Tulsa Gets a New Boathouse

Back in October the Tulsa student newspaper published a story about Tulsa crew's new boathouse. Tulsa's lightweight four had an impressive finish at the Head of the Charles and Coach Kevin Harris plans to build the lightweight program. Tulsa is a great example of where growth can be found in the lightweight category. With some focus on a moderately sized but growing category like lightweight women, a relatively young but growing program may be able to have a national impact.

Meanwhile, Coach Harris paints such a nice picture of the Tulsa community that I'm thinking of sending in an application next year!

One interesting point is the fact that the main boathouse benefactor is a Yale alumnus. The story doesn't say if he rowed at Yale, but even if he didn't he was no doubt aware of the importance of the sport at the school. It's great to see a member of the community that was responsible for the first intercollegiate athletic competition in the US bring that sport to an area of the country some on the coasts used to think of as unrowable. Although some politicians may refer to the center of the country as "fly-over country," it's definitely not "row-over country."

MIT Release

There's a nice press release on MIT's web site about the lightweights' performance at the Foot. These articles are always self-serving but I think MIT deserves the positive review. Not too long ago MIT was often unable to field a competitive eight for the championship regattas and would forgo that category for a V4. They could be competitive there, but a fast eight seemed out of their grasp. I think those days are coming rapidly to an end. The Engineers appear to have a fairly deep team this year and Coach Jenkins seems to have a good start on building off of last year's IRA petite final win.

While I'm on the subject of MIT, maybe someone there can clear up an urban legend. The story goes that the architect who designed the MIT boathouse neglected to consider how new and trailered boats would be brought into the boathouse. The result was a turning staircase in the middle of the house and only one way to bring a boat into the bays - from the dock. The solution was to cut a gate in the fence lining the river just above the docks so new and trailered boats could be handed down to the docks from the sidewalk. Obviously such a mistake would be a bit embarrassing to a school nicknamed the Engineers. Is this true? (The architect went to Harvard, I'm guessing?)

Speed Orders

At last weekend's speed orders at least two recent graduates competed in the lightweight single. Sara Bates, a 2006 Radcliffe graduate was 5th of 21 and Claire Wallace, a 2006 Wisconsin graduate, was 11th. Also, you may recall that Katie Sweet, a 2005 Wisconsin graduate was a member of the US lightweight quad last summer. I'm encouraged to see women who rowed as lightweights in college working themselves into the national team mix. Most national team lightweights seem to have rowed as heavyweights in college and drop weight after graduation (some, of course, were lightweights in school but rowed for smaller programs with no lightweight boats). I think the fact that these lightweights are rowing after school is a sign that the college lightweight category is becoming an established part of US rowing. They're not simply participating, however, they're excelling. Sweet's achievement over the summer and Bates's and Wallace's finishes in speed orders mark them as real contenders for national and Olympic team slots.

Foot of the Charles Results

On Saturday the New England schools took to the Charles for one last race in 2006 - The Foot of the Charles. In the varsity four competition (at least I assume that's what it is, it's not named in the results) MIT was the top lightweight boat, finishing 14th out of 40. Radcliffe was next, 9 seconds back, followed by UMass, Radcliffe B and C, and MIT B. In the novice eight race the mighty Radcliffe freshmen were third, 20 seconds off of the Radcliffe heavies and 5 seconds off of the Dartmouth heavies. The MIT freshmen were 17th out of 30, almost two minutes behind Radcliffe. MIT was followed by the Radcliffe and MIT B boats. In the varsity eight race MIT lights were 3rd out of eight boats while the Radcliffe lights were 8th. I'm not entirely clear on what this race is since it's small and the results are often odd. I'm sure a reader can tell me but I assume these are 2 or 3Vs? [Update: See comments.]

MIT has to be pleased with their fours performance. They beat their own heavyweights as well as a few other heavyweight A boats and a whole lot of heavyweight B and C boats, not to mention Radcliffe's lights. This is also a nice turnaround from last year when MIT was almost a minute behind Radcliffe. The Radcliffe freshman eight continues to churn up the waters, here apparently facing stacked heavyweight boats. This boat appears to be very, very fast and unless it's broken up to bring some rowers into varsity boats, it should be exciting to watch in the spring. It seems untouchable at this point and it would likely go through undefeated, much as Princeton did last season. One of the effects of the Radcliffe freshmen has been to overshadow the MIT freshmen who are having a good fall in their own right. In the middle of the heavyweight pack on Saturday, they beat several heavyweight A boats, including their own.

