Club Nationals/CanAmMex

Our camp has officially finished with the end of racing at Club Nationals on Sunday and CanAmMex today. At Club Nationals, three boats received medals;
Junior A 4+ (D Boat): 3rd place
Junior A 8+ (C Boat): 3rd Place
Junior A 2- (A Boat): 1st Place

Other boats which made it to the finals but did not medal were the intermediate 8+ (A and C Boats) and the Junior A 8+ (B Boat). I raced in the intermediate 8+ A Boat and the Junior A 2- A Boat. Racing against college crews in the intermediate race was a pretty cool experience which definitely made us push ourselves to a new level of racing. Racing in the pair was another awesome experience. Although our steering wasn't to good, Peter Tortora and I had a great time rowing in the smaller boat (and winning a gold medal was pretty awesome also!)

CanAmMex was another great experience. We raced in the 2-, 4-, and 8+, all of which were made up of rowers in the top 8+. Peter And I won in the 2-, the 4- (made up of Gregor Dierks, Andy Volosky, Buck Goggin, and James Glynn) came second, and the 8+ (made up of the 2-, 4-, and Eric Nieminen and Alex Dillon) came first. Winning races against Canada and Mexico was really awesome. I found racing against other countries is a totally different experience than just other teams (especially when the officials polled us at the start by the name of USA, Canada, and Mexico). Overall it was a great experience!

Now that the camp is coming to a close I want to take the time to thank all the coaches, interns, and others who helped put this camp together and trained us over the past month. Head Coaches Rich Brown, Jesse Foglia, and Nich Lee along with the 4 interns made the camp a productive and fun experience.

Racing Starts

The last few days have been busy. On Tuesday, we left Pittsburgh at 5:45 am for our 10 hour drive down to Tennessee in our 5 van caravan. When we arrived at the race course we unloaded and rigged our boats, but as we prepared to go for a practice row the officials closed the course. At 5:45 that night we had a gathering with the Canadian and U.S. Women's teams where we had appetizers and talked with other rowers. Afterward we were able have a practice row at 7 and then checked into our hotel. Later that night we headed over to the grocery store to pick up food for the next week.

Yesterday was the first day of racing and the team raced in the intermediate fours, Junior A pairs, and Junior A eights. Although the fours did not make it to semi-finials, they had good races against the college-age crews. the A and B pairs both came first in their heat and will be competing in semis on Friday. The two other pairs came just shy of making semis. All three of the eights came second place in their heats and race in semis on Friday.

Today we are racing in the Junior A fours and the Intermediate eights.

Goodbye Pittsburgh

Today is our last day here in Pittsburgh. We are finishing off our three and a half week stay by a single practice this morning and the rest of the afternoon cleaning up the dorms and packing. In practice we did a few short pieces at race pressure and then de-rigged our boats and put them on the trailer. Now we are starting to clean up our rooms and getting ready to pack everything up.

At Club Nationals we are going to be racing the following categories:
Junior A 8+ (3 boats)
Junior A 4+ (4 boats)
Junior A 2- (4 boats)
Intermediate 8+ (4 boats)
Intermediate 4+ (4 boats)
Senior 4- (1 boat)

The top 8+ will also be competing on the Monday after Club Nationals at CanAmMex. In addition to racing in the 8+, the boat will break up into a 4- and two 2- which will also be racing against the Mexicans and Canadians.

Everyone can't wait to get the 10 hour drive to Tennessee done with tomorrow and start racing on Wednesday. Wish us luck!

Preppin' For Race Day

The racing spirit is in the air. During this morning's practice we did three 500 meter pieces and two 1k pieces at full pressure and speed to simulate different parts of the race. The first 500 meter and both 1k pieces were supposed to simulate the start of the race while the other 500 meter pieces represented the finish of the race. We took out what are believed to be our race lineups for two of the eights, three of the fours, and four of the pairs. The pieces were especially helpful for those of us in the pairs because it made it possible for us to really solidify our comfort level with racing at full pressure. The straight four also got the chance to practice racing without a coxswain and enjoyed taking commands from their two seat, Buck Goggin, rather than from a microphone.

After practice the coaches told us that we had the rest of the afternoon and all of Sunday off to rest up in preparation for Club Nationals. So far we have made the most of our time time off. After lunch we headed out to the movie theater and watched one of two movies; "Predators" and "Despicable Me" (the latter of which is an excellent movie). Many of us also decided to get of change of food and eat at a real restaurant which was quite delicious.

Tomorrow I am looking forward to sleeping in for the first time in a while and having a chill day. We will also find out the official race lines and hopefully get our gear...can't wait!

Counting Down

This morning we realized that there are only four practices standing between us and racing at Club Nationals, and we can't wait to get those four done with. We took out the top three boats in 8+ and three other 4+ in the morning practice. The coaches had us do three 6 minute pieces at a lower rating than actual race pieces but practicing making shifts in the rate to simulate our racing strategy. In the 8+, the results of the races were somewhat...interesting. In the first piece, the A Boat finished in front by about a boat length but the C Boat beat the B Boat. The second time around the A Boat finished with the same distance in front but the B Boat came second. The third piece ended with all the boats within a few seats of each other. I think the wacky results show that everyone here is really pushing hard to pick up as much speed as possible for Club Nationals, which is great!

