Lightweight Eats

If you follow me on Twitter, you've probably noticed that I've mentioned getting produce from "our farm". No, we didn't buy a farm. Instead, we signed up for a CSA box!

"Our" farm

In Oakland, we tried a CSA share, but didn't find it worthwhile. Our local grocery store had better prices on local, organic produce and was half the distance (super important when you're biking up hills to pick up groceries). Heading out to Connecticut, I expected things to be a bit different, so I researched local organic farms.

Boy, was I wrong. Things here are WAY different than California. All of the vegetables in grocery stores look like caricatures of their original—the colors are too even, the shapes too regular, the flavor quite lacking and the prices astronomical. We could hardly afford vegetables, let alone organic veggies. Local was definitely out of the question—the going rate for ZUCCHINI, which grows like a weed, was $4/lb at our local market.

So in late spring, just a week before the first shares went out, we signed up for a seasonal CSA. It was a bit of a gamble, but it looked like a good group of guys running the farm, with a nice selection of vegetables.

And fortunately, I was oh-so-right!!

Visiting the farm!

Our CSA so far has been a marvelous experience. We pick up our box every Thursday about a mile from the rowing center. When I can, I like to ride my bike to pick up our veggies.

The farm is located about 20 minutes drive north of New Milford. It's a 30-acre, all organic farm. They grow a bunch of different things—greens, tomatoes, sunflowers, potatoes, radishes, beans, peas, blueberries and more! We get a nice variety in our box each week.

Coming from California, there haven't been any new vegetables. Still, it's been fun to get back some of the variety we'd had out West. Daikon and turnips have both made an appearance, as well as some fun shelling beans and very sweet snap peas.


Knowing that we eat a lot of veggies, we talked to the farmers and decided to get a full share instead of a half share. We could certainly eat fewer vegetables, but when we put our minds to it, we easily finish our full share each week.

In fact, we've also been supplementing our CSA share with veggies from our garden.


I'll write more about the GMS garden later, but we're slowly establishing a 30ft x 30ft vegetable garden just outside the house. So far, we've gotten a good harvest of mint, lettuces, zucchini, beans and cucumbers. It's definitely a work in progress, but it's fun making zucchini bread with veggies from the backyard!

Expect more updates through the late summer and fall, as we experience the full season of the CSA and continue to make progress in the garden.

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In two years, the Rio Olympics begin.

It feels so far away, both in time and in the things I have to accomplish to make it. But in considering the margin between where I am and where I want to be, I remembered where I was two years ago!

It has been a little bit more than two years since I started training with the California Rowing Club. In early May of 2012, I went 8:12 over 2km on the erg, struggled after 10km, and felt the burn after 100 squats at 45 pounds.

The past two years have made a world of difference. I trained at the California Rowing Club for 18 months and established a really solid base. With cycling to and from the boathouse, and lots of 20-24km rows in the single, I was hitting 800-1000 minutes of training each week.

Although my scores didn't improve much in California, when I came to GMS I reaped the benefits of that base with massive improvements. Now, I pull a 7:22 on 2k, can row 22km without snacks, and squat 3 sets of 100 with 50 pounds.

Of course, improvement isn't linear, and I expect every further second I gain will be hard fought. Still, to be where I am and still improving after only two years is very encouraging. Now that I've really found my training groove, this next six months will be my best yet—and this coming fall and spring season should be an absolute blast.

Cheers to dreams!

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This week was our last week of true 'summer training'. For those athletes headed to the World Championships at the end of August, or for those in California waiting for the September Indian summer, that may seem premature. But fall and winter are when you win races, so I'm eager to get back into the fitness-building phase of training.

We're just starting to get a taste of fall, with more long/slow work and longer hard intervals. This will be our last set of 1000m pieces for more than a month!

6x120 bench pulls at 50 pounds. Crushing it.

Monday
AM: 60 minutes in the single, easy rowing; 12.2km
PM: 2 hour lifting session, with aforementioned bench pulls

Tuesday
AM: 100 minutes, 1x, firm and continuous; 21.9km
PM: 75 minutes, 2x, easy rowing; 16.8km

Wednesday
AM: 90 minutes, 1x, easy rowing; 18.5km
PM: 2 hour lifting session

Thursday
AM: 4 hours in the garden (ok, this wasn't on the training plan, but weed pulling is work!)
PM: 60 minutes, 30.5' on the erg (7000m), 30' treadmill run

Friday
AM: 2 by 1000m, 1x; 12.5km total
PM: 75 minutes

Saturday
AM: 2x1500m, Concept2; #1 5:33.7 (1:51.2), #2 5:38.1 (1:52.7); 13.5km total
PM: 3x25 minutes, Concept2; 17,073m total

Sunday
TBD! I will probably do 45-75 minutes of either rowing or cross-training today, at an easy pace

What did your week look like? Have you started prepping for fall racing season, or are you still focused on the end of summer sprints??

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When I was at the gym in Oregon, a lot of people noticed me training. It's not often that gym-goers push themselves to exhaustion day after day. And a lot of these people came and asked questions or made small talk.

All of it was super encouraging, but two comments in particular left me unsure how to respond.


Both situations were very flattering. I have worked hard for the body I'm wearing. Still, that was never my goal. I never picked a physique and aimed for it, or went to the gym with the hopes of one day fitting into size 0 pants.

All of those things were byproducts of other goals: being stronger, fitter, faster.

Never have I ever gone to the gym thinking, "Gee, I hope this helps me look stronger." I go to the gym and lift weights because I want to BE stronger. And if I still looked weak, I wouldn't mind.

