Lightweight Eats

Next week, the GMS athletes head back to Princeton for another round of racing. The first round of trials for the World Championships are happening this week, followed immediately by the US Rowing National Championships. The schedule and more information can be found here and here.

I will be racing the lightweight women's single at both events. At World Championship Trials, I will face 9 other athletes, including 2012 Olympian Kristin Hedstrom and 2013 Head of the Charles winner Kate Bertko. The event begins on Monday (6/23) with heats, where the top 2 will progress directly to the semi-final and the remainder will race the repechage in the afternoon. There are no consolation finals at this regatta, and only 4 athletes will progress to the Grand Final on Wednesday.

At the US Rowing National Championships (aka Elite Nationals), I face a slightly deeper field of 15 athletes, many of whom I will be racing for the first time. The group includes three Canadians. This event is also Grand Final only, with 6 athletes progressing through. Racing begins Wednesday evening (yes, the same Wednesday) with a time trial, where the top 12 athletes continue to Thursday's heats and repechages.

Yes, this is where we row. Tough life. dancopephoto.com

We've been busy in New Milford getting prepared to race. Two weeks ago, the GMS Under-23 camp started and we've managed to do a lot of head-to-head and time-trial racing on the water.


I've had some pretty solid results in the single, which has boosted my confidence for trials. I recently switched boats, moving from the Hudson S1.31 (size 160-190lbs) to the S1.21 (size 145-170lbs). In California, I was rowing the S1.11, the smallest size (115-145lbs). After trying all three, it feels like the S1.21 was made for me. Despite falling into the weight class for the S1.11, the S1.21 fits like a dream. I'm really happy I made the switch, and many thanks to Guenter and Hudson for making that possible.




This morning, I did 500m pieces against a gaggle of girls in singles. We had great representation—senior lightweight, senior openweight, U23 openweight and junior—and everybody had fast times. My fastest 500m time was 1:51.8 in a mild tailwind, which is 100.8% of the 2000m world record pace. (The fastest percentage for the day was 104% of 2k world record pace—our U23 women's 2x. Super impressive!)

From now until racing begins, we will just be biding our time and trying to maintain fitness and keep calm. As a generally active person who passes time in the garden and on her bicycle, I find it very difficult to properly execute a taper—I get really bored and want to do nothing more than haul logs, till dirt or bike around town. While that's great for weight management, it's less great for race day performance. Any suggestions for ways to entertain myself?

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So much has happened since the first National Selection Regatta! As I mentioned, Sarah and I went up to Boston to do some race pieces with the lightweights at Riverside. We got the crap kicked out of us, came home, trained hard, and went to NSR2... and came in fourth!

This is old news by now, but there was a MAJOR upset at NSR2. Last year's lightweight women's double, that many had called "untouchable", was taken down by Devery Karz and Michelle Sechser from Oklahoma City. Their duel for 1st place meant the LW2x was the fastest event at the regatta. Our 4th place finish was great...

... but not where I want to be.

The next step was deciding summer plans. In late June, the first round of World Championship Trials will be held in Princeton. The LW1x and LW4x will be decided at that regatta. After many discussions, Vesper Boat Club in Philadelphia became the prime destination for a camp to put together a lightweight women's quad.

I definitely considered attending. I've come a long way since last summer, and I think I could have clawed my way into a seat in the boat. I expect the boat that comes out of the United States this summer will be blazing fast.

Ultimately, though, attending the World Championships in the quad is not my goal. Looking at the bigger picture, spending the summer in selection and maintaining a super low body weight isn't going to get me where I want to be.

It was a difficult decision, but I'm going to be spending the summer training independently at GMS. I will race the single at the Worlds Trials later this month, with no illusion of winning. (That "untouchable double? They split into singles and will both be racing at Trials.) And I'm also going to push the boundaries of what I can do in a week.. every week. I've been crushing my weight lifting (I'm now doing pull-ups with an extra 5 pound weight), working on boat feel and putting in tons of extra volume.

These are my goals for the summer and fall seasons:
2k erg: 7:10
6k erg: 23:00 (and top 3 on the water at Fall Speed Order)
2k water: 8:00
4mmol lactate/L wattage: 215+

Those are super ambitious goals, especially the first one. (My current PR is a 7:22.1 at 57.5kg.) But the more ambitious my goals, the fewer excuses I have to joke around this summer. Now is the time to see how fast I can go!

