Back in the States

So now it's time to decompress. Spending over two weeks in Poland was a long time, and it's really nice to be back in the US. Looking back on our performance over there, I have to say that I'm fairly pleased. Half of our races were really great. I just watched our semi-final for the first time, and even though it sucked to watch us lose it in the last 200 meters, it's reassuring the know that the training that I'll be putting in over the next 14 months will give me plenty of extra juice. Our performance in the heat and in the final was pretty disappointing. Both were in tough conditions, and both times we failed to perform the way we've trained to do. In the final, I think we ignored the way we rowed in the rep and semi, and instead tried to row "like a lightweight 4-", that is we rowed high and choppy rather than long and smooth. In the rep and the semi, we were under rating the competition but pushing the boat feet further every stroke.

Fortunately, the disappointment of the final is tempered by the speed we showed in half of our races. In both of those races, we dominated the middle thousand. While we never were able to push our bow into the lead, by hitting our rhythm we were able to work our way into qualifying position with 500 to go in both races, although we did fall short in the semi. Even though we did fail to qualify through the semi, it is reassuring to know that the top two in our semi - Germany and Denmark, went on to finish 1-2 in the final, and while the Dutch finished last, a crab with 700 meters to go certainly blunted that devastating final sprint that caught us. In addition, we were only 2.85 seconds off of the World Champions in the semi, illustrating just how tight this field is.

Going into this fall, it'll be important to focus on the bring spots from the good races we had, and even more important to learn from the hard lessons from the heat and final. For now however, it's most important for me to focus on the eternal questions of our generation: McDonalds, or Wendy's? Hershey, or Nestle?! Long Trail, or Bass Ale?!?! Needless to say, these questions may take a week or two to figure out, and until I get the answers I need, the rowing will have to take a back seat.

Thanks to all those who've sent me messages of support through Worlds. I'll now be taking this blog back underground onto the e-mail list, but if you've enjoyed reading this blog and would like continue receiving updates on my training and racing, send me an e-mail at brian.deregt@gmail.com.

Thanks,

Brian

That really didn't go according to plan. We were dusted off the line pretty quickly and never really got back into the rhythm that we've been using so effectively in the rep and the semi. I'm very disappointed. I have trouble understanding why we couldn't just row the same way, but that's racing. I'll put up a more detailed review when I have some time to collect my thoughts. For now it's time to grab some McDonalds and rehydrate.

Video from the Semis

This is the link to the semifinals on Friday. I actually can't see this video because I'm in Poland, or I'd be able to give you a time to jump to. We were the third to last race though, and the second semi of the LM4-, so you can jump pretty close to the end if you only want to watch our race. Since we were in lane 6, I don't think that there is actually too much video of us, but it'll still be cool to watch.

http://www.universalsports.com/mediaPlayer/media.dbml?SPSID=105714&SPID=11656&DB_OEM_ID=23000&id=644799&sid=11656

Barn Burner...

... actually that may have taken out the entire farm as well. Not to spoil the surprise, but when the dust settled we found ourselves in 4th place in the semi. Not a bad result by any means- just not the one we were looking for. It's alright though, we put it out there, took the race stroke by stroke, and attacked at every opportunity we could. When you finish a race 2.85 seconds off of the Olympic Champions, you can only be so disappointed. The 1.1 second spread we had off of the Dutch could almost be considered misleading, it doesn't do justice to how close the race actually was.

Through the race we did a good job of staying internal, racing our own race, and letting people respond to us. Similar to the rep, we were out of qualifying position, just barely, going through the first 1000 meters, but we were able to get into 3rd place with 500m to go. At this point you really don't have any option other than to go for the line, as hard as you can, and while we put everything we had left into the sprint, we simply didn't have the kick that the Danish and Dutch had. Times are difficult to compare, especially today as the wind was inconsistent in both strength and direction, but our time would have won us the other semi.

That's life though, we raced the semi that we had, and did everything we could to make it to the A-final. History was against us; the last US LM4- to make the final was 2000. Now we must turn our attention to the B-final, and fight our way to the highest placing we can. Every race here has been an improvement and so we still have the opportunity to be one of the highest placing fours of the past decade. It's something that I'd like to do, and it would be a good way to start our four year push to London.