Next time you head to the gym, I challenge you to embrace that mindset—fitter not thinner, stronger not leaner.

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The process of qualifying for the World Championships in the United States is extraordinarily confusing. For those of you following my journey, I thought I would explain the process.

First things first:
As a lightweight woman, there are three boats that compete at the World Championships, held in August each year—a quad (4x, four people/eight oars), double (2x, two people) and single (1x, one person). The double, the only Olympic class boat, is the premier event and has a different selection procedure than the 1x or 4x.

Let's start with the DOUBLE
Every spring, US Rowing hosts two "national selection regattas"—NSR1 and NSR2. For sculling (two oars per person), NSR1 is in singles (1x) and NSR2 is in doubles (2x).

Lightweight women from around the country show up at NSR1 as an opportunity to show how fast they've gotten. US Rowing calls this a "speed order" event, and it's a great way to find a partner for NSR2, about three weeks later.

NSR2 is the first opportunity to make the US National Team for lightweights. The winner of this regatta earns the right to represent the USA at one of the three World Cups. (This year, I placed fourth at NSR2.)

NB: The World Cup Series different from the World Championships. There are three World Cup races are various locations throughout the year. They are international racing opportunities hosted by World Rowing that culiminate in a points trophy.

IF that double attends a World Cup AND places in the top 4, they earn an automatic spot on the team for the World Championships.
Otherwise, US Rowing hosts a trial. The winner of that trials race earns a spot on the team for the World Championships.


But what about the 1x and 4x???

Since those boats are non-Olympic boats (bummer!), they have a different qualification system. Both 1x and 4x go directly to trials. Individual clubs host camps and send athletes to compete at trials, and the winner earns a spot on the team for the World Championships.

It seems simpler, and for the 1x it may be, but there are a lot of politics behind the assembly of four athletes into a 4x. Getting enough and fast enough athletes in one place for enough time for a fair selection process can be rather tricky. That, however, is a topic for another day.


Does that make sense?? Any questions I didn't answer?
Expect an upcoming post on the Road to Rio, and how the OLYMPIC qualification works.

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When people find out I'm vegan, they usually ask why. Great question! People go vegan for all sorts of reasons.

Since weight-restricted athletes also often have very specific eating habits, a lot of people assume I'm vegan to help me make weight. At first, I thought it might help as well. Not the case! It's actually quite difficult to balance making weight, athletics and veganism.

I can't go more than 3-4 hours without eating—no matter how much I eat, it's like throwing twigs on a bonfire. This is especially true when I'm cutting calories to lose weight. When I'm hungry, I descend quickly into hangry (so hungry I'm angry) and that's bad for everybody. If I'm out and about and hunger strikes, I often can't find balanced food to eat, so I have to bring my own snacks everywhere.

Of course, that means I eat better food when I'm on the road, and stick to normalcy even when traveling. But I have definitely been caught out longer than expected with nothing to eat!

So why did I become a vegan?

That's a hard question to answer, but it all starts with vegetables. Have you ever tracked your daily vegetable intake? Are you getting the recommended servings? When I was really honest with myself, I wasn't eating enough vegetables (unless you count cookies as vegetables).

Vegetarianism was a step in the right direction—it got me thinking about my food, branching out to new plants and generally eating better foods. But cookies, muffins, cakes and fried mozzarella sticks are all vegetarian. Veganism has pushed my diet in the healthiest direction and I needed that help.

Trying veganism/eating more vegan food is very different than being vegan, though. The reason I've stopped buying leather and wool, started using cruelty free soaps, and opened my eyes to the exploitation around me? It's the right thing to do.

Once you make the connection between the items around you and the life that provided them, it becomes very difficult to ignore. I would abandon my dreams before abandoning that compassion for the lives around me. There are certainly drawbacks to veganism—but nothing that justifies taking an animal's life or free will to avoid.

Are you vegan? If so, why? If not, what's your favorite vegan food?

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Although winning Nationals was a great mid-summer confidence boost, I'm back to work chasing my dreams. I spent last weekend in Philadelphia racing at the Independence Day Regatta and celebrating July 4th with friends.

Although it was great experience, and I came away with a 2nd place finish in the lightweight women's single, it was a tough weekend physically and mentally.
The race course is in the middle of a park, which makes it extraordinarily isolated—on Friday, I walked 8 miles round trip to get some coffee and lunch. It was hot and unprotected, with high winds and strong current. Given the circumstances, I'm proud of my performance, but it certainly was not my best.

Going forward, I'd like to re-focus on getting faster. Over the last month, I've gotten a good sense of where I am and where I need to be. It's time to close the gap between those two.

I took Monday and Tuesday of this week off to recover from the whirlwind of racing and traveling. Wednesday, I hit the weight room, and Thursday I complete a tough workout on the ergs.

15' warmup
3x3000m (1k@23, 1k@25, 1k@23)
#1 11:54.6 (1:59.1)
#2 11:58.4 (1:59.7)
#3 11:59.3 (1:59.8)
15' cool down

I would have liked to be in the 1:58's, but for being off the ergs for several months now, it wasn't terrible. I'll definitely be checking back in with that workout over the rest of 2014, and hopefully seeing good gains.

I'm now fully back into the swing of things. This morning, we did a 75' row and this afternoon is an epic weight-lifting session. Tomorrow, I'll duke it out in the single with the rest of the GMS athletes for four by 500 meters.

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We're just settling back in to life in New Milford, after a crazy fun week of racing. Last week, US Rowing held Senior World Championship Trials and the Elite National Championships at Mercer Lake in New Jersey.

