Tag: racing

Question of the Day

By readyallrow February 21, 2013

One of the varsity rowers told me about a certain race move/call-10 for pairs? Like having all 8 take a 10, but emphasis for specific pairs. I’m not sure how to call that, can you help me out? I was thinking maybe ” Alright, we’re all 8 we’re going to take a 10 by pairs.. in two… in ONE.. on THIS one, stern pair let’s see what you got! That’s one… two… 5 and 6 right here 3… 4..” and so on..” I don’t know if that’s how you call it…

Yup, I know exactly what you’re talking about. I use this frequently with my boats, usually in the second thousand of a sprint race or during the final 30ish strokes of a head race. I like to do 5 “hard” strokes per pair + an all eight power 10 so that I’m not making the crew do a straight power 40 or something. I usually say something like: “OK, coming into the last 30 strokes, let’s feel it – stern pair 5 … give it to me, on this one… (5, 4, 3, 2, 1) … 5 + 6, now, (repeat down to bow pair) … and all eight, 10 to bring it home, on this one…”.

I like to use each pair’s five strokes as “focus” strokes to get them to maximize the stuff they’ve been working on … like, they’re obviously still power strokes but I’ll usually say something like “grab those catches, bow pair”, “5 + 6, let’s see that jump!”, “squeeze the finishes 3 + 4!”, “Stern pair, work that rhythm now...”, etc. At the end when I call the final ten I’ll say something about driving across the line just to remind them how close we are to the finish and to give that last little bit of “oomph” to get us over.

Q&A Racing

Question of the Day

By readyallrow February 21, 2013

Do all spring races have a marked lane/course?

Not all of them do. Duels smaller regattas tend to be on open lanes, meaning there are no buoys marking the course. At larger regattas there are almost always buoyed lanes and markers every 500m, which smaller regattas may or may not have.

If you know the races you’re going to, do some research online to see what the course looks like. Social media is a good place to search because there’s tons of photos that’ll give you an idea of how things are set up. If you can’t find anything that way, talk to your coach or some of the varsity coxswains on your team and see what they say.

Coxing Q&A Racing

Question of the Day

By readyallrow February 21, 2013

Is it a good idea before our first spring race this weekend to get together at someone’s dorm and “go through” the race? Like, I’ve heard of coxswains sitting their rowers down in a dark room, eyes closed, and imagining the race while the cox does the calls.

For sure! It’s definitely always a great idea to go over the strategy with your crew before you race because then there are no surprises and they can anticipate things a little better. Make sure you go over Plan A and Plan B, that being what you’re going to do if something during the race doesn’t go as planned and you have to deviate from Plan A.

I like the idea of the rowers visualizing the race while the coxswain makes the calls. I know that’s a thing that some of the national team coxswains do and if you take it seriously and really commit to it, it could be a useful tool for you and your boat. Even if you just have them close their eyes while you walk them through each 500 and point out the highlights of your race plan, that’s another great way to help them stay calm and prepare for the race.

Q&A Racing

Question of the Day

By readyallrow February 15, 2013

Can you explain what a scrimmage is like? If it’s different, how is it different from other races? Preseason kind of race, right (like other sports)?

Scrimmages in crew are basically like scrimmages in any other sport. They’re a test run to see how what kind of impact your training has had thus far and what kinks, if any, still need to be worked out. (That’s how we always approached them in high school/college, other teams might look at them differently.)

They’re about 98% the same as a regular regatta. How they’re run individually is up to the teams racing but for the most part things are usually pretty lax. Some of the scrimmages I’ve participated in were run specifically for the races, not so much everything else (getting lined up, following a time schedule, etc.). There were never any hard and fast rules on “this is when this race will start, this is when you need to launch”, etc. – whenever you and the crew you were racing got to the start would be when the race would begin. Other races were very strict, just like at a regular regatta. There were official start times, official starting procedures, etc.

