Seat racing this week
This week, on my rowing team, we are trying to come up with the final lineup for a Men’s 4+ for the Opening Day 2010 race. The top three seats are already chosen, 4 of us are competing for the 4th seat. In rowing, coaches often use “seat racing” to determine lineups. They basically have 2 boats with person A + other people in one boat and person B + other people in the other boat.
The coach races both boats for a 2 minute (or whatever) race and sees which boat wins and by how much. He then swaps person A and person B, reraces, and then compares the results.
Earlier this week we seat raced during practice. The racing wasn’t conclusive yet. We need one more practice of seat racing to finalize the boat. This is my second spring season back on the water. It would be exciting to be able to race in the Opening Day race!
Me and Opening Day
My wife and I met on the rowing team at the University of Michigan. When we moved from Chicago to Seattle in May 1998, our temporary housing doorstep had a Sunday paper with an Opening Day race picture on the front page. We were lucky to move to a city that had such a focus on rowing! I hadn’t rowed at all in Chicago for our 5 years there, but there wasn’t much opportunity to do it.
Then, here in Seattle, a city with many rowing clubs, I waited 11 years to pick up an oar again…
Update: The Results
I didn't get in the boat...but I now have even more motivation for practices, training, etc...