To recap my week of racing, let's take it one day at a time:

Monday: 
This was the first race for Trials. I raced former teammate Kristin Hedstrom and current teammate Sam Brecht. Top two progressed directly to Tuesday's semi-final. Despite nerves, everything went as expected—I had a solid race and did exactly what I needed to.

1		California (K. Hedstrom)	8:18.05
2		GMS Rowing (M. Copenhaver)	8:21.77
3		GMS Rowing (S. Brecht)	8:50.45

Things played out about as expected across the other three heats, which the exception of newcomer Mary Maginnis. In her first race as a lightweight, she posted really fast times that got everybody talking.

Tuesday:
Semi-finals proved a tough battle for me. I faced off against Kate Bertko, Nicole Dinion and Laurissa Gulich. I had a great race and pulled my best time in the single, but Nicole managed to hold me off for the second spot in Wednesday's grand final.

1		California (K. Bertko)	7:57.53
2		OKC Riversport (N. Dinion)	7:59.86
3		GMS Rowing (M. Copenhaver)	8:02.47
4		Riverside (L. Gulich)	8:26.93

Despite not making the final, I was really happy with my performance. I've gained a lot of speed in the single already this summer, and it is really beginning to show.

Wednesday:
No racing! There was a time-trial scheduled for the evening for Nationals, but enough people dropped out of the regatta that it was cancelled.

Thursday:
The twelve athletes were placed randomly into two heats for the morning session. Only the winner of each heat went directly to the final—everybody else went to an afternoon repechage.

1		Potomac A (E. Schmieg)	7:52.760
2		GMS Rowing A (M. Copenhaver)	7:58.278
3		Vesper A (E. Euiler)	8:07.730
4		Vesper B (E. Maxwell)	8:10.592
5		ROWONT A (A. Fogarty)	8:21.148
6		GMS Rowing C (O. Jamrog)	8:27.992

Tailwind conditions made for fast times, and I made one of my summer goals: break 8 minutes in the single! Emily Schmieg took the top spot, and sent the remaining 5 athletes to the afternoon repechage.

I drew a mostly GMS rep, and had another outstanding race, almost hitting the 8-minute mark again, despite already-raced legs.

1		GMS Rowing A (M. Copenhaver)	8:01.811
2		Craftsbury A (S. Keller)	8:05.877
3		ROWONT A (A. Fogarty)	8:13.003
4		GMS Rowing D (A. Shapiro)	8:19.359
5		GMS Rowing C (O. Jamrog)	8:26.949

Friday:
Two races again! First up, the single.

1	4	NTC - ON A (T. Berkholtz)	8:26.900
2	5	St. Catharines A (L. Sferrazza)	8:33.464
3	2	GMS Rowing A (M. Copenhaver)	8:33.832
4	3	Potomac A (E. Schmieg)	8:45.040
5	6	Craftsbury A (S. Keller)	8:50.900
6	1	Vesper A (E. Euiler)	8:59.208

I'd let the results speak for themselves, but it would be as exciting. The first and second place crews were both Canadian, and therefore ineligible for our national title. That put me, unknowingly, in first place among American competitors! I'm the NATIONAL CHAMPION in the lightweight women's single!!

As for my second race, I got an email mid-week asking me to jump into a lightweight quad that was missing a rower. It was only one race, it was after all of my single racing was done, and it didn't even require an additional weigh-in, so I decided to go for it. Our first row together was the race day warm-up, but it felt pretty great.

And despite racing on tired legs and in a new boat and line-up, we managed to put together another really great race.

1		Vesper/Riverside/GMS (C. Stawicki)	7:05.005
2		Potomac A (E. Schmieg)	7:10.987

Our time wasn't spectacular, largely due to windy conditions, but we managed to win another national title.


Overall, it was a great learning experience. This holiday weekend, I head down to Philadelphia for another weekend of racing at the Independence Day Regatta. This is a much less formal regatta, but it's an opportunity to face off against some of the lightweight women I haven't raced much this season.

If you or anybody you know is interested in sponsoring my trip to IDR or any future racing, please be in touch! You can reach me by email (lightweighteats [at] gmail [dot] com) or via social media.

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Next week, the GMS athletes head back to Princeton for another round of racing. The first round of trials for the World Championships are happening this week, followed immediately by the US Rowing National Championships. The schedule and more information can be found here and here.

I will be racing the lightweight women's single at both events. At World Championship Trials, I will face 9 other athletes, including 2012 Olympian Kristin Hedstrom and 2013 Head of the Charles winner Kate Bertko. The event begins on Monday (6/23) with heats, where the top 2 will progress directly to the semi-final and the remainder will race the repechage in the afternoon. There are no consolation finals at this regatta, and only 4 athletes will progress to the Grand Final on Wednesday.

At the US Rowing National Championships (aka Elite Nationals), I face a slightly deeper field of 15 athletes, many of whom I will be racing for the first time. The group includes three Canadians. This event is also Grand Final only, with 6 athletes progressing through. Racing begins Wednesday evening (yes, the same Wednesday) with a time trial, where the top 12 athletes continue to Thursday's heats and repechages.

Yes, this is where we row. Tough life. dancopephoto.com

We've been busy in New Milford getting prepared to race. Two weeks ago, the GMS Under-23 camp started and we've managed to do a lot of head-to-head and time-trial racing on the water.


I've had some pretty solid results in the single, which has boosted my confidence for trials. I recently switched boats, moving from the Hudson S1.31 (size 160-190lbs) to the S1.21 (size 145-170lbs). In California, I was rowing the S1.11, the smallest size (115-145lbs). After trying all three, it feels like the S1.21 was made for me. Despite falling into the weight class for the S1.11, the S1.21 fits like a dream. I'm really happy I made the switch, and many thanks to Guenter and Hudson for making that possible.