More on Erg vs. Boat

As a result of my last post on ergs vs. boats, Aaron Benson posted a comment in which he noted that the difference between footstretcher and handle force comes about because "a stationary ergometer requires the rower to accelerate and decelerate the mass of the upper body at both ends of the stroke in order to reverse direction." He goes on to point out that this "disparity between footstretcher force and handle force can be minimized by rowing on Slides, or by using a RowPerfect ergometer."

This comment reminded me of several discussions I've had about how much of an advantage a rower gets from erging on a slide vs. without a slide. The consensus is that because of the effect Coach Benson describes above, less energy is required to go up and down the slide so a rower should go faster on an erg on slides. Apparently there is a study by Fritz Hagerman that I've seen referenced but haven't actually read, that shows more energy expended on slides as measured by heart rate. This is counterintuitive, however, and it's not clear why would be so. I also recall reading that the benefit mostly shows up in longer pieces (longer than 2k). I can't find either of these studies online or I'd link to them here (if anyone has them let me know).

Another factor that comes into play with slides (or the RowPerfect) is technique. The point of slides is to simulate an actual boat so it seems reasonable to think that a rower with better technique would benefit more from a slide while a rower with poor technique might actually suffer (banging into the ends, etc.). I've seen both. This all raises an interesting question - could you seat race on land by rigging together two sets of eight ergs on slides and looking at the average "boat" time (the monitors can be rigged to do that)? Better than single, static ergs, but still not a boat. Now if we could just put the ergs on slides on top of telephone poles laid on the floor... Oh heck, maybe we should just get in a boat.

Erg Technique vs. Water Technique

After I linked to the Rowing Biomechanics Newsletter a few posts ago, I looked back at some past issues and found one that sheds a little more light on the erg discussion we've been having. At the risk of getting off topic (this isn't lightweight specific) or too technical, I thought I'd mention it.

This issue discusses handle and force measurements taken from a rower while rowing an erg and while rowing a single. On an erg, foot-stretcher force develops sooner than in a boat, but leg velocity is higher in a boat. This higher leg velocity means a higher percentage of power comes from the legs in a boat when compared to the erg. On the erg then, more power comes from the arms than in a boat. There is, however, greater acceleration of the arms on the drive on the water. If you look at the power breakdown among legs, trunk, and arms, it looks like this:

Erg - 37%,41%,22%
Boat - 45%,37%,18%

Quite often you see some rowers with good erg scores, and many land only rowers, whip the handle in a way you know wouldn't work on the water. Maybe this is why. There is no claim here that the tested rower has perfect form, only that given the same rower, one rows differently in a boat than on an erg. The Newsletter's author, Valery Kleshnev, concludes that,

a comparison of various rowers’ profiles show that the power production differs between ergo and on-water. Rowers with fast legs produce more power on-water, while athletes with slower legs and stronger upper body have relatively higher ergo scores.

This may be stating the obvious, but even before accounting for technique and chemistry, rowing an erg isn't quite the same as rowing a boat.

It Keeps Getting Better

More news today about the benefits of being a lightweight: "Want to live to a healthy 85? Stay trim." In this case staying trim means a Body Mass Index below 25. For a 5'6" woman to hit a 25 BMI she'd have to pork all the way up to 155, so this isn't exactly limited to lightweights. (On the other hand, at 130 a 5'6" woman has a BMI of 21, right in the middle of the 18 to 24 normal range.)

It's really a combination of nine risk factors that determine your chances of living to a ripe old age. Here they are with my guess as to how lightweight rowers should stack up:

Overweight - Hardly

High blood glucose levels - Fitness should help here

High triglyceride levels - Fitness should help here

High blood pressure - Fitness should help here

Low grip strength - Uh, all you do is grip an oar all day

Smoking - Good grief, I hope not

Not graduating from high school - Been there, done that

Being unmarried - Really? (Certain of you should ignore this one, and you know who you are)

Consuming three or more alcoholic drinks daily - Just as soon as you graduate... No wait! You're dry during the season!

Patagonia Targets Lightweight Rowers

Well, not just lightweights. I received an email from a Patagonia marketing rep who asked if I would mention the Patagonia Pro Sales Program. "This program enables qualified, competitive teams to purchase anything from Patagonia at a significant discount." It seems Patagonia has caught on to the fact that rowing involves "sweating; starting and stopping; overexertion; wind, rain, cold, hot, hypothermia and heat exhaustion" and decided it might fit with the products they sell.

I don't work for Patagonia, I receive no payments from Patagonia, and I have no financial interest in getting anyone to sign on to their program. They did, however, see fit to make a pitch to lightweights so I thought I'd pass it on.

The team web site is here.

The team application is here.

Radcliffe Wins the Belly!