For rowers, there isn’t much of a difference between a scrimmage and an actual regatta – you’ve still got to row 1500m or 2000m. The coxswains will be the ones that notice the subtle differences because they’ll be the ones who have to deal with them. How things are done though should be explained at the coxswain meeting (if you have one) but if they’re not, just talk to your coach. He/she will have all the information you’ll need.

College Coxing Racing Recordings

Coxswain Recordings, pt. 5

By readyallrow February 14, 2013

Rochester Institute of Technology Liberty Leagues 2012

Right off the bat, I love her “get us out ahead” call. Obviously that’s always the goal but making this call right at the start gives the crew an immediate objective.

At 1:20 when she says “they’re probably at our four seat”, you want to tell them where the other crew is but you don’t want to say “probably”, “maybe”, “might be”, etc. That gives the rowers the opportunity to look out and see if the other crew actually is where you think they are. Even if you’re not 100% positive, act like you are. Instead of “probably at our 4 seat” just say “they’re sitting on 4 seat”.

When she says “they’re dying, we got ’em” at 3:51, that would have been a great spot to make a move and really break that other crew.

At 4:24 she says “gotta go right here and now, comin’ up on 500m … gonna be close … you can see it, you can taste it”. That’s a great call to get them pumped for the sprint and let them know it’s going to be a close fight. Immediately after that would have been a great opportunity to take a 10 or 20 to make a move and really hammer the message home (to her crew and the rest of the field).

Other calls I liked:

“They know we’re out for blood…”

“You want that fucking banner? Let’s see you get it now.”

“Punch it, let’s move…”

“Fuck them, let’s GO!” Definitely – definitely – a call I would make. Reminds the crew to focus on themselves and, well, fuck that other boat.

UCLA 15 on, 15 off

This is bordering on a little angry with her tone of voice but overall the intensity is good. The only thing that could have made this better (and maybe justified her almost-angry tone of voice) is if she’d been sharper with the counting instead of drawing out each number. This is a good example though of why it’s important to project your voice rather than yell – it’s easier to stay sharp with the calls when you’re using your core to make yourself loud vs. just yelling from your throat, which doesn’t give you same amount of control.

UCLA W4+ Drills + steady state

Between 1:28 and 1:31 she did a great job of changing her tone to reiterate what she was saying about hooking the blade in. She also does a really good job of connecting the puddles to the crew at 2:12 and using that as a visual cue to get the crew to lengthen out and get the spacing back to three inches of open. Another thing she does well throughout the recording is calling out the rowers for individual corrections.

Other calls I liked:

“Swing and run…” Great call to make during cut the cake.

University of Washington V8+ 2012 IRAs Grand Final

This isn’t actually a recording, it’s a video montage of some of the footage from IRA’s last year overlaid with some of Sam Ojserkis’s audio. I can’t embed it here so you’ll have to watch it over on Vimeo. Since Washington is easily one of the top programs in the country, I thought it was worth sharing. “No one’s going to hold our pace” – that’s confidence. I like the definitive “OVER!” at the end too.

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

College Coxing Racing Rowing Teammates & Coaches

“Baseball bat!”

By readyallrow February 13, 2013

A few weeks ago I went to the What Works Summit coaching conference at CRI and one of the main things I was looking forward to was hearing Kevin Sauer of UVA speak. He was a huge reason why I looked at UVA in the first place when I was applying to schools so to get the chance to hear him talk was an opportunity I didn’t want to miss.

He gave two presentations, one on how to make the boat move and then another as part of a roundtable discussion on championship programs. During the roundtable he told this story that, even now, just kind of blows my mind because it’s so awesome.

So, a bit of background to start. UVA won the 2012 NCAA Championship led by the 1st Varsity 8+, which was the first time they’d accomplished that. They’d won NCAAs previously but never with a V8+ win too. After graduating a good class the previous spring (2011), they were now tasked with putting together a boat that could match or exceed the skill level of the rowers they’d graduated. When they came to Head of the Charles in 2011 and won (in a time of 16:11.519, eight seconds faster than 2nd place Radcliffe), he was pleasantly surprised. They weren’t going against the national team since they were training for the Olympics, but they beat the other college teams, which is obviously who they needed to beat. Then, when they went to Princeton Chase and won there too, he started to realize this boat had something.

