Thought the morning was splendid, the same may not be said of our rowing: it was as labored a day of rowing as I've ever had! But first, the splendid: Upon arrival at the boathouse at 5:30 am, it was dark and Orien's Belt could be clearly seen hanging high above Memorial Bridge. As we started rowing upstream, the darkness moved from blackness through infinitesimally small gradations of dark blue from stroke to stroke.
Twenty strokes above the Key Bridge, the only evidence of the bridge were the lights atop it marching in a silent progression from shore to shore casting their white light on the water far below. By sixty strokes above the bridge, still dark, a band of red sky had pushed its way through the darkness and set the first stroke of morning light on the canvas of the day.
Now back to reality: we were attempting to row 6s on the square. Our catch timing was off--we wobbled all the way upstream. It was atrocious. Our first piece was all the way from Three Sisters up to the middle of Fletcher's Cove. The whole affair was sexless: no fire, no rhythm.
After turning around to head back downstream, our piece was 4 minutes at 28 rating; then 90 seconds off. The repeat. We did this sequence 4 times and truly, we never got it together in any of these pieces. We were supposed to focus on slide control and hands quick away etc. But our issues of timing were more fundamental than that. I was apparently coming up short on my stroke--the cox kept saying that it seemed I was rowing at half-slide. I tried to extend and twist out over the rigger more, but still came up short. Several other seats were chastised for digging which slows down the boat considerably. Catch timing was off. 4-seat was crashing into every catch. We were a total mess. Sunday is the Head of the Potomac which means we have Thursday and Friday to work out a lot of issues. For my part, I will work on slide control, extension and posture. Remember: Posture Is Power!
No comments:
Post a Comment