More fun with links

I've been interview by Sean Wolf at RowingIllustrated.com, talking a little about our rep and some other stuff. That can be found here:

http://www.rowingillustrated.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=1785

Shiva was kind enough to put up a picture that really captures what an impressive athlete I am:

http://shivspix.com/

Go to Gallery --> World Championships --> USA --> August 26th behind the scenes

It's the one with the water bottle about to hit my face...

As for our preperation going into the semi tomorrow, we're really hitting our taper. I've been trying to stay of my feet as much as possible, and we were able to sleep in this morning so I'm feeling pretty rested... and a little restless. It will be nice to get on the water again this afternoon before we launch for the semis.

Media

Hey all, just a quick update with some media-related links.

Pictures from our heat can be found here, on the first and second page:

http://www.row2k.com/worlds/photo.cfm?action=gallery&dir=2009Summer/09Worlds/0824Heats2&label=2009%20World%20Championships%20-%20August%2024,%202009&hi=yes

Pictures of our rep can be found here, starting on page 8, going through page 10:

http://www.row2k.com/worlds/photo.cfm?action=gallery&dir=2009Summer/09Worlds/0826Reps&offset=84&label=2009%20World%20Championships%20-%20August%2026,%202009&hi=yes

Shiva is the official USRowing and Hudson photographer, and she has some pictures up of our boat. Her website is:

http://shivspix.com/

Video will be taken from the A/B semi final, and will be available at universalsports.com, although when it comes up I'll post the link since it's a little bit of a tricky website to work through.

Also, my USRowing bio is up:

http://www.usrowing.org/News_Media/AthleteBios/bderegt.aspx

Moving on

F*ck yeah. Sorry Grandma, and sorry Mom, but jeez, that felt really, really good. We finally were able to put down the kind of piece that we've seen in practice, the kind that we hoped to put down in the heats. Conservative, but at the same time aggressive. Controlled, but reckless. While we got off the line pretty slowly, we had a very clean start, putting us in a position to assert our middle 1k. As the result sheet can attest, we were 4th through 500m, 3rd through 1k before moving into 2nd through 1500, and into the finish. Again, in the interest of further success, I won't talk about specific moves and shifts, but I can say that splitting responsibility between Taylor and me has allowed us to both focus more on the technical changes that Taylor calls for, and more effective moves.

Our time was also good for today, 6:02, and while it was the slowest of the four boats moving through to the A/B semi, Switzerland and Canada were only tenths quicker from the other rep. I really can't say enough how satisfying it is to finally put together a complete race, and to feel like I was contributing to moving the boat through the full 2,000 meters. Interestingly, unlike Monday, our warm up wasn't really anything great, and our first two attempts at base pace 10s were pretty much total failures. Even our third, and final, 10 wasn't spectacular, although it did have the feeling of being something that could be sustained for 2k. Clearly we were able to find the right mix of swing and press in the race.

Now we've got a day to relax before the A/B semi. We're going to go down to the course today for a very easy paddle, then get a little of a sleep in tomorrow to recover. My body's holding up pretty well, and anytime something feels like it might be a problem, our training staff have been more than up to the challenge of keeping me together. It is going to be hard to break myself from the habit of getting a rub down for my legs after races to flush the lactate acid though, because it really feels good.

Now I'm going to enjoy the feeling of knowing that we're one of the 12 fastest lightweight 4-s in the world, fast enough to beat a country that was in the Olympic final last year, before I have to face the reality of the A/B semifinal on Friday. The glow should last for at least a couple more hours.

Second Chances

Tomorrow we have our repachage, or second chance race. The top two boats will advance into the A/B semifinals on Friday, the rest will be in the C/D semifinals tomorrow. We've draw a difficult rep, with more than two fast boats. We'll be in lane 6, all the way on the outside, with New Zealand next to us, then Great Britain, France, Russia and Indonesia. None of these boats can be discounted, and in particular we'll have to be wary of the British and the French. The French in particular have a massive sprint, so no margin will be large enough for comfort.

We've implemented some of the changes that I talked about previously, and I think splitting the responsibility of making the calls has been beneficial. I feel very comfortable calling the moves, and I also think that having to keep an awareness of where I am on the course will help me race more aggressively. In addition to the commands, I've been trying to sit more upright, keeping my chest up and out both at the catch and the finish. It was something that we were working on earlier in the summer, but that sort of fell out of our vocabulary. I think that it really helps me maintain power as I get tired, and keeps my stroke more effective. It also stops me from going for too much length in the stroke, which I believe will help in the start and the sprint, since I can be a little quicker and help push the rate.

