivated and improved in athletes both young and old. The only essential ingredient has to be wanting to be better.

Quick Summary of Thoughts:

1. Watched the new Rambo movie and thought it was fantastic - I was expecting drivel and thought it was gruesome but really well-filmed.
2. I'm very surprised the Steelers beat the Patriots on the road. The outside linebackers are pretty damn good but that's also testament to how the front three of Smith, Kirschke, and Hampton are occupying the interior line.
3. Saw the movie Urban Legend: Bloody Mary and was legitimately disturbed by the images in that film. Awesome!
4. I think that people accumulate way too much STUFF with the intention of using it later on...I think this is a huge misconception that people fool themselves with every day. Those lecture notes from 1993 - when was the last time you read them and actually used the ideas with your team? The answer? Probably 1993 - throw them away! Same with that cool bowling shirt that you got at Goodwill six years ago but haven't worn...give it away or throw it out!
   
5. Thanksgiving and Christmas in the United States - I think we're getting closer to a real backlash against the commercialization of both. Check out this website http://www.redefine-christmas.org/ - what type of society do we live in where a person can be trampled to death in a Walmart and shoppers are irate that they didn't have a chance to buy something on sale.
6. Financial aid for families of college-bound children - plan early and plan often and get as much information as you possibly can so you can make an informed choice. I would love to know what value families place on the opportunities that education (I need to write a whole other post on what that means...) provides.
   

Happy Thanksgiving

Just a quick post to wish you all a wonderful Thanksgiving with friends and family. Many people ask the question "For what are you most thankful?" and I would probably respond with ideas of my family, friends, health, work environment, safety, etc. However, a stronger question might be "What are you DOING to demonstrate your gratitude for all that you have been given?"

I don't believe that anybody is purely self-made and so being aware of your natural talents and gifts as well as the opportunities that you have earned by using those gifts is important; verging on spiritual.

Happy Thanksgiving all!

Floor Care

Unbelievable - LG and I went to work on the exercise room floor today with a cleaner, sealer, and finisher using one of the big floor buffers. It gave me a total new found respect for the people who maintain really nice buildings and floors...Our outcome was a little less than uniform but still much improved. The whole place looks brighter and cleaner and we'll complete the edges of the room probably on Friday.

A great weekend of football action as well - every team that I was rooting against on Sunday won and won big! I was looking forward to the following:

• Titans defeat the Jets - I love the idea of a perfect team or a team that is preparing at a high level all the time.
• Dolphins to defeat the Patriots - Bill Parcells bringing a team to the playoffs after going 1-15 last year is a testament to great coaching and personnel moves.
  
• Eagles defeat the Ravens - I just dislike the Ravens and want the path to the playoffs for the Steelers to be easier.

Instead...none of those things occurred and the Jets, Pats, and Ravens all looked pretty indomitable and impressive (especially those g******m Ravens). As for the Steelers, they're heading to Foxborough this Sunday and I can't wait to see how our defense tries to lock down Randy Moss and have James Harrison and Lamarr Woodley attack Matt Cassel. For having the most challenging schedule that the NFL has seen in the past decade I think the Steelers are doing a pretty nice job (winning and losing some really close games).

Swim Meet and Squash Matches

The weekend is upon us and we just mopped out our aerobics room for usage by the swim team who will have a home meet tomorrow - best of luck to Kate, Madison, and Theresa as they go to represent Trinity IN the water versus ON the water. The two-sport athlete is alive and well at the College and I love that they are keeping their athletic experience broad and competitive.

Also just watched Trinity women's squash play the Stanford Cardinal - how amazing is it that a NESCAC school can compete with a university as large as Stanford and come out on top. There's something pretty exciting about the high expectations that our scholar-athletes have and how there's absolutely no intimidation factor. In fact, I don't know too many colleges that are eager to come and play on our home courts.

Question for all of you: What drives you to do better? Where does that impulse come from and what areas are you striving for excellence?

Thursday Update (written on Friday)

Short and sweet - worked out in the gym and on the squash court (humbled very badly by the men's baseball coach...) and had a couple of great conversations with our athletes who are continuing to see great progress. It always amazes me to think about how people gauge improvement...is it going faster over the same distance? Going the same speed but for longer? Is it going the same speed but with less rest? Is it going slower but feeling like it's so much easier? Okay, probably not the last one...going slower isn't an option but I think our athletes can gauge improvement in many ways as long as they think about them first.

We have some recruits on campus now and I'm really excited for both of them. Their academics are top notch and they seem like really thoughtful engaged athletes.

Olympic Lifting & Progress

Great fitness class today - short and sweet where almost everybody exceeded their expectations doing pull-ups and push ups. People were ripping their hands open on the bar and proudly displaying a little bit of red and I couldn't help but think of what a huge change that was from the beginning of the semester.

Tried my hand at some Olympic snatch lifting and put up more weight than I have before without thinking too much about it. I think if I can focus on extending more I'll be able to go up at least another 10-20 lbs. I'll keep my very modest max to myself right now.

As for progress we're starting to have some very excited rowers coming by the office to talk about their new found progress in strength and conditioning. The more the better!

Equipment and Opportunity

Overall a productive day - our entire erg fleet is now operational and we're still manipulating our facility and equipment to give our athletes the maximum opportunities to train. A word of advice: when receiving large shipments of fitness supplies pay for indoor shipping as we had a huge palett of equipment left outside.

Also, had a great conversation with one of the other head coaches of a woman's team on campus - we discussed the differing challenges that female scholar athletes face when choosing a college experience and then some of the differences between sports. My argument is that rowers, swimmers, and track runners typically cannot get by on pure skill and need to back it up with disciplined effort; hence if you don't have a certain level of discipline you're not going to enjoy those sports or experience success.

Another question for everyone else: how much can we learn from other sports? We have three athletes that are also swimming for Trinity this winter and I love picking their brains about what we can learn from their training methods, approach to competition, team atmosphere, etc.

