Weather

The sleet and 35 mph driving wind makes the bike ride to and from the boathouse a lot of fun.  As nasty as it is outside it has benefitted me by giving me a new appreciation for a warm room, even the warming effect of the erg room.  It also makes a trip to the cafe every few days a real treat.  Yet another example of why Kiwis are so tough.  When the weather is like this they usually take out bigger boats instead of just staying in.

Switching Sides

Switching sides to starboard for the first time in the lwt 4-, a bit wobbly at first but ran fairly nicely here. This boat with a Kiwi in the three seat will be racing against Australian team in a few weeks in Queenstown.

Me on the row perfect for the first time ever, and the view out of the erg room...not a bad place to spend a few hours a day.

48 hours-70 thousand meters

Today we showed up to the boathouse at 7 am and were greeted with a fairly hard workout. 5k run right into a 5k erg right into a 5k run. I ended up second overall, unable to chase down the leader in the end but I did make up a lot of time on him in the last run. After that we had about a half an hour then a light 10k row in the four. This afternoon it was very rough so we did a sixty minute piece on the erg. The past 48 hours have been insane, but I am noticing improvement. The way I feel right now is a new kind of tired.  Time to recharge and do it again tomorrow.  This training is awesome, I hope I can take some of the intensity and toughness of the workouts here and apply it to my training and my teams training for next spring.

Great Day

This morning we started off with a 14k row in the 4+ at about a 22, full press.  The sun was coming up and the sky in the distance was bright red, quite a beautiful morning.  The second AM row was a short session in the singles in some water that back home would be considered rough for big boats.  We then had an erg and core workout this afternoon, 3x12 minutes @26 full press, I averaged about 1:48 on those.  Total meters for the day coming out to be thirty thousand or so.  Im already noticing the benefits of the high volume and core work.  My form on the erg and water has also changed for the better.

Special Olympians

On monday nights and wednesdays we are working with special needs high school students and special olympians at the boathouse.  We help them with technique on the erg and the tanks.  Today they had 250 meter race pieces and some of the other rowers and I joined in; there was also a girl there today who couldn't even walk but was on the erg and even rowing on the tank, and she had a huge smile the entire time.  Its times like these that are really rewarding and remind me why I row and how lucky I am.

Routine

Starting to really settle into the training now.  Yesterday we had a 45 minute erg piece in the morning @21 then in the afternoon we did about 30 minutes of steady state followed by 4x250 @34.  This morning I got out in a 4- with some of the high performance guys for 2x20 minutes, that row totaled about 14k, it was still pitch black out when we finished.  Then this afternoon we had a 30 minute run followed by a 20 minute pyramid between rates 22-28 on the erg.  Photos of boat bay and erg room will be up soon.  Ergs overlook the basin that we row in.