Now, looking at the competition, Michigan was solid last year. They killed it all season, basically just blowing the other crews they raced out of the water. They only lost twice on their way to a Big 10 Championship and 2nd place finish at NCAAs. When Coach Sauer was telling us this, he started talking about this race that Michigan had against Princeton.

Michigan got out hard and controlled the entire race, winning with a length of open over Princeton and two lengths of open over Brown. He called a team meeting and played this video for the girls, without saying a word from beginning to end. They silently watched it and at the end someone asked, “So, how are we going to beat them?”, to which he replied “I don’t know.” They started throwing ideas out there on what their race plan and strategy was going to be, how they were going to train for this, etc. Everyone’s contributing ideas and he just kind of blurts out “baseball bat”, to which the girls were all … “what??”. And he said “Baseball bat! We’ve just got to keep hitting them and hitting them and hitting them.” At the time, and still now, he said he had no idea why that was what came out of his mouth because it didn’t make sense to anybody, including him.

Part of their strategy was this move that they make at the 1000m mark but because they knew Michigan’s tendencies, he told his coxswain on race-day that if she needed to take it right at the beginning of the race to avoid letting Michigan get away from them, do it. The goal was to not let them get an inch of open water on them, otherwise it’d be all over. Coach Sauer and another coach were following behind the race in the launch and saw that, like they’d predicted, Michigan got out hard and fast. They started to walk, seat by seat, until they were six or seven seats up and he said he was thinking “come on, make the move, gotta go, don’t let them break away, gotta make it now…” and then all of a sudden they started seeing UVA walk until they were even with them.

The other coach in the launch said “You’ve got it. They (UVA) won.” and he said he was thinking this guy was crazy because they were only 750m into the race. BUT, they had won at that point because by making the move and walking on Michigan, they broke them. Michigan couldn’t and didn’t know how to counter it, presumably because it wasn’t something they’d had to deal with all season (which you can look at as either a good thing or a bad thing). UVA ended up winning and the rest is history.

When they got back to the dock, Coach Sauer went up to the coxswain and said “What did you do, what did you call? What’d you say to them to make that move?” and she said “All I said was ‘baseball bat‘.”

That is like … wow. This random thing that he’d blurted out during a team meeting, something that meant nothing to anyone at the time, is what they all internalized to help them win a national championship.

My point with this story goes back to what I was talking about in the question I answered this morning (linked above) but it also touches on a lot of other things too. The moves you plan aren’t always going to happen when you want them to – sometimes you’ve got to do something spontaneous to reap the maximum benefits. The calls you make are important, which is why I try and stress to you guys to say what you say with a purpose. When you’re talking with the coach or your crew, pay attention to what people say – you never know what is going to resonate with people. Baseball bat?? I mean, come on!! That’s such a basic, meaningless term but it became the rallying cry of sorts for this boat. It is your job to figure out what it takes to get your boat to move, so always keep your ears open – you never know when you’re gonna hear the call that changes everything.

Image via // UVA Today

Coxing Ergs Q&A Racing Rowing

Question of the Day

By readyallrow February 13, 2013

When do you call power 10s, both on the erg and the water? Would it be like when you see a girl’s split dropping and staying down on a 2k or during a race if you’re close and want to pass another boat? Or could it be any time just for a burst of energy? I don’t really know the strategy, I just know at some point I’ll have to sound like I know what I’m doing and call a few.

On the erg, I don’t call a power 10 unless the rower has asked me to beforehand. A lot of rowers don’t like to be bothered during 2ks so they can get/stay in their zone and randomly popping up behind them to give a power 10 can sometimes do more harm than good. When they’ve asked me to give them one, they usually say to do it whenever it looks like they need one or they’ll say “I want a 10 at 1500m, 20 at 1000, 10 at 750m, 10 at 500m, and 10 at 150m.” If they say to call it whenever I’ll try and do one at each of the major meter marks and/or within the last 100m. In between there if it looks like they’re falling off a little I’ll give them a quick 5 instead of a 10 to get them to refocus.

