New (Little) Shoes

We got bonafide rowing shoes to replace the original velcro footstraps and heel cups...

Ain't they cute? End to end like this, they are probably about as long as some of the shoes in the big shells at CYC. The only way we could mitigate that problem was by wearing cheapo water shoes to widen our feet enough to make their velcro shoe ties hold us in. I'll be drilling holes in our footpads to bolt these in. Pictures forthcoming this weekend.

You can't tell from this shot, but the shoes have thinnish soles with holes in them for bolting into various "foot stretchers." Bike shoes are built to stay on the feet and click off the pedal. Rowing shoes are built to stay on the stretchers in the boat and have your feet come loose. We will be putting a lace on that joins the velcro shoe straps - in distress, I think you grab these and pull. I probably should get clarity on this! ;-)

I'm taking Friday off again this week to make a 4-day weekend this time. Rain from Fay should be done and forecast looks good for lots o' rowin'!

Nice Long Row

The water was the calmest this morning, the last of our three rows this weekend. There was a nice breeze and minimal chop. Yesterday's wind was stiffer but we managed to do drills going back and forth across our primary route. I took our old digital camera out to get pictures. Unfortunately, the batteries pooped out in no time so I didn't get many shots. Here's the best one of the bucolic view from our shell:


With it being Sunday (slowest start for water skiers), we decided to follow the longest out-and-back route that we have - going to the dam and public access ramp. Our goal was to keep it steady and even and row as long as we could before taking a break.

With our new seating arrangement, Kathleen in the stern and me in the bow, we made good time and weren't nearly as tired as when we did this before more than a month ago. We even added on an additional leg towards the end. I think this kind of row is a good idea to do at least every other weekend. We'll start tracking our times and see how we improve. We do need to work on eliminating the "S's" in our route. Not that I would accuse my rowing partner, but it doesn't seem like a good idea to be looking to the left or right most of the time. And she accuses me of being the sightseer!

All in all, a very successful set of row for Kathleen to get back into the swing of things after having missed several weeks in a row and not able to make many of the Saturday's at CYC.

Rigging Adjustments and a Friday Row

Taking a PTO day to spend time with Kathleen. We are hoping to row three times this weekend. After last Sunday's row, I moved washers on her oarlocks. They came with five thick hard plastic washers underneath the oarlock. On her right side (port side of the shell), I moved four of them above the oarlock. I moved two on her left side. Hopefully, this will help her keep her hands lower on the drive. For me, I just moved two on my right side from below to above. I also ordered two pairs of shoes from H2Row last night. Don's prices look very reasonable and he says we'll just need to remove the heel pads and drill a single hole in each footpad to bolt in the shoes.

The weather was cooler and breezier than usual this morning. Very pleasant, but we'd rather be getting rain from Hurricane Fay. Kathleen did feel better with the adjustments. The wind did make the water choppy in the main open areas. We decided to stay in the head cove of the lake. Overall, it was a nice leisurely row as we got back into our rhythm.

Kathleen did like the washer changes. For me, for the first time in months, I banged my left thumb with my right oar handle several times. Oooouuuuch.

Equipment Enhancements

I'm hoping to find some improved equipment for our shell: Foot stretchers with proper shoes to replace our current footpads with velcro straps and find narrower diameter oar handles for Kathleen.

It's looking like the oars we have aren't adjustable. We may have to buy a new pair instead of just replacement oar handles. Bummer.

Still investigating shoe options.

Final Novice Session at CYC

Today was the last special session for the adult novices at CYC. I can't say enough about how wonderful this has turned out for us (well, with the exception of the times that Kathleen wasn't able to go) and thank all of the CYC members who helped.

We hit the Learn-to-Row weekend with enough experience to absorb more of what we were told then if we had never seen an instructional tape or been in a shell before. We got good tips and corrections for what we were doing wrong. The additional Saturday sessions gave us more time and more feedback from other experienced rowers. We also got to experience sweep rowing. All in all, a really good exposure to the fun of the sport and the comradarie of the devotees. Exhibit #1 for this working out for us is the sheer frequency of our getting out on the water. I mean, geez, look at all these posts!

Next week, they re-start their youth rowing program for the fall. For us, it's decision time for joining as non-member rowers. We've decided to wait on signing up. We want to get back into a routine of rowing together and figuring out how to improve our setup at home - including dock arrangements and getting video of ourselves. We also want to go to one of the nearby "Head" races in the fall to get a feeling for these events. This desire is Exhibit #2.

