Club trustees and members gathered in Boathouse B while it snowed outside.
We discussed the year that was, and the year that is coming.
What with new board members joining and new oar closets coming, with warmer weather on the way and the lake as lovely as ever, we’ve got lots to look forward to!
Two weeks after the boathouse was opened and two weeks into season, we’re just getting going. Come row with us!
If you’re a rower in New England, you have two choices for getting on water in winter. Go south or go west. Giovanna, who hails from California in the first place, went west. She reports back, “For February break, I was a visiting rower at the Los Angeles Rowing Club (LARC) in Marina del Rey, CA. 
She rowed in coxed ladies eights for four rows, 
which were coached by LARC staff at 5 am in Marina Del Rey harbor.
Sea lions lined the docks. The full moon lit up the harbor.”
Sounds good! Maybe just the thought of it will get us through to when there’s water in New England.
And here’s what he has to report about it:
I am a single sculler transplanted from California six years ago. I joined BRASS this year and am happily participating in the winter erging program expertly conducted by coach Tanya. I had heard about the CRASH B in California. My wife and I had a free weekend in February when it was being held so I paid the $35 sign up fee and we booked a hotel and dinner reservation for a winter getaway in Boston.
I found out that CRASH B stands for Charles River Association of Sculling Has-Beens. It has been held in Boston since the 1980s, sponsored by the erg maker Concept2. Now there are similar events held all over the country. This year the Boston event was held at Boston University’s indoor track. Everyone races 2000 meters on new Concept2 ergs wired to a central computer. 
There were two rows of 30 ergs each. The first row is generally for women, the second for men. Competitors are grouped by age. 
My race was for lightweight 50 year olds and up, there were about 60 of us segmented in 5 year age intervals. Three of us were in the 70 to 75 age segment. The race is started like a racing sprint (“attention set go”) but monitored by computer. In my race there was a false start detected by the computer before the first stroke was completed. We had to restart. The monitors on each erg not only tell your rate and distance completed but also the distances of the first three in your age segment. I could see myself falling steadily behind the two others rowing beside me. The first of us three finished at 7:15 (1:49 split), but I was pleased with my 8:12. After I finished I got to watch as Dottie, a 95-plus year old lightweight woman, finish her 2000 meters to much applause.
The first race of the day was the Para Rowing event for persons with visual, physical and mental disabilities. For me the high point of the day was watching these men and women with extreme disabilities give it their all. Their efforts were wildly applauded by all spectators. It was heart warming.
It was a great experience, but I think I’m over it, doubt if I’ll do it again. By the way the overall winner of the men’s category did the 2000 meters in 5:59, that’s an average split of 1:29.
That’s what they say, anyway. Rowing, as photogenic a sport as it is, is not much of a spectator sport. Regattas make for long days, and boats racing by tend to do it quickly. They’re a lot more fun when you’re in one of those boats.
Linda is one of our most enthusiastic rower of team boats. You’ll usually find her in a quad when she’s at the lake. When she’s not rowing, though, she’s working with other sorts of teams that also aren’t much interested in spectators. As founder and president of Dulye & Co. and the Dulye Leadership Experience, Linda thrives on helping companies and their employees go “spectator-free.” Since 1998, she has introduced effective two-way communication practices in organizations, large and small, that have measurably improved professional relationships, personal reputations and team performance.
In a few days, she’ll be speaking here in Pittsfield to area human resource employees and other organization leadership to help in their flow of communication ad effectiveness. It’s as important in business and non-profit work as it in a team boat.
To get everyone pulling in the same direction: best of luck with it, Linda!
In a previous post, you read of Randy’s penchant for counting strokes to get him through the workout. Now we present Liz’s quirk: music whose beats per minute match with the stroke rate she means to keep.
Liz has had two persistent free-time habits in life, rowing and choral singing. These two have more in common than you might think. In both, one major challenge is to blend. Consider: in a choir, if you can hear yourself over and against the other singers, you’re not doing it right. So in a crew boat: if you can feel yourself in distinction to all the other rowers in your boat, you’re not doing it right.
But that strong compulsion to blend gets weird when it comes to erging to music. Unable not to join the driving beat of workout music, Liz finally gave up trying and just made playlists with songs whose beat match the stroke rate she means to keep.
Of course, the desperate search for music to erg to isn’t something Liz is alone in undergoing. Everyone on ergs everywhere the world over is always asking, what music will keep me going today?
