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.
Share on Facebook
News, Racing / Competition
Here is a message from Los Angeles Rowing Club’s Coaching Coordinator, Chris Reins:
