Category: Racing

Question of the Day

By readyallrow February 18, 2014

How should a coxswain deal with pre-race doubts and jitters?

I think you should always be a little nervous before you race. I get nervous going to the starting line but that’s mostly because I try to micromanage everything (not really the best course of action, to be honest…). Granted, being in control of your nerves and not being that person that is a blithering idiot about everything is fairly crucial too. If you’re doubting something before your race, whether it’s your skills as a coxswain or your crew’s ability to have a good race, you didn’t prepare enough, plain and simple.

Using your time wisely and effectively during practice and practicing the things you need to work on will ensure that on race day you’re adequately prepared to do what you’re there to do. I mean, that’s the entire reason why we practice, right? If you come back from a race knowing you were really nervous going to the start, figure out why. Is it just general nerves or is it because you didn’t have a race plan, were running late, etc.? Once you’ve figured out the root cause, determine how you’re going to do it differently next time. That could be actually coming up with a race plan, getting the crew together 30 minutes sooner than last time so you can launch earlier and not be rushed to the line, etc.

If you’re nervous and it’s just the normal kind of nerves, relax, close your eyes, and take a deep breath or two. (This is commonly called “centering yourself” in the sport psych world.) Outside of trying to micromanage things, I’d say that most of my nerves are nothing more than an adrenaline rush. That helps me out a lot at the start though because once the flag drops, the nerves go away and the adrenaline takes over, which means I’ve got a lot of energy to put into the beginning of the race.

Another thing that helps that a lot of athletes do, particularly pro-athletes, is visualization. If you’ve been watching the Olympics you’ve probably heard at least one athlete from every sport say the spent the previous night or the morning of their competition visualizing their routine or their race. It’s exactly what it sounds like too – you’re visualizing yourself going through every step of your event, from launching to your warm up to back into the starting platform to every part of your race plan. Visualizing how everything is supposed to go helps you build a bit of confidence which ultimately leads to your nerves either being eliminated or at the very least, better controlled.

College Coxing Racing Recordings

Coxswain recordings, pt. 17

By readyallrow February 11, 2014

Dartmouth University 2011 Eastern Sprints Lightweight 8+ Heat

One early takeaway from this recording is how quickly and seamlessly he gives their position on the crews around there – “half a length up on Cornell, holding our margin on Princeton”. The easiest way to make communicating that information to your crew as effortless as he did is to know who’s in your race (duh/obviously) but if you’re a novice coxswain who isn’t used to racing six crews across, a simple hack is to write the crews (in lane # order) on a piece of electrical tape (with a Sharpie) and tape it above your foot.

Around 4:20ish you can see that Princeton’s already taken the rate up and Dartmouth … hasn’t. Their coxswain called that lengthen 10 and then the “big focus 5” (personally I think those should have been switched) and seemed to completely miss Princeton taking it up until they were already a few strokes into their sprint and had started to full even. They still won the heat and obviously that’s the most important thing but you’ve gotta make sure that you’re not so focused on calling moves that you forget to look at what’s happening around you, especially in the last 500 (or 300, in this case).

Other calls I liked:

“That’s it Dartmouth…”

“Grip and breathe…“

“Keep your focus internal, they’re not taking seats any time soon.”

Dartmouth University 2011 Eastern Sprints Lightweight 8+ Grand Final

Following the previous recording, this is the grand final from Sunday afternoon.

His intensity is great and like all good coxswains, it’s not about what he says but how he says it. His calls are sharp and concise and the tonal changes in his voice really emphasize what he wants his crew to do. That is the ultimate takeaway from this recording. He also tells them exactly where they are on the other big players in the race, as well as how far into the race they are time-wise. As they’re walking through Yale during the sprint you can feel the energy he’s bringing through his calls and that’s what you want at the end of the race – gun to your head, if you’ve gotta pick one spot in the race to pour your energy into, it’s right there in the last 500.

At 1:30 they’re through the 500 and practically four boats across when you hear him say “swing it and go, pry those puddles, take one seat…”. Take one seat. This is a great move because it’s a small, achievable goal for the crew and when the crews are that tight, walking up or back one seat on the field can be a huge difference maker.

Other calls I liked:

“There’s blood in the water, you’re hungry for this win…”

“Stomp on them, go…“

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

Coxing Q&A Racing

Question of the Day

By readyallrow February 5, 2014

Hi, so I’m coxing a race this weekend and its a bit of a funny course. Its raced 2 X 1800m stints so I am unsure how to cox it? As two separate pieces? Or as the full 3.6k? How tired should they be at the mid point, as they get a good few mins rest?? I am also racing the course later in a crew so it would be interesting to know your take on racing such an odd head. Sorry for all the questions, Thanks a lot! 🙂

Personally, I think I would try to cox it as a combination of a head race and a sprint, with the starts being head-race style and the bodies being sprint race style … ish.

