First, I started out the day with a 1k erg test that I miserably failed at. It took every ounce of willpower not to give up and stop in the middle of the piece. If you do enough erg tests, you will learn that you will not PR on every erg test and not every test is going to 'go your way.' Still, bummer.
Second, it proceeded to rain for most of the day. In California, at the end of June, rain is just bizarre.
Third, evening practice ended the day in a bang or at least with a broken paddle.
This evening, we had 1 eight, 1 quad, 2 women's singles, and 1 men's single out on the water. The Bay Blades had 4 singles. Quite an armada of boats. With boats of varying speeds, quite a group of cats to herd.
Our workout today was 6x2.5 minute pieces at full pressure and race rate. The first two pieces practiced the first 500m of a race and had starts. The middle two focused on the body of the race. The last two worked on the last 500m and included the sprint.
Being in a single, I was a little removed from Chris' launch and the other boats during the warm-up. But already, I could hear vivid, animated words from Chris who was irritated with everything that was going wrong--limited dock space, conflicting equipment needs, miscount of the number of rowers, and attempts to stay out of the way of the Bay Blades.
The pieces were hard. The eight and the quad were close in speed, battling each other on every piece. In the single, I started ahead and just tried to hold off the boats for as long as I could.
At the end of the third piece, we were paddling, getting ready to stop, spin, and line up for the next piece. Chris did not give us any direction on where to line up so we assumed that we would start at the dam, according to the normal traffic pattern. We were headed in that direction when Chris shouts, "What the fuck are you doing? Where are you going?"
Chris was furious. All of practice, we had been very diligent about staying out of the way of the Bay Blades, but now, at the dam, two Bay Blade singles were lining up to start a piece and we were about to cut in front of them. We quickly rectified our mistake and lined up on the opposite side of the main lake, albeit against the normal traffic pattern. Chris continued to curse. He even managed to break his wooden paddle in half when he slammed it against the launch. It would not have been fun if the motor died and Chris was stranded with no paddle. (Actually, it might be a little hilarious--'coach swims to shore after breaking paddle.')
Chris has been angry before, but today's fury was a new high. It reminded me of the one time at camp in Wisconsin when I had seen my coach's true fury.
That afternoon, about two weeks before USRowing Club Nationals, my pair partner and I and another pair went out with our coach. To begin with, the conditions on Lake Mendota were not that great. At the dock, the wind was already bouncing around our boats. We rowed along the edge of the lake for awhile towards Picnic Point.
When we got close to the point, a sailboat, sailed by a high school or college aged girl, had just ran into an oar of the other pair. Just as she was untangling herself from that pair, she did not look where she was going and sailed right into my pair. She crashed into the side of our boat and sat on top of my partner's rigger. Yes, we could have flipped, but we managed to push our boat out from under hers and break free.
Our coach became very, very ANGRY. He stood up in the launch and yelled at her, "Jesus fucking Christ. You're going to tool my boat. What the fuck are you doing? You were gathering speed and not even looking. Do you know how to sail? Which sailing club are you with? What's your name?"
Our coach has yelled at us before, but more out of frustration about something we were not doing right, such as staying on rate. This, however, was just pure anger. Anger is definitely a motivator. No wonder he made the National Team. You have to have some form of bottled up anger and/or violent emotion inside of you in order to withstand so much pain and nonstop competing/seat racing.
The poor girl was very apologetic and looked like she might cry. Once the boats separated, we continued rowing. Our coach jetted off like a madman over to the sailing docks and probably yelled at whoever was in charge of the sailing program. We felt bad for the girl who was probably so traumatized that she would never ever want to sail again. Thankfully, we never saw that level of fury unleashed for the duration of camp.
As for today's practice, there were a few other things that added even more color to our practice. A dead goose floated around in the water. A mini-oil spill blocked off part of the lake, near Fairyland. And there was a random phone call in between pieces and in the middle of Chris' fury from our team captain's family, asking if they should wait for her for dinner.
It was an interesting day to say the least.
ergs and pissed off coaches is an excuse to post the following comment and response to a blog entry on how to row a 2k
ReplyDeleteAnonymous said...
6.30 at rate 24. I've just turned 16
10/26/2007 5:13 PM
Coach Jay said...
Anon:
In my experience, those who spend lots of time bragging on their erg scores usually have some other sort of issue that needs to be addressed. Either technical, or mental.
My point, young man, is that nobody wants a braggart in their boat. That's not what rowing is about. I've rowed with and seen plenty of your type before. When the coach mentions a technical problem, you smirk to yourself and think, I'm fine, I'll just pull harder. After practice, you talk with one or two other people, complaining that somebody doesn't belong in the boat and they're not pulling hard enough.
Frankly, BOY, you haven't won s***, you're too young to know s*** and your arrogance displayed here reveals a character flaw that leads me to predict your rowing career won't last much beyond some mediocre time spent in a second or third boat. Oh, I'm sure that some coach at a high-level institution will see your great erg score and get fooled into thinking you're something special. That is, if you have the grades to get in, which I doubt. However, you will get beaten in seat races by men who are quiet, row well, match up with the crew and are 20 seconds slower than you on the almighty erg. Your coach will shake his head, try to put you in the varsity, and give up after losing a few races.
This blog is a forum to talk about rowing, coaching and exchange ideas. Not anonymous spray-painting on the walls. But here's the part where you prove what kind of person you are: You'll do one of three things.
1) Slink off, thinking "what a loser, I don't need to prove anything to him." When we're all thinking the same thing about you.
2) Post some sort of childish retort, complete with the phantom races that you've won, but keeping your school/name out of it. Kind of like how you DO have a girlfriend, but she just goes to another school. And you don't want to tell anybody her name.
3) Grow up, say I'm sorry about coming off like as ass. Go talk to your coach and honestly ask him how you can make your *team* better. Realize that there will ALWAYS be somebody with a faster erg score and you'd better figure out how to make the boat move and move with your teammates. Somehow, I doubt this will be the end result.
Don't come in here bragging about being a big dog, son. The only bragging that goes on here is about somebody's TEAM. If you want everything to be all about you, then you're in the wrong sport.
Besides, it's my blog, so by definition, I'm the BIGGEST DOG THERE IS.
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I had a tradition of rereading this whenever I set a PR on the erg.
It is from:
launchexhaust.blogspot.com/2007/01/how-to-pull-2k-test.html
(not that I agree with his advice)
Wow, that's intense. The blog is also very interesting to say the least.
ReplyDeleteTeam dynamics are pretty interesting. In my limited experience on teams, especially at the collegiate level, I have often been frustrated with having a decent erg score, but not able to do well on the water. The erg is much simpler than the water. On the erg, you usually get what you put in. On the water, you may be trying your very best, but you just can't figure out how to catch or finish.
It really did piss me off when I didn't make the HOTC boat in college. I had just come back from a summer of rowing with a masters team and was just starting to out-pull most of the girls, if not all. It was a small team, maybe 10-11 girls. There were a few girls who had been stars of the novice team the year before, but who didn't put in the work over the summer and their rate of improving was much slower.
Either way, the coach picked one of those girls (the team captain) over me. There were many factors that went into his decision, such as erg, water technique, weight, and team dynamics.
I'm not saying that I should have been in that boat, but that is one example of when hard work on the erg and on the water doesn't pay off.
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"Ergs don't float."
But...
"To hell with that. If a guy can pull a big erg, I can teach him to row." - Mike Teti