Good few games of squash today - a few days of ankle rest and I was far quicker on the court than I have been or perhaps that was just a product of moving better between shots. Boathouse Team Store Link

Boathouse Sports Team Clothing Order Page

To all students, recruits, parents, alumni, and friends - you can order amazing quality authentic Trinity Rowing gear via our new team ordering page - there are some new items that we've added from last year including knit caps, the Solaris Pullover, Men's and Women's Steeple singlets, as well as mesh shorts and Dominator sweat pants. All of the items are shipped directly to you from Boathouse Sports and will arrive in 2-3 weeks after your order.

Just in time for Thanksgiving and Christmas these items are all great for the race course, working out, or wearing casually. You can click on the picture or click here to purchase your gear at the Trinity Rowing Team Store

Vespoli Conference Recap & Team Meeting

6:00 AM Departure from New Haven - 9:30 AM Arrival in Philadelphia - 11:00 to 4:30 PM Vespoli Conference - 4:30 PM Departure from Philadelphia - 9:45 PM Arrival in New Haven (5 hours and 15 minutes - somebody should have taken the Tappan Zee Bridge) 10:40 PM Arrival in Hartford - yeah travel! Special thanks to Pat Tynan and Ryan Sparks for doing all of the driving.

Listened to great presentations from Steve Hargis, US Junior Development coordinator, Todd Kennett, Cornell Varsity heavyweight coach and program director, Chris Clark, varsity heavyweight coach at Wisconsin, and Will Porter, varsity women's coach at Yale University. I think it can be really difficult for coaches to talk about what they do to make their programs successful and all four of them did a great job. The common threads I picked out were that they were concerned with the fitness of their athletes and how to recruit and identify better ones (not that much of a surprise I suppose). Perhaps the most interesting aspect of all of their talks is what type of team atmosphere they like to create and how success is very often cyclical in nature depending on the athletes.

We had a great team meeting where we introduced some key flexibility concepts and enjoyed a great birthday cake in honor of Nini Case and Natalie Jones who are celebrating birthdays this week. Nothing makes a meeting better than the promise of baked goods at the end. We're also completing our JL order which allows us for the first time to pay for our rowers' uniforms.

Thank you Mr. and Mrs. Gittleman for the great batch of cookies!

Tanks: The Unknown & a Senior Lunch

Lots of progress today and some excellent workouts - had a great discussion with the senior leadership group over lunch at the Trinity Restaurant as well. We're trying out a number of mechanical changes in our tanks to try and standardize the work and make it more repeatable over time. At this point we have 20 Model D and E ergometers in our tanks and another 24 ergometers in our slide center. The number of training options are really increasing!

My fitness I class did a great workout today on the ergometer and a couple of other activities that were awesome to watch - a couple of guest students joined in and I was surprised to learn that they had never even been in the tank room or known that it existed! It just goes to show you that the general student population just may not understand exactly what rowers do or even where they do it! Anyway, the two guest students, a junior woman and a senior man went head to head and finished absolutely tied despite doing exactly the same distance and type of exercise. I thought it was tremendously inspiring! Neither had any rowing experience prior to today's workout.

Looking forward to the Vespoli Conference in Philadelphia on Sunday - should be interesting to hear coaches talk about their successes in the past year.

Workout & Big News

Slowly getting back into working out with daily activity - did some dead lifting, squat high pulls, pull-ups, a little bit of isometric core work and then a solid 60 minutes of squash against a wily master's player. So much of the sport is about movement and sharing the court and I think I'm slowly understanding that each strike of the ball doesn't end when the ball leaves the strings but rather after you've taken position based on the type of shot your opponent is (hopefully) forced to hit next. My huge weakness appears to be that after an aggressive shot I simply can't follow up and position myself for the volley, drop, or killing rail.

Also, huge news! My brother asked his girlfriend to marry him last Friday and she accepted! She's a really wonderful person and I don't think I've ever heard my brother's voice be any more excited or happy than when he called to relay the news. Congratulations and bravo Derek and Kristen!

NCAA Field Hockey results

Our field hockey team won their NCAA tournament first round game against Neumann College by a score of 7 - 0. Using the wonderful sports writing cliché that the score didn't reflect how much Trinity dominated the game. Seeing those athletes apply continual pressure on their opponents was great to see but it also made me wonder about the tactics of the other team. There didn't seem to be any flexibility to their game and looked like they kept doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result.

Took a day off of training today to rest a bum ankle and wrist so hopefully I'll be a little sharper in the weight room and on the courts tomorrow. Great to see our two sport athletes Kate Bress and Madison Helies in the pool today!

Squash & Leadership

There's been a great initiative amongst the Athletic Department here to start a squash ladder and there are nearly 25 people signed up from coaches, to GAs, to athletic trainers, etc. Finally an outlet for all of the working out that we all do on a daily basis and a means to measure improvement. That's probably what I miss most about rowing in college - the sense of purpose and mission that required my friends/teammates to commit to one goal.

Squash is one heck of a humbling game though and I believe it's particularly analogous to rowing in that the work you put in does not necessarily result in improved performance right away. That's what I'm finding now as I'm trying to add variety and depth to my game - because I'm not good at those skills my opponents are able to take advantage of my attempts at better shots. However, if I only shot the same way every time because I knew I could do it my game would never expand and never develop to a higher level. In some ways, it's kind of like early season races - I think athletes tend to overuse those results as a barometer of future projected performance as opposed to a mirror for their current level of preparation.

Next up - a discussion about leadership - what ways can you exhibit it?

Saturday in Boston

Pretty cold and cloudy this morning as I write this from 'Hotel NESCAC' - crews from Wesleyan and Colby are staying at a hotel past the finish line along with representatives from St.Catherines RC and Prairie Rowing Association. Pretty fantastic to see crews gather from all around the world for a shot at the race course.

Registration was much improved and far simpler than last year - well done Head of the Charles organizers!

Also dropped off Coach Gluckman at the race course for his race with Motley BC and then will head back later on to race with Blue Cheese BC. After last year's three crashes with Harvard Law we hope to have a cleaner run down the course.

On the recruiting stand point we've had some wonderful responses from those who have visited so far and if you are debating about your collegiate choices please don't hesitate to contact us.

Head of the Charles Coming Up

Back on the mic and hope that our faithful Trinity rowing followers can forgive the non-communication on the blog in these past two weeks.