What are your summer plans? Racing, training, both?

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When I left off, we were just headed into the finals on Saturday morning.

Our 7:14AM race time meant the weigh-in window began at 5:14AM. I was incredibly thankful to not be worried about weight—I heard of others waking up in the 3's to sweat down to 130 pounds for the weigh-in.

Everything went according to plan, and the six rowers in the B final took off down the course more or less together. It was great racing—the field was really tight the whole way. The early leaders, Mary Foster and Emily Schmieg, ended up in first and second, with my teammate Sarah Giancola coming in third. Lauren Ayers and I were head to head the whole course, but she opened up about a second lead in the last 400m to take fourth. I came in fifth, followed by Morgan McGovern in sixth.

This was a much closer racing experience than last year's NSR1, despite not going through the full progression of racing. It will be fun to see how all of the lightweight women stack up when we pair off into doubles for the next regatta—the second national selection regatta.

This weekend, Sarah and I will be headed up to Boston to do some informal racing in doubles with some of the girls from Riverside Boat Club. It will be a good chance to connect with more of the lightweights training around the country—we are so dispersed that I regularly race people I've never met!!

Over the next few weeks, I will also be losing weight—what fun! For the single, at NSR1, all competitors are required to be under 59kg (130lbs). For the double, the average weight of the crew must be 57kg or under—four pounds lighter!

Based on results from my DEXA scan and previous experience, I've planned on getting down to a bit under 57kg for NSR2. This is fairly light for me, but I know I don't lose as much strength as many other lightweights as I drop in weight. I never imagined myself as a "weight maker" but I'm glad to have the option—my erg scores aren't fast enough yet for anything else!

Did you race at the first NSR? What did you think? What are your plans for the rest of spring and summer racing?

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We arrived in Princeton earlier this week to blustery weather and choppy water. Yuck! Not ideal for rowing at all. But racing must go on, we thought.

Thursday morning, we arrived at the boathouse and weighed in at 6:15AM, ready for our 8:15AM race time. Conditions were fair, but not ideal. As we rowed up to the start line, I could feel the wind pick up. The warm-up area was challenging to row, but not unmanageable, I thought.

(Note: My boat is two sizes too big, so I've got some great clearance from the water—perfect for rough conditions. My teammate in a smaller boat was less thrilled with the waves crashing over her.)

The men's and women's lightweight singles were bunched up, ready to begin our time trial, anxious and excited. And then the announcement came: racing was cancelled, head home to the dock. I practically surfed back to the dock on the waves—what a blast!

Thursday's racing was postponed and our schedule compressed from four races to two. So this morning, we were at it again. Our time trial went down the course at 10:30AM in mild headwind conditions.

Photo from US Rowing Check out that sweet backsplash. And yes, those are my favorite JL shorts.. ...so happy we don't have to wear a unisuit

I placed 8th among an incredibly competitive field of lightweights. I wish I'd had the opportunity to race through the heats and semi-finals, but my 8th place finish puts me into tomorrow morning's 'B' final.



We're racing incredibly early: 7:14AM EST. Hopefully, we'll have fair conditions (although I can't say I'm not hoping for some wind and waves). See you on the other side!

Results should be posted on the US Rowing website shortly after the race:
http://usrowing.org/NationalTeams/OlympicSeniorNationalTeam/SrNTSelectionEvents/2014NSR1/2014NSR1Results.aspx

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Greeting from South Carolina! Today was our last day of training camp down in Aiken, SC. Starting tomorrow, we'll be in Princeton, preparing for the first National Selection Regatta. For lightweight women, this is an opportunity to race in singles and see how we stack up early in the season. I'm looking forward to it!

This week, we've been doing a lot of race prep work and spending a lot of time getting used to our boats.

Leaving California, I also left behind the single I was rowing (it was a club boat). Moving to GMS, I've had to find a new boat. I started out in a club Filipi, but after a few days, I'm back to a Hudson, and happy about it for the time being. The Hudson is big for me—two sizes larger than the one I rowed in California—but it still feels quick.

I'm considering a boat purchase soon—a big decision! (If you know anybody selling a 2-3 year old lightweight women's racing shell, let me know.) I'm hoping to try out a few different brands over the next 6-9 months and find the one that suits me best. So far Hudson is in the lead, but I've yet to try an Empacher or a Fluidesign.

