Category: Racing

Coxswain Recordings, pt. 26

By readyallrow November 13, 2014

Brookline Boys V4+ vs. Duxbury and Arlington-Belmont

This coxswain recently emailed me their recording so below is part of my reply to them. If you’re coxing bow loaders, take note of the first paragraph. Like I said, it’s a one-in-a-million chance but keep in mind that for the work you’re doing, your body isn’t necessarily in the most efficient position and forcing it to do even more unnatural stuff (such as making your voice way deeper than it needs to be) can lead to less-than-pleasant outcomes for you.

“I like the way you called your start and the intensity that you had. The only thing I’d recommend here is to be a little more natural with it and try not to force your voice to be super deep, particularly if you’re in a bow loader. I was talking to a friend a few weeks ago who said that while he was coxing his four over the summer he actually developed a stress fracture from tensing up his torso too much and trying to force out a voice that wasn’t natural for him. It was so bizarre but I can see how it’s possible – you’re laying down and essentially doing a crunch every time you force the air out to make your voice deep like that, which puts a lot of strain on the muscles around your rib cage. Something like that happening is probably one in a million but it’s definitely something to be aware of. Doing that also wastes a ton of oxygen and energy which just ends up causing you to become tired and out of breath early on in the race.

At 2:05 when you say “bow pair, what are you doing for our boat right now…”, I would caution against calls like that because it comes off like you’re saying you don’t think they’re doing anything or that they’re not pulling as hard as the stern pair. Even if that’s true, you don’t want to make it seem like you’ve lost confidence in literally half your crew. Instead, I would eliminate that part entirely and just say something like “bow pair, let’s channel your power into the next five finishes … squeeze it through and send the boat … ready, on this one“. That way you’re getting them to think about harnessing their power, you’re giving them a specific part of the stroke to target, and you’re putting a bit of responsibility on them for the next few strokes to really make the boat move. Ideally you’d follow that up with some positive calls during the five (“yea bow pair…”, “that’s it…”, etc.) to maintain the momentum and motivation too.

You’re doing a great job of telling the crew where they are on the other crews. This is where a lot of coxswains fall short and you’re nailing it. Great job.

At 2:39 when you tell Kyle to get his seat ahead of another crew “before this bridge”, in the future I’d just throw in how many strokes there are until you reach the bridge since that’s obviously something you can see but they can’t. I’d say something like “Alright Kyle, we’re 15 strokes out of the bridge, I want you sitting on their bow ball when we come out the other side – you’re leading this 10, ready, GO…”. Again, it gives that person a bit of personal responsibility while letting them know exactly what you want and how many strokes they have to do it in.

If you find that the splits are starting to creep up towards the end, instead of saying “get them back down” or something equally as vague, relax your voice and just talk to the crew. Take all the tension out of the air and get them to relax. They’re tired, they’re in pain, they can’t breathe, and they just want this to be over but you’ve still got 400m left … what are you gonna do? Take 5 to breathe, 5 to relax the shoulders, 5 to refocus, and 5 to recommit and reestablish the ratio. Focus your calls specifically on only those things when you’re calling for them. When you’re calling that last five, remind them to lengthen the recovery, power through on the drive, swing together, and feel the rhythm. From here you should be able to go right into the build for your sprint.

Last thing, when you’re calling for them to get the rate up, remind them to get it with power on the drive, that way everyone is going after that higher rate the same way at the same time.”

Winter Park High School 2014 Bertossa Cup

This style of coxing is perfect for pieces (5x5min, for example) during practice. There’s a good balance with the calls and the tone is just aggressive enough. During a race I would probably want her to be a little sharper and more concise with the calls (vs. dragging them out a bit here) but for practice pieces this is totally fine. Definitely give it a listen though because it’s just another example of good coxing and you really can’t ever have too many of those.

You can find and listen to more recordings by checking out the “Coxswain Recordings” page.