Quick recap: We have been making good progress from the Head of the Riverfront to the Head of the Housatonic and are now aiming towards the Head of the Charles. It's a little bit of an oddity in that we only have one crew entered after last year and were denied a College 4 and College 8 additional entry in the lottery. Tough draw!

A. Incredibly positive recruit visits in these past few weeks.
B. Our new truck has arrived and will be operational next week
C. Have heard back from all of our study abroad students and they are doing amazing things in France, Scotland, Ghana, and Australia - we can't wait to have them back in our boats as well!
D. The water has been spectacular on the Connecticut River.

Tanks today

Split squad practice today - one group in the morning for on the water practice. This afternoon we'll have the other half of the squad in the tanks for video, lifting, and ergometer work.
We're over twenty rowing sessions in and we're starting to make significant progress in the realm of technical and physical development.

On the very near horizon - the Head of the Riverfront on the Connecticut River in East Hartford. It's one of the larger events in the northeast with nearly 500 separate entries. Can't wait to see you there.

Trinity Women's Rowing in the News

A feature story on Carmel and Nadia Zahran '08 in their local paper in Illinois.
http://www.pioneerlocal.com/clarendonhills/sports/highschools/1182890,ch-rowing-092508-s1.article

A story on Amanda Kulik '08 from her local paper in Massachusetts.
http://salemnews.com/pusports/local_story_255005052.html

Racing season is set to begin with the Head of the Riverfront and we hope to see some significant progress from our cadre of younger rowers.

If you have any other news stories please don't hesitate to send them along!

Hartford Hospital Volunteer Work

Friday / Saturday Practice & Do It Day

Watching some the opening day of the NFL season and its fascinating to see the differing levels of success that teams are experiencing. The intensity of organized team activities, training camp, and pre-season games doesn't seem to match up to what we're seeing on the field for many squads. We were on the water on Friday during a pretty windy day and got out before the storm hit on Saturday morning. Both days were incredibly humid and I thought the team looked good. Some of the younger rowers looked a little serious but I hope in time they'll try to relax and keep learning some of the new skills we're asking them to work on in practice.

After Saturday's practice, we got back to campus in time for the beginning of Do-It Day, a campus-wide community service initiative. We had nearly the entire squad including our newest freshmen rowers head over to the Hartford Hospital to plant mums. With such a large group we were able to work quickly and intelligently while getting to know one another better. My hope is that we'll have other opportunities to volunteer in the near future.

Boathouse Opening Day

We had another split squad workout with rowers in the tanks and rowers at the boathouse for a combination of training stimuli. We went over some of the basic movements and training ideas that we'll utilize to improve our fitness over time. There's a feeling of satisfaction that comes from seeing a workout successfully executed (and of excitement generated by the enthusiasm of the rowers for the work) and I'm going to be highly interested in the progress we make in this first cycle of training.

One of the things of which we need to be highly cognizant is an escalation of volume and intensity that does not allow for adequate recovery and adaptation. I'm highly encouraged by the 'attack' that our younger rowers are putting in and tomorrow we'll most likely be indoors based on our new Thursday Common Hour schedule. Impressions of that to come later.

First Day of Practice

What an amazing start to the season - we did a split squad of returning rowers and recruited rowers doing some indoor fitness evaluations and walk-on rowers trying out rowing in the tanks and I was amazed at the positive energy from all involved. I think it's often hard to keep perspective on how much fun it is to have people working toward a common goal.

I was particularly impressed by the willingness of many of our recruits to try new things and take risks...also to those sophomores and seniors who made huge strides in fitness over the summer even after putting so much time and emotional energy into Henley (it took me a good month to recharge for this season after Henley).

From the walk-on perspective I saw some great athleticism and a lot of faces with huge smiles about what this sport could do for them...I'm sure there are many people who tried it that find rowing too challenging but I urge them to keep going with it if for nothing else than to prove to yourself that you can take on a hard task and succeed.

First day at the boathouse tomorrow!

Team Meeting Tonight 6:30 PM LSC

Please join us for a meeting tonight at 6:30 PM in the Life Sciences Auditorium - all interested parties are welcome! Training room medical forms will be filled out immediately following for all recruited freshmen and returning varsity rowers.

For the varsity rowers we'll go over some scheduling ideas, expectations, and keys to success. For freshmen we want you to feel comfortable in the adjustment to balancing academics and athletics but also that in these first few weeks it makes the most sense to challenge yourself and your capabilities.

Freshmen like yourselves can win Olympic medals without having rowed in high school - think about it!

Convocation & Meeting the Class of 2012

The Class of 2012, 596 students strong, entered Trinity College yesterday on a gorgeous August day beneath the elm trees near the Long Walk. The rowing team was out in full force looking to recruit freshmen with no rowing background who would be interested in joining a motivated and exciting team aiming to be the top Division III team in the nation.

Starting at 7:15 AM we brought one of the men's varsity 8s on campus and deployed the troops to gather in as many interested new students as possible. It was amazing to see the huge range of emotions displayed by parents, students, and siblings as they went through the registration process - some were obviously excited to get started on their journey as college students while others were trying to get their bearings and struggled to simultaneously say goodbye to mom and dad while looking to them for guidance. The one common theme was that most of the students we saw were at least slightly embarrassed and impatient with their parents...I'm beginning to think this is pretty normal!

I personally enjoyed meeting so many of the freshmen and their parents and getting at least a first glimpse into what makes them tick as athletes - almost everyone arrived in impressive physical shape, looking aggressive, and ready to attack the season. The students that impressed me the most were the ones who were ambitious about what they want to achieve on campus. They want to try new things, or be successful, and don't subscribe to the belief that doing less somehow helps them achieve at a higher level...it just doesn't seem like taking advantage of the blank canvas in front of them. I would NEVER advise anyone to stop something before they've even tried it. Isn't that the essence of exploration and discovery?

Convocation is one of my favorite moments here at the College as the students process through a line of smiling clapping professors and administrators in academic regalia towards their smiling families, sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with new classmates, and obviously wondering what is this all about. President Jones' welcoming address took up the theme of "Can you imagine that?" hopefully encouraging the Class of 2012 to pursue a vision of being part of a wondrous tradition while blazing new paths personally and as a student body.

