Casey McKenna

It's the Head of the Charles 2019 - my bucket list rowing event. Months and months of training, and poof! Over in a flash.

Three days back and there’s still much to process. I didn’t update during the regatta because I wanted to absorb the experience–and I needed to sleep at night.

I did make this short video, the 7 Days Countdown to HOCR. I wanted to capture everything that leads up to a race, plus the results.

Thursday

The first half of the trip went off with zero problems: Louisville to Laguardia Airport. Now that airport is a disaster. Poor signage, terrible food choices behind security, and one bathroom for 15+ gates?

My flight from Laguardia to Boston was cancelled. Not delayed. Cancelled, due to poor weather. The plane never left Boston. Luckily I saw “CANCELLED” flash on the screen before the gate attendant announced it. I rebooked on the app, getting the next flight out before it filled up, then scrambled to make sure my gate-checked luggage would be re-routed. Then I started wondering if the next flight would also be cancelled. How would I get to Boston before 9am? I started researching train and bus, just in case.

What a hot mess! Mom brain is real and I swear I’m losing it. In between this chaos, I temporarily lost my wallet. It happened when charging my phone. I guess my backpack wasn’t zipped all the way. When I put it on the counter, it flipped out over the sill. I didn’t see it, but neither did anyone else. 15 minutes of sheer panic once I realized it was gone. I could get to Boston–but how would I get home? How would I get money to eat? But I found it, the next plane did arrive (even if late) and I made it to Boston and my cousin Maggie’s about 9 p.m. Rode the bus with a youth team from Great Britain.

Friday

After a poor night’s sleep, I was excited to get to the racecourse. This time I rode a bus with Newport Aquatic Center youth. Their cox talked about heading to Vespoli, also my destination, so I followed them from the stop to the river. At that point, it was easy to figure out. Just follow all the other rower-type peoples heading for the water.

And holy bananas. Six docks? Streams of boats? Official merchandise? Yes! And I soon as I saw my friends from Florida, I teared up a little. For real, but out of joy. I’m here and this is happening!

Our practice row happened thanks to a sub from CRI, a lovely woman who was so encouraging and helpful. Thank you Sarah for stepping in so we could row!

Two doubles collided under Elliot and a men’s single flipped in front of Cambridge. And that was all in the first two minutes of our practice!

Conditions were windy and chilly, but not terrible. Hands tore up on the grips even with light hands. They happened to be my least favorite Concept2 grip, so I expected it. Overall, it felt like a solid row and it was nice to get the jitters out.

My Mom came to watch the races. We met up after practice, sipped some hot cider and walked around the venue scoping out the scene. It was nice to have her there to cheer us on and I got to wear my rowing nerd hat while explaining everything. “That’s HOCR headquarters, this is the last bridge, etc.”

Saturday: the Race

A beautiful, clear blue sky day. We never had the chance to row our 4+ line-up until race day.

We were hopeful for a top 11 finish. It seemed reasonable to me that we could be close to 11. 

I am super proud of how well I did mentally. There were some moments of jitters. In the morning, at my cousin’s place, getting ready. Laying out the uniform. Seeing a fellow rower on the transit. Standing by the river watching the other boats coming down. Hands on. Some dry mouth while rowing up. Hearing the announcer calling boats onto the course.

But overall, I didn’t lose it like I have in the past. I felt focused. Excited. I let go of the unknown and welcomed the experience. I was happy to be there, in that boat, with four other ladies who I knew had my back. It will be what it will be.

My hands were a big concern. I had the worst hot spots on the right hand bandaged, but worried about their staying power. Sure enough, one slipped off on the way up. But it turned out the bigger problem was the outside palm of my left hand. I The rotation had rubbed a section raw it was doing me no favors. n the rush to leave, I’d left my tape behind. Luckily 2-seat, Caitlin, had some surgical tape. It stayed on the whole race and saved my hand, I swear.

The race happened so fast, what I have left are fleeting moments.  I was so dialed in during the race I didn’t see the crowds on the sidelines, the banners on Elliot bridge, the enclosures, my family by Weeks.  Here’s the rundown of what I remember:

• Laughing at Hunting SZN. Because it actually is.
• My fellow starboard telling me I was responsible for powering us around those starboard turns. Me telling her if she left me hanging I’d feed her gluten. You’re welcome, Gallie! 
• It can be tense before a race starts so I came equipped with Halloween-themed jokes to tell right before our event started. 