Coxing High School Novice Q&A Racing

Question of the Day

By readyallrow October 29, 2014

Hi. So this is my first year being a coxswain and I’m pretty young (not going to specify). We have just started the season for regattas and I was wondering if you have any advice on what to call during a race with a novice crew? When we are just practicing I don’t really call much because our coaches like to come out on speed boats and help. Also what kind of weights do you take in the boat with you because at the last regatta we have had some problems with weights changing before and after the races which meant we got disqualified.

If you’re not talking a lot during practice because the coaches are working with the boat then the (usually unsaid) expectation is that you’re listening to what the coaches are saying to the individuals and boat as a whole so that you can incorporate the things they’re saying once you start coxing the boat more. So ideally, if you’ve been paying attention and not zoning out, you should already have a solid list of things that you could say to your crew.

As far as weights changing, I’m not sure I know what you mean. That would only matter if you’re coxing a lightweight boat but novice lightweight crews are fairly rare. Weight changing after the race doesn’t matter either, the important thing is that you’re at weight when you weigh in a few hours beforehand. After that you can pretty much do whatever you want. Most places will give you a wrist band or a stamp on your hand or something that indicates you’ve made weight too.

The only weight that should go in the boat is if you are below the minimum of 110lbs for women’s crews and 120lbs for men’s crews and you have to bring a sandbag or weight plates out with you to make up the difference (i.e. I weigh 95lbs so I’d have to carry 15lbs if I was coxing women or 25lbs if I was coxing men). Unless you’re going to actual USRowing sanctioned events though it is highly unlikely you’ll ever weigh in. I think I only did maybe three times my entire high school career. Sorry I couldn’t be more helpful with this part of your question though. Feel free to clarify in the comments or shoot me an email if what I said up above totally missed the mark.

Check out the posts linked above – they all kind of touch on first races with novice boats, things you can say, etc. Some might be for spring races but nearly everything is applicable regardless of whether you’re doing a head race or a sprint race. There are also links within those posts that might help you out as well.

College Coxing Novice Q&A Racing

Question of the Day

By readyallrow October 24, 2014

Hi. This is my first year being a coxswain ever and also my first year rowing for my college team. Our first race is this weekend on the Willamette. Any words of advice for someone who’s never done this before?

I’ll tell you the three things that I just told someone else:

Make sure you get plenty of sleep so that you’re well rested on race day. Fight the urge to lay in bed and scroll through social media on your phone or watch TV because before you know it it’ll be two hours later and your alarm is set to go off in two hours. This is a really bad habit of mine so whenever I know I need to get some sleep but am not feeling tired or would rather be catching up on Twitter/Instagram I’ll put an eye mask on so that it essentially forces me to close my eyes and try to fall asleep.

Pay attention during the coxswains meeting and if there’s something you don’t understand or want/need clarification on, speak up and say something. There’s a good chance that you’re not the only person with that question so you might as well ask it so the race officials can clarify it for everyone. One of the things that really encouraged me to speak up at these pre-race meetings was occasionally having the officials say “oh, that’s a great question” or “I’m glad you brought that up, I almost forgot to mention that” or something along those lines in response to something I’d asked. It might not seem like it’s that big of a deal but hearing that verbal confirmation that you had a good question can do a lot for a coxswain’s confidence (both at that moment and going forward).

Stay calm no matter what happens, both on land and on the water. Head races are always a little hectic, especially for coxswains (and even more especially for novice coxswains) but it’s a great way to test your ability to maintain your composure while executing your race plan and showing off your leadership skills to your coach(es) and teammates.

Since this is your first race as a coxswain it’s unlikely than anyone’s expectations are that high. That’s not to say that basic expectations aren’t there but no one expects you to go out and steer a perfect course or cox a perfect race your first time out. I always look at races like this as a learning experience first and a competition second. Make sure you have a rough plan going into the race and an idea of what things your coach wants you to focus on. Be aware of the traffic pattern (please) and try to focus on one thing at a time while still being aware of what’s going on around you as you make your way to the starting line and the starting chute.

