Katie Reynold's
National Team Athlete
Hello Everyone!
We returned to Western University (London Ontario) after Christmas break to open water on the lake, and mild temperatures, and we wasted no time to get on the water. We used a coach boat to break up some thin sheet ice around the dock, and once that was cleared, we had the whole lake on which to train. It was crazy to be on the water in January, and well, pretty cold!
We then had a VO2 max test, along with a body fat composition analysis. For the body fat test we sat in this little spaceship like thing called a bod pod. I am sure some of you have gotten fat testing using the pinch test. This system is much more accurate and less painful! The VO2 max test required us to pull on the erg for six minutes as hard as we could while hooked up to a machine. We had nose plugs over our nostrils so that we could breathe only through our mouths. Then we had a device we put our lips around and had to breathe through this tube. It was all hooked up to a computer with cords attached to head gear that we wore. We looked pretty ridiculous and I was not a fan of breathing through this tube. I like to be able to breathe through my nose, and half way through my test the nose plugs popped off so I had to stop to put them back on. We will be receiving the results shortly and we are retesting in April in hopes that we will improve as we get closer to the racing season.
We recently got back from a week trip to Ottawa where we went cross country skiing and swimming. After the camp it was pretty clear we should all stick to rowing! Both sports are excellent forms of cross training for rowing and I strongly suggest you try them out if you don’t already.
We had a National Team Olympic swim coach, who from day one was amazing. We learned many things about swimming that we didn’t know before. We learned all four strokes (free, breast, back and fly) and by the end of the week we were doing relay races complete with the dive off of the blocks.
Cross country skiing wasn’t as successful for all of us. On day one, our coach who was supposedly a National Team coach, sent us out in Gatineau Park with no advice or coaching tips other than turn right, don’t take the next right, then turn right. We all took off having no idea what was ahead of us. Being of the competitive nature, everyone went out very hard. I was in a group with a few others and after an hour and a bit of skiing we asked a local how much longer to get back to our starting point (I guess we were suppose to do a big loop). The guy informed us that at our rate we’d be over two more hours. We decided it’d be best to turn around, as we figured we were clearly lost. Once we finally got back to our parking lot, none of our teammates were there. We went and sat in the truck and got changed when finally one of the girls came back. She arrived in a vehicle with some local skiers and she wasn’t very happy. Apparently she got lost and was so far away from home base she had to ask for a ride back.
As it turns out, not one person made the route that our great instructor sent us on, and we had to go to different parking lots around the park to pick up our tired and cold friends. By this time it was dark. We later found out that our route was 26km, this on day one with no coaching. We were not impressed and we didn’t bother to get this guy to coach us anymore.
The next days skiing were much better with new coaches who actually helped us and shorter trails. We also stayed together so no one would get lost. This was the day that most of us got blisters on our heels, and I was one of them! They killed!! For the rest of the week we had to take some time off because our heels would bleed the whole time. We basically had holes in the back of our heels.We also got to play basketball with the University of Ottawa Women’s basketball coach. He was really great and he ran us through some drills and then we played a game. Let’s just say there were a few fouls and lots of missed shots!
While in Ottawa we were billeted by local families of rowers (either high school or university). Myself and another girl had an awesome host family and our host mom spoiled us with good food and even a trip to the Senators vs. Canucks game. Our seats were five rows up from ice level!So, now we are back in London which means back to the ergs. We are here until February 14th when we leave for Augusta Georgia for two weeks of training on the water. Some of our ergs for the next few weeks include a 40 minutes as fast as possible test, a 12 km test, three days later a 6km test and two days later a 2km test which we will do at the Canadian Indoor Erg Championships in Toronto. We then finish with an hour of power test which is as hard as possible for an hour.
Well, that’s all for now. Happy training!
Katie
