Dichroic Reflections

regatta report

None of us (me, Rudder, She-Hulk) were particularly enthusiastic going in, what with one thing and another, but the regatta yesterday, whose official name is the US Rowing Southwest Regional Masters Championship, actually turned out to be a surprising lot of fun. The clubs from our area were friendlier than usual and the annoying people stayed well away from us (instead of of mooching our canopy and chairs as usual). We did have a few people sharing our shade but they were all very nice and were trying to make sure they weren't keeping anyone out of a chair. Some of them weren't rowers, just spectators, seeing a regatta for their first time, and some were people who are just starting to get really competitive. Also they helped pack up at the end of the day, which is always nice. Even better, we have people coming over to talk to us from other clubs all over, who have raced against us or hung out with us at other races. That was not only lots of fun but gave us the chance to set up a few extra boats for upcoming races and to get our boats on someone's trailer to our next race.

She-Hulk had the first race of the day, only her second ever in a single. She came in fifth overall in the official results, out of seven, but that really doesn't tell the whole story. She was fourth before they adjust for age handicaps, and since they'd combined several age categories some of the handicaps were substantial. It's not linear; the handicaps get steeper with age and she's near the inflection point, shere people only a few years older get nearly a second per year. She's still not entirely comfortable racing in a single, yet she came in (in raw time) only 4 seconds behind one woman who has won Masters Nationals, so it was a good race for her.

Next, she and I had a doubles race. We've been in a boat together exactly once since our last doubles race. This race had four entries and we tied for third. The man running the regatta doesn't like giving out medals unless you beat someone, which technically we didn't, but I think it's fair to argue we realy did earn that third, with the tie. Luckily for us, he was off somewhere and the funny and down-to-earth woman handling the 'hardware' made a command decision and gave us our bronze medals. We can't race in her age category because I'm too young or race lightweight because she's not lightweight. The former is just as well, since the C age group was actually faster than B, and we can't compare times for the latter because they didn't end up having a women's lightweight doubles race -- probably no entries. I talk about real vs adjusted time a lot, because I really believe US Rowing needs to fix their handicapping system. Clearly it's necessary to give older people some time advantage in competing with younger people, but once into the fifties and on up, the system they use is way too steep. Above a certain age you almost always win races against younger people, because the huge handicaps are just not surmountable without a gross inequity in skill. Maybe the system worked once, but these days there are too many older people who are in great shape, who have rowed for years and have great finesse, who have slowed down only moderately from their younger days. Actually, what I expect to happen is that they'll fix the system right as I reach an age where I would have benefited from it.

Rudder pretty much kicked butt in the Men's Lightweight Single, coming in first by a second in the official time, 7 seconds in real time. He usually races heavyweight also, but this time the races were too close.

I only saw the beginning of his race, because I was already on the water heading out to the start of my singles race, in which there were three boats. I got to beat someone this time! Granted, she was 68 years old, so when you add in her forty second handicap, she ended up second and I got third (and hence no medal since there was no fourth) but I was still happy that I beat her by 27.5 seconds. She's another of those who's in great shape and whose form she's had years to perfect.. The other woman came in way, way ahead of us, but since she's a national champion on the erg I'm not int he least bothered by that.

Since Rudder's usual partner in the men's doubles didn't come out for the race, he and She-Hulk decided to race in the Men's Lightweight Double as well as in the Mixed one. Unfortunately the only other boat in the Lightweight event scratched, so they got moved into the Heavyweight event, and into a younger age category. (They did get the handicap, after some discussion, but it only amount to less than four seconds.) They came in 5 of 6 in real time in a close race, only 1.1 seconds behind the third place boat, and then won third place after the times were adjusted. As you might imagine, this did embarass some of the actual men's boats in the race, especially when one rower from one of our local clubs yelled over, "Good for you beating those guys!" right in front of two of the guys involved. (Hee, hee, hee.)

They came in second in their Mixed Double event, by 3 seconds. One of their usual fiercest competitors lost a skeg and had to leave the course right before the finish - when it came off their boat turned 90 degrees) but I think they'd been ahead anyway.

Finally, I got talked into a Mixed Quad in the last race of the day. I really didn't want to do it, as at leat one of the people involved was one I don't have much opinion of, but it turned out to be fun. It was about the most bizarre lineups you can imagine, put together at the last minute: me in bow, a medium slightly pudgy 58 year old man in two seat who learned to row back in his youth but these days is a bit short on endurance, a 30-year-old woman about twice my size (almost literally) in three who rowed at a high level in college but is still new to rowing with two oars instead of one, and another 58-year-old man, medium height and stringy, who rowed in the Olympics for Russia in a distant past. The guy in two, who had assembled the crew, set the strategy and it was a bizarre one, involving a start without the usual ten high-speed strokes to really get the boat moving, a sprint for the entire last half of the race instead of the last 200 meters, and a rate so high that I doubt the bigger people in the boat could get full strength into each stroke. But for all that, it was still fun; a quad moves much faster than the single I'm usually in and if we were rushing too fast at least we were together and set reasonably well. We came in a full half minute behind the other boat in our race, but the nice thing about last-minute crews is not having to take them seriously. Then we found for some some reason the official finish didn't include our handicap time. I was going to protest, until I realized it wouldn't make any difference since it would only have been 12 seconds or so.

So all in all it was a fun race. Rudder, She-Hulk and I shared a hotel room which always feels odd - I'm sort of past the age and payscale where that's just normal -- but she's a good and considerate roommate, and none of us snore or hog the bathroom so that's all right. We talked so much in the car on the six-hour drives that we never did put on any music or the lecture CD we'd brought. I did realize the one impediment to my strategy of learning to knit so I could do it in the car on long trips, and it's rather a big one: night. It was about 5:00 by the time we left. Then we had to grab subs for dinner and then it took me three or four tries to cast on, figuring out the right length of yarn tail to leave and how many stitches I'd need for a 6" wide piece. The latter involved knitting a couple of rows and having to pull the whole thing. By the time it got too dark to see, I'd only gotten about three rows done. But I did finish the dishrag on the way in Saturday, so by Rudder's grandmother's scale that's a one-dishrag distance, at least more me at this level of skill. It has a few flaws, but looks much better than the last one.

Posted by dichroic at July 19, 2004 01:48 PM