Practice this morning: Warm up, with some steady state down to the Locks.

Piece 1: 15 minutes: 5 min@ 26; 3 min @ 30; 5 min @ 26; lengthen out for final 2 minutes (but NOT letting up on pressure)
Piece 2: 12 minutes: 5 min @ 22; 5 min @ 26; 2 min @ 28 (I think)
Final pieces: 2 – 4 minute intervals at varying rates, but for the most part trying to show my coach that I am pulling as hard as possible. Which I did, though it was hard. I felt pretty ill by the end. I’m not sure if it’s what I’m eating beforehand, if I’m not hydrated enough, or just plain exhaustion.

Today’s takeaways: Maintain pressure throughout the piece. You don’t have a choice but to keep on the legs and endure. For me, accelerating into the finish, and then pushing hands away appears to be helping my other issues (mainly overreaching). At the very least, it gives me something else to think about, which helps all around.

Tomorrow we practice in the 3x, just in time for Head of the Troll (intramural racing). Marcie informed me today that she and the ex-Presidents (that’s what they call themselves) are our competition. I was looking forward to just racing our on our own. But now we’ve got a real race! The young vs the old. Yay. This time, no 4/10 of a second will separate us. Bring it on!

Speaking of the Troll. We’ll have costumes. I won’t ruin the surprise, but will hopefully post pics when on Saturday.

I’ve already talked about the race. But today I finally saw the actual race results. We were 4/10 of a second slower than our “rival” boat, raw time. With the handicap they beat won by 18 seconds (their average age, 53. Ours, 35). Regarding the raw time, I’d rather they’d have beaten us by 18 seconds than 4/10. With 4/10, or anything that close, there is always a lingering thought in my head. Could I have done something to close a gap that short? Could I have rowed 10 strokes harder? 5? 20? Could we have managed to get into our rhthym, or maintained a good ratio for just a few more strokes to make up that gap? Yuk. 4/10 is harder to grasp.

We beat the next fastest boat by 14 seconds, raw time. But, with the age handicap, they came in ahead of us, in second place.

Row for the Cure was good. I always like to row this race. It’s usually the first head race of the season, and it’s shorter than a usual head race (3,500 m, compared to a 4 or 5K). The competition is good but not fierce. It gets me warmed up for the rest of the fall-racing season.

The course is from SPU to the red can … a route we do in practice all the time. Familiarity is good, especially since we didn’t row this line up at all before jumping into the boat this morning. We spent the first part of the race ramping up, settling down, finding our rhythm. Melissa stayed aggressive with her steering, yelling out at other cox’ns to get out of our way (she’s little but she’s feisty). She called for a ratio shift just as we reached one of our competitors in the women’s masters 8+. As soon as we did we walked through that boat (yeah, that boat but slow but walking through a boat gives me motivation, a needed jolt, no matter who or what it is).

We passed another boat, a mixed 8+ that looked like they were going backwards. Ultimately, I was gunning for the other women’s 8+ from our boathouse. We were close, I think.

The report is that we came in third, behind Sammamish and the other boat from my club. Dang. Third is okay. But I prefer to win.

When we reversed the ratio and went with the legs, I could feel the surge. The challenge is in managing the rush. Something I will work on (and I hope others will, too), for head-racing season.

Today I rowed a triple with JB and Amy, in prep for the Head of the Troll next weekend. I asked these two scullers to row with me as I was looking for people willing to row with a novice. JB and Amy, they are too polite to say no.

I row sweep (i.e. one oar per rower). I am a port. It’s how I learned and it’s what I’m comfortable with. I’ve been meaning to do more sculling (two oars per rower), and I figured entering a race (even if it is low-key and unofficial like the Troll) is the best way to go. Like when you want to get into running again you enter a 5K as motivation. I want to get into sculling more so I enter a race. I hope I don’t regret it.

Anyway. I struggled some. First I was using tulips (oars), which has less surface area than the hatchets, thus had a harder time applying as much pressure to the blades as the other 2 did (this quick analysis from JB). Second, well, I’m a novice. I know it’s hard to row with novices, as I’ve been there and have been frustrated as all heck. It’s very humbling knowing you are the worst rower in the boat. So I appreciate these cool cats taking the time to row with me.

Speaking of heck … I don’t swear a lot. It annoys the husband that I don’t swear. I prefer to say stuff like “dang!” and “goshdarnit” or “geez louise” or my favorite “frikkin” and “f-ing”. So imagine my surprise when, in the boat today, I kept cursing aloud. Haven’t done that in a looog time. The occasional “shit” and “fuck” came flying out of my mouth. I’m sort of shocked that I just wrote those words out just now. Feeling a little awkward, here.

I’ll let you know how the race goes. This weekend is Row for the Cure. Currently there are 11 boats signed up in my category, the Women’s Masters 8+. Can provide details on that exciting race later, too.