Race Day Management

Workout planning, coaching on the water, trailer driving, inspiration, boat repair, rigging, trip planning and dozens of other skills are all part of what defines "coach."  Today at the John Hunter Regatta, another important ability came into play:  creative race day management.

The heavens opened long before we got to the course, with a cold rain before dawn pelting down in 40 degree weather.  Horrid, cold and wet.  Add in the occasional lightning and the announcement before first call was easy to predict:  delay.  We got the boat down, rigged and carried the oars over.  I then told the girls to find someplace in the Lake Lanier boathouse to keep dry and sort of warm, like the coach of EVERY other team there. 

We found hoards of wet, cold high-strung rowers, stuffed into a room triple its capacity.  I managed to find an out of the way corner down a hallway and some chairs, so we didn't have to breathe the stank breath of everyone else.  The girls were already hungry, and rumors of the fabled Biscuit Shop quickly spread.  When word came down of a three hour delay, my decision was easy.  "Let's get some food."  There are two tables in the place, but the biscuits are warm from the oven and ready instantly.  Crew fed.  Check.  Must keep crew fed.

But now where?  We filled that place and I couldn't keep the kids there for the next two hours.  More than anything, I wanted someplace quiet, out of the rain where they might be able to nap, get some schoolwork done or surf their smartphones.  Anything but think about rowing in the cold rain.  Setting up the tent next to the trailer would put us outside and in the mud.  We couldn't overstay our welcome at the shop.  Where next?  Starbucks?

How about the Hall County library........open just as we finished eating, chairs, quiet and with very fast WiFi.  I'm sitting there now, and here are my rascals....

 

Fed, safely asleep, warm and off their feet.  Check all boxes.  

All of the preparation for a race can go right out the window if a coach can't keep his crew comfortable and ready on the race day.  A hungry, shivering team won't perform anywhere near its best.  Managing the challenges of race day has become something I've gotten better at.  Years ago, I might have just fumed at the officials, paced around, driven more hair grey and not actually DONE anything to help my team.  Today, I couldn't care less when the race starts, as I've got the twitter feed and a warm, rested fed crew.  

Speaking of twitter, the feed suggests the regatta should restart soon.  Time to wake them up.

Examining the past

Todd Jesdale showed me his files once.  Boxes of notebooks, programs and shirts occupied an entire room in his home.  As you can imagine if you know Todd, it wasn't very organized, but he seemed to know where everything was.  Workout results, records, seat racing notes, entire seasons of memories sat in that room.

I don't think I'm even as organized as Todd was, but I've been "saved" by modern technology.  As everyone knows, the internet forgets nothing, especially when nobody pressed the DELETE button.  Obviously, this blog is still here, preserving my insanity as a second-year coach from 2005.  My Youtube channel is also still up, with videos I took of my crews from 2009 all the way to this past weekend.  I've even managed to find a few notebooks.  There's a flash drive somewhere with workout results from 2004.

So I've been reading through this stuff for the last few days.  Call it introspection, personal or professional self-scouting, whatever.  And I've come to a few conclusions:

1) I've gotten old.   I know, I say that all the time, like everybody in their 30s.  However, there is a lot more grey in my hair.  I'm not nearly as intense nor do I lose my temper as easily as I used to.  I've even been polite to referees the past few years.  Shocking, I know.

2) I still LOVE coaching There is absolutely nothing in the world I would rather do than teach people how to row, how to train and how to love this sport.  I've had some challenges these past few years, times when I can't say I was happy with the direction of my life, but I've always loved coaching.

3)  I've finally learned patience  I had a brand-new, first time assistant coach sending her novices out at a regatta a few years ago.  She reminded me so much of how itchy, twitchy and nervous I used to get.  Her crew didn't have a very good day (they flipped--story later) but I hope my patient good humor and the humor of her crew helped get her through a tough first outing.  (That crew went on to become a great novice team.)  I've realized there are things I can't change immediately, and thus I'm a lot more relaxed when short-term setbacks come around.

4) I still care deeply about my teams, but I've learned to pull back Getting older will do such things, I know, but while I used to thoroughly enjoy being a close part of their lives, I now am more reserved.  Communication is still very, very important to me (2000+ texts/month), but I'm not all over their Facebook pages.  There has to be a happy medium that I'm still searching for.  Things still get a little dusty when they win a big event, though.

5) I plan better  This was never my strong suit.  Flying by the seat of my pants was the usual way I would run practices.  Seat racing?  How about......now?   These days, I've got most of the season planned out on a google doc my crew can access months ahead of time.

Getting old still sucks, though.

This is still here?!?!

Shockingly, this thing is still here.......... I might start writing on it again. Shout out to Reddit.com/r/Rowing for somebody mentioning a five year old post and inspiring me to look at this again. I'll have to spend some time here deciding what might need to go and looking to re-load some images. I'll be messing about with backgrounds and other formatting.