I can't quite remember who I was speaking to but I hope the Class of 2012 and especially those who are rowing will recognize that in life there are no ordinary moments - if you wait for everything to be right to excel you're going to be waiting an awfully long time.

Arts and Crafts and Interior Decorating

The boathouse is almost completely set for the return of the athletes next week. Am very much looking forward to the freshmen moving in on Thursday. Keep your eyes out for the shell on campus, tent, and everything else.

It has been pretty fun doing all sorts of different projects from working with pipe and wood to pictures for the boathouse etc...but I can't wait to get back to the mechanics of the rowing stroke.

Couple of interesting notes only to me: Has anybody dealt with a laptop that runs too hot? I'm afraid my 4 year old Dell isn't doing so well. Second, getting into the housing market after renting these past four years is a very interesting prospect. Advice would be much appreciated!

Canada Wins Men's 8+ / US Wins Women's 8+

So much for predictions! The US won the women's 8+ at the Beijing Olympics today beating out the Netherlands and Romania who took silver and bronze. Canada held off late challenges by Britain and the US to take its first gold in the event since Barcelona in 1992.

More to come later - but time for this writer to eat a little crow.

Family & Bold Olympic Predictions

Would these athletes have made it here without their families?

Here at the boathouse 5 PM and it has been a pretty productive day - met with a wonderful recruit and talked to her a lot about her family. It made me think about my parents and how supportive they have been with regards to my activities growing up from sports, to music, to drama, and how their expectations helped push me a little farther.

As we get a little closer to the beginning of school please let your parents know that you appreciate what they've sacrificed for you to do what you love, that you may not have always been so easy to get along with, and that they have been a huge influence on what you do now. From parents to siblings to aunts, uncles, and grandparents - these are probably the people who have helped shape your morals, your belief systems, and your work ethic - but that doesn't stop you from continuing to evolve and learn from the best you see in others while holding firm to those core beliefs that have brought you to this point.

The boathouse picture project is virtually complete and now it's a matter of installing our new equipment and preparing the boats for the fall. There's going to be a ton of competition for seats and I hope everyone is simply trying to become a better athlete in their remaining time off.

Safe Olympic prediction - I would love to see the US women's 8+ win but the Romanians looked to be well in control en route to putting up a fast time. It'll be decided in the last 500 with the Romanians winning by a seat.
Gold - Romania, Silver - US, Bronze - Netherlands

Bold Olympic prediction - The men's 8+s will be a closely fought affair - Canada will lead early, Britain will come on extremely strong to take the gold in the 2nd 1000. Not sure if the Canadians will fade after being passed but Australia and the US will be charging hard to get into the medals.
Gold - GB, Silver - USA, Bronze - Australia - 4th - Canada

At the Boathouse

One of those amazing gorgeous days at the Boathouse - about 70 degrees and sunny with no wind. Perfect day for rowing! The boats are set, oars ready, cox boxes charged...one problem - NO ROWERS! We're about twenty days from freshman move-in day and on campus recruiting and it feels like waiting for Christmas morning.

Putting together some more boathouse management pieces now as well as 5 new Model D ergometers...should be a nice addition that will bring us up to about 40 total ergs.

Yesterday we had an excellent call with Chris Phillips P'09, Ken Jones P'09, Elizabeth Guernsey '06, Bracknell Baker '05, and Bob Benjamin '71 who are the tip of the spear for the Friends of Trinity Rowing. Our current rowers may not know how many people are interested in supporting them, sharing in your success, and looking to continue a fantastic tradition.

Played squash yesterday and ONLY JUST remembered to eat before hand and what a difference it seemed to make 9-4, 9-5 then we were interrupted because the practice courts were being painted. Watched a couple of Trinity men's squash players go at it and just by watching picked up a lot about the creativity of their shot-making, change of pace, efficiency of movement, and serve placement. Won the next two games 9-3, 9-7, and dropped a fifth game 7-9. Overall solid improvements - LESSON HERE: Even if you can't get on the water WATCH THE OLYMPICS, watch rowing on Youtube, look at pictures for body positioning, do whatever you can to soak up good rowing.

Maybe another post later today if there is time. Even with Brett Favre - the Jets will not make the playoffs (prediction to be challenged later).

Taste of Hartford & Thoughts on Eating

Last week I traveled out to California and Washington for the weddings of two of my very good friends - Brian Washburn '01 and Kate Wetmore '02. Brian and I rowed in the Silver Goblets and Nickalls Challenge Cup in 2000 and in the Temple Challenge Cup in 2001 and it was fantastic to see he and his wife Beth so incredibly happy together. Many of Brian's high school and college teammates came to celebrate with him and it really struck me how the bonds in rowing can be so powerful. That was even more evident the following Friday when Kate married Jon Gillespie and had a huge turnout of the Yale Women's Crew to support her. That college rowing experience can be powerful is sometimes lost when you're in the midst of it as either a high school recruit or current college athlete - I hope we're able to enjoy both the current and post-college rowing time with each other as much as possible.

Played squash yesterday and lost 9-5, 9-7, 7-9, 9-4, 2-9 (we played five games regardless of who was first to three). Ate at around 10:00 and then played at 4:30 PM. Crushed! Not only was I hungry when we started but because I started losing I couldn't really control my emotions or focus on playing well. So what came first? Were my emotions controlled by a lack of glycogen and therefore I played poorly or did the lack of glycogen cause me to play poorly and my emotions never caught up. Either way, if you're going to work out and compete you have to be prepared physically and mentally and I had neither yesterday afternoon.

Last night a bunch of friends and I went out to Max's Downtown for the first night of The Taste of Hartford. Absolutely stunning food - amazing chopped salad with Gorgonzola cheese, enormous sea scallops and risotto, and a vanilla bean Crème brûlée for $20.08! Pretty unbelievable and it goes on all week. Having just been in Oakland, San Francisco, Santa Barbara, San Diego, and Seattle I have to say that the food in Hartford is at least as good and certainly worth trying when you come to visit. Finally, please check out this Google Map of our current Trinity College Women's Rowing team...I'd love to start adding locations of our alumni around the world as well as other points of interest. If you'd like to be included or have an idea of a place to be added please leave a comment.