Tidbits from June (bow seat) and Barry (3 seat) while Rick (2 seat) and I (stroke seat) filled out the quad:

1. Oar height in the water during the drive - avoid digging by relying on the natural floating depth of the oar. I'm having a hard time with this one. I found that my overall stroke went to hell if I let up too much on the handle - literally struggling to get ahold of the handle again.
   
2. Catch as part of the recovery - this made total sense. Reinforcing that the oar needs to be vertical and back in the water before starting the drive. This sounds obvious but any number of things can keep it from happening.
   
3. As Jay had been coaching, rolling the oar during the recovery to get to the catch position before the end. I found that if I held the handle in a particular way, as I'm reaching for the catch, the handle would almost auto-roll into the proper position. I wasn't consciously trying this during our "power" runs so I'm not sure if my grip would still work when putting oomph into the drive. It may be close because it felt very similar to Jay's description of rolling the handle with thumb and forefinger rather than the knuckle-up or wrist-down approach to feathering.
   

And for Exhibit #3, proving my sister's comment, I'm going to be looking at specialty clothing for us. Kathleen teases me because, at some point during a strenuous row, I'm sweating so much it looks like I'm peeing in my shorts. We'll at least be getting fancy stretch rowing shorts that have padding on the butt. I'll be looking at tank tops too. And hoping to find bright funny-looking colors. We'll see if we keep wearing the life vests.

First Time Single

I was on my own for the trip to CYC on Saturday. Kathleen hadn't recovered from her chlorinated water overexposure last Monday. With only three newbies, we went out in a quad where I took the stroke seat, then Rick, then Tony, and June, the experienced rower, in the bow seat. Wind made the main channel rather choppy and we turned up the channel for the first time. We went with a really slow stroke rate - concentrating on rolling oars into the catch position early, keeping shoulders relaxed, and doing the "chicken wings" with our arms at the finish. The last was news to me. I've been keeping my elbows down as much as I could.

Today, Kathleen wasn't better. I rigged the shell as a single and went out by myself for the first time. I did much better than I thought I would. Accusations of wobbliness by my partners had me a little worried. It actually seemed easier to stay upright and stable in the single than the double - maybe that's my imagination. Other differences - the boat was easier to start, since it was short a person, easier to turn, since the single seat is more centered, but a lot harder to keep going, since there was no additional help. Everything else regarding technique mistakes was exacerbated.

I just went back and forth from our home cove along one shore. I didn't want to go far from docks in case I did flip out of the boat. Because it was harder rowing, the shorter stretches worked just fine. And it was a real blast. Now, I know the meaning of "no man's land" for oar handles. If the oar handle gets past my chest, the shell tips real fast! Fortunately, I was barely moving and stayed dry. I wish I'd made notes after finishing because I can't remember all the particulars that were jumping out at me on my own compared to having two or four in the shell. I'll have to elaborate further after my next solo outing. Hopefully, Kathleen won't be missing many outings so it may be awhile.

I'm thinking this may be our best opportunity to get visual feedback on our rowing: one of us in a kayak, with a video camera, and the other in the re-rigged single. We can borrow a kayak - just need to buy the Flip Video! One can row themselves tuckered going back and forth past the kayak, then switch crafts.

Lots to Think About

With Kathleen prepping for a qualifying test and lifeguarding classes, I invited Carl out for a second time. In looking back at old posts, I realized that I hadn't covered his first visit several weeks ago. Carl is my boss and rowed in a men's 8+ in college at Rutgers. After hearing that we'd bought a shell, he was eager to come out and row again. Since he works out a lot more than I do, I figured I'd have about 5 minutes on the water before his collegiate training would reactivate, then he'd kick my ass in the boat. I'd pray for blisters to slow him down so I'd survive to the end. It almost turned out like that. Since he had sculled hardly at all, the alien in his left hand was a hindrance for him. Even with that, the two of us moved the boat noticeably faster than Kathleen and I had been able to. When I mentioned this to Kathleen, it proved to be a powerful motivator for her - she's ultra-competitive in the right circumstances. As alluded to two posts ago, Carl and I did several different drills - power 10's, long pauses on the recovery to work on balance - all helpful.

This time, I'd had more experience in the bow seat and had already been working on readying the oar for the catch before getting to the catch position in the drive. I wanted to continue that, really focus on staying in synch with him in the stroke seat, and reduce my wobbling. Compared to our last row together, we took more and longer breaks and talked more about what we were doing. This was really helpful because I didn't get so tired even though I was putting more umph into the power 10's. I discovered a bunch of things ...