On the water, I always have a strategy ahead of time that I try and stick to. Nearly every burst I call is called with a purpose – I very rarely call a burst just for power but if I do it’s usually because I’m not feeling the power or because I want to get up with or past another crew. During sprint races in high school I was always trying to listen to the other coxswains and when I’d hear them take a 10 or 20, I’d wait for them to get about halfway through it before I’d start my own burst. Not only would that counteract their move nearly every time but it’d also put us a little bit more ahead at the end of it. Sometimes those spontaneous calls would interfere with my planned calls so I’d either go straight into the planned call or I’d skip it if we were far enough ahead that I could afford to do that. For head races, using the course map to find the landmarks, mile markers, etc. will help you a lot in figuring out where to make calls.

In sprint races, I don’t deviate too much from “the plan” each week since 1500m or 2000m courses are the same everywhere. They’ve all got 1500m, 1000m, 500m, and 100m to go marked along the course and since those are major points where I tend to call strategic bursts, I don’t change it up very much.

Normally my crew would also have a “special move” thrown in outside of my usual spots, usually to counteract another team’s move or to just open some water on the other crews. This was typically a 20 where we’d build for three, bump the rate up a beat or two for 15-18, then settle back into our regular pace over the remaining couple of strokes. These moves always had code words associated with them so that the other crews wouldn’t know we were making a move. “POWER 10” is really, really obvious (and easy to exploit by other coxswains), especially when you’re yelling it into your mic, so we’d talk during practice the week before and figure out what they wanted me to say. Usually it was something simple like “fire ’em up” and they would just know, without me saying it, that the move starts on the next stroke. They’d make the move and I’d cox them as normal. Even though I wasn’t calling it I could see it happening because we’d either be walking on or away from a crew and I could see the stroke rate change on my cox box. (We practiced this a lot to ensure everyone knew when to bring the rate up and when to bring it down too. Doing it on the fly I think would have been a mess.)

At bigger regattas where sprints were a bigger deal we’d take 5 to build into the last 250 but before that burst we’d take a build into the build that was purely for power. My senior year when I used the build-into-the-build nearly every race, I’m convinced that it’s what put our bow ball ahead in the few races we didn’t win by open water. I don’t remember what I’d say to start that build but it was always something synonymous with “power”. I think one of the things I said most often was “bend ’em”, meaning to hang on the oars so hard that you’re bending them as they go through the water. Going into the 5 to build into the sprint, the call was always “light ’em up” and then the start of the sprint was “afterburners”.

The best thing you can do is to sit down with your coach, your crew, and a course map. Figure strategic spots along the course to make a call then figure out what that call is going to be for. If you’re going to use a code word, discuss that with your crew. Make sure everyone knows what the word is and what means. Once you’ve got the strategy down, figure out your “special” move, what it’s going to be, where you’d ideally like to call it, and then make sure you practice it throughout the week so the crew gets used to hearing and feeling it.

Coxing Q&A Racing

Question of the Day

By readyallrow February 7, 2013

I never know what to say at the beginning of a head race. I know what to say once we get going but not before, any ideas/tips?

This past season with my eight, I think the only thing I consistently said to them while we were staging was “we’ve got a plan, let’s get after it” or something like that. I tried not to talk too much before the starting line (with the exception of telling people to row) because I wanted them to focus in and not be distracted and I needed the quiet time to focus on getting us lined up in the chute.

Coxing Q&A Racing Training & Nutrition

Question of the Day

By readyallrow February 1, 2013

I was talking to one of my rowers today who said what’s scary about rowing is that when you get tired, it’s not like another sport where you can just run slower. You all have to just keep rowing together. What do you think is a good call to motivate them to power through? I don’t want to just be like “you can do it!”

When we were doing Head of the Charles pieces in the fall, my boat would always start to really feel the fatigue right after the Eliot turn, when there’s about 750 meters to the finish line. One thing I constantly said to them coming out of that turn was we’d made it 2.5 miles down the course and we’re gonna keep pushing through that last half-mile.

