Lightweight Roundup

A reader beat me to the Princeton preview (thanks for the link) and noted that it was a bit "uninformative." Agreed, although for someone not familiar with what happened last season and in the fall, it set the stage. Most interesting to me was Coach Rassam's tone, which I would characterize as cautious optimism. It's probably just about the right tone to take, implying confidence in his crews but praising those new to the top of the league and noting the growing strength of the category.

We have some newly posted results from Ohio State's dual with Purdue last weekend in which the lights raced Purdue's heavyweight JV, getting knocked about a bit and finishing 27 seconds back. I'm not all that sure what this tells us because it's early in the season and Purdue can put out some strong crews. I wish they'd crank up their lightweight machine which won Dad Vails a few years ago.

Dayton has a preview of their Cincinnati race.

Wisconsin heads south for spring break, which is about two weeks later this year. Sounds like there was some cause for concern because of the long unbroken indoor training period (ugh!) but the coaches feel everyone came through it OK. We'll have to see if it causes the Badgers to get going a little later than most years.

A UCF release notes that the crews are heading into the difficult part of their schedule.

Although a juniors story, the Washington Post has an item of interest as it notes that "the National Capital Area Scholastic Rowing Association is using a "lightweight management" program, designed to ensure that lightweight rowers (boys under 150 pounds, girls under 130) make their weight in a healthy fashion. Rowers must be certified by a trainer, and U.S. Rowing is looking at the process with an eye toward using it in other parts of the country . . ."

A January 2007 study is out that suggests "although carbohydrate and sodium intake may be important in the recovery period between weigh-in and 2000-m rowing ergometer performance, fluid intake has a greater influence on performance among lightweight male rowers who undertake short-term weight loss to achieve specified body-mass limits." This study was done on men and I can't get to the whole thing, but you can see the abstract here.

Finally, here's news about a device we needed during the winter. For those of you with erg related back problems - a boat powered by an elliptical machine!