Beach Running
For Thanksgiving this year, my family is on the beach in Charleston, SC. There's miles of beach to walk and run, along with a heated pool for the kids. Plenty of fun for Will and his cousins and a big enough building to house all 25 of us.
I was thinking of hitting the beach tomorrow and talking with some of my family members of the running persuasion. Everyone knows that I can't run, and we brought an erg down to burn off some T-Day calories, but their conversation about running on the beach got me thinking about the running that happens in rowing.
In rowing, we encourage everyone to work in unison. In the boat, that's a requirement. On the ergs, workouts are structured so the weakest oarsmen many times are finishing at the same time as the strongest. Instead of working over a certain distance, we use elapsed time, such as 60 minutes of steady state or six 1-minute pieces.
However, when sent out on a run, a crew reverts to individuals. If I sent a team on a run down the beach, I would get multiple sets of footprints in the sand, and they would return to the start at different times. However, the military runs in formation and in step with each other. Why don't we encourage this in rowing? If anything, rowing is more dependent on such interdependence and unison, yet we let such an opportunity slip by. Perhaps this is something to think about in the future, when the team is sent out on a run.
Just a thought. Anyone have any comments?
posted by Coach Jay at 11/21/2007 11:30:00 PM
7 Comments:
I tried to get my teammates to do that when I was in high school; they all looked at me like I was nuts. I gave up after a day.
I'm a captain of my high school's crew. Sometimes we do that, and sometimes we don't. It's easier to do it as a boat, but during the winter when we condition as a team, it can be really difficult, because the disparity between the physical condition of the varsity and the novices can really be huge. My friend is in our school's ROTC program, and sometimes he'll sing marine cadences while we run, and we'll repeat. I feel it helps us stay together (even if it seems a little weird). Our coaches have always been big supporters of running together as a team though, and it really makes sense, as I feel that sometimes on a high school level it can be really hard to get everyone to come together as a team.
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I think the reason why most crews don't run together is that most people feel that they'd rather get a workout in than run with the slower runners and help motivate and push them. Gvien that a crew is only as fast as its slowest member however, this mentality seems like its both selfish and self-defeating, especially in the long run.
I think the way to fix this is to have somebody on the crew who is in a leadership role who understands this and is willing enforce this policy on long runs. Whether this is the captain or not is irrelevant, although it would probably help, as long as there is someone who is able to instill this idea of boat unity in his/her fellow boatmates. This is important because for a boat to be fast I think the whole crews needs to feel like its together, this mental unity is the final 5% of race preparation that Mike Livingston talks about. Its obvious that one great way to achieve this is to stick together on runs even if a few guys are slower than you.
Anyway as I said before, its great to see you're posting again and sorry it took me so long to add my own response.
Also missed seeing you at the biathlon this year, which by the way I got second in!!!
Anyways have a happy holidays, I'll probably be in touch before then though.
Hi. I was searching for a great running pic. Do you mind if I use your sand photo for a marathon running group I'm forming on facebook?
curlz7@gmail.com
Janell
Also, I don't know you, but your pic came up when I searched for beach running photos.
Pic ain't mine. Just click on it to get the source. Have fun.
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