Henley Fun

"I am feeling very Olympic today" Sanka Coffie

Can you name the movie from the quote in the title?

There are only four days between the start of the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympic Games and I can't wait to watch international rowing at its most intense and focused level. The level of preparation that these athletes have demonstrated for a few trips down the race course is unfathomable and I'm sure everyone can't help but question their preparation - after all, who can go into an Olympic rowing event being completely confident of the result?

Two discussion points come to mind when thinking about the Olympics - do you treat the rowing as another regatta? Using the same routines, warm-ups, and race plans or do you try and do something special? This also extends to the volume and intensity of work that is required to win the World Championships and what the coaching staffs and athletes imagine the requirements are to win the Olympics - how much is enough and how much is too much? The results will tell the story and I wonder if everybody who does not win a gold medal (almost everybody!) will say I did enough, I needed to do more, or I needed to do less. Wouldn't that be an amazingly informative poll?

The second discussion point is how much "experience" plays out in having a successful Olympic Games and dealing with pressure. Does increased media exposure and the external trappings of intensity make the Olympic Games so stressful or is it the perceived importance of the event because the athletes have made such a sacrifice to make it there? Does anybody know whether first-time Olympic athletes have a better or worse record of success at the Games? Let's be honest that if you're good enough to make the Olympics you probably have had at least some experience dealing with pressure-filled situations - shouldn't that prepare you to deal with the type of adversity that comes with increased exposure and expectation? Then again, maybe you just can't understand it if you haven't been in that type of situation before.

Either way, get your DVRs, VCRs, DVDs, and other recording devices ready because here it the complete schedule for all of the Olympic rowing events posted here.

Artist Submission - Title Needed!

August is fast approaching and Coach Besteman and I are busy planning, recruiting, and wrapping up loose ends from last season - namely getting photographs produced of our NCAA crews and other championship crews.

The workouts that team members are writing about are exciting and I have to say that I'm encouraged with how they are challenging themselves.

We also received an amazing water color from Katie Rodgers '07 who in addition to being part of our NCAA 2nd place team in 2007 is also an incredibly talented artist. Taken from inside our boathouse and focused on a boat meeting we still need to figure out a title for the painting. Katie will be traveling the world for the next 12 months and we wish her all the best for a safe and happy journey.

Please post your painting title suggestions to comments.

Heading West

Starting a little vacation and am at Bradley Airport in Windsor Locks CT (lots of outlets, free wireless internet, good coffee!) heading out to Moraga, CA for my good friend Brian Washburn's wedding. Should be a blast to have a lot of college friends back together for a little celebration. Will have access to email if you need to contact me.

Spent most of yesterday updating www.trinityrowing.org and experimenting with Front Rush.

Also, looking forward to the second half of the baseball season!

Full Calendar posted

Team - please visit our team page for the full academic year calendar and related information. If you have any questions please email me at wesley.ng@trincoll.edu

Team members can visit http://groups.google.com/group/trinity-womens-rowing for access to our page.

The last few days have been solidly in front of the computer with our new Front Rush recruiting system, website updates, and new team organization websites.

Remember that training as a group can still be powerful even from a remote location - use the power of information to help change the way we train and stay connected.

On a more entertaining side note - what movie sequel do you consider to be superior to the first? Some would argue that both Godfather II and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back would be two such examples but I'm curious as to what sequels people have seen that they consider to be actual steps forward.

Bulldog Rowing Camp Day Five

Fun racing yesterday morning to finish off the third week of Bulldog Rowing Camp. We ran four races - one of mixed experienced and beginner rowers, the 3rd and 4th boys boats, two even girl's eights, and the 1st and 2nd boys boats. One of the best aspects of the camp is that the parents pile on to the Stillwater Wakeless launches and watch the 1000m races - very often it's the first time that they've seen their sons and daughters row up close...they're also shocked at the distance the rowers need to travel and the effort that's expended when they see them close up.

The question of development always comes up afterwards as parents and the rowers try to figure out what they need to do to row in college and hopefully get recruited. A few words of advice: have fun, improve your fitness, and if you love rowing find different ways to do it...join a club, row in ergometer races, row in the summer, etc.

We'll be working on getting in contact with all of our recruits this week, closing the books on the 2007-2008 season, and improving all of our online media.

Also please check out this link of our incident in the qualifier - http://www.row2k.com/video/view.cfm?vid=5073

Bulldog Rowing Camp Day Four

The last day of camp...another two sessions and a midday college talk answering questions that the athletes had on rowing in college. We did some pair addition and competitive work in the afternoon session with the two women's eights who showed some great intensity and a great deal of progress from where they were at the beginning of the week. It's really striking to see how much of a difference a standout athlete can make on a relatively inexperienced eight. The two strokes of these even boats make a big impact on the rhythm in terms of length and power...how do we find more athletes like that?

Also had a discussion on the way out to the boathouse about how many paradigms of thought that we take for granted (I'm examining these paradigms from a public policy perspective). For instance, the US system of roads and highways and the speed capabilities of cars. Cars traveling at 55-65 mph are more fuel efficient, cause fewer vehicular accidents, injuries, and deaths, and in some cases cause less road wear. The benefit of driving faster than the speed limit is that the individual arrives at their destination faster. However, what individual would voluntarily submit to legislation limiting speeds on automobiles? What car maker, oil company, or politician would ever take the risk to propose changes that would mandate slowing down automobiles?

What if the rules of the road were changed to allow for powered or non-powered transportation? How would one even begin to try and implement such a change...the rules of the road work because they have been agreed upon for enough years to make sense to those who are licensed. Changes to that system might be completely intractable.

Similar thoughts come to mind about how we, in the western world, approach education, social security, health insurance, etc. Are the paradigms so set that it may be incredibly difficult to create change? Phew...I hope not. More discussion on this later on.

