Winter Break

We finished off the Fall season just how we started it... with an erg test.  We will now be taking advantage of the next two weeks filling up our erg cards.  Small gains in fitness can be made over break with some diligent work.  In the same 2 week period, if wasted, we can lose an entire Fall season of work and jeopardize our Spring season.  Seriously.

Happy training and I will see you all at the boathouse during break.

Athletes completing their last 6K of the Fall before break.

A few Videos From December 9th

2010 Erg-a-thon

I would like to thank all the parents who helped and volunteered their time to make this year's erg-a-thon one of the most successful of all time.  The kids participation and excitement also really added to the energy in the room and from what I was told, everything went off without a hitch (Thanks for the chocolate chip pancakes!).

Posted below are the heats, semi-finals, grand final and a couple of exhibition races:


(Link will be available as soon as the results are posted on the website)

First Place Finishers

Second Place Finishers

Third Place Finishers

6:15am

Hi, I'm Heather.

*&#*&$&

Droves of rowers await their turn to spin the wheel.

Long Beach Christmas Regatta

A quick post about the Long Beach Christmas Regatta!  The Christmas Regatta is an 800m race held in Long Beach and is usually seen as a final farewell to the Fall race season.  Traditionally we send the Varsity up to race small boats and the Novices to race the 8+'s.  This year just for the heck of it I entered 3 Varsity quads even though half of the guys had never sculled before and the other half have about 1-2 hours of experience.  As you can see in the results for the quads, we need some work...

Event # 2A - MJR1x
Nico Beyrooty finished in 3rd 4.9 seconds behind the first place finisher

Event # 15 - MJR2-
NAC 2- finished in 2nd with a time of 3:07.9 (6.8 seconds behind the first place finisher LBJC)

Event # 29A - MJR4x ("A" Event)
NAC "A" finished 5th with a time of 2:54.4 (13.1 seconds behind the first place finisher LBJC)

Event # 29B - MJR4x ("B" Event)
NAC "B" finished 4th with a time of 3:09.3 (10.3 seconds behind the first place finisher LBJC)
NAC "C" finished 5th with a time of 3:10.1 (11.1 seconds behind the first place finisher LBJC)

Event # 40A - MJR4+ ("A" Event)
NAC "A" finished 1st with a time of 2:44.3 (7.4 seconds ahead of the second place finisher LBJC)

Event # 40B - MJR4+ ("B" Event)
NAC "B" finished 1st with a time of 2:49.5 (3.4 seconds ahead of the second place finisher LBJC)
NAC "C" finished 4th with a time of 2:59.0 (9.5 seconds behind of the first place finisher NAC)

Newport Sprints

On Saturday we were given the opportunity to race "up" against a few Collegiate crews in Newport Beach, CA.  We were invited to the Newport Sprints hosted by Orange Coast College and attended by U.C. Irvine, The University of Southern California, Loyola Marymount, and U.C. Los Angeles.  Saturday also happened to be a High School testing day and we had to make the best line-ups possible while missing many of our key senior members.

Our 2nd Varsity 8 lined up against OCC (mixed Varsity 8+), Loyola Marymount (Varsity 8+), UCI (2nd Varsity 8+) and one of our own NAC Novice boats.  The race ended after all crews completed the 3,000 meter course with OCC winning over UCI, LMU, NAC (2nd Varsity 8+) and NAC (Novices) in that order.

The final race of the day allowed our mixed Varsity 8+ to compete against the Varsity rowers of collegiate programs.  All boats took off the line and settled into their race pace.  Most of the crews based their race in the range of 32-35spm.  Our mixed NAC 8+ started down to most of the boats for the first 1,000m and once they got inside of the protected channel really began to hit their stride.  With 1,500m meters to go we began to push back the OCC Novice "A" 8+ along with the another OCC boat and USC.  By 1,000m to go we worked through UCLA's Varsity 8+ and began to walk away trying to chase down a very quick mixed OCC boat and UCI boat.  By the time we hit the finish line we had closed the gap to OCC but were out of reach of a very quick UCI boat.  From my vantage point I could not tell who had finished with the lead between OCC and NAC but my rowers claimed to have finished up by a seat.  While I did not see the actual finish line and no times are posted, regardless of the final result I was more than happy with the fight the boys put up all the way to the line.

Overall it was a great day of racing and we were all thankful for the opportunity to get to race against some very talented crews.  We wish them the best of luck as we all head into our Winter training routine and take some time off the water for break.  The following day we traveled to Long Beach, CA to race at the Long Beach Christmas Regatta.  Look for a post with pictures and video soon.

Below is a video of the Newport Sprints taken from the Orange Coast College boathouse.

