Settling back in...and...Gold's Gym Erg Sprints

Things are getting back to normal. Dreams of Hawaii are fading away, back to work, practice, sleep, work, practice, sleep.  I'm back on the Healthy Train and it seems to be going pretty well.  I haven't yet been back to spin class... but I'm heading there soon, plenty of erging, a little bit of running.  

Gold's Gym Erg Sprints were this weekend.  We had about 40 kids participate.  It was a great day.  Lots of successful rowers, a couple 1st's including freshman boys, lots of 2nd's and 3rd's.  I had about 6 novice girls participate.  None did very well as far as medals, but I was very proud of them for participating, and doing their very best!  I think they were pretty proud of themselves.  Zack's mixed relay came in 2nd. And we retained out Mother/Son relay champion medals!

Last Erg Sprints for these boys!

My Novice girls!

Woodbridge Erg Sprints Team 2016

Mixed Relay - 2nd place

Team Hyzy - 2nd year in a row!

Parent/Child Relay Team winners!

It was a great day.  Exhausting, but so much fun.  Then the coaches went out for margaritas afterwards, that was even more fun.  Geez, I haven't laughed that much in ages!  Spent part of the night drunk texting Brenna and trying to get her and Tim hooked up!  Really more like buzz texting, I only had 2 margaritas so it wasn't really drunk texting.  It was a hoot!

Golds Gym Erg Sprints

Our 2nd Erg Sprint competition at Gold's Gym today and we absolutely SLAYED IT!!!  The kids were amazing, I told them at practice I wanted us to sweep the medals, and by god, that's what they did.  The boys took 1st, 2nd, and 3rd in every event we entered, except for one.  And actually Woodbridge took 1st place in every event they entered!  Including the much anticipated Mixed relay. Zack didn't compete in anything except the 1st ever Parent/Child relay!  I am proud to say we came in first in the Mother/Son category... and no... we weren't the only team.  We beat out 2 other teams.  So for the next year I can say "I'm a recored holder!"  And trust me... I'm going to milk that for all I'm worth!  We each had to row 250meters.  I was incredibly stressed and nervous, I felt like I suddenly couldn't remember how to erg at all!  I just didn't want to embarrass Zack. I think I did okay, kept my split under 1:50 and didn't pass out, throw up or cry like a baby.  I don't hardly remember any of it, except at the beginning, realizing I was at a 40 stroke rate and was going to kill myself and then Zack telling me to settle...I don't think at the heart of it all I'm really much of a competitive person!  It's so stressful! But, I'm glad we did it, more glad that Zack even wanted to do it with me and even gladder that we got 1st place medals out of it!!

That's so attractive

I don't even remember what he was saying to me, but I'm sure it was effective strategizing!

And so it begins....

I always feel like the real start of our season begins with Mid Atlantic Erg Sprints at TC Williams High School.  We took 25 rowers!  A great turnout, including quite a few novices! Mids is always a tough competition since the cream of the crop come, but I think everyone had a great time.  Zack only did the Quad Slide event with his friends, he didn't feel like doing his individual age event and I don't blame him.  There slide took 3rd place right behind the Senior quad.  5638 meters vs. 5574 meters.  A difference of 64 meters!  Both did better than last year.  A good day! I ran around like a chicken with my head cut off, but that's okay.  None of the other coaches seemed even remotely interested in making sure kids got to the warm up area or to their races on time...so I did.  Maybe I should have let them fend for themselves, but that's not my nature, especially the novices.  It was a great day.

Mighty Junior Quad - Zack, Connor Grubbs, Josef Millner and Bart Creed

Buddies since freshman year!

In action!

Erg Sprints, Erg Sprints more and more Erg Sprints

Last weekend was Mid-Atlantic Ergs and this weekend was Golds Gym Ergs.  These are always fun, because they are a little bit smaller, right in our backyard and against only the Prince William County schools that we actually compete against.  Once again we had a huge turnout and this time we got LOTS of BLING!!  I think in virtually every race we entered we won some kind of medal.

Once again Zack did a 1500m race for his age group and did okay.  He started out way too fast in the beginning and so sort of lost it at the end.  But hopefully he felt pretty good about his performance.  I'm always so proud of him.  I just always imagine how I would react under all that pressure and I'm not sure I'd even be brave enough to enter a competition like that.  He's amazing.

Game Face?

When the competition was over Coach Cox took the team out for pizza.   I took some of the boys and we went and got Gatorade and cookies for dessert.  They all hung out, goofed off and I think throughly enjoyed themselves.

Once again, such a great group of kids and so much fun to be around… I'm always so impressed with their behavior and attitude and how they can be so fierce in the competition and so freaking funny and goofy afterwards.  I'm so glad both Brenna and Zack "chose" this sport!

Mid-Atlantic Erg Sprints

This past weekend the Crew team participated in Mid-Atlantic Erg Sprints.  We had a great time and we had a HUGE turnout.  Last year we had 8 kids participate and this year we had 28!!  It's one of the largest Erg events in the country.  It was a lot of fun and we did really well.  Zack did a 1500m race for his age group and then he did a Quad Slide race with his buddies.  During the 1500m piece he did his best split yet, but frankly our kids just can't keep up with some of the big ass kids that were there.  I also think he needs to work on eating more so that he's got enough fuel in his tank.

Coxing one of his friends

The Quad slide he rowed in came in 3rd out of 3, but again in an open weight division where the other boys were beasts.  But more exciting… we had 2 Quads a Junior quad (made up of all varsity juniors) and a Zack's Sophomore quad, when you looked at their meters rowed… the sophomores actually beat the juniors by 4 meters.  That's pretty exciting, to know that they were able to not only keep up with, but actually beat the older guys.

It was a long tiring day, but our kids put out a great effort and a couple of our girls actually medaled!  We have such a great group of kids!  I just love hanging out with them and watching them do well.

Golds Gym Erg Sprints

Another successful foray into the Erg Sprints world!  This time Zack only had to row in the freshman race.  It was 1500m so he was a little nervous, but once again he rowed his freaking guts out!!  I think he came out a little strong and then faded some at the end, but I've decided that this year is sort of like when the kids played T-ball or peewee Soccer - we're not keeping score...it's not about the time... it's about rowing as hard as you can.  And that's certainly what he's doing.  He wasn't last and that's always a good thing.  Not to mention, but I will, the 3 kids that won the race... I'm pretty sure weighed 3x what  Zack and the rest of the Woodbridge Freshman weighed! :o)  It was a great day, Woodbridge did awesome - medaled in every event and took 1st in quite a few.  There was great camaraderie, lots of cheering and I think it was a wonderful way to start off the season!  I can't wait for Spring to start!

Freshman Race

Game face

Getting ready to try his hand at coxing

Zack the coxswain - 3rd place finish!