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The 2009 Copenhagen World Outgames staff will be hitting the US eastern seaboard campaign trail in June. Outgames’ Director of Sports Tommy Kristoffersen and his entourage will be hitting four cities: Boston, Washington DC, Philadelphia, and New York City. Rowers can find information about the events in each city by visiting the
GLRF United States calendar panel , and of course, rowers can get a look at the planned rowing venues and formats at the GLRF World Outgames Regatta page.
GLRF members in each of the four cities will also receive the new ‘calendar and message board digest’ emails that summarize new message board posts and new calendar events. The weekly email program is part of the GLRF project to help strengthen local and regional community ties. Over the past two months, the GLRF membership database has been undergoing a conversion to a regional focus so rowers in a given locale can learn about local and regional events without being inundated with extraneous emails outside of their area. As an example, the Boston event will go to GLRF members in the New England region: MA, ME, RI, NH, VT, and CT. The other event emails will go to GLRF members in the following three regions: New York, Pennsylvania /NJ, and MidAtlantic. .
If you’re a rower, you have probably had “some” interaction with an erg, aka ergomoter – as in a rowing machine. Most in the community are familiar with the industry standard, a Concept2. Almost every rower groans when you mention the erg. Competitive rowers have spent hours and hours and hours on the machine, building their endurance and proving their mettle to the coach and team. The essential measure is your split, meaning how fast you can row in minutes in 500 metres.
I recall GLRF member @adtan, a one-time Danish national team member, relaying that his split time for 20 minutes on the erg was really slow, at 1:49…. Such a humble guy…
Recently, I stumbled upon a WaterRower for sale that was just too good to pass up. I had tried GLRF member @steveo25 aka Den Mother and Kapuna Steve WaterRower at his place in NYC and loved the smooth feel. I discovered that my uncle was also a devoted WaterRower user. But I always thought a piece on the WaterRower was just a nice walk in the park. Little did I know how brutal the workout can be. A 30 minute piece at a stroke rate of 24.5 not only whipped my ass but provided a new awareness to every major muscle group in my upper legs.
The biggest drawback to the WaterRower has always been the monitor. It was cumbersome and unrealistic. The new S4 monitor offers every conceivable workout you or your Lucifer-like coach could ever devise. So now you can really track your whipped ass progress (in my case) in excruciating detail. So what makes the WaterRower so different than the Concept2? The simple answer is the feel. It is sooooooooo smooth, and for a sculler, it really replicates the feel of the drive of the legs into the footrests. While the Concept2 uses air resistance, the WaterRower uses water resistance. The enclosed container takes advantage of the principles of hydrodynamics to create continuous and increasing resistance the faster you row. It also helps to fill the tank to the maximum recommended level if you really want to feel the ‘boat’ at full power.
Apples and oranges: I’m not sure that the split times easily equate between the Concept2 and the WaterRower but if you’re just focused on an excellent endurance workout, give the WaterRower a go.
When rowing was cancelled as a featured sport at the 2008 Eurogames, we had been in conversations with a local Barcelona rowing club about the possibility of European rowers participating in an independent coastal rowing regatta on the same weekend. Unfortunately, that did not pan out.
However, there is another possibility: the XIV Banyoles Masters Fest International Regatta 19 – 20 Jul 2008. It sounds like a lot of fun – a low entry fee of 35 Euros includes all races and a dinner party with lots of delicious Spanish food and lots of FREE beer, and a cocktail regatta on Sunday evening. So if you’re still yearning for some Spanish sun, check it out.
We receive a fair number of inquiries from members looking to row as they travel abroad. Our usual response is to suggest a posting in the country forum of the member’s destination. We in turn send out a message digest email to the GLRF members in that country, letting them know there is a posting and suggest that they post a reply. Those digest emails can be very helpful when there are a lot of GLRF members in a given region of the country. But what about those countries where we don’t have members or where there aren’t many members…? Then it can be a little more of a challenge.