This morning, I did 500m pieces against a gaggle of girls in singles. We had great representation—senior lightweight, senior openweight, U23 openweight and junior—and everybody had fast times. My fastest 500m time was 1:51.8 in a mild tailwind, which is 100.8% of the 2000m world record pace. (The fastest percentage for the day was 104% of 2k world record pace—our U23 women's 2x. Super impressive!)

From now until racing begins, we will just be biding our time and trying to maintain fitness and keep calm. As a generally active person who passes time in the garden and on her bicycle, I find it very difficult to properly execute a taper—I get really bored and want to do nothing more than haul logs, till dirt or bike around town. While that's great for weight management, it's less great for race day performance. Any suggestions for ways to entertain myself?

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So much has happened since the first National Selection Regatta! As I mentioned, Sarah and I went up to Boston to do some race pieces with the lightweights at Riverside. We got the crap kicked out of us, came home, trained hard, and went to NSR2... and came in fourth!

This is old news by now, but there was a MAJOR upset at NSR2. Last year's lightweight women's double, that many had called "untouchable", was taken down by Devery Karz and Michelle Sechser from Oklahoma City. Their duel for 1st place meant the LW2x was the fastest event at the regatta. Our 4th place finish was great...

... but not where I want to be.

The next step was deciding summer plans. In late June, the first round of World Championship Trials will be held in Princeton. The LW1x and LW4x will be decided at that regatta. After many discussions, Vesper Boat Club in Philadelphia became the prime destination for a camp to put together a lightweight women's quad.

I definitely considered attending. I've come a long way since last summer, and I think I could have clawed my way into a seat in the boat. I expect the boat that comes out of the United States this summer will be blazing fast.

Ultimately, though, attending the World Championships in the quad is not my goal. Looking at the bigger picture, spending the summer in selection and maintaining a super low body weight isn't going to get me where I want to be.

It was a difficult decision, but I'm going to be spending the summer training independently at GMS. I will race the single at the Worlds Trials later this month, with no illusion of winning. (That "untouchable double? They split into singles and will both be racing at Trials.) And I'm also going to push the boundaries of what I can do in a week.. every week. I've been crushing my weight lifting (I'm now doing pull-ups with an extra 5 pound weight), working on boat feel and putting in tons of extra volume.

These are my goals for the summer and fall seasons:
2k erg: 7:10
6k erg: 23:00 (and top 3 on the water at Fall Speed Order)
2k water: 8:00
4mmol lactate/L wattage: 215+

Those are super ambitious goals, especially the first one. (My current PR is a 7:22.1 at 57.5kg.) But the more ambitious my goals, the fewer excuses I have to joke around this summer. Now is the time to see how fast I can go!

What are your summer plans? Racing, training, both?

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When I left off, we were just headed into the finals on Saturday morning.

Our 7:14AM race time meant the weigh-in window began at 5:14AM. I was incredibly thankful to not be worried about weight—I heard of others waking up in the 3's to sweat down to 130 pounds for the weigh-in.

Everything went according to plan, and the six rowers in the B final took off down the course more or less together. It was great racing—the field was really tight the whole way. The early leaders, Mary Foster and Emily Schmieg, ended up in first and second, with my teammate Sarah Giancola coming in third. Lauren Ayers and I were head to head the whole course, but she opened up about a second lead in the last 400m to take fourth. I came in fifth, followed by Morgan McGovern in sixth.

This was a much closer racing experience than last year's NSR1, despite not going through the full progression of racing. It will be fun to see how all of the lightweight women stack up when we pair off into doubles for the next regatta—the second national selection regatta.

This weekend, Sarah and I will be headed up to Boston to do some informal racing in doubles with some of the girls from Riverside Boat Club. It will be a good chance to connect with more of the lightweights training around the country—we are so dispersed that I regularly race people I've never met!!

Over the next few weeks, I will also be losing weight—what fun! For the single, at NSR1, all competitors are required to be under 59kg (130lbs). For the double, the average weight of the crew must be 57kg or under—four pounds lighter!

Based on results from my DEXA scan and previous experience, I've planned on getting down to a bit under 57kg for NSR2. This is fairly light for me, but I know I don't lose as much strength as many other lightweights as I drop in weight. I never imagined myself as a "weight maker" but I'm glad to have the option—my erg scores aren't fast enough yet for anything else!

Did you race at the first NSR? What did you think? What are your plans for the rest of spring and summer racing?

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We arrived in Princeton earlier this week to blustery weather and choppy water. Yuck! Not ideal for rowing at all. But racing must go on, we thought.

Thursday morning, we arrived at the boathouse and weighed in at 6:15AM, ready for our 8:15AM race time. Conditions were fair, but not ideal. As we rowed up to the start line, I could feel the wind pick up. The warm-up area was challenging to row, but not unmanageable, I thought.

(Note: My boat is two sizes too big, so I've got some great clearance from the water—perfect for rough conditions. My teammate in a smaller boat was less thrilled with the waves crashing over her.)

The men's and women's lightweight singles were bunched up, ready to begin our time trial, anxious and excited. And then the announcement came: racing was cancelled, head home to the dock. I practically surfed back to the dock on the waves—what a blast!

Thursday's racing was postponed and our schedule compressed from four races to two. So this morning, we were at it again. Our time trial went down the course at 10:30AM in mild headwind conditions.