Given the mid-winter crisis you might be amidst, Liz shares here her playlists, which she downloaded on Spotify. May these get you through!
We’re a month into the winter program at Berkshire Nautilus (42 Summer St, Pittsfield). A regular crew of people, gathering at 6-7 AM on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and at 7:30-8:30 AM on Saturdays, is racking up meters on our twelve ergs. But for some people, a winter-long commitment to a program like this isn’t possible. For such as these, dropping in for camaraderie, coaching, and a challenge from time to time might sound perfect.
Okay, then.
For just $15 a pop, here’s how you can now take part.
Connell, the mind behind the program, says, “I look forward to seeing you at the gym.” Don’t let him down!
Randy is one of the club’s most frequent rowers. You can almost always find him on the water in the double first thing in the morning. This winter you can also find him on the erg at Berkshire Nautilus with the winter program.
He recently sent out an email advocating a habit that helps him focus during his workout, whether on the water or on the erg. “Counting,” he wrote, and for others with the same habit, he continued, “We do it for all sorts of reasons. We enumerate. We track. We quantify. We count to be sure we have the right number, that we don’t have the wrong number, or…maybe it’s just obsessive compulsive.”
Kimmie Schmidt fans will recognize the technique. She actually has a lot to teach us about erging. (Ha!) As for Randy, this works for him because it helps get him “out of his head,” gives him a guidepost as to where he is in the workout or on the lake. For example, he writes, “You can use it to enumerate (this is a 10 minute piece at 24 strokes per minute so I will count to 240 strokes), to quantify (my workout is 1000 strokes, at every 100 strokes I am going to raise my rate from 26 to 34 for 20 strokes); to track (my average split time is 2:30, so at 120 strokes I will be near Apple Tree Point), etc.”
Further advice: “If you have a partner, both keep count, and count certain intervals out loud (such as 100 strokes), just to keep you in sync and to be certain you are still awake. Practicing this, you will find that your mind quiets and you relaaax…even as you are puffing hard.”
Counting isn’t something everyone will do. But if you’re struggling to frame the hard work of rowing (or erging) this way of thinking might give you structure for the workout ahead—and a way to understand your accomplishment once the workout is behind you.
Check out four of our juniors.
They’re spending their winter still aiming for speed, but on snow instead of water. Racing in the Berkshire XC Ski League, Simon, Foster, Teague, and Callum are up to something terrific in its own right, but also doing the best thing you can do as a rower when you can’t be on the water.
They’ll make for some fierce competition at spring sprints, which start early this year–April 20, Lake Onota, Williams College invitational half-time event. They’ll be ready for it. Will you?
The Winter Program is starting out with tons of energy. Berkshire Nautilus is proving (once again) the perfect site for it, and our new crew of winter warriors is bigger and better than ever.
The first training sessions at Berkshire Nautilus were well attended.
The second week’s attendance has been ever better. On Monday, there were nine in the group, though all twelve ergs were out in case others wanted to join. Dan has been coaching with a focus on technique so far–pause drills to help in isolating aspects of the stroke that need work.
The crew runs the gamut from longtime, committed rowers to those who’ve never been on the water and had never been on an erg. That’s the benefit of erging–you can do it alongside someone of vastly different experience knowing that it never gets easier, your numbers just change.
Thinking about joining up? You should do it! Be in touch with the club via email and we’ll get you connected. Or just come to Berkshire Nautilus some Tuesday or Thursday at 6 AM, or Saturday at 7:30 AM.
One of our juniors, Julia, is even better known locally as the lead singer of Born IV Blues.
Founded in 2017 when they were all but 9th graders, Julia along with Diego the drummer, Austin the guitarist, and Josiah on bass are still at it, writing their own music as well as reinterpreting songs from the blues canon. You can read more about them here, and you can listen here.
Just last night, they performed at The Barn in Egremont as a fundraiser to support their upcoming trip to the International Blues Challenge in Memphis, their second time participating in that event.
Julia is a treasure on the rowing team, too, helping the coaches run workouts when they’re busy getting the launches ready or deciding on line-ups, pushing as hard as anyone in whatever boat she lands in, 
but also coaching in the boat when set work with newer rowers, as seen here with Isabelle at her first regatta.
Way to go, Julia! BCR is grateful to have you among our ranks!