Part of the value of GLRF is the existence of a connected community. For those others who don’t have a “family” (huge smile here), they are left to their own devices – referrals, and research on the web, and thumbing through the Rower’s Almanac . Most rowing club members attempt to contact clubs at their destinations. That requires advance planning and more work, along with the hope that the club will check their email, and be open to welcoming outside rowers. Here are some other tips:
share your experiences with us so we can expand our knowledge base as Anna did when she visited Beijing ; for you web savvy among us, what do you suggest as a medium to share the repository of knowledge?
contact boat manufacturers – we did this with Carl Douglas Racing Shells and with Cucchietti Racing Shells in Argentina. You can almost guarantee getting a nice row on a new boat!
contact your local boat manufacturer reps for your region – they may have some connections abroad. Drew Harrison, the North America NW Region Rep for Wintech Racing offered this advice for a GLRF member headed to the pacific rim: ” There is a terrific rowing course outside Shanghai where the provincial team lives and trains. It’s as nice as any man made course in the world and was the site of my first visit to China, the 1993 East Asian Games. We stayed in lodging at the course, but I don’t know how to describe how to get there or the names of any current key people there. Our manufacturing facility is 3 to 4 hours drive from Shanghai in the Hangzhou region.”
A Lisbon sculler’s registration heralded the entry of Portugal into the GLRF worldwide community, marking the 26th country to compose the worldwide gay and lesbian rowing network. Portugal has an active rowing community with clubs along the coast as well as inland. Many northern European crews train in Portugal’s temperate inland waterways during the winter months. GLRF mapped some of the many rowing clubs in Portugal.
The 5th International LGBT Tournament of Paris, a weekend multi-sport event, will feature rowing as one of the 14 sports disciplines. The regatta will take place on Sunday morning at the Base Nautique in Choisy-le-Roi, a s suburb south of Paris. The venue is easily accessible from Paris using the regional train service.
The format will follow what is traditionally called a “stake race.” Competitors will race to the end, round a buoy, and return, in a timed format style. The race will feature one category: 4x+ (coxed quad). A similar attempt to organize a regatta in 2007 fizzled due to a problem with sourcing boats. This year, the organizing committee has resolved the issue by focusing the race on one boat category.
Racing will take place during the morning followed by a picnic along the rowing basin. Due to tournament event organizational constraints, the registration must close by 16 Mar 2008 so all rowers are encouraged to register very soon.
GLRF visited the venue in December 2006 and will offer its Seat Search service and message forum chat for all members.
The 5th International LGBT Tournament of Paris, a weekend multi-sport event, will feature rowing as one of the 14 sports disciplines. The regatta will take place on Sunday morning at the Base Nautique in Choisy-le-Roi, a s suburb south of Paris. The venue is easily accessible from Paris using the regional train service.
The format will follow what is traditionally called a “stake race.” Competitors will race to the end, round a buoy, and return, in a timed format style. The race will feature one category: 4x+ (coxed quad). A similar attempt to organize a regatta in 2007 fizzled due to a problem with sourcing boats. This year, the organizing committee has resolved the issue by focusing the race on one boat category.
Racing will take place during the morning followed by a picnic along the rowing basin. Due to tournament event organizational constraints, the registration must close by 16 Mar 2008 so all rowers are encouraged to register very soon.
GLRF visited the venue in December 2006 and pictures are on the Gotcha! Gallery GLRF France gallery. GLRF will offer its Seat Search service and message forum chat for all members.
Israel became the 25th country to join the GLRF worldwide community today when a rower from Tel Aviv registered online. Israel has a small but strong rowing community and has supported the sport since the 1930’s. Many rowers rave about the smooth rowing conditions in Israel.
The 2008 Eurogames organizing committee has eliminated rowing from the schedule of sports disciplines to be offered at the XII Eurogames scheduled for July 2008. The move was revealed after the registration system was launched today and website visitors found rowing was not on the list of sports disciplines. Instead, canoe and kayak has been added to the list of sporting events. The decision came as a surprise to GLRF and is expected to significantly disappoint the many rowers in the European gay and lesbian community who had planned to participate.
The decision comes in spite of repeated efforts by GLRF over the last year to develop liaisons within the Barcelona rowing community and to provide introductions for the Eurogames 2008 staff. These efforts included two separate visits by GLRF to Barcelona in 2007. See related stories. The possibility of a coastal rowing regatta, as an alternative, had begun to take shape and would have provided rowers with a unique opportunity to expand their rowing skills.
GLRF deeply regrets the decision by Eurogames 2008 to eliminate rowing.
Los Angeles; GLRF sends annual holiday greetings to 64 recipients. Each year GLRF creates a special holiday greeting to send to the national rowing governing bodies of every country where GLRF has a member. This year, that number climbed to 24 countries and FISA. In addition, cards are sent to those in the rowing industry who have demonstrated a strong support for the GLRF organization and mission. On behalf of the GLRF membership and the GLRF organization, thank you for your ongoing support.