Photo from US Rowing Check out that sweet backsplash. And yes, those are my favorite JL shorts.. ...so happy we don't have to wear a unisuit

I placed 8th among an incredibly competitive field of lightweights. I wish I'd had the opportunity to race through the heats and semi-finals, but my 8th place finish puts me into tomorrow morning's 'B' final.



We're racing incredibly early: 7:14AM EST. Hopefully, we'll have fair conditions (although I can't say I'm not hoping for some wind and waves). See you on the other side!

Results should be posted on the US Rowing website shortly after the race:
http://usrowing.org/NationalTeams/OlympicSeniorNationalTeam/SrNTSelectionEvents/2014NSR1/2014NSR1Results.aspx

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Greeting from South Carolina! Today was our last day of training camp down in Aiken, SC. Starting tomorrow, we'll be in Princeton, preparing for the first National Selection Regatta. For lightweight women, this is an opportunity to race in singles and see how we stack up early in the season. I'm looking forward to it!

This week, we've been doing a lot of race prep work and spending a lot of time getting used to our boats.

Leaving California, I also left behind the single I was rowing (it was a club boat). Moving to GMS, I've had to find a new boat. I started out in a club Filipi, but after a few days, I'm back to a Hudson, and happy about it for the time being. The Hudson is big for me—two sizes larger than the one I rowed in California—but it still feels quick.

I'm considering a boat purchase soon—a big decision! (If you know anybody selling a 2-3 year old lightweight women's racing shell, let me know.) I'm hoping to try out a few different brands over the next 6-9 months and find the one that suits me best. So far Hudson is in the lead, but I've yet to try an Empacher or a Fluidesign.

Wish me luck with racing this coming week! I'll try to post an update as I have more information, but as of now the racing is as follows:
Thursday AM - Time Trials
Thursday PM - Heats (for top 18 boats)
Friday AM - Semi-Finals and C/D Finals
Saturday AM - A/B Finals

More information can be found here:
http://usrowing.org/NationalTeams/OlympicSeniorNationalTeam/SrNTSelectionEvents/2014NSR1.aspx

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Apologies for the radio silence! We've been busy welcoming spring here at GMS.






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Until last year, I almost never trained with a heart rate monitor. Now, I wear one for nearly every practice.

For most athletes, a coach dictates whether to use a heart rate monitor. Some athletes choose to use them independently. Regardless of your heart rate monitor status, it's helpful to know some of the pros and cons of the straps. This can help you use them more wisely.

PROS

Heart rate monitors:

==> allow for more precise training
Especially coupled with lactate testing, heart rate monitors can provide personalized, precise training. By using the heart rate coupled with blood lactate levels, you can focus your time on crucial intensities. For example, in winter, we do most of our training at blood lactate levels of 0.8-1.8 mmol/L—well below the generally established 'lactate threshold' of 4 mmol/L.

You can use the same principle by using one of many heart rate zone calculators based on maximum and resting heart rates. They won't be as precise, but they will help you target your training. If using these tools, understand that you may need to adjust the provided heart rates to maximize your training.

==> provide clear and manageable targets for workouts
I know I can do 100 minutes with my heart rate between 167 and 174. Even if I'm fatigued and mentally struggling, physically I can complete the workout. Similarly, I know I can complete 10km with my heart rate between 180 and 189, regardless of speed.

It takes experience and/or an experience coach to provide useful heart rate targets. However, those targets can take the guesswork out of what's do-able.

==> can help adjust for the effects of weather, fatigue, dehydration, etc.
Sometimes, perfectly reasonable split targets from last week are way off this week. If it's much hotter or you've done a challenging lifting session the day before, the same splits may be much more work to maintain. That's totally normal.

Using a heart rate monitor helps adjust for those environmental factors, allowing you to continue benefitting from your most useful workouts.

CONS

Heart rate monitors:

==> don't account for mental and emotional fatigue
Although they're great at adjusting for physical effects, heart rate monitors don't monitor the brain. Sometimes you're slow because your head isn't in it.

If you always listen to your heart rate monitor, you might fail to give yourself crucial mental and emotional recovery.

==> are inappropriate for some workouts
This week, we did a pyramid workout with very short distances (starting at 3 hard strokes at a time, working our way up to 17 hard strokes at a time). The longest work segment was around 30 seconds. It takes the heart time to react to changes in exercise intensity, meaning your heart rate will not accurately reflect your effort after just 30 seconds. Generally, we don't use heart rate zones for any work segments less than 2 minutes.

We also don't use heart rate zones for weight lifting workouts. It can be fun to see your heart rate during lifting sessions, but to get the most of lifting we trying to avoid using them as an additional cardio workout. Since we're not stressing the cardiovascular system, which the HR monitor monitors, we don't need the data.

==> over-focus on the numbers
There is pleasure in simply rowing: listening to the glide of the boat, the thwack of the oars, the swish of the water. Data takes away from the beauty. Of course, it's not just the heart rate—it's the splits and the stroke rate and the time and the meters. There something wonderful about rowing as fast or slow as you want, until you want to turn around, and then coming back. It's a bit of mental respite that heart rate monitors can't provide.

==> can make you lose touch with your body
Heart rate zones change. Over the course of six months, my heart rate zones shifted as much as 10 bpm. Over-reliance on numbers can dampen body awareness crucial to making zone and intensity adjustments. Regular lactate testing can help the latter, but body awareness is incredibly important in racing. You have to be able to determine when to risk everything—and your heart rate monitor can't always tell you.

How can this help your training?

If you train with a heart rate monitor, be aware of the cons. Account for your own mental fatigue, leave the monitor behind for some workouts, and stay aware of how your body feels not just your heart rate.