I don't mean wins the lightweight category, I mean wins the race. Yes, the heavyweight boats in this freshmen race are supposed to be evenly matched, but c'mon, this is a great result for the Black and White. The next fastest boat was the Princeton heavyweights who were 2 seconds back. Princeton, by the way, only had one heavy eight entered so I'd say this is the best they've got. The Princeton lights were the next lightweight boat, 43 seconds behind Radcliffe, with the Georgetown lights another 26 seconds back. Both Radcliffe and Georgetown entered B boats which finished a bit further back in the pack.

That Radcliffe boat must have been smoking. No doubt the freshmen provide a good training partner for the varsity. The key point here seems to be that Radcliffe can bring some of these freshmen into the mix for seat racing this spring, adding speed to the V8 while still keeping a fast freshman eight. Thinking of the Pittsburgh four, this makes me wonder what the average erg score is of the Radcliffe boat. Think it's faster than all of the heavyweights in that race?

Two crews have now thrown down markers this fall - the Princeton varsity and the Radcliffe freshmen. Now, when the snow starts to fall, they'll move inside and begin making or breaking their spring seasons.

Weekend Results

Penn State had a nice 24 second advantage (these are 2k races) over Philadelphia University in the light eight event at the Frostbite Regatta in Philadelphia. Lehigh took a close light four event over Fairfield, who was a second and a half behind. Fairfield was followed by Penn State, Lafayette, and Scranton. Lafayette was right on Lehigh at Navy Day, but quite a bit back at this one. Given that crews are really training for head races in the fall, throwing a sprint race in there isn't entirely fair. Once crews start to train for sprint races at higher stroke rates, things change. I still anticipate a nice rivalry race between Lehigh and Lafayette in the spring.

At the Head of the South Virginia Tech beat Georgia Tech handily, while Alabama was a no-show. Georgia won the light fours by 27 seconds over Alabama. Bama was followed by Virginia Tech, Georgia B, Jacksonville, Georgia State, and Berry College. Geogia State was much closer to Georgia at the Hooch, so the Dogs opened it up in Augusta.

At the Newport Autumn Rowing Festival Stanford lights finished fourth in the heavyweight event. This is a nice result for Stanford and suggests they are recovering from their rough outing at last season's IRAs. Cal was further back at 15th in the 21 boat race. Stanford and Cal also raced fours (Stanford 13th out of 21) and novice eights (Stanford 7th out of 20 and Cal 19th out of 20) in the heavyweight events. There was also a light eight event in which Cal State Long Beach beat Arizona.

Ohio State - Dayton results aren't available yet.

Boat Speed Increase at Worlds

The August issue of the Rowing Biomechanics Newsletter discussed the average annual growth in boat speed from 1993 to 2006. I was surprised to read that the speed of the lightweight women's 2x is increasing at the third slowest rate of the 14 Olympic boat classes. I'm surprised because some other statistics I've seen and discussed seemed to suggest that the LW2x should be increasing speed at a greater rate than other boats. This seemed to fit with the idea that as relative newcomers on the scene, lightweight women would be gaining speed faster than heavyweights who have been around a lot longer. It may have been that in the past I've looked at the LW2x's speed relative to the heavy W2x. In that case, because the speed of the W2x has actually been slowing over the period measured, the gap is closing quickly. The same thing is happening among the light men as the LM2x is increasing speed faster than the heavy M2x. In fact, the Newsletter projects that the 2008 speeds of the winning LM2x and M2x will be nearly identical. If this were to occur, it would no doubt be used to bolster the argument to do away with lightweights because if there is no difference in speed, why should there be a different category? I think this is a bit of a red herring though, because the LM2x contains 2 of the top 6 lightweights in the world, while the M2x contains 2 of the top 21 heavyweights in the world. Potentially, then, we could be comparing the top 2 lightweights to the number 20 and 21 heavyweights.

The Newsletter also shows graphs of times by boat. There are two distinct patterns among the graphs and the only explanation I can think of is that they are grouped by the day of the final so that conditions for each group are similar.

I'm not sure how useful this kind of statistic is given how conditions can affect times, but it will be interesting to see what the LW2x times look like in Beijing in 2008, particularly now that the Chinese are paying a lot of attention to rowing.

Racing This Weekend

We're coming to the end of the fall season, but there are still a few more races to go.

At the Head of the South in Augusta, Georgia Tech, Alabama, and Virginia Tech face off, while in the light four Berry, Georgia State, Jacksonville, Georgia (2 boats), Alabama, and Virginia Tech race. Virginia Tech has beaten Alabama at the Head of the Hooch in eights, while Georgia beat Georgia State by a mere 3 seconds at the Hooch. Should be good racing.