Where do zombies like to row?

The Dead Sea!

• The announcer for the Men’s Naval Academy entry, event before ours: “U.S. Naval Academy: you are on the course. Have a good race and thank you for your service.”  So nice!

  

  On our way to the start…taken during an Elliot Bridge traffic jam.

• Seeing boat 21. Radcliffe Alumni. Um, yeah, those women are for REAL. 
• Start was so organized and the marshals were the nicest I’ve had for a head race.
• Getting chilled. Goosebumps on my legs from the wind, but not nerves. Proud of how calm I felt.
• I heard her say Sarasota Crew, but I can’t say if she said good luck or have a nice race. Just water rushing under the bow, breathing.
• Radcliffe, 21, charging right on us under the first bridge. I expected it. Not demoralized. Us yelling at Sarah, our cox, to yield over. Their cox yelling for us to yield. A moment of chaos and finally we give way.
• Focused on 22. Holding them off. Sometimes it seemed they were moving, then holding. Slowly creeping.
• Cox yelling at 14 to yield. Excited to pass. 
• 22 finds a second gear. They work their way by us. Using their momentum to push harder. 
• Getting internally mad at cox for asking for spilts from bow. Bow is busy. Bow is rowing. And it doesn’t matter! 
• Bridge.
• Bridge.
• A boat is creeping up on us.  Cox yelling at boat ahead of us. But this boat is trying to cut to our port. I’m listening for Bow to tell our cox about it. I hear nothing, but it’s loud. Noise from people, noise from the boat, noise from our cox. She is still yelling at someone else, and at us for power and steering. So much happening. Bridge is imminent. We’re turning, but we’re turning into the boat! Crap! Will they slow? No, they’re not! 

Panic! We’re going to hit! We’re under a bridge! Cox’n is yelling, and I’m screaming too, “POWER! POWER NOW!” and jamming it with everything I got, eyes glued not on stroke but the white bow surging forward and the sunglasses of their cox. I think stroke is yelling too, and we are standing on it—

Swoosh! Inches, they change course cutting to starboard and we cut to port. (Apparently, says our cox, the same thing was happening in her bow, which is why she was also yelling.)

 I was looking forward to row2k’s pictures to see how close this almost-collision was, but they posted nothing. Only one picture of our boat at all.

• Chaos is through. Cox is yelling about a boat 17. I tell Holly, “Come on, you and me, let’s go get ‘me.” 
• Steel drums from headquarters. 
• We don’t seem to be closing on 17, based on what I hear from cox. She’s demanding they yield, but it’s been a while.
• Telling Holly-You and me. Let’s get 17.
• Elliot Bridge. Let’s go, Holly, let’s get 17 before the line. Speed coming up.
• Rounding the bend. Hearing oars off the starboard. Cox yelling yield, yield, yield, at 17.
• Two strokes.
• And over. Turning to look. I was at 17’s stern. 16 was right behind them. Two passed us, we passed two, closing on two more. Relief.

The Aftermath

About fifty meters past the finish, we’re on the paddle when our cox’n says, “Hey, Texas, do you know Felicia?” Holly and I whipped our heads around, thinking about the same thing–”Oh my god, our cox’n did not just ‘Hey Felicia’ that boat”– but she quickly followed up with how she used to cox with some girl there and to say hi. Relief. Holly and I chuckled at that.

My right hand: as soon as we went on paddle and the race adrenaline wore off, I felt the damage. Light pressure on the right hand all the way back home. Strangers asked if I was in an alumni about because clearly I don’t row enough. I also turned down the offer of alcohol from the first aid station. Not a glutton for punishment.

Someone looked up the results. I don’t think it was me, but maybe. We were all disappointed to find ourselves at 17. A general, “really?” The row felt decent for a composite 4+, maybe a little messy near the end, but it came back together. If boat 17 had yielded, we probably would’ve been 16, as it was a 0.2 second difference.

I hoped for a better end, but the goal was experience. That we nailed 100%.  It was an awesome race. I enjoyed every second. I felt strong, I know I made a solid effort by how my muscles felt at the end, and I conquered those pesky inner demons. Triple win.