If you haven't yet taken the plunge, consider the pros. If these are areas where you've struggled, it might be time to invest in a heart rate monitor. Maybe you have trouble finishing workouts, or find your numbers jumping around from week to week. If used correctly, a heart rate monitor can help you with pacing and consistency.


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One of the fun things about living at GMS is living with a gaggle of rowers. Two of the other women living here also help coach the high school team. We got to talking about healthy eating and encouraging the kids to choose better foods—more fruits/vegetables/whole grains, less candy and general junk.

We thought it might be helpful if there was an example of what we, as full-time and generally healthy athletes, ate on a regular basis. I always think it's helpful to see what other athletes are eating. Food is definitely an individual choice, but seeing others' choices helps me understand my own choices better.

For example, if somebody else is eating lots of gels and sports drinks, and I'm not, I ask myself why I'm not doing that. I don't change my behavior, but rather understand my choices better.

So, here's what I ate this Monday. We had two workouts, 75 minutes in the morning and an afternoon weightlifting session.

7:15AM
steel cut oats (2 cups) with walnuts, dried cranberries, brown sugar, sunflower seeds
mug of coffee

WORKOUT #1

10:30
brown rice (1 cup) with olive oil, garlic powder, salt, pepper
sauteed kale (1 cup)
lentil loaf (lentils, mushrooms, bread crumbs, onions, etc.) (1.5 cups)

11:15
steel cut oats (1 cup) with 2T peanut butter, 1.5T jam

12:30PM
walnuts (0.5oz)
raisins (2T), banana
green tea

WORKOUT #2

5:00
walnuts (0.5oz)
pear

6:30
sweet potato (1 medium)
diced roasted russet potatoes (skin on, with salt, oil) (2 cups)
salad with baby kale, cucumbers, radish, carrot, fennel, lemon-garlic-oil dressing (3 cups)
chickpeas sauteed with onions, spices (1 cup)

As you can see, I focus most of my calories into three main meals of 500-1000 calories. I also sometimes add an auxiliary smaller fourth meal of 4-600 calories, and some (relatively) small snacks of 150-300 calories.

On days when I don't workout as much, I keep a similar eating pattern, but maybe cut out one snack and my fourth meal. It depends on my hunger levels. On days when I'm working out a lot (burning upwards of 2000 extra calories), I will increase the size of my 4th meal and maybe add a late night snack.

What do you eat on a daily basis? How do the quantities compare? Are you trying to lose weight? gain weight?

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Bodyweight is always a contentious issue. Especially when it comes to purposefully changing ones weight, what some people view as healthy, others call obsessive. Ashley over at {never} homemaker recently got some serious flak for talking about weight, which inspired me to write about it.

As a lightweight rower, I have no choice—weight is part of my daily life. My results have different meanings at 125 and 135 pounds. And I have very strict weight deadlines that require me to weigh myself weekly starting months in advance. For example, I expect to weigh under 129 pounds on April 23rd and around 125.5 pounds on May 14th. Those are not loose deadlines.

In fact, the stringency of those deadlines has definitely led me to some bad habits: obsessively counting calories, over-weighing, chronic dehydration. I spent much of my first training year tracking every morsel of food and every calorie burned. In college, I often didn't drink water all afternoon, in case our coach had us weigh in at practice.

I've been working on those habits. This winter, I've focused on getting in touch with my body. I've learned my true hunger cues and also learned to respect those cues. Not surprisingly, I'm suddenly a lot faster, calmer and less prone to eating half jars of peanut butter.

Now that I'm finally coming to terms with my body, weight and eating habits, here are some of my thoughts on the matter.

==> It's okay to have a number in mind.
Ashley got a lot of crap for focusing on the 7 pounds she's gained. But I think it's okay to focus on it. She mentioned that 7 pounds can really easily turn into 70; I've talked to a lot of women in their 40s or 50s who now regret not focusing on those first 5 or 7 or 10.

==> It's also okay to have different numbers for different seasons.
Lightweight rowing automates this. I weigh 132-135 pounds in winter and 126-129 pounds in season. I eat more heartily and train heavier weights in winter; I eat more fresh fruits and veggies and do more HIIT in summer. It's part of my body's natural cycle (and I never regret have some extra insulation in winter).

==> Weight varies a lot from day to day and week to week.
My weight can change 2 pounds in a day. I clearly did not overeat by 7000 calories—chances are I ate more vegetables and drank more water. That's why I use weight ranges, not specific weights, when possible. It's also why I don't care if I've gained a pound from last week; I notice when I've gained two pounds from two weeks ago, or five pounds from five weeks ago.

==> It's not okay to weigh yourself more than once a day with any regularity.
If you do this, for any reason, please spend some time thinking about your relationship with food. There are much better ways! And there are a lot of resources to help you get in touch with your body without relying on the scale. (It's possible to maintain your current weight without weighing yourself!!!)

==> If you're eating uncontrollably, you might be hungry.
I used to go nuts with the jar of peanut butter. It was my nemesis. Apparently, I wasn't eating enough breakfast. Now, I aim for 600-800 calories for breakfast, and similarly gigantic portions for lunch and dinner. Since I'm not starving between meals, I don't feel the need to snack on inappropriate foods. (1/2c of PB is not an appropriate snack 30 minutes before a hard practice.)

What are your thoughts on weight? Do you weigh yourself to maintain your weight? Or do you go by other cues? Or do you not pay attention at all?

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In case you missed it, there are some great videos up on row2k about the men's national team training in Princeton. When I first saw them posted, I didn't think there was a ton to learn from the series—I expected it to be more geared towards the general public.

In reality, the videos are incredibly motivational and reassuring, and a great insight into specific aspects of training at a high level. It's fun to see these names I've heard since I was in high school presented as real people on camera.