Above all else though, have a good time. Enjoy the experience and be able to move past anything that doesn’t go according to plan.

College Coxing Novice Q&A Racing

Question of the Day

By readyallrow October 22, 2014

Hi! I’m a freshman coxswain on my college’s club crew team and I coxed for four years in high school. My team is going to our first race this weekend and it’s a head race. We only have about 1000 meters of water to use when we practice, so we haven’t actually rowed a 5k at practice and my boat has only really had one practice together. How do I go about coxing a head race when my boat hasn’t been together very long and some of the boys in my boat have never even rowed 5000 meters continuously?

There’s a first time for everything, right? Obviously things aren’t going to be perfect because as you said, you haven’t rowed together for very long and where you train doesn’t allow you to actually practice the distance you’ll be racing so one of the things that you could/should do is try to keep the focus on maybe two or three basic things (i.e. the set, the sequencing, and the timing). You know how you cox hard steady state pieces during practice where you’re not racing but there’s still that intensity about the piece and the focus is mainly on the technical aspects of the stroke, having enough power and ratio to get some good run on the recovery, etc.? That’s what I’m talking about. I’d approach it like that while including some hard 10s and 20s as you see fit.

Related: All about Power 10s

Having your expectations adjusted accordingly lets you (and your crew) shift your focus to things that can actually help you get better in the long run. Rowing 5,000 meters for the first time, both individually and as a crew, might not be easy but if you go into saying “here are our goals, this is what we’re going to focus on” then you can come off the water hopefully being able to say that you worked on them and felt them get better over the course of the race, in which case you could say that you had a successful race … vs. going into it with the sole goal of getting from Point A to Point B as fast as possible and only making calls about walking on other crews, “power 10!”, etc., all while knowing that none of those things are realistic for your crew to be trying to do right now. Hopefully that makes sense too.

The pressure of being in a race situation is obviously something they need to experience and learn to manage but your biggest responsibility will be to keep them focused on whatever goals you or your coach gives them (set, sequencing, timing, etc.) and not let everything fall apart once they start realizing how difficult it is to row full pressure at 30+ SPM over the course of 5,000 meters. Pacing will be important, especially at the beginning when they’re like “huh, this isn’t that bad… *tries to row full pressure at 38spm with no semblance of timing, set, or technique*”. As an experienced coxswain this is definitely something that you’re capable of doing so those would be my suggestions for how to cox them. Make sure you talk with the rowers and coach sometime in the next couple of days to figure out what they feel the current strengths and weaknesses are so you can start planning your calls accordingly. Good luck!

College Coxing Novice Racing Video of the Week

Video of the Week: “Ignatius, stop rowing”, pt. 3

By readyallrow October 20, 2014

Really? Really?

That novice boat should have been disqualified and given a serious talking to by the regatta officials with their coaches present. (Supposedly they only received a 20 second penalty.) This goes way past your standard novice screw-up. The blades of the two boats were overlapping which means they were probably less than 10 feet apart. This was almost a head-on collision between a varsity four at full race pace/pressure and an eight that appeared to be rowing at least by bow 4. It doesn’t matter that they’re novices, “oh they weren’t going that fast”, “they probably just didn’t know where to go”, etc. … NO. Not buying ANY of those excuses.

Coxswains, I implore you to use your common sense and pay attention to the traffic patterns so you know where the travel lanes are and where the actual race course is. I don’t care if you’re a novice or varsity – pay attention. Varsity coxswains (and coaches, because … it’s your job …), you should be asking the novices multiple times if they understand the course, the traffic pattern(s), etc. so that there is no question that they’re prepared when they go out on the water and aren’t going to be at risk of putting themselves or another crew in danger. Novices, you need to suck. it. up. and get over being intimidated by asking questions and ask someone if you don’t know where you need to go. There are plenty of people on land that you can ask, in addition to regatta officials and other crews on the water. You should also have your head on a swivel at all times so that situations like this don’t happen.