Tomorrow will once again be about execution. We have to do what we know we're capable of. I was a major part of the breakdown of that during the last race, but with a little more confidence and relaxation, I think that we'll be able to perform. Time will tell. Everyone wants to be in the A/B semi. There's no room to back off and save energy for the next race, so calling tomorrow a rep means nothing. It's a race. Six boats across, two thousand meters to row. First two bows across the line move on.

Heat recap

So that definitely didn’t go according to plan. For those who haven’t seen the results, we ended up 5th of 5 in the heats. The top two boats advance straight to the A/B semi final, and as we weren’t in there, we’re now headed to the reps on Wednesday. Today started out pretty well, everyone was under their weight, and as I was warming up I thought everything was proceeding pretty smoothly. Our water warm up was also pretty solid. Unfortunately, there was a pretty stiff head/cross head, coming off the starboard bow, but everyone has to deal with that. However, on the third stroke of the start I caught a half crab, getting my oar caught under the water, and I really think that impacted the rest of our race negatively. Even with that poor start, we were right in the middle of the field going through 250 meters, and actually held with the pack for much longer than we did in Lucerne. There was some confusion over where to call our moves, but in the end we just let crews slip away that we should have stuck with. During our post-race talk, we felt like we just hadn’t quite hit our rhythm, except for a little patch with around 750m to go, but despite that we were hanging with the top crews through 1500 meters. Even with only 500m to go, we were just 2 seconds out of a qualifying position.

Despite all of the improvements that we can make over our effort today, it’s still very disappointing. I was really hoping to be in a position to qualify directly out of the heats into the semis, but due in part to my sloppy rowing, we weren’t able to do that. This makes Wednesday a real do-or-die situation. We have to be top two in our rep. If not, we’ll be in the C/D semifinals, and that’s a position we’d like to avoid if at all possible. It’s going to be a real dogfight; everyone is going to be going full bore for a spot in the A/B semis. We’ve got a lot to work on, and not a lot of time. On the plus side, this was our first 2k together, and it wasn’t a complete failure. One of the bigger changes that we’re going to make is that I’ll now be calling the moves, and Taylor will focus more on the technical aspects of our rowing. This will just take a little of the load off of him, and clear up some of the confusion that we previously had over making the moves. It’s also a role that I felt pretty comfortable with during seat racing, and I think the other guys in my boat know that I have a pretty good sense of when to strike.

One thing I definitely have to keep reminding myself is that this is the highest level of rowing in the world. It’s not collegiate rowing, it’s not U23 or Junior Worlds, it’s just the fastest guys in the world. To even be in the mix at 1000m is something, and if we can implement the changes that we’ve been talking about, hopefully we’ll be able to really compete over the full distance. I’m trying to stay upbeat about the way today went, and we really do have another chance to get it right, which is nice. With the way our Light 8+ is racing, we know that the guys below us, the guys who were pushing us so hard through seat racing, have been turned into one of the fastest Light 8s in the world, so we have the depth. Now we just need to show that there is more than depth in the US, but also legitimate top-end speed.

Heats tomorrow

So we're really in crunch time now. There's no avoiding the fact that count down to our race is well under 24 hours, from here on our everything is focused on maximizing performance in the race. I've been lucky enough to generally be in the position of taking heats a little lightly, using them to send a message rather than worrying whether I'll make it to the next round or not, but this is a whole 'nother league of rowing. Even the top boats can't afford to make a mistake, the margins are just too tight to not row to your potential. Fortunately that's what we train to do, consistently perform close to our 100% speed, as does everyone else.

At this point, all you can do is focus on what you know. You don't know how the other boats are feeling, what their race strategy is, or if they're going to have a bobble at 1241 meters into the race, slowing them down just enough for you to slip by. What I do know is that we are peaking at the right time. My rowing is the best it's ever been. I'm in the best shape of my life, without a doubt. Our boat, as a unit, is the fastest it's ever been. We're comfortable with our race plan, and I'm confident that when the legs are burning and the lungs screaming, we'll be able to execute when we need to.

What is all comes down to is that we're ready to race, to put our best effort forward. I can't wait to see what we can do. We've had some extremely promising pieces, but we've yet to put together a full 2k, with a start, settle, base, moves, and sprint. In a little under 16 hours, we'll see if we can put that piece, that we've talked about so much, into practice. I think we can, and I'll do everything I can to make it happen.

