The Dilemma Of Managing The Highs And Lows Of Fitness Training
Growing up with a father who was a two-time U.S. Olympian in Rowing (68′ Mexico City Olympic Bronze Medalist and 76′ Montreal Olympic Men’s Rowing Coach) was a very interesting experience. I thought it was normal routine workout and it made sense that my father would go out for a 3-hour workout and train 7 days a week. I didn’t really appreciate or even come close to understanding how truly hard and mentally tough it is to win an Olympic medal… let alone just to make the Olympic Team until I rowed and was recruited to row for UC Berkeley. All of a sudden I found myself the weakest and slowest rower on the team as we went on to win 3 National Championships and 4 PAC- 10 Championships in 4 years along with International rowers that were recruited from all over the world. It was my introduction to the next step of my rowing career as I rowed alongside recruited rowers from Sweden, Norway, Germany, England, Serbia, Australia, Canada, South Africa, and Croatia . I remember days where I would barely be awake during practice in the early mornings as I did not have enough time to recover in between practices. Our coaches made us do fitness tests every week to see how fast we could row 10,000 meters on the Concept 2 Rowing Machine. One year we accumulated 15 tests every week of 10,000 meters and about 10 fitness tests of 6,000 meters! My overall best Concept 2 times were 33 min 20 seconds for 10,000 meters (1:40 split avg) and a national team qualifying time of 19 min 2o seconds for the 6,000 meter test (1:36 split avg).