There’s really no question with regards to how the coxswain from Marietta College handled this. Given the nature of the situation, I think he did well. I mean, what else can you do other than make a split second decision to either try to get the other crew’s attention and/or drastically alter your course? He was loud, made a good effort to get the coxswain’s attention, got his crew right back into it afterwards, and didn’t appear to have to make any steering adjustments. Saying “way off course, coxswain” is pretty much the tamest thing he could have said in that moment so props to him for not losing it on the other crew. Trust me, as much as you’d probably want to in that situation … don’t. Find the regatta officials afterwards and talk to them or go find the crew’s tent/trailer if you know what team they’re from and let their coach know what happened. It’s not about throwing them under the bus or trying to get them in trouble so don’t use that a reason to not say something later. The only way situations like this are going to be prevented in the future is if people speak up and give the coaches/officials a chance to address with the coxswains where they need to be on the water, either again or simple more effectively this time.

Coxing Racing

HOCR: The course in meters

By readyallrow October 15, 2014

Previously: Getting to the starting line || Steering through the bridges || Landmarks along the course || Steering around the turns || Race plans || My general race plan || Yaz Farooq’s coxswain clinic || Race plan “hacks”

Over the last week I’ve gotten a few questions about whether anything exists that tells the distance that each of the landmarks are from the starting line or from one another and since I wasn’t aware of anything and those of you that asked weren’t able to find anything, I figured I’d just make something.

I used RowDistance, a site made by Andrew Campbell, so the numbers aren’t exact but they should be fairly close. You could also do this using Google Earth. I did this three different times and where I found the biggest discrepancy in meters is from the start of the Eliot turn all the way to the finish. My numbers were about 100m different from each other depending on how I laid out that part of the course, which just goes to show how much things can vary depending on what line you set yourself up for.

I also rounded everything up to the nearest -00 or -50 just for the sake of simplicity (although during the race I’d probably just round up to the next closest 100m because otherwise it becomes way too much effort). The first row is the only one that you should ideally know, the rest are just there because I figured “why not…”.

You can either click to enlarge the image above or check out this spreadsheet to see everything.

Image via // @dosdesignsltd

College Coxing Racing Recordings

Coxswain Recordings, pt. 25

By readyallrow October 14, 2014

University of Tennessee 2011 Head of the Charles Women’s Champ 8+

Overall, this was a very well-steered race. Her Weeks turn was practically perfect so I’d definitely recommend studying her course through the bridges and around the big turns. Coming around Eliot, see how close the buoys are to her riggers? That’s exactly what you want. As they’re coming under the bridge the video resets to the beginning but if you jump ahead to 30:00ish you can see the rest of the piece from Eliot to the finish.

I felt like the coxing throughout was OK (definitely plenty to talk about but nothing super noteworthy) but the key thing you should takeaway from this is how she handles the course. Pay close attention to where she’s lining herself up in the straightaways and on the upcoming bridges, where the shell is relative to the buoys, etc.

Vesta 2012 Head of the Charles Women’s Champ 8+

This is a good recording. Nothing really sticks out because she executes and steers pretty well throughout the entirety of the course. Overall it’s just a really good example of how to handle the race. One thing I’d definitely pay attention to though is the first 90 seconds. You get a really good idea of what the start of the race is like in terms of staging, what the officials are saying, how they bring you to the line, etc., which can be helpful if you haven’t raced the Charles before.

Other calls I liked:

“Extend into the front a little more, bring the handles to me…” Meaning to make sure you’re getting fully compressed and getting your full reach/extension.

You can find and listen to more recordings by checking out the “Coxswain Recordings” page.