Head of the Lagoon

Our final big trip of the Fall has finally come and gone with some very positive results.  We have been talking, as a team, a lot about "indicators" as to what our goals are, where we are compared to previous years and where we are compared to other teams this year.  As a young group we are getting progressively better each and every day and when compared to other programs, we have the most significant ability to increase our speed this year given our learning curve.  This will continually be our mission as we build our entire Varsity program on 25 novices from last year and 5 returning Varsity members.  This weekend served as one of these "indicators" where we were able to race Los Gatos again after having lost to their Varsity "A", "B", and "C" boats at Head of the American.  NAC managed to keep up with Los Gatos and match them at a few levels in the Varsity 4's event.  Our lightweight double also entered into the "open" category as we feel it is important to make our racing schedule as challenging as possible this season.  The double placed second to a River City double but more importantly, beat the times of everyone in the lightweight category by over a minute and a half.

Jr. Lightweight

		MLt2x		Upper Natoma			0:22:36	0:22:36	1	GOLD
		MLt2x		Stanford RC 'A'			0:23:13	0:23:13	3	SILVER
		MLt2x		Norcal Crew 'A' - Martin			0:24:49	0:24:49	4
		MLt2x		Norcal Crew 'B' - Sandhu			0:24:58	0:24:58	5
		MLt2x		Stanford RC 'B'			0:25:25	0:25:25	6
		MLt2x		PARC - Low			0:22:40	0:22:40	7		Did not weigh in
Jr. Open Weight
		MJr2x		RCRC - Green			0:20:02	0:20:02	1	GOLD
		MJr2x		NAC			0:20:53	0:20:53	2	SILVER
		MJr2x		Stanford RC			0:20:59	0:20:59	3
		MJr2x		Pacific RC			0:23:46	0:23:46	4
		MJr2x		North Bay - Burbank			0:24:34	0:24:34	5

Director's Cup (Varsity 4+)

LGRC 'A' - Cullinan

0:19:08

0:19:08

1

GOLD

NAC 'A'

0:19:19

0:19:19

2

SILVER

NAC 'B'

0:19:44

0:19:44

3

BRONZE

LGRC 'B' - DeSantis

0:19:51

0:19:51

4

Pacific RC

0:20:22

0:20:22

5

NAC 'C'

0:20:26

0:20:26

6

LGRC 'C' - Sturm

0:20:29

0:20:29

7

Serra HS 'A' - Jimenez

0:20:41

0:20:41

8

Serra HS 'B' - Patterson

0:22:51

0:22:51

9

Stockton 'B' - Nakave

0:22:58

0:22:58

10

Stockton 'A' - Graham

0:24:34

0:24:34

11

North Bay - Kunzman

0:24:49

0:24:49

12

Sorry, I Just NARFed

The past two weeks have been full of, for lack of a better word... stuff.  Preparing the team to race at NARF following a weekend in Sacramento (Head of the American) has been a very busy period.  Not only is NARF a fairly large race, we are also in charge of the set-up and breakdown of the entire event.  I can honestly say I am very happy with all of the work everyone dedicated to hosting NARF and aside from a few small setbacks and complications, everything went off better than any previous race in the past.  The boys field was very competitive with conference heavyweights Marin, Long Beach and Marina making the trip down.  Results for the Varsity 8+ listed below:


A 3rd place finish by NAC "A": 14:08.96 (18 Seconds off of first place finisher Marin: 13:50.47)
A 9th place finish by NAC "B": 14:45.15
A 14th place finish by NAC "C": 15:15.13

Marin had a very strong showing in this race putting two even Varsity boats into first and second place and look to set the standard for the year in both the heavy 8+ and the light 8+.  We will be setting our goals for the season to close the gap every day as we push forward into the the late Fall and early Winter.

Similar Results in the Varsity four where we placed second in a time of 16:37.89 to Marin's four (15:59.25).

Nico Beyrooty, our lightweight single sculler, closed the gap on the Long Beach sculler and lost by 10 seconds (one week prior Nico lost by about a minute at Head of the American).

Head of the American 2010

Over the weekend the Boy's and Girl's Varsity programs traveled to Sacramento to participate in the 2010 Head of the American at Lake Natoma (also the site where our State Championships are held).  The team had to rise early to make the 7 hour trip up the 5 freeway and from about 5:30am - 8:30am the rowers drifted back into a peaceful coma.  A few bad jokes, millions of questions and a couple pit stops later we arrived in Sacramento and set up camp.  The day finished with only a few minor problems and the athletes made their first day of travel relatively successful. 

Saturday brought new challenges logistically as well as on the water with the competition.  Most of the faster crew we will be racing in the Spring were in attendance and we were able to get an early season indicator as to how our training has been going.  Below are the results followed by a short video.  We are looking forward to next week when we are able to host NARF on our home turf!  See you Sunday.