Bulldog Rowing Camp Day Three

This may have been the most pleasant day that we've had at Bulldog in quite a while. Low temperatures, blue skies, and a low UV index made it really comfortable on the water. Coach Shofner and I switched crews this morning and we were able to work on trying to feel the speed of the boat as a group - that moment when rowers in an eight take a great stroke and really propel the boat well and also KNOW that they've done it well is pretty amazing. In the afternoon row we went with mixed lineups and did some competitive work that gave the campers a taste of side-by-side aggression.

It's funny to say it but I miss the focus of the squad already - the attention to detail, focus on the task at hand, and drive to succeed can be pretty alluring and it has been good to hear from so many rowers already this season.

After so much bike riding in England and brutal gas prices I'm also looking into buying a touring/city bike for the first time since 2000 (haven't owned one since I crashed). The commute from my apartment to the office is only about 2.2 miles so that should be pretty darn quick on a bike. I've been pointed towards this bike by Felt. If anybody has any other suggestions for a bike that can also be used for reasonable weekend rides of a little over an hour please let me know.

On to Friday!

Bulldog Rowing Camp Day Two

A little hot, a little steamy, a little chicken Parmesan. Coached two sessions where we worked on applying some new ideas to take time to let the boat run between the strokes and that seemed like a huge breakthrough. In the afternoon we reintroduced the feather and also some drive mechanics. The difficulty in learning effective boat moving comes from so many factors not the least of which is having the requisite strength to repeat the motion over time. The secondary factor is probably that when rowing in eights you can't really tell if what you're doing is better than the last stroke. That makes things awfully tough to see what impact you actually have on the boat.

Trying to get back in the groove with regards to working out and did a drop down set of erging and lifting with a little bit of running to break up the monotony. A couple of sophomore lightweights joined, Direktor #1 and me for the work out and that livened things up a little bit. That 'slight' soreness from yesterday has now turned into a wicked case of DOMS - here is also another definition that might describe that.

Off to dinner and then a little bit of programmatic design and responding to recruit emails.

Bulldog Rowing Camp Day One

First day of Bulldog Rowing Camp is just about finished and the athletes are about to get some much needed rest in about 15 minutes or so...We began in the day with a few diagnostic stretches to see the level of flexibility and core stability and found that a lot of the younger athletes could still make huge improvements. The first group I worked with tried to focus on leverage while the second group after lunch worked on how we could improve our desire to really go after it with a little ergometer demonstration. I have a feeling they'll be more aggressive tomorrow.

Did a lunch time workout with one of the Direktors and am feeling a little bit of post-Henley soreness from the effort...that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

The new Trinity Rowing website is now online - it will continue to be updated and refined in the coming days but I'm sure everyone will appreciate the new format and ease of use.

Henley Royal Regatta Complete

I can't really believe the season is over for the Trinity rowing teams. The day started with the Graves brothers battling the US Olympic 2X and bowed out by a little over a length - a phenomenal achievement for two rowers who have so recently been involved in collegiate sweep rowing.

I had the privilege of riding in the Argonaut launch for the final of the Temple Challenge Cup and filming the event. In the lead up, as the boat was cleaned and the boys were finishing their warm up and pre-race talk I said to Coach Gluckman that I wish we could bottle up this feeling because it felt like Christmas morning...where there was such great expectation I can only imagine a few times where you can feel that alive.

Amidst strong rain, both crews went off aggressively and we had a pretty severe bobble that buried the starboard riggers and took the 1V out of the rhythm slightly but made a really strong effort from the Barrier to Fawley to make up the distance. UWO was able to make some pretty excellent responses to our pushes and eventually drew it out to a little over 2 lengths. Considering the youth of the men's varsity, where there were only 2 seniors in the crew I would expect a lot of continued improvement next season. Tremendous congratulations to the Western eight for rowing an incredible regatta - their bladework, fitness, and determination throughout the regatta was impressive.

Congratulations to Henry Palmer in the Leander Ladies' Plate crew who beat a very good Dutch crew rowing aggressively the whole way down the course. They took an early lead on the Dutch rowing 2-3 beats higher at 37-39 spm and defended a strong middle push by the Dutch before extending their lead in the last 50 strokes of the race. I thought it may have been the gutsiest row I've seen by a high level eights crew at the regatta.

Also, congrats to Andy Liverman who won the Prince of Wales Challenge Cup for intermediate 4Xs beating a very slick British lightweight quad. On the plane tomorrow at 10:55 AM with a 7:00 AM pickup from Henley...I'll have some pictures to post later on and hopefully some video of the racing.

Henley Royal Regatta Finals Day

It's 10:13 AM and we've just had our last full English breakfast with our wonderful host Ms. Valerie Nicholson and we have arrived at the final day of racing for the 2007-2008 season. The men's eight has reached the final of the Temple Challenge Cup by beating Southampton University, Oxford Brookes, Grand Valley State University USA, and Stanford University USA. In the finals the 1V will race against the University of Western Ontario crew who defeated Harvard University's freshmen in the semifinal. Judging from times to the Barrier and times between Fawley and the Barrier I think we have to expect that there will be some fluidity in the first 3:40 seconds of the race and that it will sort itself out after that.

Crews that are leading after the Barrier win 86% of the time while crews leading after Fawley win 90% of the time. However, that statistic might be misleading as many of the crews who have made the final have been in the 14% or 10% at least once during the regatta.

This is very much a familiar face regatta for me as Tom and Peter Graves are racing in the Double Sculls Challenge Cup final today against the US Olympic 2X of Elliot Hovey and Wes Piermarini and they go off at 12:00 PM.

My college teammate and good friend Andy Liverman races in the finals of the Prince of Wales Challenge Cup for 4X as the bowman of the California Rowing Club. A former lightweight he is somewhat dwarfed by Mike Holbrook who weighed in at 240 lbs or 17 stone 2 lbs.

Henry Palmer, Trinity '05, is racing in the five seat of the Leander Ladies' Challenge Plate entry and will face a really tough challenge from R.S.V.U. Okeanos & D.S.R. Laga, Holland. They look like they would have had a great shot at the Grand Challenge Cup.

Weather for today - about 15 degrees Celsius, windy, and pretty steady rain. English dreariness at its best. For full results of the racing please click here.