This afternoon it was raining and thundering, bringing the temperature down outside and what we thought would be an easy afternoon practice. We were wrong. We ended up watching film for a few minutes and doing 60 minutes of core workouts along with 20 minutes of calisthenics, by the end of which we were dead. The day ended on a high note, though, because they fixed the hot water for the showers. That and only three days left until we leave to race!

Getting Pumped Up

The team has really started getting pumped up for racing at Club Nationals and representing the US at CanAmMex. Last night Coach Jesse gave the team an inspirational talk about racing in the coming week which really got us motivated, after which the whole team came in for our first "USA" cheer. There is also a rumor among the rowers that we are receiving our racing unis and gear very soon which added to the our excitement. Overall it was a pretty exhilarating night! We kept that energy up this morning when we started practice, which consisted of lots of 1 minute pieces. I was out in a pair with my friend Peter who is my bow pair partner in our 8+. We were racing during the 1 minute pieces against two other 2+ along with a 4+ (although the coxswain wasn't allowed to do anything because they were practicing for the straight four event) which turned out to be a lot of fun. After a rough first piece due to oar lock problems, Peter and I found a solid race pace to for the first 30 seconds of the pieces at. The last 30 seconds of piece were suppose to be at the highest rate you could get to, which is where it really became fun. We were able to get it up to a 41 stroke rate which felt awesome, especially since it was only the second time I have done race pieces (and rowed in) a pair. The best part was all the boats were pushing each other every piece to get faster and better. I am really looking forward to the possibility of racing in the pair at Club Nationals and hopefully in CanAmMex also!

Once we finished practice, the rising seniors had the opportunity to talk with the Columbia rowing coach who had watched our practice. Afterward, everyone headed back to camp for breakfast and the normal routine; watching a movie, sleeping, and waiting for lunch. The only problem is that the showers have recently stopped having hot water for some reason. Although they are working on fixing the problem, we have learned to take really really really fast showers during the last day or so. Luckily the boat house which we use has a locker room with showers so we could use those if we wanted. After lunch we got ready for afternoon practice and headed to the boat house at 2:30. We were broken up into two 8+ and four 4+ and did 2 minute pieces. Now that we are getting closer to race day our boat lineups have become more set (although some racing is still going on) which has allowed us to get a feel for what our actual boat will be on race day. In the A boat, for example, we realized that our start is slow because we are beaten off the line by the other boats. However as practice progressed, we got a feel for it and built up the speed of our start. After four or five of these pieces we had to go in due to wakes from motor boat traffic. When we arrived back at camp, the coaches surprised us with a team trip to get ice cream. everyone bought the largest number of scoops or biggest milkshake that was for sale and it tasted delicious...at least for a while. After about 20 minutes my stomach reminded me that I wasn't used to eating a huge portion of soft serve ice cream. However the stomach ache was totally worth it. I'm just hoping the coaches aren't planning to give us an excessively hard workout tomorrow because I don't think I'll enjoy it will a belly full of ice cream!

Practice In Pittsburgh

The last two days have been hot ones, ranging from the mid 80's to low 90's. On Tuesday we had a pretty normal day; two water practices separated by breakfast, a nap, a movie, and lunch. During the morning practice, we took out three 8+ and three 4+ and did a mix of drills and steady state rowing. The main focus of the drills was on the catch and making sure that we kept connection through the whole drive. Once we finished the drills, we started doing "steady state" pieces, which here is basically another name for racing as hard as you can at 20 strokes a minute against other boats for an unknown amount of time. By the end of these low stroke rating races, all three 8+ were pretty tired and ready for breakfast. By the time we got back to the dorms and finished breakfast it was already around 11:00. Most of us here, including me, use the hour and a half between breakfast and lunch to take a nap, something which I look forward to from the second I wake up at 6:00am. The second practice started at 2:30 and we were broken up into a group of three 8+ and a group of four 2+. The pairs were an interesting experience. Most of us had only rowed in one a few times before and the coaches had us doing 1 minute pieces at full pressure while also making us stay somewhat close to each other, something easier said than done. Despite the difficulty of going straight and staying up-right, the majority of us really enjoyed rowing in the smaller boats. The rest of the night was spent eating, watching movies, and making a run to Wal-Mart to stock up on snacks and drinks.

Today we only had morning practice but it was probably one of the most intense practices we've had all camp. It consisted of four 8+ racing each other in six 1300 meter pieces, some of which were seat races. This was the first time that we did racing starts and it made the pieces even more interesting because we had very little time to practice them before we did the pieces. By the time we had finished practice we had been out on the water for almost 3 hours and we were all dead tired and ready to eat. During practice the freshman coach from Yale had been on the launch with our coaches and at the end of practice all of us who were rising seniors were able to talk with about rowing at Yale. In addition to this coach, a few other college coaches have come out and watched us row which makes it easier for the rising seniors to meet these coaches. But after we finished practice we were basically done for day. We had the opportunity to do laundry and later this afternoon will go back to the boat house and clean the shells and launches. The next few days are probably going to be even more intense than today's practice seeing as we will be leaving for Tennessee in less than a week but we are looking forward to making our boats get as fast as possible.