Author Archive
By Jessica Jacobs.
Exploding from the blocks at the start, our stroke rate ascended dangerously over 40 strokes per minute. The Paul Varga barreled down the course, unstoppable, with no intention of letting-up; legs bursting at the seams heading into the final sprint with every last ounce of life we could muster…
LARC Women's 8+
This was the ninth race for my LARC Competitive Women’s 8+ team: The 2009 USRowing Southwest Regional Championships at Lake Merritt. Loading up on carbs in San Francisco’s North Beach district the night before, we were unsuspecting of what would be required from us the following day.
The Master’s Women 8+ (AA-B) was nicely executed with a quick time of 3:43. We felt good, yet felt like we could do better. For the Women’s Open 8+, our coxswain Beth rounded us up and told us what she needed us to do. I dare not disclose the secrets here. It was big and ballsy, but necessary. We understood what we were about to do and that it would hurt. After a quick round of the warm-up area, passing by our fellow LARC teammates who were cheering us like mad from the shore, we took to the stake boats.
Off the blocks we attacked the start like a machine, sending it off at the finish
Beth defining the plan.
every single stroke. Beth cracked the whip on us the whole way down the course and we didn’t hold back. Crossing the finish line we were overcome with exhilaration (or rather, an awesome endorphin high). We raced our race, and it felt great. Our reward: a beautiful shinning bronze medal to hang on our necks.
What a fun weekend to travel to the Bay Area! It was fantastic having another crew from LARC be there to share the experience and the fun. GO LARC!
LARC Women's 8+
By Mark May:
This year’s SW Regionals took place at Lake Merritt in Oakland California. This is the month that the Lake Merritt Rowing Club typically has their annual Lake Merritt Sprints which our club usually enters (emphasis on usually) but this year was replaced with the SW Regionals.
It was nice to see the club rowing again on beautiful Lake Merritt. LARC had 5 entries 3 of which I will provide some details on (hopefully someone from the Women’s 8+ will share their race experience with the blog).
The races are in order based on the Schedule:
Men’s Master’s B
Women’s Master’s AA-B
Men’s Master’s D
Women’s Open
Mixed Master’s 8+ A-D
Mark
The first race was the Men’s Master’s B. I entered this race fully aware that I would definitely not win but I hate driving 389 miles for one 4 minute race, so I told myself, “what the hell, go for it”. There were five entries in this race ranging in age from 35 to 50; Humboldt, Dolphin, LARC, Long Beach, Bair Island. I recognized the name of the guy from Dolphin but couldn’t remember where. Then I realized he was a former member of the infamous Kent Mitchell Rowing Club. For those not knowing the club, it is made up of ex-national and Olympic Rowers from across the nation. And of course Long Beach Rowing has a history of pumping out National and Olympic Rowers as well. Both were on either side of me. For a start I did a ½, ½, ¾, lengthen and full and went into a high 10 to a settle. I was told that the Long Beach guy jumped the start but that I caught up to him (woo hoo). All five were tight at the 500M mark when the others took off and left me in their dust (or spray). Only about 15 seconds from the first place to last place finish Final Result: DFL but with a good feeling of accomplishment.
Go LARC!!
The next race was the Men’s Master’s D. I was really hoping to do well in this race. There were four entries; LARC, Rio Salado, San Diego and Marin. I raced the guy from Rio Salado at the Desert Sprints back in March beating me by only a few seconds so as far as I was concerned he was going to be the guy to beat. I had no idea how the other rowers were but both clubs have a history of winning races. By this time the wind started picking up a bit coming in from the NW pushing our bows to port so the line up and start was quick. Maybe I can call a “do-over” since I was totally unprepared when they called attention, ROW. Dug a little too deep on the port side but quickly recovered. I stayed with Rio Salado for most of the course but somewhere between 500 and 750M he pulled ahead (maybe it was due to me bouncing from buoy to buoy like a pin ball in my lane). Final Result: 2nd Place.