Countdown

So it appears I've managed to start following my own blog, so take that as a sign of technical incompetence rather than my ego. You'll know when it's my ego...

We're really coming into the final stretch before racing starts. Our workload is down to almost nothing, a 500m piece this morning, then only a single lap of the course this afternoon. The 500 was pretty solid, just swinging it along at base, trying to keep the speed and rate at a reasonable 2k pace, and it felt pretty good. We did it next to the LM8+, but I think we stayed nicely internal and I'm not totally sure how we compared to them. While we don't race until Monday, they have their heats tomorrow so they didn't go out this afternoon. With two to advance straight through to the A-final on Sunday, hopefully they'll have a great race and get to relax through the week.

Our heat draw also came out today. We're racing Poland, Belgium, the Netherlands and France. We faced three of these crews, Poland, Belgium, and France in Lucerne, so it will be an excellent opportunity to see how our speed has improved since then. I can't be divulging our racing secrets on a public forum, but I'm looking forward to see what happens. It's also top two out of the heats for us, but instead of straight to the final it's to advance to the A/B semi next Friday, the rest into the reps on Wednesday. I definitely don't think we're out of the hunt for the top two, but nothing is going to be a given through the next week. We'll really have our work cut out, but there's something extremely exciting about racing the best in the world.

Anyway, that's all for now. There's a link to some of the pictures I've taken since getting here on the right column. Enjoy.

Introductions

Hi all, this will be my first public blog post, so take it a little easy on me. I do have a group of extremely generous and dedicated Trinity Alumi/ae that follow my adventures through e-mail, but as the World Championships approach I thought it would be nice to reach out to the greater Trinity community, as well as the wider rowing community.

First off should be an introduction. I'm Brian, and I sit three seat in the US Lightweight Men's Straight Four (LM4-). This boat was selected through the camp system in the US, and this year we were fortunate to have a very strong group, allowing us to put together not only a four but also a Lightweight Eight (LM8+), although technically they had to qualify through trials. This has allowed us to send what we hope is one of the stronger lightweight sweep squads in a while, although only time will tell.

As for myself, I'm a 2009 graduate of Trinity College, in Hartford, CT. This is my first Senior National Team, although I was lucky enough to represent the US at the 2006 U-23 World Championships in the Lightweight Quad (LM4x), placing second.

The stroke of our boat is Will Daly, a 2006 Boston University graduate. Will raced at the 2005 U-23 Championships in the LM4-, and the 2006, 2007 and 2008 Senior World Championships in the LM8+, winning in 2008. Will also represented the US at the 2008 Olympics in the LM4- and is the only returning Olympian from that boat.

Two seat is Nick LaCava, a 2009 Columbia University graduate. This is Nick's first Senior National Team. In the winter of 2008 Nick won the C.R.A.S.H.-B Indoor Championship in the Collegiate Lightweight division, but I'm not that impressed. Nick and I have occasionally competed against each other since we were juniors, as we both hail from Fairfield County in Connecticut.

Our bow seat is Taylor Wasburn, a 2008 graduate of Princeton University. This is also Taylor's first Senior National Team. Taylor spent the last year teaching and coaching at Phillips Andover Academy, where his father also teaches and coaches. His grandfather was also a rowing coach, meaning Taylor has quite a legacy behind him.

We're now all in Poznan, Poland, rowing on the Malta Rowing Course, prepping for our Monday heats. We've been here for almost a week now, so we're pretty well adjusted. We've been trying to balance our taper with stretching out all the tight and sore muscles, and I think that we've been getting it pretty close to right on. Most of our work is easier steady state and drills, but there have been some higher intensity pieces as well, culminating in a 1500m piece with the Heavy Men's 4- a couple days ago, which really got the blood pumping. However, with the heats rapidly approaching, our workload is rapidly dropping off. Personally, I love tapering, because I really like sleeping and I really like watching TV, and tapering lets me do more of both. It's also nice to feel the energy building in your body, and while sometimes you can get a little antsy, you know that it's just potential speed building in your legs and arms, waiting to be unleashed.

Anyway, I think that's probably enough for now. I think I've covered most of the important parts, and those of you on my e-mail list and those reading the other Worlds blogs have already heard of the epic Bear vs. Shark debate, so I won't bore you.