Wish me luck with racing this coming week! I'll try to post an update as I have more information, but as of now the racing is as follows:
Thursday AM - Time Trials
Thursday PM - Heats (for top 18 boats)
Friday AM - Semi-Finals and C/D Finals
Saturday AM - A/B Finals

More information can be found here:
http://usrowing.org/NationalTeams/OlympicSeniorNationalTeam/SrNTSelectionEvents/2014NSR1.aspx

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Apologies for the radio silence! We've been busy welcoming spring here at GMS.






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Until last year, I almost never trained with a heart rate monitor. Now, I wear one for nearly every practice.

For most athletes, a coach dictates whether to use a heart rate monitor. Some athletes choose to use them independently. Regardless of your heart rate monitor status, it's helpful to know some of the pros and cons of the straps. This can help you use them more wisely.

PROS

Heart rate monitors:

==> allow for more precise training
Especially coupled with lactate testing, heart rate monitors can provide personalized, precise training. By using the heart rate coupled with blood lactate levels, you can focus your time on crucial intensities. For example, in winter, we do most of our training at blood lactate levels of 0.8-1.8 mmol/L—well below the generally established 'lactate threshold' of 4 mmol/L.

You can use the same principle by using one of many heart rate zone calculators based on maximum and resting heart rates. They won't be as precise, but they will help you target your training. If using these tools, understand that you may need to adjust the provided heart rates to maximize your training.

==> provide clear and manageable targets for workouts
I know I can do 100 minutes with my heart rate between 167 and 174. Even if I'm fatigued and mentally struggling, physically I can complete the workout. Similarly, I know I can complete 10km with my heart rate between 180 and 189, regardless of speed.

It takes experience and/or an experience coach to provide useful heart rate targets. However, those targets can take the guesswork out of what's do-able.

==> can help adjust for the effects of weather, fatigue, dehydration, etc.
Sometimes, perfectly reasonable split targets from last week are way off this week. If it's much hotter or you've done a challenging lifting session the day before, the same splits may be much more work to maintain. That's totally normal.

Using a heart rate monitor helps adjust for those environmental factors, allowing you to continue benefitting from your most useful workouts.

CONS

Heart rate monitors:

==> don't account for mental and emotional fatigue
Although they're great at adjusting for physical effects, heart rate monitors don't monitor the brain. Sometimes you're slow because your head isn't in it.

If you always listen to your heart rate monitor, you might fail to give yourself crucial mental and emotional recovery.

==> are inappropriate for some workouts
This week, we did a pyramid workout with very short distances (starting at 3 hard strokes at a time, working our way up to 17 hard strokes at a time). The longest work segment was around 30 seconds. It takes the heart time to react to changes in exercise intensity, meaning your heart rate will not accurately reflect your effort after just 30 seconds. Generally, we don't use heart rate zones for any work segments less than 2 minutes.

We also don't use heart rate zones for weight lifting workouts. It can be fun to see your heart rate during lifting sessions, but to get the most of lifting we trying to avoid using them as an additional cardio workout. Since we're not stressing the cardiovascular system, which the HR monitor monitors, we don't need the data.

==> over-focus on the numbers
There is pleasure in simply rowing: listening to the glide of the boat, the thwack of the oars, the swish of the water. Data takes away from the beauty. Of course, it's not just the heart rate—it's the splits and the stroke rate and the time and the meters. There something wonderful about rowing as fast or slow as you want, until you want to turn around, and then coming back. It's a bit of mental respite that heart rate monitors can't provide.

==> can make you lose touch with your body
Heart rate zones change. Over the course of six months, my heart rate zones shifted as much as 10 bpm. Over-reliance on numbers can dampen body awareness crucial to making zone and intensity adjustments. Regular lactate testing can help the latter, but body awareness is incredibly important in racing. You have to be able to determine when to risk everything—and your heart rate monitor can't always tell you.

How can this help your training?

If you train with a heart rate monitor, be aware of the cons. Account for your own mental fatigue, leave the monitor behind for some workouts, and stay aware of how your body feels not just your heart rate.

If you haven't yet taken the plunge, consider the pros. If these are areas where you've struggled, it might be time to invest in a heart rate monitor. Maybe you have trouble finishing workouts, or find your numbers jumping around from week to week. If used correctly, a heart rate monitor can help you with pacing and consistency.


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