Coxing Racing Recordings

Pete Cipollone’s 1997 HOCR Recording

By readyallrow October 12, 2014

So as some of you pointed out yesterday, the YouTube video that contained Pete’s recording from the 1997 Head of the Charles was removed due to copyright claim from row2k. Linked below is the fixed link on row2k that I highly recommend you bookmark since this is pretty much the only place online that you can find the full recording.

As a bonus, Seth Bauer’s audio was also fixed (neither of the audio links on there have worked in years, which to be honest is probably why it was uploaded to YouTube in the first place) so you can listen to his race as well, which is also from the 1997 HOCR. He coxed the 10 year reunion crew of the 8+ that won gold at the Copenhagen World Championships in 1987.

Image via // @davesarazen

Q&A Racing Rowing

Question of the Day

By readyallrow October 6, 2014

Hey, I was wondering if you could explain the difference between seat racing and matrixes? Thanks!

Someone recently shared this PDF with me that opens to a chapter on crew selection written by Kris Korzeniowski. I’d recommend reading through the first six pages because it explains the entire process of seat racing much better and way more thoroughly than I could. This PDF also explains it well.

Here is another (simpler, I think) explanation that I saved from a Reddit post a couple months ago.

“Say the coach wants to compare rower A to rower B. Rower A starts in boat A and rower B starts in boat B. They race. boat B and boat A tie. Rowers A and B switch. They race again. Now Boat A, with rower B in it, wins by open water. Rower B won the seat race. The only thing that changed was the switch between rowers A and B. When rower B switched into boat A they went faster than boat B and won. Clearly, rower B can make the boat go faster than rower A.”

With the stroke rate and four of the five people in a crew staying constant, the strength and technique of the rowers who are switched (the variables in the equation) will pretty much always tell you who is the faster one of the two because the better the rower’s strength and technique, the more distance they’ll be able to cover.

The “pros” of seat racing are that they simulate race situations fairly well and are easily repeatable. The “con” is that the races can take a lot of time if you have a lot of switches to make in addition to making sure you have equal and adequate amounts of rest time between pieces, the pieces themselves, etc.

Related: Words

A pairs matrix is pretty similar to seat racing except all your rowers are in pairs (hence, the name), are paired up similar to what’s in that table to the right, and there’s more data to work with in the end (which may or may not be a good thing depending on how much you like math). They also take for-freaking-ever. The one time I did this we had like … I donno, maybe five pairs, and it took well over four hours.

The “pros” to doing a pairs matrix is that if you row well technically in a pair then you’re probably going to row well in the eight. Rowing in a pair has a tendency to highlight and sometimes exaggerate your technical ability, for better or worse, so you’re able to look at that a bit more closely than you’d otherwise be able to in a four or eight. The “cons” are the amount of time it takes (did I mention it’s forever…) and that it can favor smaller/lighter rowers who can in turn get crushed in the big boats because the other guys are stronger, heavier, etc. Some people just work better in different boat classes. You have the same issue with seat racing too (which tends to favor the heavier guys) so this isn’t something that’s exclusive to pair matrices, it’s just that it’s a bit more visible.

Related: How to cox a seat race

Hopefully all that makes sense. We did some seat racing this morning and I think I actually have a much better understanding of it now than I did previously (and before I started answering this question). I’d say if it’s something you’re confused by or don’t really understand, see if you can go out on the launch with your coach and record the times. Carefully looking at the numbers and talking it through with the other assistant coach that I went out with (and basically making him explain it to me like I’m 5…) finally cleared up the one part of the process that was confusing me.

College Coxing Racing Video of the Week

Video of the Week: UW’s Last 250m

By readyallrow October 6, 2014

This is a pretty neat split screen video that shows the University of Washington’s MV8+ during the IRA finals last spring, with the view of the finish line tower on the right and the coxswain’s view in the boat on the left. His audio is included too and it’s pretty much exactly what you’d expect the last 250m of a national championship race to sound like.