Another thing I’d say is “bodies over brains”. Rowers of all people should know this, but I think we often forget how much our bodies are capable of and the amount of discomfort they’re able to endure. A lot of the time when we react to pain, it’s our brains reacting, not our bodies; our brains make it out like it’s worse than it is. When I know they’re starting to feel it, I tell them “bodies over brains” or “don’t let the brain defeat the body”. It reminds them their bodies are stronger than they give them credit for and that they have the ability to push through the pain, all they have to turn is block out the voice in their head telling them to stop. A friend of mine used to say that to his boat a lot so I started incorporating it into my calls too.

Related: Words.

One time I got really pissed at a boat I was coaching because they weren’t putting in the effort I wanted and I stopped practice for a few minutes and said something to the effect of “would you rather experience a little bit of pain now or would you rather experience a lot after the race is over?” Somebody asked what I meant and I said that whatever pain you’re feeling now is insignificant. It makes you better, it makes you stronger, it teaches you things. The pain you feel after a race you should have won or after an erg piece that you gave up on, that is the kind of pain that can defeat you because it weighs on you for a long time. You keep going over and over in your mind what you could have done differently or better or how maybe things wouldn’t have happened this way if you’d just given it your all during practice. People that accept that pain during practice or on the erg don’t normally ask themselves those questions after a race is over.

Another time a kid I knew in college was talking about how he hated pieces like 8x500s at 100% pressure because they’re absolutely brutal when you’re going for 1:30ish splits. I laughed and said “don’t lie, you know you like it” and he smirked and said “it’s true”. At the time rowers hate the pain but I guarantee you afterwards, secretly, they like it because they know they’re making progress. Remind them of that – they hate it now, but they’ll appreciate it later.

Then there was that other time (in high school) when my boat was whining about how they were tired and sore and didn’t want to do another piece and blah blah blah … I was getting so irritated listening to it that I just blurted out “suck it the fuck UP!” Everybody stopped talking and my coach, who was in the launch beside us, said “OK … are we ready to do some work now?” Up to that point in the season, that boat was undefeated and I was determined to finish the season undefeated. After practice we had a quick meeting with our coach and I apologized (although to be honest, I didn’t really mean it…) but he said no, don’t apologize, if you guys want to finish this season with a “0” in the loss column, you’ve got to embrace the pain and suck it up. For the rest of the season, no one complained about being sore or tired or wanting to “not do any more pieces”.

Coxing Q&A Racing

Question of the Day

By readyallrow January 29, 2013

So nervous for spring races! I’m so worried that we’ll start and I won’t keep straight, crash into another boat and not only ruin our race, but another boat’s. I know practice makes perfect but how do I take down the anxiety attack?

I actually feel similarly before most races. It’s not so much that I doubt myself but the adrenaline building from the time I launch all the way up to the start gives me the jitters. When we get locked on to the stake boat I usually take a second where I close my eyes, take a couple deep breaths, mentally run through my game plan, and tell myself that I know what I’m doing, my crew knows what they’re doing, and all we have to do is execute. As soon as the start marshal says “GO” everything gets channeled into the race. The adrenaline that gave me jitters before fuels me during the race – I literally think I run on nothing but pure adrenaline for those six minutes.

You have to trust the face that you know what you’re doing, your coach trusts you, your crew trusts you, and you trust them. Assuming you’ve been having good practices and your crew is well-prepared, you’ve got nothing to worry about. You know how to steer. If you didn’t, your coach wouldn’t keep you with that boat – he’d put someone who know what they were doing in there.

If it’s something you’re not 100% confident about, practice your steering every time you go out. Have your coach watch you and give you feedback. Most likely you’ll have buoys when you race so you’ll have a guide on either side as you go down the course. When you get to the starting line, take a second to breathe, remind yourself of the plan, and get ready to go. When the starting marshal says “GO”, let your instincts take over. When the race is over you’ll wonder why you were ever anxious in the first place.