Special Congratulations to GT Crew's Collegiate 8 who finished 2nd in their catagory at the Charles! YEAH!

http://www.sport-graphics.com/view_event_photos.asp?EVENTID=9873&CAT=76959&CAT2=22963&CAT3=

Ahh the fall Mayhem!
In this exciting episode we cover a few topics..
A - Boston's Head of the Charles (otherwise referred from this point forward as "the chuck")
B - A little House Cleaning, some of the tourist pics from Japan

Fall is supposed to be the fun time for Elites. Supposed to be. Never is racing ever relaxing, but I'm learning as I go that fall racing is a time to make big changes, try new things without really risking your goals that are now months away. Races are a chance for elites to race without so much drama and have fun afterwards.

The chuck is a special place for this because people come from all over the world (honestly its for the party) to race against this killer course that features two hairpin turns and multiple crashes. Coxswain steering is lore and boat performance is mystical, the same lineup will never row to the same finish twice.

Rowing like this will get you the second fastest first mile at the chuck.


I am in 6 seat with the red hat. Coxswain Chris O'Brien sits facing Stroke (8 seat) Dan Mueller, who is also my co worker at Marathon Eng. Behind Dan sits Micah Boyd, my coxed pair partner from this summer. Behind me in 5 seat is Tim Godfrey. Out of picture in 4 & 3seat is Stephen Whelpley and Ted Farwell, known as the Colby Kids since they just graduated and joined the group. Luke Agnini sits in 2 seat and Ryan "Rhino" Champagne sits in the funnest seat at the Chuck. Bow seat! This is the seat that is legally allowed to yell at crews who refuse to yield to passing traffic. It is amazing the way tensions can run high in a race and then be switched off instantly.

Back to our story. Starting 30th can cause you to hit "traffic" around the turns and finish 17th.

Ohh well, for me this was a dream come true and the reason I came back to rowing. I was never afforded the opportunity to row the champ 8 at the chuck in college. Even if we had 8 guys it was a long shot to get in against the likes of Cambridge, Oxford, Netherlands, Germany... before you can even get to Harvard, Yale or anyone else "local". The race plan? Base rate 34 strokes per minute and hold on for dear life.


For more pictures of our race you can find them at:
http://www.sport-graphics.com/view_event_photos.asp?EVENTID=9873&CAT=77113&CAT2=22956&CAT3=

or

http://www.row2k.com/gallery/gallery.cfm?action=gallery&dir=2005Fall/HOCR2005/Champ8Men&offset=24&label=HOCR 2005 Champ Eight Men

(If they do not work paste them in your browser line)


Tourist Time! There is nothing I hate more than to be a tourist. What can you do when your white, median height of 6'4" including the females of the group and in one large group? The overwhelming answer was buy a lot of soft serve ice cream at each stop. The flavor of choice was the green tea soft serve (in a nice pale green).

Here Shane O'mera of Northeastern University and the US Mens 4x gives a noodle bowl a thumbs up, or at least a "I will finish this at some point". These noodles were made from Buckwheat, which gave them an interesting texture.








Here, Micah poses with Mary (US womens 8+ coxswain) at a temple in Kyoto. Kyoto was one of the few Japanese cities spared of the fire bombing from the US during WWII. It was deemed too historic, it was also the place where the emporer lived at the time. Hmmm.







A final view from the bus, of the "Japanese Alps" which surounded us while staying in Gifu.

I hope all is well with you, the next update will be Winter Training.