• My wobbling tends to be the worst at the release - I still haven't figured out why
• My knee splaying occurs more often than when I'm gasping for air. Bummer! I've developed a bad habit already.
• Our catching cleanly together is really hard to do but when we get a run of them together, it is really sweet! Quiet, smooth, fast.
• A contributor to my difficulty staying in synch with the person in front of me goes back to the ole legs-back-arms routine. Carl's seat motion would literally stop/pause at the finish but move smoothly from forwards to backwards at the catch. Because I wasn't doing the former, I was finding myself needing to at the latter - which always felt funny. I think I'm still not quite coordinating my legs-back movement properly - leaning back during the drive rather than waiting until the finish to do the pivot. Watching his seat rather than his back helped a lot.
• When we really got some speed going, the water flow past the side of the shell was amazing. I couldn't see our stern or generated wake (such as it is in a non-power boat) but what I could see on the side was mesmerizing itself.
  

When I asked about proper breathing, he didn't remember it coming up in his training days. We guessing exhaling on the drive was correct. Funny thing - when we finished the following set, he confessed to having gotten messed up trying to think about it during the set - and made a golf parallel. The point is smooth, even, consistent technique in the swing. The worst thing to do is focus on one thing in the swing because then others would get messed up. A friend of his used to win money in his foursomes all the time by "innocently" asking about details of the other 's technique. The power of suggestion was enough to throw their game off. Rowing seems very similar - a lot of little things that can be focused on at any time. It's a lot to keep together. As they say - easy to learn, hard to perfect.

More Education at CYC

We drove into Charlotte today and rowed in a quad. We were going to set up with Kathleen in the stroke seat, like we've started doing at home, but she didn't want the pressure of the spot with others in the boat. We switched - she went to 3 seat, Sally 2 seat, and Jay was in the bow seat. Jay is the co-captain for the rowing group. I thought having Jay in the 1 seat was optimal for giving us direction and feedback: we could hear him easily and he could see (almost) everything we were doing. As it turned out, Kathleen regretted the decision. More later. I discovered later that the ladies in our novice group strongly preferred all-female boats.

These additional "novice Saturday's" have been helping out. Different CYC rowers offer something from their experience - tips on this or that. For example, Jay had us put the oars in the catch (upright) position and let the oars find their own height in the water - as a means to get a feel for handle position during the drive. I noticed their rigging resulted in the left oar sitting noticeably higher than the right. I think our shell's setup is much more even - have to verify tomorrow. He ran us through different drills and I ended up working harder than on other Saturdays. Power 20's have a way of tiring you out. I should have confessed at the time, but I was really grateful when Sally wanted to stop to dry her sweaty hands after one stretch. I was really sucking wind. In fact, I noticed my knees were splaying out in the catch position. When I kept them together, I couldn't inhale worth a darn. I need to look at proper breathing technique; or lose that 15+ pounds I've been carrying for a while.

Jay's dry sense of humor worked well for his coaching. Kathleen said it didn't bother her at all that her name was called out more times than anyone else's. Now, back to the seat position regret and the all-female boat comment... True to form, with my being in the stroke seat, my reach on the catch really caused her challenges - just like it did in our own boat. With her shorter legs, arms, and, therefore, oar angle, she was always trying to avoid my oars. It prevented her from focusing on other aspects of her technique - hence, the coaching. The ladies' preference for the all-female boat made sense on two counts - we men tend to strong arm our stroke and make it harder to get the technique right, and, being taller, were making it hard on the short ladies. I'm average height, and short for rowers, but I'm still tall for Kathleen and Sally. (Wes - be aware when you are matched up with your wife; you want to be behind her.)

The drive angle difference resulted in Kathleen and I clacking oars several times. As novices, we tend to stop rowing when our oars collide ... and not call out "weigh enough." On the other hand, when we here "in 2, weigh enough", we just stop every thing. Both behaviors are annoying to experienced rowers like Jay. To his credit, he did a good job not expressing it. We'll learn eventually.

Last bit for an overly long post ... One of the experienced guys said he really enjoyed reading the blog. He thought it would help others trying to row to read about our discoveries & frustrations. My heart warmed because, other than telling family members what we were doing, this was exactly my goal. Shame on me for not catching his name.