The fourth installment just came out. Here are links to each of the videos:
Episode 1
Episode 2
Episode 3
Episode 4

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I've mentioned this before, but food is one of our major recurring expenditures. Even being careful, we spend nearly as much money on food as on rent. Still, we've cut down our food costs significantly in the past two years, which means more money goes into our savings accounts. Glorious.

Cutting out packaged foods has made a huge difference in our grocery bill. For example, we no longer buy crackers or cold cereal, opting instead for larger meals (not snack foods) and hot oatmeal. In fact, just the switch from cold to hot cereal has saved us a bundle.

The two of us eat a box of cold cereal every two days, plus the cold cereal required about a gallon of soy milk a week. Even with cheap cereal and milk, we were looking at $13/week for breakfast (not including bananas or other tasty toppings).
Now, we buy steel cut oatmeal (the most expensive kind of oats, and worth every extra penny). We go through 4-5# a week, with only a half gallon of milk, dropping us below $10/week. We use the extra money to buy walnuts, raisins and sunflower seeds, to make our breakfast more nutritious, delicious and filling, for the same cost.

Ok, maybe not the best example, but ultimately that breakfast provides us more calories, meaning we don't buy snack foods, meaning we save money.

I guess the lesson is that focusing our meals around large, filling, whole foods has helped us avoid more processed and packaged foods that used to fill the gaps between meals.

That being said, we do rely on some packaged foods because they are filling and inexpensive. For example, although our homemade vegan sausages are delicious, they are more expensive than buying Tofurky Italian sausages from Trader Joe's. When we throw in a load of potatoes and a bag of frozen veggies, we've got an inexpensive and well-rounded meal that is really quite filling.

Similarly, we buy some pre-made sauces, like soy sauce, peanut butter and sriracha. We simply don't have the time to make these things from scratch. We do combine these pre-made sauces into other tasty concoctions, like homemade peanut sauce for our stirfries. We also make all of our own salad dressings.

As an added bonus, less packaging means less waste!

Our top five packaged foods:
1. Peanut butter!
2. Soy milk
3. Bread (although I'm keeping an eye out for a bread machine on freecycle)
4. Tofu & Tempeh
5. Raisins

What do you buy in packages? Do you make your own sauces or buy pre-made?

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The house has finally filled out with warm bodies. My teammates have returned from Oklahoma City, Houston, and Worcester, and we are all training hard for our upcoming 6k and 2k erg tests.

Unfortunately, the extra warmth hasn't melted all the snow. I expect we'll be indoors for another month or so. Hopefully we get at least a week on the water before the first national selection regatta!!

This is where Dan works. He started last week.

The lake was thawed for one day when we arrived. Now it's a sheet of ice.

Our poor west coast car doesn't know what to do.

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Sometimes, my athletic improvement stalls. Usually, training volume or intensity increases, and the fatigue cancels out any positive fitness gains. A month may pass without improvement.

“When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, till it seems as though you could not hang on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.” - Harriet Beecher Stowe (source)

Those times test my resolve, but I've developed a great strategy for getting through; I extend my time scale. Instead of looking back to last week or last month, I look back farther.

I started keeping a workout log in 2012, when I started at CRC. I have a record of my weight lifting, my rowing and my erg times. Going back farther, I've also recorded my erg times in my online logbook. And I generally have a sense of what I could do as far back as high school.

Some favorite examples:
- When I first started rowing, I couldn't run a mile without stopping. This week I ran 4.5 miles as part of a second workout of the day.
- My first 2K test, I pulled 2:12 for 500m splits. I recently pulled 2:06 splits for nearly 24K!
- In college, I celebrated breaking 2:00 splits for a 4K. Now I'm disappointed by a 6K average split of 1:59.
- In November, I lifted 45 pounds for 6x20 benchpulls. My last lift, I did 45 pounds for 6x150 benchpulls!

These examples remind me that improvement comes over years, not months or weeks or days. They are also a great reminder to judge my speed on my previous results, rather than on the speed of those around me. Ultimately, I will have to beat others, but to get there I first have to improve upon myself.

How do you stay motivated when progress stalls? Do you ever look back?

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When I started training, I was always curious about what other people were doing. A lot of athletes don't share their training plans, which made it difficult to gauge my training versus the typical. I have found a few resources like this national team training plan from 1998. The University of Michigan also provides a lot of information about their training programs.

Still, information is remarkably difficult to find! Perhaps athletes and coaches believe that they'd be giving away trade secrets, but I've come to realize that it's less about what training you do and more about actually doing it. Moreover, this training quite personalized and wouldn't have the same affect on me as my competitors. Finally, I would hope that my competitors have access to enough information that they don't need my training plan!

Certainly, there are weeks I would rather not share. I have bad days and bad months, where I do fewer workouts than I should or split workouts into pieces just to cajole myself into doing them. So when I say this was a typical week, keep in mind that a typical week also usually involves some departure from the training plan.

That being said, last week was a fairly typical week of training. Some weeks we do more long, slow work; last week was primarily focused on speed work in preparation for a 6k erg test this coming weekend.