A few things, first…

I’m assuming this is set up more like a head race course and less like a sprint race course. I’m also assuming that in between each 1800m you’ll want/have to keep the crew moving (meaning no one completely weighs enough). If you do get to weigh enough, pretty much everything I said in orange doesn’t apply (except for the park about making sure they all drink something).

Break the two pieces up like you would a head race – the first third is all about technique, pace, and rhythm, the second third is starting to incorporate in some motivational calls (sparingly), and the final third is mostly motivation while still keeping them on pace. With this race, your middle third is going to be the end of one piece and the beginning of another so you’ll probably end up doing calls that center around “clean strokes, finish out the first piece strong” and “let’s re-establish that rhythm we had in the first piece, *compliment them on something that felt really good that you want to carry over to the 2nd piece*”.

Make sure you and your crews stretch before you go out, drink plenty of fluids, and eat something small within 30min of your race. Also, don’t forget to go over your race plan one final time with them before you launch. Keep the warmup conservative but if you have room and time to spare, try to get at least one good practice start in at at least 3/4ish pressure. Don’t take too many hard strokes though, you don’t want to tire them out before you even get to the starting line.

You’re right, this is a really odd race but I think the key to racing it successfully is having a coxswain who knows how to pace his or her crew. The rowers also need to know how to pace themselves but I think it’s a lot easier to do that when you’ve got one person saying “this is when we’re gonna go hard, this is when we’re gonna stay relaxed, in 50m we’re gonna hit it, etc.” If you’ve got eight people that are rowing as eight people instead of one crew, you’re not going to be able to pace yourself and you’re going to burn out really fast.

I would say how tired they are probably depends a lot on their individual fitness and stamina but if I had to make a really rough guess, I’d say if they were working hard and you paced them properly they should probably feel like they just did a 2k at about 85-88%, give or take. They should be tired and feeling it but not so tired that they can’t do it again after 3-5 minutes.

Racing Video of the Week

Video of the Week: 1994 M8+ World Championships

By readyallrow February 3, 2014

Coxing Q&A Racing Rowing

Question of the Day

By readyallrow January 28, 2014

So I have a question. My rowers are asking me to take power 10s basically every 20 ish strokes. It seems excessive to me but I feel like I should follow their request. What do you think? Thanks!

My first question is why are they asking you to take them every 20ish strokes? I’d figure the answer out to that first before deciding whether to acquiesce their request or not. I’ll agree that that does seem a bit excessive but if you’re doing it during practice, say during a steady state piece or something, then I think it’s fine. On occasion I’d do that with my eights when we were doing longer pieces to break up the monotony – they wouldn’t just be power 10s though, they’d be 10s for something, but hopefully that part’s obvious.

During a race, yea, that’s pretty pointless. When you do any kind of burst the output is typically expected to be just a bit above normal compared to the rest of the race. If you’re rowing at 96% as your “baseline” then the 10s or 20s you take, assuming you use them sparingly and strategically, should be able to be right around 98%. If your base is 96% and your consistently taking 10s/20s then right around 750m in you’re going to stop feeling any difference in power between your base and the bursts. Around 1250m you’ll start to feel everything falling off and nothing will be as powerful because they essentially wasted their energy and spun their wheels in the first half of the race.

Talk to them and figure out why they want you to call 10s so often and then decide from there. Just because they’re requesting something doesn’t mean you have to do it. Life’s full of little disappointments like that. If you don’t think it’s an effective use of your time though then tell them why (you can use what I said up above if you want, just don’t just say “no, that’s dumb, shut up and row”). It’s also possible that they’re asking you to call power 10s because they don’t think you’re talking to them enough or giving them enough feedback while you’re rowing and since power 10s are an easy “go to” thing to tell the coxswain to do, that’s what they’re doing. Regardless of what it is though, you need to communicate with them and figure out why they’re asking for this, why they think they need it/what they think they’re getting out of it, and then decide if it’s a worthwhile use of your time. Talk to your coach too if you’re unsure. They know your crew better than I do so they’d be able to say “yea, they need some practice taking some hard strokes when they’re tired (like they will be during a race)” or “no, that’s not what they need to be doing, rather you should have them do something like this instead: _____”.

Coxing How To Q&A Racing

Question of the Day

By readyallrow January 21, 2014

Hi! In a race, when you call a power 10, do you call it two strokes ahead (Power 10 in two, that’s one, two,) or do you just call it?