The Frostbite Regatta in Philadelphia has lightweight four and eight events with Scranton, Penn State, Lehigh, Fairfield and Lafayette meeting in fours and Philadelphia U. and Penn State racing in eights. When Lafayette raced Lehigh at the Navy Day Regatta, if the posted results are to be believed, the two fours rowed the same time. This should be a great rematch. Philadelphia is in the early days of its program so we'll probably see Penn State take the eights.

On the West Coast the Newport Autumn Rowing Festival doesn't have entries listed, but Stanford and Cal both raced last year. The Head of the Lagoon doesn't have entries listed either, but last year UCSD and NorCal raced light fours.

In a traditional race (although a recent tradition, I think), Dayton welcomes Ohio State to a dual race on Saturday.

On Sunday the freshman have at it at the Belly of the Carnegie. Georgetown Princeton, and Radcliffe will be there, praying for better weather than that for the Chase.

Knecht/Windermere Conflict

It appears that the Knecht Cup conflicts with the Windermere Classic this spring, as both are currently scheduled for April 14th. In the past we've seen some of the faster non-West Coast crews such as Radcliffe, Princeton, and Wisconsin race at Windermere and if they do so this year that will degrade the quality of the Knecht field. This later date is probably a better time for Windermere since the crews will have more water time in and will be closer to their end-of-season speed. When it was held earlier in the season, it was hard to draw any real conclusions from the results, although last year Radcliffe did sustain their top ranking after Windermere for quite some time. It's not clear who will race at Windermere, although Wisconsin has both Knecht and Windermere on their schedule and Princeton, Radcliffe, Stanford, and LMU raced there last year. If any two of Princeton, Wisconsin, or Radcliffe go to Winderemere over Knecht, I suspect the other will also go (I think we'll see at least these three in California).

Although it's still early and dates may change, I'm not entirely sorry to see the Knecht Cup broken up. While I think it was a good opportunity to get the best light eights racing each other before IRAs, I don't think the regatta understood what they had and therefore were unable to capitalize on it. The lightweight race was an elite event occurring in the midst of a Dad Vail level regatta. And I do mean the midst. The men's novice four final was later in the day than the light eight, for goodness sake. The downside is that some schools with fast lightweight boats and so-so heavyweight boats were more likely to race there because the whole team was making the trip. Windermere, on the other hand, can't be beat for atmoshpere and the excitement of a match race. Visiting crews are treated like royalty. Sometimes, when you are at the pinnacle of your sport, even rowing, it's nice to be treated with respect. Windermere does it, Knecht doesn't.

Alabama Lightweights

There was a nice blurb in The Crimson White about the Alabama women's crew's results at the Head of the Hooch. The lightweights figure prominently because they led the way. It would be great to see Alabama continue to develop lightweights now that they are varsity (last year their coach told me that he would like to do this). If they did, I could easily see them creating a Wisconsin type of program - big (in numbers) and fast. I think that this will be hard to do, however, because athletic directors want NCAA championships and the best lightweight crew in the country won't bring that to Alabama.

More Results

Fordham won the light four at the Grimaldi Cup, followed by Iona, Sacred Heart, and Manhattan.

Tulsa won the light four at the Wichita Frostbite over Wash U. and Oklahoma City.

At the Head of the Occoquan, Penn State beat Duquesne in the light eight event.

More Recognition for Wisconsin

A lot of big time football schools use football game TV timeouts to honor the achievements of sports other than football. The team typically runs out onto the field while their championship is announced, they give a quick wave, get a few pictures taken, and run back off. It's good PR for the team and good PR for the athletic department. Last Saturday it was the Wisconsin lightweight women's turn. (Please note, I didn't take this picture.) Further proof that Wisconsin does it right.

Race Results

UCF kicked it's season off with a win in the light eight at the Head of the Hooch. I thought Atlanta might give them a run for their money and they were second, 16 seconds back. Virginia Tech, Alabama, and Miami U. followed. This is a nice start for UCF although a good season last spring brings with it the burden of expectations and we would have expected nothing less here. In the light fours, Georgia pulled off a tight, 3 second win over Georgia State. Virginia Tech was third, followed by Alabama, Auburn, Florida, and Clemson. There should be some fun racing between these two in-state rivals in the spring.

The Georgetown novice lightweights turned in a good result at the GW Novice scrimmage in Washington, finishing third behind the UVA and Georgetown heavyweight novices. They beat GW's top novice heavyweight boat, as well as the other B boats.