The third and final race was the Mixed Master’s 8+ A-D. Forgive me if my recollection of the race is a little off. It’s hard to remember when you’re rowing your guts out so Beth, feel free to chime in. This was a full race with 7 boats; Bair Island A, Deep Water, Lion’s, North Bay, Lake Casitas, LARC and Bair Island B. Our lineup was Claire, Tamara, David, Mimi, Arthur, Gary, Rebecca, yours truly and one of the best cox’ns I’ve had the pleasure of rowing with………Beth.
LARC Mixed Masters Crew, medalists!
This was a race to remember. Not so much the race itself but the line up. Imagine seven 8+’s lining up with a fairly strong wind. Then think log jam. We started the line up well but after that it was a nightmare. Before I tell what happened there are two important lessons to learn here: 1. Always listen to the cox’n 2. Know how to scull a sweep boat before a race. Need I say more? We backed up to the lane 6 stake boat, the kind ladies held on to our stern, the bow started to drift to port, Beth called to scull but before we knew it we were perpendicular to the course with bow touching the lane 5 stake boat and no way to right ourselves even after several attempts. Fortunately the good people in the chase boat made like a tug boat pushing a cruise ship away from the dock and pushed our bow straight into our lane (thanks Lake Merritt).
The start was a countdown. We planned on a start of ½, ½, ¾, lengthen, full, a high 20 to a settle at 30. During practices we were having some difficulty with settling from the high 20 but although we didn’t settle to the 30 we had good run and was moving the boat. Our start was pretty close to a 40 (I think) to a 34 settle. The Bair Island “A” boat took off right from the start but the rest of the boats were tight right up to the 500M mark including the Lion’s boat which I knew we had to beat. The Bair Island “B” boat was in the lane next to us and was pretty much bow to bow. It seemed like there was no moving on them. Beth called it good though. We did a power 15 cranking really hard and started pulling away. I thought I heard Beth say we were pulling up on the 1st place boat which motivated us to pull even harder. At 750M Beth called a rate increase and we pulled away even farther. At the 500M mark we were bow to bow, by the end of the race we were cox’n to 5 seat. We crossed the finish line second. With a handicap we came in 3rd. Final Result: 3rd Place Races like the one at Lake Merritt are made for a club like ours. We have proven how competitive LARC can be and hopefully this experience will motivate others to enter races in the future. All who raced this weekend came home with a medal, some never having raced before others who have never won never won a race before, but all leaving with fond memories. Ah the things we do for a .99 hunk of metal.
Last Tuesday I had the chance to try out the new iPhone app from Performance Phones LLC using NK’s speed coach technology. The app is called Speed Coach Mobile, and uses the accelerometer and GPS system built in to the iPhone to record data about your rowing workout.
You can get the app by clicking the link below:
I mounted the phone next to the Cox Box, in two duct taped ziplock bags, with some silica gel to absorb any condensation inside the bags. The iPhone is very fragile when it comes to water exposure, even more than a regular phone or device: it has a water sensor that causes the phone to irreparably shut down at the slightest exposure to water (I tried out this feature a few months ago, ack).
Output from Speed Coach Mobile, Facebook, and Google. Click to enlarge.
Having the app next to the trusty Cox Box, I was able to compare the accuracy of the strokes-per-minute feature. I am happy to say that the two devices were within half a beat of each other for the entire workout. It was very impressive.
The main screen of the app shows 500m split, strokes per minute, distance in meters, time of current interval, average split, stroke count, interval number, and time of day. All these fields are customizable so you can set it up to show more or less.
In the preferences you can set it for the various types of boat you row, for example, row, kayak, even dragon-boat. As far as rowing goes, it’s designed to work with any size boat, from single scull to 8′s.
Our plan was to do 3x 12 minute pieces at 90% pressure, followed by 6 minutes of paddle / rest. It was very simple to program this workout into the app and things were looking good, but we ran out of space in the marina to do the workout. It would be very good for that kind of thing though because of the timing and interval features.
Today I have uploaded the workout details to Facebook, where you can tag the team members, and even your coach. A stack of data is available, graphs and maps too.