Monday:
AM - 2x50 minutes (HR167-174); 2:09 splits, burned ~1000 calories
PM - endurance lift, 3 times through: [[120 bench pulls, 20 leg presses, 20 leg lifts, 15 bench press, 120 bench pulls, 60 squats, 20 sit ups, 8 pull-ups, 2' back bridge]]; burned ~ 700c

Tuesday:
AM - 2x1500m at max HR; 1:55 splits. plus 30' warmup, 10' cool down. burned ~550 calories
PM - 75 minutes (HR149-167); 2:16 splits, burned ~700 calories

Wednesday:
AM - 3x10 minutes (HR180-189); 1:58 splits. plus 15' warmup, 15' cool down. burned ~650 calories.
PM - 60 minutes (HR149-167); 2:11 splits, burned ~600c

Thursday:
AM - 75 minutes (HR149-167); 2:11 splits, burned ~ 750c
PM - endurance lift, burned ~675c

Friday:
AM - 2x40 minutes (HR167-174); 2:07 splits, burned ~850c
PM1 - 60' run on treadmill, 6.5 miles, burned ~500c
PM2 - 75 minutes (HR149-167); 2:14 splits, burned ~ 700c

Saturday: I had a long day of job training, so I ended up post-poning the workout to Sunday morning

Sunday:
AM - 10km (HR180-189); 2:07 splits, burned ~625c
(we do this workout pretty often, and none of us did very well on it; we clearly had some residual fatigue from the week)

NOTE: I used calories burned as a measure of relative work load: the more calories, generally the more difficult the workout. I have actually stopped counting calories from a food intake perspective, because I find the numbers to be so inaccurate and inconsistent.

What does your training plan look like? Are you ever curious about what other people are doing?

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In college, I had the opportunity to take two computer programming classes. One was a general engineering requirement, and the other was specific to my major. I absolutely loved both classes, even when they were difficult or frustrating.

Still, I found computer programming to be a lot like mathematics: very intimidating as an inexperienced woman.

It's not that either department at Princeton was unfriendly to women. Certainly there were successful women in both departments, many of whom were friends and acquaintances. They were perfectly lovely people who all had one thing in common: they were really quite good!

Of course, most people who attend Princeton are really quite good at most things they do. It's the culture of the place—a difficult, stressful, fun culture. But as a woman, already out of place in those male-dominated fields, feeling doubly out of place for lack of skill was just too much. And as such, I shied away from male-dominated fields.

("Wait, didn't you major in civil engineering?" you might ask. Indeed, I did; and not only was our department at least half women, it turned out I had quite a knack for it.)

Clearly, I am not pursuing a career in my chosen major. There is a lot of fun work in civil engineering—lots of problem solving and number crunching, both of which I love. But the reasons I have chosen not to pursue civil engineering are too many to list here.

Instead, I've considered a number of other options: studying chemistry and gaining admission to medical school; earning an MBA and going into business; pursuing a graduate degree in nutrition; taking accounting classes; and more. But ultimately, I can't justify the expense of these options, especially not while pursuing rowing.

After a few failed attempts at MIT Opencourseware, I finally stumbled upon something built for me: Codecademy. It's an online introduction to programming, so I can refamiliarize myself with coding logic and learn the syntax in various new languages.

I'm not sure where this will take me. There are a lot of fun projects I'd like to work on, including re-designing this blog. I will waste time and make mistakes, I'm sure, but I suspect even that will be pretty fun. And maybe I will eventually be able to produce something useful.

Any programmers out there? Any advice for getting started? Any cool projects I should attempt?

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As we headed out from Oregon, I had ambitious plans to work out 10 times a week, while driving 5+ hours a day. And for the first half of the trip, I was fairly successful.

Our first day on the road, we stopped at Cape Blanco, the westernmost point in the continental U.S. I got in a 60' trail run along cliffs and across the beach. It was beautiful, and exhilarating. And the next day, I ran through the giant redwoods.

The streak continued, with a few days of erging at lifting at my parents' house in Berkeley, and even a 90' row at the SoCal Scullers in Long Beach, CA. In Vegas, we rode our bikes down the strip, and in Arizona, I did stairs in our motel before tossing around suitcases as weightlifting.

My favorite day of the whole trip: we spent the better part of a day in the Grand Canyon. The altitude made it awfully cold, but we got in a 3-mile hike and I went on a 7-mile run along the rim trail. I could spend a week running in that place and still not see all that I wanted.

But after a week, we were only in Arizona, and we needed to spend more time driving each day. That's when things started to fall apart. Cold weather interfered with plans for a stop in Oklahoma City to row. I managed a few solid days of training here and there, including a 90' bike and a 90' run one day in Florida.

In the end, though, I got to Connecticut with some serious catch-up to do. So, instead of beating myself up about the past, I just got started. My first week back, I put in three workouts a day, capitalizing on easy equipment access and well-rested muscles. And the last 15 days in January, I averaged over 20km a day on the erg, plus some solid weight sessions.

What's the lesson in all of this? Do your best when the going it tough and do better when the going gets easy.

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In a stroke of brilliance, Charter managed to come turn off the cable TV and internet to the house on Saturday morning. We had asked them to move the main input line around and they decided that we could wait a week between de-activating the old input and activating the new input.

Wonderful! Just in time to not be able to watch the SuperBowl.

So Dan and I headed out to a local sports bar to watch the game. We're definitely on a tight budget, so we managed to nurse a beer apiece for most of the game. Still, it was definitely worth the splurge.

Being from Oregon, where there is no pro-football, Dan grew up a Seahawks fan. And starting with a safety on the first play of the game was a real treat. Between fumbles, interceptions and 90+ yard punt returns, the night was filled with astounded mumblings of, "Wait, did that just happen?"

I'm super glad Dan dragged me out—I was ready to call it a night at 5PM, but he convinced me to come along.

To top the night off, the sports bar was having a raffle. And in typical me fashion, I won tickets to the Dave Matthews Band concert in June! So I guess what I'm saying is, thanks Charter. I appreciate your fuck-up more than you know.


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