HOCR Impressions

• Wow! Talk about people! Never have I seen so many people at a rowing event: not World Championships 2017 or World Masters 2018. It was incredibly cool to have that many people packing the venue, the bridges, the riverbanks.
• Steel drums at a rowing festival? Mixed feelings about that.

  

  My Mom and cousin Maggie came to watch us race.

• Those bridges–loved the challenge of rowing through them! It broke up the course nicely.
• The only good collision I saw was a Princeton 4+ hitting a bridge, but I was pretty far away when it happened. We sat on Weeks for a long while and everyone expertly navigated through it.
• I know we lucked out on weather. What an amazing weekend to be outside, on and by the water!
• The warm-up erg section was seriously lacking in ergs. It may need a different system or maybe two stations by different dock areas. It seemed to be taken up by all youth when we were waiting to warm-up–but aren’t most youth events Sunday? We waited half-an-hour before giving up to run for warm-up.
• The food choices were slightly better at Weld than the Athletes’ Village. They need more diverse, less greasy options.
• I am disgruntled about a row2k article which referred to the morning races as, “When the under-card races were finished…” as in the Master’s and Alumni races. But that’s a topic for a different blog.

What’s next?

No rest for the weary. The Head of the Hooch is less than 10 days away and I’ve got three races including the single. I landed home Monday and

picked training back up on Tuesday.

It’ll be my second race ever in the 1x, the first being over six years ago. With the HOCR out of the way, there’s nothing to stop the mental wheels burning about the Women’s Master 1x, but I’ll save that for another time.

All was well. The house, quiet. Lights, dark. Bed, cozy and warm. Alarm snoozed.

Out of the darkness: “Next week this time, you’ll be heading to Boston.”

I blinked. Crap. In my mind, HOCR was nine days away, but I hadn’t thought about it like that. Who’d have thought one simple sentence would be a sucker-punch of adrenaline?

Five weeks down, one to go!

Comparing week 1 to week 2 of the October 5k training plan, I made gains almost every day. It was interesting because the priority workout I struggled with last week I crushed, while the one I loved absolutely ran me over. Those two twelve-minute pieces picked me up and body-slammed me hard four times, adding an elbow for good measure, screaming, “How do you like me NOW?”

This workout didn’t see an average spilt improvement, but it also didn’t see a significant loss.

It’s funny how that works–great workout experience one day, horrible the next.

All-in-all, a good training week. A little stronger at the start, but I think that has to do with sleep trouble. For the last four days, I’ve struggled to get a full night’s rest. I keep waking in the wee pre-dawn hours for no good reason. No crazy dreams, no nerves, no crying kid. Just, “hey, it’s 4 am, let’s lie awake in bed for the next two hours. Sounds like fun!” I took a sleeping pill last night and somehow still woke up at 5 am.

I ended Week 5 with a five-day training week, taking Saturday off. Early weather reports had rain and wind on Saturday, so I thought Sunday would be the better rowing day. I think the switch will work out better, too. Four final days of training: Sunday-Wednesday, then off Thursday for travel. Then bam! It’s showtime.

The taper & recovery

Rowing’s still been charging ahead, but weightlifting started the taper. I think I find tapering hard because I feel guilty. After pushing and building for months and months, now go easy? It seems counter-intuitive.

Now that a have a little extra time, I tried to spend more time on a better recovery. I’m guilty of the same thing other adult athletes are: not giving time to the post-work cool-down. When I train at the Y, I have a two-hour clock in child watch. I try to squeeze it all in, but that usually means sacrificing the tail-end of training. I might say, “I’ll do my core later,” or, “I’ll put on some yoga at naptime,” but let’s be real. It never happens.

Early steps to prepare for HOCR

At the sub-10 days out, I decided to start shifting training to the afternoons. I hate racing late in the day. I’m always worse, but I suspect that’s true for a lot of people. For me, I always seem to hit an energy lull around 3-4 pm. And when’s the race? 3:16 Saturday.

I’m hoping training later conditions my body to get used to making a large physical effort later in the day.

I started adding some land-based warm-up before all the rowing sessions, just like I do when I race. Again, just practicing the routine. Trying to normalize everything.

I watched more HOCR race videos on a recovery day, but I realized they weren’t really going to do me, the rower, any good familiarizing with the course. I’m not a coxswain! My butt goes over the line first, not my feet. I did find two videos shot from rowers wearing Go-Pros. Besides the shakiness, that was actually helpful. On the second one, I saw a building and remembered a bridge was coming up.

