Back training in the Eights

Now that we are back to Victoria and the Olympic Camp of 22 heavyweight men has been established, it's time to get on with training. This is where it gets more exciting for me.

The bulk of our training over the winter is done in pairs. This is the best way for the coach to teach guys how to move a boat. It has been said that you can "hide" in an eight as there are many people trying to move the boat and when it isn't going well, the blame is shared amongst them all. In pairs or even singles for that matter, if you are going slow.....you have to look at yourself.

This winter our coach has decided to train in the eight twice a week. We don't do this at the training centre as the lake is only 2.5km long. We head 45mins up island to the Shawnigan Lake School where we have use of their boathouse and the lake gives us a run of 7km. Since the lake is pretty much abandoned in the winter (a zoo in the summer) we have free use of the lake without any other boats getting in our way. This is some amazing training as we put 2 eights side by side and we compete for the entire 7km. This takes us about 21mins to go from one end to the other.
We keep the stroke-rate (strokes per minute) down low and controlled so that it doesn't burn us out.
Yesterday we had some great battles and it re-iterated to me just how much psychology plays a role in sport. My boat started hard at the proper rate while the other boat took off just a bit higher trying to get an early advantage which worked. Luckily I wasn't born yesterday and anticipated this. I quickly told my guys that they were over-rating us but we were holding them to only a two seat lead. I knew I could use this to rev my boys up and I made a call to drive the finish of the stroke with their legs. At the same time I called out the rate that our boat was at and then I called out what the other boat was at.....of course loud enough that all 16 guys could hear it. This told the other crew that I knew the game they were playing and they adjusted to the proper rate, but I had already made our "move" call and so before they knew it we were beside them and passing them. Within 4mins we had a boat length of a lead and they were scrambling to keep up.
You see, early on I could have scrambled and panicked to try and get the lead back but instead I chose to let my crew know of how the situation was unfolding and how I was going to proceed and get the advantage back. Their is nothing that frustrates a rower more than losing and having no plan of attack to get back. Since they knew I had control, they trusted me and did exactly what I told them to do.....once it started to work, the psychology switched to our favor and instead of being on the defensive, we went on the offensive and took control of the situation.

Can't wait to keep learning and re-iterating these lessons as this long winter of training is going to be invaluable once we hit the race course and do these same kind of things to the Germans, British and whoever else we end up racing.