What Optimized Rowing is All About
Rowing should be fun! There's something about our sport that we all love. For some of us, it's the challenge of going fast, for others it's a great workout. And for others there's the social aspect of the sport. It could be all three of those things. I know it was for me. I also had my struggles with the sport, at the college, club and elite levels. Don't get me wrong, my experiences were all great, but there were challenges. I want to take what I've learned from my 20 years in rowing and share that, so everyone can Optimize what they love about our sport. My goal at Optimized is to help any struggling athlete in whatever way I can to have the best experience possible in their personal journey with rowing
For myself, I started my rowing career as a true walk-on to the Washington College crew team in the fall of 2004. I was a tall skinny kid, and for whatever reason coach Brown thought I would make a good rower. It might have taken a while, but he was right. Right away, I fell in love with the sport. One reason, I didn't totally stink at it! I had tried my hand in tons of sports in highschool, and like a lot of rowers, I didn't have the best "ball sports skills." The other reason I stuck out the blisters and early mornings, were for my teammates. We had a fun novice class, we hung out together, eat together, rowed together. And the upperclassmen were welcoming. I had fun, I was learning, and my coaches could see the potential in me that first year. Second year, brought a new coach and new teammates, what I remember most was my continued improvement as a rower, I would never say I was "good," but I sucked less and less. I think that summarizes my career, "what's the level were I stop sucking less." New friends were made, minor drama in the boathouse was had, like with any shared boathouse, and we argued with the sailors. Sophomore was fun. Junior year was more fun. This is when we started to get a little faster, and a little better. Sure we were on our 3rd coach, but the core group stayed the same. I think my junior year is where we started to learn what it means to be "fast." That summer was also the summer I spent rowing at PennAC... like every other American Rower. And that was my first taste of real racing. We raced nationals and had fun, but the big race was Canadian Henley... you know "International Racing." But that's where I got to see what, I thought, fast looked like. I took that image into my senior year and lead our team as captain to, some wins, a bitter 4th place finish at Dad Vails, and hopefully leaving the team in a better place than I found it. John, my forth coach in my 4 years, could see that I had potential in the sport. He let me flip singles before graduation and really encouraged me to continue to pursue the sport at the highest levels.
The summer after college was my obligatory time with Riverside (although, I would be back later). That was the first time I really hit any kind of road block, I put myself in a competitive situation, and didn't compete. I ended up in the 2nd lightweight 8 that summer. We still went to all the races, but that was the summer I was exposed to figuring out how to handle what I could control. At the time, I was angry with the coaches for not giving me a fair shot, after all, I was a team captain, I made it to the Final at Canadian Henley the summer before. In hind sight, it wasn't the right fit for me. I didn't connect with the coaches, and I didn't control what I could control. Instead I got frustrated and pulled away. It took me a long to time to learn the lesson "Control what you can control," but I did learn that as I moved forward in my career that it was important to work with coaches I liked... of course I would have to re-learn that lesson.
The next leg of my career started in the fall of 2008, when I moved to Philadelphia and started rowing for the Undine (I will always pronounce it the right way), and really began to learn how to scull. And it was right back to being a novice all over again. One of the first workouts I did with the HPG group was 5x5 minutes at controlled rates. Joe, our coach was staggering us, so we could all finish at about the same place. He had me take off, and row, and go, and row a little more. He gave me, probably a 250m head start, and I still got beat by everyone, including Sarbs our women's lightweight single sculler... granted should go on to represent the US at Worlds shortly after this. I learned a lot by getting by but kicked by Sarbs, and then Andy and Dan. I enjoyed my time at Undine, and I learned a lot about training and racing as a sculler.
I spent a full year in Philadelphia, because everyone should, but the city was not the place for me. I took a nine-month-a-year position at Skidmore College as the associate rowing coach. I started by working with the novices (we didn't recruit at all) and taught them how to row.
For myself, I started my rowing career as a true walk-on to the Washington College crew team in the fall of 2004. I was a tall skinny kid, and for whatever reason coach Brown thought I would make a good rower. It might have taken a while, but he was right. Right away, I fell in love with the sport. One reason, I didn't totally stink at it! I had tried my hand in tons of sports in highschool, and like a lot of rowers, I didn't have the best "ball sports skills." The other reason I stuck out the blisters and early mornings, were for my teammates. We had a fun novice class, we hung out together, eat together, rowed together. And the upperclassmen were welcoming. I had fun, I was learning, and my coaches could see the potential in me that first year. Second year, brought a new coach and new teammates, what I remember most was my continued improvement as a rower, I would never say I was "good," but I sucked less and less. I think that summarizes my career, "what's the level were I stop sucking less." New friends were made, minor drama in the boathouse was had, like with any shared boathouse, and we argued with the sailors. Sophomore was fun. Junior year was more fun. This is when we started to get a little faster, and a little better. Sure we were on our 3rd coach, but the core group stayed the same. I think my junior year is where we started to learn what it means to be "fast." That summer was also the summer I spent rowing at PennAC... like every other American Rower. And that was my first taste of real racing. We raced nationals and had fun, but the big race was Canadian Henley... you know "International Racing." But that's where I got to see what, I thought, fast looked like. I took that image into my senior year and lead our team as captain to, some wins, a bitter 4th place finish at Dad Vails, and hopefully leaving the team in a better place than I found it. John, my forth coach in my 4 years, could see that I had potential in the sport. He let me flip singles before graduation and really encouraged me to continue to pursue the sport at the highest levels.
The summer after college was my obligatory time with Riverside (although, I would be back later). That was the first time I really hit any kind of road block, I put myself in a competitive situation, and didn't compete. I ended up in the 2nd lightweight 8 that summer. We still went to all the races, but that was the summer I was exposed to figuring out how to handle what I could control. At the time, I was angry with the coaches for not giving me a fair shot, after all, I was a team captain, I made it to the Final at Canadian Henley the summer before. In hind sight, it wasn't the right fit for me. I didn't connect with the coaches, and I didn't control what I could control. Instead I got frustrated and pulled away. It took me a long to time to learn the lesson "Control what you can control," but I did learn that as I moved forward in my career that it was important to work with coaches I liked... of course I would have to re-learn that lesson.
The next leg of my career started in the fall of 2008, when I moved to Philadelphia and started rowing for the Undine (I will always pronounce it the right way), and really began to learn how to scull. And it was right back to being a novice all over again. One of the first workouts I did with the HPG group was 5x5 minutes at controlled rates. Joe, our coach was staggering us, so we could all finish at about the same place. He had me take off, and row, and go, and row a little more. He gave me, probably a 250m head start, and I still got beat by everyone, including Sarbs our women's lightweight single sculler... granted should go on to represent the US at Worlds shortly after this. I learned a lot by getting by but kicked by Sarbs, and then Andy and Dan. I enjoyed my time at Undine, and I learned a lot about training and racing as a sculler.
I spent a full year in Philadelphia, because everyone should, but the city was not the place for me. I took a nine-month-a-year position at Skidmore College as the associate rowing coach. I started by working with the novices (we didn't recruit at all) and taught them how to row.