Oh yes, really heartfelt thanks to my crew for their wonderful gift last night...and fun conversation about the business of rowing. I had missed that in the days since we stopped rowing and it was good to be back together in the middle of England in a 15th century pub. Pretty memorable stuff...

Fourth of July in England

The third day of racing at the Henley Royal Regatta is almost complete and things are shaking out for the semifinals to be held tomorrow. American crews have had some notable successes and some pretty close defeats. In the Ladies Plate, IRA finalist Columbia went down to a really high quality Dutch crew by 2/3 of a length in a very fast time while Boston University lost in the Remenham Cup by 3/4 of a length. In the Princess Elizabeth Cup, St. Joe's Prep went down swinging to Eton College so the final four in perhaps the most hotly contested event is Scotch College of Australia, Shawnigan Lake of Canada, Eton College and Shrewsbury.

The quarterfinals of the Temple Challenge Cup were incredibly competitive and saw Trinity's 1V, Stanford's freshmen, Harvard's freshmen, and Western Ontario's 1V reach the final four. Cornell's lightweight varsity lost to Stanford by a length, Harvard took out Williams' 1V, while Trinity dispatched Grand Valley State's 1V.

The competitiveness of the big boats, namely fours, quads, and eights in these rounds contrasts with the parades in the small boat categories like the Diamonds, Silver Goblets, and other sculling events. Crews rowing over the course at 26-30 spm and winning easily doesn't make for great racing.

The team will be traveling back to the US on Monday morning and then I'll be working a week of Bulldog Rowing Camp at Yale. More to come later on...Happy Fourth of July everyone.

Henley Day Seventeen: What a Season!

From Hartford to East Hartford, to Vermont and Worcester, to Sacramento, and finally Henley-on-Thames the season for the Trinity Women's Rowing team has finally come to a close. While one of the rowers remarked that it was incredibly strange to finish a season with a practice I feel incredibly lucky to have seen them move the boat through a shared desire to make boats go fast, a feeling of competency, and the ability to apply their knowledge.

Monday, one of our seniors, and two-time All-American selection Loren Massimino hopped on the C2 ergometer in the boat tents and pulled a PR 7:02.5 and her teammates, Ali Schmidt and captain Carmel Zahran pulled 7:15 and 7:17.5 on Tuesday (Carmel later pulled a 7:14.0 on Wednesday in a great attempt at improving her score). I thought this was an absolutely stunning display of commitment to have the self-discipline and desire to pull a 2000m erg piece after being on the water for so long and to all record their personal bests! Maybe there is something to this training piece after all...

Monday afternoon we brushed University College Dublin for the final time and while they showed improved speed we were able to pull something together by the end of practice and we wish them all the best at their national championships in two weeks.

Tuesday, about half an hour after finishing their 2000m pieces, the Head of the Charles collegiate 8+ champions, New England Champions, NCAA Champions, and Henley Women's Regatta championship 8+ went for one final practice. I'd be lying if I said I didn't get emotional watching them perform the drills and demonstrate the skills that took them to such a great season...coaches on the toe path remarked again about how sharp they looked and how they were clearly still on task despite the equipment failure in the qualifier. We did a tip of the island piece in about 41 seconds and a barrier piece in a time of 2:16 into a really blowing head wind. I'll be interested to see how those times stack up against our Remenham Cup opposition.

Where do we go from here? Our captains and seniors from the Class of 2009 have to define what they want to accomplish next year while I have to decide upon what the physical standard of the team needs to be in order to meet those goals. I already have at least three criteria that I've identified as separating our successful rowers from those who are still looking for improvement. But perhaps most importantly, the women that are at Henley right now should enjoy this historical venue and festive atmosphere, enjoy each other's company, and treat this as a hard-earned and well-deserved vacation for the next five days. My guess is that it will be some time before these Trinity students will have the chance to hang out with so many of their College friends in the near future.

Observation #1: Henley desperately needs either an ice cream store, a crepe place, or a place specializing in desserts that does not rhyme with "tar shucks".

Observation #2: The BBC shows some INCREDIBLY graphic stuff...very uncomfortable

Observation #3: The enclosure and food areas lining the entire bank of the river are increasingly modern looking in stark contrast to the timelessness of the Steward's Enclosure.

Best of luck to all of the Trinity men's crews, St.Joseph's Prep and Newport Aquatic Center who I hope will meet on the weekend in the PE Cup, Leander and Columbia in the Ladies Plate, and the California Rowing Club quad with my good friend and former college teammate Andy Liverman on board.

Henley Day Fifteen: Moving On & Reading

Sunday has rolled around and the athletes are taking a well-deserved day off. Yesterday morning, attempting to shake off the disappointment of the incident in the qualifier, the crew rowed to Reading through the Marsh Lock, Shiplake Lock, and the Sonning Lock directly to the start of the Senior 3 Men's Eights (many thanks to Peter Needham, the regatta chairperson for getting us into the race). Predictably, the women took a hard-earned third place to some good quality English men's crews and then relaxed for a few hours before racing in the Senior Two Women's 4+ event where they won comfortably against Maidenhead RC.

Rowing back to the Henley boat tents afterwards was perhaps the first time we've experienced a tail wind and tail current in the past few weeks.

We're going to use these next few days to try and taper down our training and provide a little closure on the season - our seniors will be pulling a 2000m ergometer piece on Monday and the remaining athletes are talking about what ways they can stay active.

To all of our athletes back home, we'll be sending out the summer training package soon with suggested workouts, standards, and goals.

Henley Day Fourteen: Not What We Had Expected

More to come on this later especially after a relatively sleepless night pondering what just happened...but the long and the short of it is we did not qualify for the Remenham Challenge Cup at HRR. About thirty strokes into the qualifying race our five seat's oar snapped about six inches up from the blade and we were left to row with seven blades for the remainder of the race. The qualifying times that we recorded unofficially compared to our times in practice and compared to crews that we raced at the Henley Women's Regatta were very favorable so the event stings a little more.

I'd like to discuss the emotions that come up when something like this happens in such an equipment intensive sport - but I'll have to do so later.

