Just like last year, G-Man has taken a small hiatus to coach the U23 lightweight quad in Amsterdam this week. Before he left, an intensive technique session reinforced all of our individual points of focus-- with Matt's guidance, the big emphasis right now is on self-improvement as each of us work to iron out our issues (no matter how frustrating this can be).
Because we have limited time to retrain our muscle memory, very long rows seem to be in order. Wednesday, we had the magical 6AM bridge row plus large delicious breakfast combination. Obviously there were some drills thrown in (and by thrown in, I mean 60 min+ of continuous
square blade, half square, square-unsquare-square-unsquare broken up throughout the two hour row). These drills help you to maintain the proper blade height over the water, and keep both the blade entry and release clean. Very important stuff. To make it even more interesting, almost all of the technical rows we've had (minus the bridge) have been done into a brutal (brutal by GMS standards...around 10mph) headwind, making the recovery of the strokes on the square feel a lot less like recovery. None the less, we were troopers, and were rewarded with an extremely quick row in.
There was also a surprise return of the ever-illusive ice cream man!! He answered our call during a particularly sweaty weight session, and needless to say Lizzy and I had a big 3rd grade moment.
Thursday brought some of the first heat-wave-esque temperatures we've had thus far. Through rivers of sweat, we still worked more and more technique on our rows to the S-Turn (about 12k). I think we've been making some small strides-- and we got a chance to see what's sticking when we had a change of pace this morning and did some speedwork. Joined by the boys (rowing doubles after a rigger incident) and some of the GMS elites, plus an exclusive guest coach appearance we did three pieces. Each one designed to give room for improvement from the previous piece-- I rowed with Vicky Burke, and the JW2x, and after the second piece (we briefly considered highjacking the double when the distance went from 500m to 1500) we decided to jump ship and go swimming-- cool down the core temperature! Felt great, however I did not plan for the small lake swooshing around my feet for the last piece. All in all, the pieces went well, and it's more fast strokes for all of us. Also after today, our exclusive guest coach has been officially added to the USJNT Sculling Champ List, with flying colors!
As of now, there is not a whole lot going on at the Burrow-- the oppressive temperatures have a way of making everything move in slow motion (more so than usual, it took me 5 mins to walk up stairs this afternoon). So we're all sitting in the living room trying to stay as cool as possible (the Burrow has 'air conditioning' just like GMS has 'headwind'). Also-- google and boredom: this is where we are staying when we get to England!! How cool is this?!
Given that the current temperature in Eton is 64 degrees-- it's looking pretty good right now!
I'm officially embarrassed by how long this post has taken me (just scrolled up and realized it's, in fact, not a novel)-- but we're just going to roll it off on the heat and growing affliction of New Milforditis (we all officially declared we were too lazy to take another nap. Case and point)
Thanks to Coach V for the session this morning, and as always to anyone following us on our way to Junior Worlds!
Also-- G-Man if you're reading this, we hope you're having (not too much) fun in Amsterdam! And see you on Monday back in the New Milf!
Bye for now! Go USA!
PS. Remember to check the YouTube channel! We'll update it I promise.
0 comments:
Post a Comment