Mission accomplished
Posted: February 17th, 2010, 3:08 am
When I got to Boston, I found out that my weight was down, so I decided that, what the hell, I may as well see if I could go LWt this time. I had to get an O.K. on it, since, as a qualifier, I was registered automatically and I had qualified as a HWt at Long Beach. At weigh in, I hit 163.6 and still had on close to a pound of clothes, so no problem there. My time, 8:13.6 was over 40 seconds under the old LWt record (8:54.2). It was also under the HWt record (8:15.3) set three weeks ago. This gets a bit complicated since the HWt record holder was my alter ego, Fat Bob (at about 167#). (The previous HWt record was 8:55.9.) So Skinny Bob beat Fat Bob, which is appropriate, since it has become common recently in the 80+ group for the LWts to beat the HWts. I went back to the hotel to drop off my gym bag at the room, shower, change clothes, and have lunch. The hotel was having a Sunday Brunch Buffet. As might be expected, I pigged out outrageously. Six hours after the official weigh in, I checked again on a scale at the hotel fitness center and I was Fat Bob again at about 170#. I would guess that about half of that was water, but the brunch was far too expensive and I was working hard to eat enough to get my money’s worth. Not a very sensible idea actually, since my stomach was not all that comfortable afterwards.
As an added note, I really lucked out in meeting up with the organizer of the Mexican team. He and some of the members of the team were at the same hotel and we met in the practice erg room. He volunteered to cox for me as long as my race time didn’t conflict with that of one of his team members. His coxing was really great. I am sure that it improved my time by a good 5 seconds. I felt the same about the coxing that I had at Long Beach from a fellow club member. My best results in recent times have all been done when I was teamed with a skilled coxswain.
Bob S.
As an added note, I really lucked out in meeting up with the organizer of the Mexican team. He and some of the members of the team were at the same hotel and we met in the practice erg room. He volunteered to cox for me as long as my race time didn’t conflict with that of one of his team members. His coxing was really great. I am sure that it improved my time by a good 5 seconds. I felt the same about the coxing that I had at Long Beach from a fellow club member. My best results in recent times have all been done when I was teamed with a skilled coxswain.
Bob S.
