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.