An aspect of the app that is not so good is that the upload to Facebook costs money (I don’t know how much per upload). They give you 15 free uploads, but still, I don’t like that, considering the app’s steep cost of $65. I understand that the app was difficult to develop, and that the rowing community is relatively small (their reasons for the high price), but that seems irrelevant to me, the end user. How about pricing the app at $70 and providing free uploads? Most Garmin sports watches have free upload software that comes with them.
That said, the cost is still roughly half the price of a real Speed Coach (not including the cost of your iPhone), and it is a fantastic product. I absolutely recommend it.
For more information head to iTunes:
Here is a message from Los Angeles Rowing Club’s Coaching Coordinator, Chris Reins:
My favorite workout on the erg is a 24 minute workout that builds over the course of the piece. Here’s how it breaks down:
3 min “on”; 1 min “off” x 6
- 1st interval: 3 min @ 70% pressure; 1 min paddle
- 2nd interval: 3 min @ 75% pressure; 1 min paddle
- 3rd interval: 3 min @ 80% pressure; 1 min paddle
- 4th interval: 3 min @ 85% pressure; 1 min paddle
- 5th interval: 3 min @ 90% pressure; 1 min paddle
- 6th interval: 3 min @ 100% pressure, 1 min paddle
To translate the pressure into splits, you can do the following:
Start from your 100% pressure split — what can you sustain for 500 m? Let’s say it’s 2:00 / 500m. You could start your first interval sustaining a split of 2:15 – 2:20 and work the numbers down from this starting point.
My favorite workout on the water is 60 stroke pieces at various ratings.
By Maeve McCaffrey for Los Angeles Rowing Blog
Athletes of all kinds are adding yoga to their lives to help improve their performance with gains in strength, flexibility, focus and breathing. It can sometimes be hard to find the time to fit a regular practice into a heavy training schedule, but a regular practice doesn’t necessarily need to be a formal class. You can cultivate your personal practice and focus on some key areas that can be beneficial, specifically for rowers and injuries commonly associated with rowing. 
Last night we had Thirsty Thursday / Happy Hour at the Organic Panificio. What a great time! Thanks for coming, everyone, and see you next time.
This morning LARC raced in the Petite Final here at the San Diego Crew Classic, having advanced through from yesterday.
It was a spectacular, nail-biter of a race.
After leaping into first place in the start, LARC strongly owned the first 500 meters.
MAC and SD crept ahead by more than four seats in the second five hundred, and then continued to pull ahead.
In an incredible move, LARC triumphantly dug deep to neck and neck with MAC.
Although a photo finish was not provided, official results show LARC in 2nd place, one hundredth of a second behind MAC with a time of 7:37.21.
Coxswain Beth said, “in the last 250, from five seats down, We pulled the ballsiest move I have ever seen, and arguably won the race!”
Congratulations, team!!!
A special thanks to the dozen or so people who helped cheer down in San Diego.
Learn to row was this weekend. The whole thing went off very smoothly, thanks to Adrienne for organizing.
Click here to see the pictures.
Click Here to see as a slideshow.
Here’s what Adrienne said:
“Hello Everyone, I wanted to to say thank you so much to all of the volunteers who came out this weeekend to help with Learn to Row. We had a 100% return rate on Sunday and I know it was because of all of you!
“A special thanks to Chris Reins for planning the training for the group and to all the coaches who helped make it happen: Darius, Jill, Casey, Rebecca, Mike, Ryan, Iva, Tamara, & Robert.
“I also want to thank the coxes on Sunday: Lily, Jill, Ryan, Casey, Robert, DeAnna, Darius, Simon and Susan.
“I appreciate so much all of the help from everyone else who volunteered, whether it was to be a runner for something, organize ergs, lend an erg, do nametags, make the directions, hold the boats, row in the boats, sit in the boats, move the boats, bring food to the party, socialize with the newbies, give encouragement, bring coffee and bagels, and a VERY BIG THANK YOU to Robert for hosting another fabulous Barbecue (and finishing the new deck JUST IN TIME).”