At The Green Monster, Frosh Invitational in Hanover, NH, the Radcliffe frosh lightweights turned in a dominating performance, winning the race ahead of the heavyweight frosh from Dartmouth, BU, MIT, UMass, Northeastern, and UVM. The MIT lightweight frosh also raced, finishing 7th, ahead of the top heavyweight frosh boats from UMass, Northeastern, and UVM. This may have been an event in which the heavyweights send out even boats, but these are impressive results nonetheless (the MIT lights look like they sent out even boats themselves since they finished 2 seconds apart; only one Radcliffe boat raced).

Lightweights in the News

There was a nice article in The Columbian about a pacific Lutheran lightweight rower. There were a couple of interesting points in this article. The first was that PLU practices at 4am! Classes must start awfully early at PLU (if this is correct). The second point is the discussion of cutting weight. The rower, Shayna Horracks, laughs about how hard it was for her to drop weight to 130 pounds, and says that her normal weight is 132. In fact, she cut to 126.6, probably as a result of the Head of the Charles practice of averaging. One hundred thirty two is a pretty normal weight for a lightweight rower (as well as a pretty normal weight for 5'7" woman), but no doubt she had a bit of a struggle to get to 126. I'm sure she had teammates closer to the 138 HOCR limit. This is why there is no averaging in collegiate events, because it makes everyone cut weight, even those athletes who are natural lightweights.


On another topic, a reader noted the story about the USC men adding lightweights to the program and wondered if the women will be next. This would be great if it happened, but I think it is not too likely. First of all there is the Football Theorem at work (average weight of the women's crew is proportional to the prominence of a school's football program), coupled with the natural reticence of women's varsity coaches to consider lightweights. The most interesting thing about the men's story is the attitude of the men's coach toward the lightweights. After saying that he is adding lightweights to increase the opportunities for students to row, he says that "a person can develop athletically quite dramatically from one year to the next. Someone who is a lightweight this year can turn into quite a decent heavyweight oarsman next year.” In addition, the lightweights are racing in the "sub-varsity" category, whatever that is. Doesn't quite sound like an unequivocal commitment to lightweights to me.

Meanwhile, Wisconsin continues to tout the achievements of its women's lightweights. A story in the Wisconsin State Journal discusses the high caliber of Wisconsin athletics, pointing to the lightweights as national champions and examples of athletic excellence. Wisconsin really does a great job of giving its lightweights recognition and setting them up as models for other Wisconsin teams to follow. (Of course, it helps when you've won three national championships in a row!)

Racing This Weekend - Head of the Hooch

There are other races this weekend but the biggest is the Head of the Hooch. The light eight has five entries including Alabama, Virginia Tech, Miami U., and UCF (Atlanta Rowing Club will also compete). This is effectively the fall debut of UCF as they race against other lightweight crews for the first time. They should dominate here although Atlanta can't be overlooked. The light four is loaded with 19 entries including, among others, Jacksonville University, Virginia Tech Crew, UGA Rowing Club, Alabama, UTC, Georgia State, Miami University, and Georgia Tech. The Hooch continues to be a premiere fall regatta for lightweight crews.

Typical Speculative Weight Story in Yale Daily News

A few weeks ago the Yale Daily News published a story entitled, Weight troubles athletes. This story is typical of the genre in that it discusses eating disorders among lightweight rowers (in this case men) without providing any statistics or even anecdotal evidence that this group of athletes experiences these disorders more frequently than the population at large. In fact, it fails to produce one member of the team with an eating disorder. One person quoted as an authority is a female heavyweight rower who claims to see male rowers who lose 30 pounds from summer to season. Obviously, that kind of rower is not a lightweight, but she offers no names and her claim isn't confirmed.

The weigh-in issue we've discussed here is touched upon by rowers, however, when the article states, "The 17 to 20 hours between weigh-in and a race give rowers a chance to hydrate and take in calories before the competition, team members said." Readers have pointed to this exact practice and have criticized these weigh-in rules saying that true lightweights should be capable of weighing-in just prior to a race without a loss of performance due to dehydration or lack of calories.

The usual three points to be made here:

- "Eating disorders" as defined in all studies I've seen with definitions is what a lay person would call "dieting." All college women do it.

- Whenever I've seen statistics for lightweight women rowers with "eating disorders" (using the expansive definition), the numbers show that they are no more likely to be affected than their peer group.

- Lightweight rowing should not be lumped with other allegedly "at-risk" sports because unlike those other sports, there is no incentive for rowers to drop to a weight below the minimum. In fact, rowers want to be as close as they can to the minimum because lower weight will mean a loss of power.

I get tired of reading these stories and I get tired of writing about these stories, but I don't feel it is proper to let them go unchallenged.