Seven Singles

Sunday morning:  An armada.  This morning, the scullers had an armada of singles out on the water--2 women's singles (including me) and 5 men's singles.  Sculling by yourself can be lonely and it was exciting to row with so many other scullers, but it was also a bit like herding cats.  Seven singles trying to turn at the log boom, at the same time was also fun.

The workout was:

1.  7 minutes at a 26spm
2.  5 minutes at a 28spm
3.  5 minutes at a 28spm
4.  3 minutes at a 30spm
5.  3 minutes at a 30spm, with lots of active recovery in between pieces.

Having all the boats start together made the pieces more competitive.  Being the slowest boat, I had to work extra hard to keep up (or just cheat and pull up ahead of the other boats when we lined up) and made a special effort to give the faster boats a run for their money.  In sculling, trying harder sometimes makes you faster, and other times, it backfires.  You could feel like you are trying really hard and putting everything in, but in reality, your stroke and technique could be falling apart and your overall efficiency and speed decreasing.  There was a time in the single, when the harder I tried, the slower I got.  Practice and patience, however, has turned that trend around.  Now, there is actually a positive change in boat speed when I row harder. 

Rowers are a strange breed, and scullers are an even stranger set.  You do not always see the scullers practice.  They do not always have set practice times or have to do extra burpies or push-ups when they are late because they are accountable to no one except themselves.  With no coxswain to push them onward, scullers must find the motivation from within.  Because of the loneliness of sculling, scullers are often known to be more quiet, reserved, and aloof.

At Lake Merritt, we do not seem to have that problem.  We have a strong group of vocal scullers.  If you were to grab coffee with them after practice and ask them anything about rowing, your quick coffee would turn into a two hour long, intense discussion about something, anything, and everything about rowing.  You would probably learn a little of something that you always wanted to know, something that you would have never guessed, and something you could care less about.