And I added Boston to my weather app. That’s a sure sign it’s soon!

Those pesky nerves

You know when you’re giving a speech for the first time, and someone says, “everyone else is just as nervous as you,” as a measure of comfort?

It doesn’t help.

Maybe everyone else is just as nervous head racing, and especially head racing at the Head of the Charles, but that knowledge does nothing to stop those adrenaline jolts.

The first round of nerves hit with Alan’s innocent little remark Thursday morning. The came again as I drove to the YMCA to work out. The sweaty palms. The tumbling rocks in the stomach. Dry mouth.

I’ve also had checklists running through my head. What to pack, what to buy, what to do this weekend.

Nerves and the mental game are two rowing demons I struggle against I am my worst enemy. The bigger the boat, the less I struggle, but the panic is always there. I put a lot of pressure on myself. Sometimes I don’t feel worthy of being in the boat I’m in.

In my spare moments, I’ve been reading on strategies and approaches to help stay calm and focused. If you have the Faster Masters program, there’s a section on head race planning. I liked this image from this morning’s research:

 “One major cause of race-day stress is the unknown… How fast will you run? Will you finish? Will you be the last person across the line? Will you qualify or break that personal record? What will your finish-line photo look like? The key to calmer waters is to race with what the day gives you and surrender to running your best on the day.” Source

The idea of surrendering resonated with me. It will be, what it will be, right?

ONE WEEK.

Read past week blog updates from Casey

https://fastermastersrowing.com/week-3-listen-to-your-body/

Week 2: Rowing the Long Game

Six Weeks to Get This Master Faster

The Head of the Charles is 26 days away as I sit and write. Less than four weeks.

Consistently, I noted more fatigue this week. Less sleep combined more physical and mental struggles. Lucky, training is a long game. Seven days shorter than a week ago, but still a long game.

I’m starting the third week feeling drained, but optimistic. I think I will see more growth this week. Two weeks to push hard and make a final effort to build more endurance and strength before the taper begins.

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Track my progress training for the Head of the Charles:

Faster Masters is following one athlete's progress towards the Head of the Charles 2019.  Casey McKenna is a 35 year old single sculler, a mom fo a 2 year old.   She trains alone since her job relocted to Kentucky and she was massivly excited when she got her entry into the HOCR this year - it's her first time.  We will be following her blog updates weekly through to the race, and beyond! 

Ever since I resumed training for specific rowing events, I’ve written my training plan. That’s partially been out of necessity: no rowing team here, no outside coach to be the guide, no boat to motivate through the tough times. Mix that in with new limitations to my time (hello, toddler!) and resources (where’s the water?) and writing my own plan just made sense.

The thing is, writing my personal training plan has been time-consuming. Part of that might be how I structure the workouts. I’m always asking myself, “Am I doing the right thing? Is this the right workout at this time?” I like variety, so you don’t see much repetition in the erg sessions.

As I prep for my first Head of the Charles, I’m giving the Faster Masters program a go. I plan to give an update each week for the next six weeks.

Week 1- Diving into training

I once participated in both a sweep and sculling clinic from Marlene Royle, whose instruction I credit with helping me win my first 1x race. And I listen into Rebecca Caroe on the RowingChat/ Faster Masters podcast, so I was excited to jump into the resources they offer. The program is broken into modules, but when I launched last Monday morning I needed to dive in quick.

The training plan is the first module. The guidelines spell out how the training works whether you’re erging a lot, like me, or have the benefit of water training. There are four training plans available. I’m picking up September’s plan for an October/November 5k peak.

It’s simple to understand, but my Florida-native brain trips me up when reading workout intensity. “Category 1” usually means bring out the margaritas and board your windows while “Category 5” means “Run for the hills because it’s about to get real.” Here it’s reversed: Cat I workouts are the most intense while V and VI are more steady state.

 

Initial Thoughts

Flexibility is the key reason I’ve been writing my plans. The kid could be sprinting across the house one day and running a fever the next. Some weeks I can only do four workout sessions. Others I hammer out six sessions. I can’t break up my workouts, as in row/erg in the morning and strength train/erg in the afternoon. I get up to two hours to smush in as much quality as I can. Erg, then immediately strength. If I’m lucky, I might have time for yoga or stretching later in the day.