I say it’s up to you, what you’re comfortable with, and what you see. With younger, less experienced crews you almost always call it in two because they need that “warning”/prep period a little more than an advanced or elite level crew would but as you start working with advanced high school crews, college crews, etc. you can almost always call it “on this one” if you choose to.

I tend to go back and forth with how I call it. If I can see another crew making a move or we’re running out of water to make our move, regain seats, walk away, etc. then I’ll say “on this one” because I don’t feel like I can afford to waste those two strokes where you’d normally say “one, two”. If we’re in a good position and I want to keep building on that then I’ll say “in two” or something similar because I think that it helps to maintain the pace that is (hopefully) already working for you and it doesn’t give that sense of immediate urgency that “on this one” does.

Coxing Q&A Racing

Question of the Day

By readyallrow January 17, 2014

Any tips on being clear and concise with calls during race pieces? I tend to get a little overwhelmed by everything going on around me and I sometimes trip over words or get too wordy.

Tripping over words is gonna happen. It’s just one of those things that you can’t get defeated by, especially if you’re just starting out as a coxswain. Out of all the recordings I’ve listened to I’d say probably three of every five have some kind of flub in them. It’s not that big of a deal though and most of the time if it’s just a quick stumble the rowers won’t notice it, especially if it’s during a race. If it becomes a frequent thing and it’s causing you to get flustered and lose your focus, then it’ll start becoming a distraction to the rowers, which you don’t want.

The times I have the most issues with this is when it gets really cold outside and my face is so cold that my lips are numb. Numb = not moving very quickly = my brain is stringing together calls faster than my mouth can spit them out. Most of the time I just stop, shake it off (I literally shake my head), refocus, and pick up where I left off. All that happens in about a split second so it’s not like you’re taking five strokes to recover. Acknowledge that you slipped up but remember that at the end of the race, you’re most likely going to be the only one that remembers and/or cares.

One thing that can help with being too wordy is to plan out your calls ahead of time. I don’t plan out my races word for word but I at least have a general idea, based on previous races, practice that week, and talking with the crew, of what I want/need to say. You can make it easier on yourself too by putting a post-it note near your cox box with a list of calls on it so that you can see the calls that you need to start incorporating into your vocabulary. That way on race day you’ll already have them in your brain and won’t have to worry so much about getting tripped up over trying to come up with things to say. It also helps you avoid being too wordy because you know these are the calls you need to make at some point based on everything I already mentioned, meaning the rest of the time should be filled with anything you see about their blades right now (as a crew or individually), where you are location-wise, where the other crews are, etc.

Related: HOCR: Race plan “hacks”

Before you work on your calls though you need to figure out what’s overwhelming you about races. Is it just because you’re not the only boat out there or because everything’s happening so quickly or …? As soon as you determine why you’re getting overwhelmed then you can take the necessary steps to work on that during practice so that in future situations you don’t feel that way. If it’s because of the other boats being around you, put yourself in between two other crews while you’re doing warmups or something and don’t pay attention to them. Keep an eye on the distance between the blades so there aren’t any clashes but other than that, pretend like they aren’t there. Focus on your crew, their technique, and what they’re doing.

Since you’ll likely need to look at another crew during a race to see their position, practice doing this by pacing yourself throughout your row – try doing it every 5 strokes to start. All you’re doing is giving them a quick glance too. The longer you look at them the greater the chance that you’ll get distracted. Everything that’s going on around you should be secondary to what’s happening in front of you. Keeping the focus on what your crew is doing and not getting distracted by the other crews around you is a matter of discipline, plain and simple.

College Coxing Racing Recordings

Coxswain recordings, pt. 16

By readyallrow January 9, 2014

Sacramento State Start Lake Natoma Invite

This is a short clip that gives a good example of how to call a start. I’m not a huge advocate of counting down the strokes unless it’s two or three strokes leading into a move or stride (i.e. “let’s shift in three … in two … in one, now…”) but that’s beside the point in this particular recording. The takeaway here is her tone and how she delivers her calls – sharp, quick, and concise.

Bucknell Men’s Novice 8+ Grand Final ECAC New England Championships

https://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&feature=endscreen&v=d14Y4JzmsRM

Overall this is a good recording for a freshman/novice race. He starts off the first 500 by spending a lot of time noting their position on the other crews, which on one hand is good that he’s giving his boat that information but there’s definitely a better way to present it. You don’t want to put all your energy into talking about the rest of the field because that takes the focus away from your boat, which is the number one priority. You want to make sure you’re throwing down a clear, established rhythm right as you settle to your base pace and then once you’ve got the boat running and swinging well, that’s when you can start shifting your focus to how the race is evolving around you.

