Tag Archives: rowing

The agony of …

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I’ve delayed doing a post on the blog because I’ve been wanting to write about our loss at San Diego, but for a while it was actually painful to think about. It’s heartbreaking and only a couple of days ago did I finally start getting over it. Pretty ridiculous, huh.

I recall how bummed I was when UCONN got knocked out of the NCAA tournament after a thrilling overtime loss to USD.

I was bummed and angry when Tom Brady and my Patriots lost in the final minutes of the Super Bowl (damn that Eli Manning).

In these two cases, I assumed the best team would win. I was wrong.

For all you Giants and USD fans out there, quit yer whining. I don’t want to hear ANY reason why you think your team is better. They aren’t. Except that when it counted, when it really came down to it, my teams failed and your teams won.

That is heartache.

And so it was with the San Diego race. The Womens Master B (final only). Nevermind that actually, we beat five crews quite handily. We were .5 seconds away from first place. See the decimal there? That’s half-a-second. In the time it took me to type this comma, we lost the trophy, the gold medal, the rights to say that we are number one.

In the same vein that I believe Tom is a better quarterback than Eli, that UCONN was better than USD, so did I come to believe that we were the better crew. The fastest crew. The winning crew. What hurts is I was ready. We were ready. We were hungry and we wanted it.

One of the things that helped me get over it (other than friends and family looking at me funny wondering why I was so pissed off to place second in such a competitive event … which, personally, I don’t get. What, you think Derek Jeter WANTS to miss the World Series? Please.) was to watch the video. My mom purchased the DVD of the race and I finally got around to watching it as I was trying to figure out how to upload it to YouTube (which I still can’t figure out. I work where? I do what? And you want me to figure out video file conversion?). I thought I’d never want to watch that thing. Why should I … I know how it ends.

But I watched that finish and for a split-second I thought we won. I showed it to the husband, and he thought we won. The frikkin video editor, who, following the end of the race, showed only our boat and not the “winning” boat, must have thought we won as well.

It took the judges quite a while to determine a winner, 10 or more minutes, which to me sounds vaguely like those yahoos in Florida reviewing a hanging chad during the 2000 Presidential Election. In a sport where it is all about times and absolutes and yeses and nos, this very well could have been a maybe.

No, I don’t have a medal. This year. But I’m feeling better. Looking forward to cheering my teammates on Opening Day. Looking forward to new adventures and new races.

No guts, no glory.

No pain, no gain.

No guts, no glory

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SDCC

My last post before heading down to San Diego. While down there, I may try to post remotely. Will have to see how it turns out. I’ve decided that a rock playlist is the way to go in terms of iTunes Playlists. It worked well for the Big Climb, and why mess with a good thing?

Beyond that, I’m focussing on “getting mean”. At the request demand of the coach, it’s time to get f-ing pissed. Or, as the coach would say, PISSED. So, I’m putting my insecurities and doubts away. I’m looking for aggression and fierceness. Saving it for Sunday, when I lay it all out on the water. This is my mantra. Get mad and get pissed. This isn’t just about me, it’s about eight other women, so it’s now or never.

No guts, no glory.

With that I’m ditching my pop playlist. “Road to San Diego” will keep me company instead. I tested it on the erg at lunch today — (2) 15-minute steady state pieces — and it worked well. On top of “69 Floors of Rock“, add to it:

This should tide me over for now.

I’ll see you in SD.

Fremont Four-Miler. Wet and messy

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Yesterday I posted about and mulled over Drew Ginn’s thoughts on a race plan. Today I raced, and most of those thoughts went out the window. Our race start time was 11:40, which, for the area we were racing, isn’t a good time. By this point, the wind picks up, the rest of the world wakes up and decides to tool around in their sailboats. It’s just messy.

The Fremont Four-Miler, as it suggests, is four miles long. In rowing terms, 6.4K. We weren’t even sure who else was racing in our category. Which means then that you have to row within yourself, imagine a competitor fighting for seats right next to you.

We are first in this flight and start with a building 3 that puts us right at the start line and away we go. We start strong, and take a big lead over the next boat. Following the first turn, towards the south end of Lake Union, some boats start their moves on us. There was still quite a few boat lengths in between us to make it difficult to tell if we were in danger. The danger actually came near the south end of the lake as the water got choppier and choppier. In addition to really bad water conditions, we were forced to fight against the human element as well. Apparently someone was holding sailing classes, so a launch waked us big time, throwing water right over our bow. As we trudged along the east side of the lake, and with these conditions, it really was trudging, Melissa called for us to stop. A sail boat crossed our line and she had to stop us before we hit. We yelled at them that we’re racing … it was completely ridiculous. We picked it up again but the water was continuing to battle us. It was in the bad water that we continued to gain against the other boats, but it didn’t make me feel any better.

The water didn’t calm down until we got past Gas Works Park. At that point it was crucial to forget the fact that I was soaked to the bone, that the oar was hard to handle because it was wet and my hands were wet. That the boat had lost its aggressiveness at the catch and that we had done our best to just continue on. That we were tired and my arms were tired just trying to battle the winds and the wakes. It’s crucial to focus in, leave the rest behind, and pull.

I tried to pull. Did my best to follow the rower in front of me, and to give what I had left to give. Melissa gave the call to raise the stroke rate twice in the last 500m or so. By this time it was obvious we had a huge gap of time before the next boats. Any of them. But we went with the legs and the faster hands to raise the rate, and did it one more time before the final 20 and the loud horn telling us it was over.

Probably the worst water I can remember racing in. There was nothing you can do about it. Just hope that you’re prepared, technique-wise and fitness-wise. As our cox’n likes to tell us, every boat is going to face the same conditions. We just need to do it better.

We did, I think. But man, it was messy. Wet and messy. I’ll update this with results when they are posted online.

In the meantime, here are a few photos I took of the Masters races that happened in the flight before ours. Most of the pics I took turned too fuzzy to bother with. As always, Green Lake Crew took a bunch of great pics.

Update – the results were just posted. In the Womens Masters 8 our crew placed first, with a time of 28:32:61. In the Womens Open 8 we also placed first, with a time of 26:56:03. Our mens team also placed … in the mens masters 8, second. And in the Mens Masters 4, first.