We are rowing to the Reading Town Regatta to compete in either a coxed four or senior 3 men's eight category. More to come later and thanks again for reading and following our progress during this incredible season.

Henley Reading List

Admittedly there has been a fair amount of down time while in Henley and since we've been here since June 14th I've been able to get a fair amount of reading done (none that I would consider particularly earthshaking). Death at the Priory was a fairly disturbing historical account of a sordid poisoning and affair in Victorian England, a Jack Higgins' novel A Fine Night for Dying about super-spy Paul Chavasse, the Geno Auriemma autobiography (kind of neat because so many of the players are well-known), Tom Clancy's Net Force (a futuristic story about the far off year of 2010), and The Few and the Proud (an account of Marine Corps drill instructors). Now I'm trying to finish John Grisham's The Testament. I can't say that any of these books are educational or particularly cultural apart from Death at the Priory but at least they're entertaining. Tomorrow we'll walk the course at 10:30 AM and prepare to qualify later on in the afternoon. A good night to all!

Henley Day Thirteen: Qualifying on the Horizon

Time trials. Most likely the hardest discipline to succeed at in team rowing. I had a great discussion with Tom Sullivan from University College Dublin while sitting on the bench across from Temple Island about how our crews might perform in tomorrow evening's time trial. Our discussion ranged from six-boat racing, to head racing, to Henley style match racing and then finally to time trials.

His contention was that six-boat racing allowed one to hide; that the result softened by the number of medals given, by petite and third level finals. In Henley style match racing there was absolutely no place to hide in that sooner or later you would find out if you were the fastest crew in your category and that a first round loss conveyed the same rewards for a late round loss. A stark mindset but nevertheless it does hold a grain of truth.

However, a time trial or qualifying race is really about a crew's ability to perform over the entire course and it will certainly expose any weakness in physical or mental preparation. Just taking that little edge off in the middle of the course or "looking for comfort" can be the difference. I wonder if anybody has done any physiological testing of rowers performing in either a time trial, head-to-head race, or six lane race to see if markers of physical effort or perceived exertion levels are different.

A good shout out to Jonny at the Healthy Deli on Duke Street in the middle of Henley - the Serrano Ham and Emmental cheese sandwich was fantastic and I hope more rowers stop in to enjoy his creations. I've tried the smoked salmon, parma ham, and have heard great things about the roast beef. A+ in this traveler's book.

We go off tomorrow at 5:00 PM in the Remenham Cup qualifying races - should be an excellent test.

Oh yes, if you get the chance to vote in Row2K's crew of the week poll we have been nominated for the 2nd time this season (the first for our performance at the NCAAs and this time for winning the Senior 8+ at the Henley Women's Regatta). Here are the current poll results.

Henley Day Twelve: Pictures from the London Reception

Henley Women's Regatta Video Posted Here

Please check out http://www.row2k.com/video/view.cfm?vid=5030 for video of the final day of racing at the regatta. A row2k video editor's pick! We show up 1:55 into the video. Thank you row2k!

Henley Day Twelve: BU, Basin Conditions, and Why We Won

I've received a number of questions from folks who have asked what made our run at the Henley Women's Regatta successful - that's really putting a coach on the spot but I'll take a stab at it because the underlying question is what makes a crew faster than its opposition and at Henley; what makes a crew fast over a number of repetitions.

I'm very much a believer that the physical capability of each member of the crew is critical to success - those rowers need to have demonstrated increased capacity on a number of different levels to handle the different situations that present themselves on the race course. That is why we don't only look at ergometer scores as a means to measure the capability of a rower. This may seen intuitive but to many younger rowers who correlate success on the erg with success on the water it comes as a surprise that a boat race plays out very differently than a physiological piece on the erg. So to get back on track here, I think that our rowers were very physically prepared to race into a screaming headwind and were very good at recovering from multiple bouts of exercise in a short time period (and yes, the ergometer is a part of developing that capacity).

Secondly, on the day of the semifinal and final we had to deal with a number of unexpected situations. Versus Skoll, much to my chagrin, we were surprised off the start because we couldn't hear the starter nor see the flag and were in the process of sculling the boat to one side. However, the athletes reported that they were fairly calm and just pissed off that they didn't get to execute their best start. By the 500m mark we had made up the margin and started to push out. The headwind, which a sculler described as "rowing into a brick wall" took away much of our front end length in that race against Skoll but we did enough to get open water moving through the enclosures.

I was most proud of the focus, calm, and action that the eight took in between the races. Immediately upon docking the athletes switched their exercise modality, took in some carbohydrates, had some sports drink, got off their feet, and decided upon what they needed to execute better in the final. We knew they could be better into the headwind and the report afterwards was that they had wanted to "battle and conquer the wind". Launching for the final the crew looked purposeful and calm even as the wind howled - during the race every one of their faces was calm as well even as their blades were improved to the water and cleaner at the release.

So why did we win? They were definitely physically prepared but perhaps it was more that they had confidence in their preparation and had a shared desire to execute their plan versus trying to react to another crew.

This afternoon we will brush Boston University's varsity eight who have already been selected by the Stewards for the Remenham Cup - we'll do a little leap frog at base and lower rating (kind of an ersatz brush really) and then a few 1' blasters. After our down low compression work in the last two sessions I'll be interested to see what happens when we let it all hang out.

Reception this evening in London at the family home of J.Jeffrey Louis and then back to Henley. I might have to make an appearance at the Rose and Crown for some bridge later on.

Funny toe path moment:
Rower #1: "Coach, I couldn't hear what Larry said...",
Me: "Open up into the bow, row longer into the release - You are beginning to look like a very upright proper British sculler."
Rower #2: "Coach, what do I look like? An ugly American?"
Me: "Yes, you don't have to try to do that."

That got a little chuckle out of a nearby Aussie coach.

Awesome toe path convenience: The ice cream store at the 750m mark has been a nice stopping point...however, a couple of magnums in the belly doesn't make biking the toe path any easier.

Brutal toe path job: The poor man at UTRC with a really short spade shoveling pounds of Canada goose droppings into the Thames day after day after day. I feel like I should buy him a proper shovel...and a gas mask.