Last weekend before Head of the Charles. If you wanna do some last minute prep, check out these posts:

HOCR: Getting to the starting line

HOCR: Steering through the bridges

HOCR: Landmarks along the course

HOCR: Steering around the turns

HOCR: Race plans

HOCR: Yaz Farooq’s coxswain clinic

HOCR: The course in meters (roughly)

HOCR: Weeks, Lowell House, and “The Turning Tree” (video included)

Taking the Weeks turn with a new fin on the Empacher (video included)

Next week’s gonna be pretty chaotic so if you’ve got any HOCR-related questions, ask them before Tuesday because I’ll be off the blog from then until at least the following Monday. Good luck!

Oh, and if you’re coming into town and don’t want to deal with cabs (trust me, you don’t) or the T (again, trust me, you don’t) and you still haven’t signed up for Uber yet, you can get a free first ride (up to $20) if you sign up here.

Guess what? The blog is ? four years old ? tomorrow!

Earlier this week I posted some tips for managing a head race that will hopefully be helpful now that we’re fully in-season and HOCR is coming up fast – you can check that post out here. Last week I also posted three things that coxswains should consider when evaluating their practice performance, which you can read here.

Looking ahead really quickly to HOCR weekend, if anyone wants to walk the river with me this year, Thursday the 20th is gonna be the day I do that. Shoot me an email if you’re interested!

Yesterday I posted two great questions on dealing with injuries and communicating with your coaches about your recovery, taking time off, etc. – you can check those out here and here. The key takeaway from both of those is that you must communicate with your coaches, regardless of how approachable or not they might be.

I also posted on Tuesday about five things you should do as a novice coxswain (or whenever you join a new team) to ensure you have a smooth start to your coxing career.

This week’s playlist is heavy on the Suicide Squad soundtrack – if you haven’t heard it yet, you should listen to it. It’s awesome.

This week’s VOTW is a really cool short film called “Ergo” that kinda leaves you with a cliffhanger at the end but it’s so good and really well shot. Definitely check it out if you haven’t watched it yet. Also check out this week’s coxswain recordings post (they’re both head races) and last week’s post on how issues with the bladework can affect the set of the boat.

One week of camp left and then … school starts. I’ll be in Maine this weekend but will try to answer emails when I can throughout the week so if you emailed me while I was in CT + NY + PA, stay patient, you’ll hear back from me soon.

Did you see this question from yesterday on swearing while racing? If not, check it out and also check out the USRowingRefs account on Twitter. They’re a good resource and worth the follow. Other posts from the past two weeks include this one on how to prioritize and organize your calls, what it means to be a walk-on, and the latest edition of “qualities of a varsity coxswain“.

https://play.spotify.com/user/1241641027/playlist/5x8UEdBSPOer63o2I9T5xH

Last day of camp tomorrow and then I’m done … for two weeks, before going to Northeast Rowing Center for a week. It has been a busy, busy, busy few weeks so if you’ve emailed at any point in the last month (or I’ve promised you an email), you should start seeing replies starting sometime next week. Thanks for being patient while I’ve been working, traveling, and coaching!!

https://play.spotify.com/user/1241641027/playlist/20Px8xjHswZ93w91kJrxlS

One week of camp down, two weeks to go!

Check out this week’s post on the “inside arm, outside arm, wide-grip drill” if you haven’t yet, as well as last week’s recordings post which featured another set of recordings from Kaitlin Snyder. These ones were from the Crew Classic in 2008 and 2009 when she raced there with Washington.

Last week I posted my thoughts on the Cox Orb (tl;dr I love it) so for those of you who aren’t familiar with it or might be in the market for some new cox boxes, definitely check it out. I’ll be doing some follow-up posts to it in the future (answering any questions that I didn’t answer in that post (email me if you have any), showing how different features work, etc.) so keep an eye out for those in the coming months – probably on YouTube. And, speaking of YouTube, I posted the last five GoPro vids of the season yesterday, including the four’s race at IRAs.

I also posted a couple questions yesterday (here and here), one of which included the shortest answer I think I’ve ever given on here. The second question was a three part question that asked how to not view criticism as personal attacks (always a hard question for me to answer), how to respond to a coach who’s trying to change your style, and how to work on being less repetitive with your calls. All great questions and worth a read when you’ve got time. The last thing I posted this week was on coxing (and coaching) novices. I’ve gotten several emails from coxswains who will be helping out with learn-to-row camps this summer or helping to coach summer skills camps so that post is just some advice that’s been given to me over the years for how to handle working with novices when you yourself aren’t a novice. It’s tougher than it sounds but it’s also a good learning opportunity, provided you approach it with the right attitude.

https://play.spotify.com/user/1241641027/playlist/3WEy9wEbkYQrO4app21kKw

I’m working on a huge Q&A post about being a volunteer assistant and would love to hear your questions. This is a topic that comes up a lot – less so on the blog, more so in person or in emails – so I thought I’d do one big comprehensive post on it, especially now that I’m going into my third year with MIT and feel like I have a good grip on how it’s done (or at least how I do it). I’ve already put together a short list of the most frequently asked questions I’ve gotten in the past but for those of you who think you might want to get into coaching at some point, if there’s anything you want to know about what being a volunteer assistant is like, hit me up.