At 1:25 when he’s building into their upcoming move, it feels super frantic when he yells “get the bow ball ahead”. I get what he’s going for but I think this could have been executed a little cleaner. The subsequent calls though are good.

As the race goes on, he’s doing a great job of telling the crew where they’re at on the rest of the field … which I know is contrary to what I said earlier but the difference is that now is actually the appropriate time to be making all those calls. You hear him talk about how close they are to Michigan and Ithaca right before and right after they cross the thousand – that would have been the opportunity to shut them down with a move. When you’ve got crews that are half a seat or one seat off of you, you’ve gotta shift your priorities from whatever you’re currently doing to putting them in your rearview mirror for good. You don’t want to be on the losing end of that seat race once the other crew finally decides they’re sick of you guys sitting on each other.

Last thing to point out – look at the courses of each of the coxswains as they’re coming down the course. Trinity was swerving a bit in the last 250m or so, which probably/definitely cost them a seat or two. You can see Bucknell and BC doing the same around 5:00 and in the last 10-15 strokes, respectively.

Other calls I liked:

“Our race to win…”

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

Coxing Q&A Racing

Question of the Day

By readyallrow January 5, 2014

I’m a sophomore in high school and this is my second year coxing. When I was a novice, my coaches would give me an outline of a race plan they wanted me to follow. Now that I’m varsity, I have a pretty good idea of how to make one on my own. But I want to make sure I have a really good race plan before the season starts. So I was wondering if you had a good race plan for a 2,000 meter race?

I wouldn’t spend too much time thinking about your race plan just yet because a) it’s only January and b) you most likely don’t know what boat you’re gonna have yet. Until you know your crew, their tendencies (what part of the race is their strong spot and where in the race they start to fall off), strengths, and weaknesses, you can’t really make one. Whatever you come up with now would more than likely change completely by the time April rolls around.

Related: Training: 2k test strategy

For me, my race plans were always skeletons until the day before the race. I always had the basic premise figured out well ahead of time but I wouldn’t fill in the details until the last minute because the specifics were usually based on whatever my boat and I had been working on during practice that week, as well as race(s) from the previous weekend. Typically it looked something like what’s below. Since I was part of a scholastic team and not a club team we primarily raced 1500m so that’s what this is based off of.

Start: High 20 @ 38-40spm, settle 10 to 34-35spm

500m: 10 for X

750m: 5 to sit up, refocus before the mid-race move

1000m (give or take 100m): High 20 to move on or away from a crew or the field

1250m: 5 to build into the sprint at 36-38spm

1400m: Take the rate up again if necessary and charge the line

Once I had an idea of who we were racing, what we needed to focus on, etc. I’d fill in the details and give myself an idea of where I wanted to call each technical 10 (if my coach and I thought it was necessary to have them – if we didn’t, I wouldn’t include one unless something I saw during the race that warranted it). Regarding bursts to take seats, I’d call them as I needed to since you can’t really plan that kind of thing. The rule of thumb that I always try to abide by is that you should stick to the plan until it has to change. The “plan” is more of a loose guideline than anything else anyways. Races are very fluid and you’ve got to be adaptable to that. There’s nothing more frustrating than a coxswain who goes into the race and is hell bent on rigidly following his/her race plan to the tee, regardless of what’s going on, and forgetting to actually observe everything that’s happening outside of the 3ft x 1.5ft seat they’re sitting in.

This is one of the reasons why I don’t think you should be formulating one 3.5 months before the season begins. It gives you tunnel vision that’s hard to break and you become less likely to absorb the things you’re hearing and seeing during practice. Wait a few months, spend some time on the water with your boat, and then put one together. Don’t forget to get input from your crew and coaches too.

College Quotes Racing Rowing Training & Nutrition Video of the Week

Video of the Week: Yale Men’s 8+ at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics

By readyallrow December 30, 2013

Wouldn’t it be cool if collegiate crews still represented the USA at international regattas like this? This video talks about Yale’s eight that competed in Melbourne and the tough competition they faced, mainly in the Australian crew, on their way to winning the gold medal over 2nd place Canada and 3rd place Australia.

There were a couple things I took from this video but the biggest one is what is said at 6:20 – “he has the phenomenal ability to pace himself so that the last stroke he has to row is the last stroke he can row”. Ponder that thought the next time you’re on the water or on the erg. Condition your body so that the last stroke you have to row is the last stroke you can row.