Paddle battle? Battle paddle?
While I am not looking forward to this change, I am reminding myself that I did spend two years where I had to take 3 months away. 8 hours a week is truly a blessing.
That being said, I'm thrilled with where the walk-ons are and how they've progressed.
Friday was a glorious northwest fall day, the kind that reminds you of a Bob Ross painting - happy clouds and trees - and perfect water for some Battle Paddle. Or Paddle Battle. I can't recall what the proper name is, but we lined up two relatively even eights down river, and did 30 stroke pieces back.
It was the first time the walk-ons have put some serious pressure on the blade and gotten the shells up to speed. After a couple of switching hiccups to start, the coxswains picked up on the drills, and soon had both eights running smoothly. It was interesting watching the two boats going back and forth, and the athletes who were out began to cheer on their teammates, which got the coxswains talking, and soon it was a wonderful progression from silence to all out blows up river.
Conditioning still needs to come into play a bit more, but the technique is there - especially after we re-rigged one of the eights - and both the coach and I were pleased to see the athletes really getting in solid strokes with no crabs or major malfunctions.
We also ran a 30' piece at a set rate and saw marked improvement across the board in times, meters, splits, watts, etc. Despite the downer of having to cut back on hours at the end of next week, I believe that the coach has put this squad into a very solid position going into the reduced hours.
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