Men's High School 1X (Event 21, 10:30am) - Fielded 9 rowers
Nico Beyrooty placed 3rd  with a time of 21:03.27


Men's High School 8+ (Event 28, 11:15am) - Fielded 28 crews
Newport A(G.Box, T.Russell, N.Zusman,A.Meginnis, R.Taitz, W.Kingsland,C.Johnson, C.Geeher, [M.Delahanty]) placed 2nd with a time of 16:10.97

Newport B (C.Roossin, P.Voegt, C.Kelley, N.Bryant, J.Gentry, J.Bandaruk, T.Zimmerman, A.Tintcheve, [S. Zomaya]) placed 7th with a time of 16:47.03

Newport C Newport C (T.Thagard, C.O'Grady, B.Metzger, B.Johnson, J.Groneidyke, J.Flanigan, A.Kamegawa, J.Boon-Hah, [M. Quackenbush]) placed 14th with a time of 17:21.17

Men's Lightweight 8+ (Event 48, 1:15pm) - Fielded 3 crews
Newport (C.Roossin, C.Johnson, N.Zusman, P.Voegt, B.Johnson, A.Kamegawa, T.Zimmerman, J.Groneidyke, [S.Zomaya]) placed 2nd with a time of 14:43.00

Men's High School 2x (Event 50, 1:30) - Fielded 8 crews
Newport (N.Beyrooty, A.Tintcheve) finished 1st with a time of 19:28.35

Men's High School 4+ (Event 57, 2:15pm) - Fielded 20 crews
Newport A(G.Box, T.Russell, R.Taitz, C.Geehr, [M.Delahanty]) placed 2nd with a time of 18:19.44

Newport B(J.Gentry, A.Meginnis, C.Kelley, W.Kingsland, [C.Rogers]) placed 4th with a time of 19:02.96

NAC Varsity 10-28-10

2 Weeks...

October marks the mid-way point of our Fall rowing season and things have been going well thus far.  The Boy's program is in full swing (ha?) and we are gearing up for our first competitive race of the season on October 30th at Lake Natoma.  The entire Varsity program, boys and girls, will travel to Sacramento and race at the Head of the American against some of the top teams in the Southwest region.  This will be the first look at the competition and provide a useful indicator of how training has been progressing.  Attached is a video from our first day in small boats where to took out Fours, doubles and singles.

NAC Varsity Practice 10-5-10

Today we had our first 6k evaluation and things seem to be going well.  The piece was rate capped at 22spm for 2k, 24spm for 2k, 26spm for 2k.  All things considered, I was really pleased with the performance and look forward to finishing out the week strong.  I took some video yesterday of our first time rowing by all 8 doing the acceleration drill.

NAC Varsity/Novice Mixed Day 9-21-10

Week 1 Recap

The week began with a great turnout from the bottom up with a large varsity group and a substantially large novice group.  Overall the first week went very well considering both the boy's and girl's teams have to share a bit of equipment and we are thankful for having such a flexible and talented staff (boy's and girl's coaches alike).  The boys and girls hosted the annual "Back to Crew Night" for parents with one slight addition.  We split the nights up having the boy's on Tuesday and the girl's on Thursday to allow for a little more Q&A time after the presentation.  We received a lot of great questions and input from the parents in attendance and we are looking forward to one of our most active and involved group of parents to date.

As far as the amount of work being done at practice, you could consider the workload to be fairly substantial compared to years past.  This is a result of a few factors including but not limited to the oarsmen who have set very high standards for themselves this year.  One of our greatest adversities this year will be for the rowers and myself to overcome our inexperience as a whole and begin to trust the process of building speed in the Fall.  Look for a few pictures and videos to follow in the next couple days.

NAC Varsity Summer 8-30-10

Today I had the Varsity guys come down for one final summer practice. This means that ambiguous starting times are out the door and we will begin (taking things serious) on September 7th at 3:30pm for the first day of tryouts. Tryouts will consist of a 5,000m erg test on Tuesday and will be followed up by a 1.5 mile run on Thursday. While these are not typical standardized tests (2,000m or 6,000m are more generally accepted) they will give us a good baseline for the first day compared to years past. It's time.

NAC Varsity Summer 08-20-10

New video up.

NAC Varsity Summer 08 16 10

Summer Camps

The summer rowing season is slowly coming to a close and while this means the end of summer vacation, it also means the beginning of a new phase for our rowing program. Some will say it is a transition or rebuilding year and others note the inherent potential that the new athletes have to be successful. What I have seen thus far over the summer is what we are lacking in experience, we are slowly making up for in tenacity. Potential, matching uniforms and inspirational quotes can only take a group so far. What remains to be seen is how we all handle the day-to-day to prepare for the end result. I am really looking forward to the first day of practice to see what kind of standard we set for ourselves and for the remainder of the year.


To the other half of the team that have been taking summer school courses, traveling or just having a much needed break from the tediousness of rowing, we await your arrival. See you soon and happy training.


Jeff


p.s. Attached is a video from the novice camp.

07-28-10

I took video at practice two weeks ago and thought it would be good to throw it up on the blog.  We were doing drills by 6's for a good portion of the day with a little hard rowing at the end.

August 5th

Welcome to my 2010-2011 NAC Junior Rowing Blog.  I will primarily be covering topics related to the Boy's Varsity team and occasionally the Boy's Novice team.  Keep checking in for video, pictures and updates as the season progresses. 

*(This has all been transported from the old blog to the new one)*