[/URL]7:00 am, West Newbury, Massachusetts. Picked up by chauffeur and coxswain PaulG and headed to Boston. Arrived without running into a snowstorm, which has was small feat for a Sunday in New England for the past month and a half.
First thing I see upon entering the arena is perennial hammer winner Jim Castellan warming up some 2 1/2 hours before his event, using a very short slide that seems different from how I remember him. It would make sense later. Bumped into Shirley Godkin, Forum Flyers teammate from New Zealand, and headed off to the weigh-in. Noticed a guy in a hat in the warmup area that looked much like the self-professed Greatest-Erger-In-The-History-Of-The-Sport. Left it at that. To the amusement of Paul Siebach and Ed Peterson I stood on the scales fully clothed and with my heavy gym bag stuffed my with overcoat, etc. and made weight with five pounds to spare. It was a normal day.
Back out to the warmup area and had a good time catching up a few minutes here and a few minutes there with the likes of Luanne Mills (looking strong and confident), Carla Stein (Seat5), Barbara Grandberg (always high on the meters Honor Board), Adam Rosenthal, Tom Rawls (TomR), and Steve Roedde. Said 'Bonjour' to Alain Mangin as he passed by on his way to warm up (and later win my division), then had a pleasant surprise as Bob Spenger (BobS) walked in with his daughter Diana. We had a great chat and discovered that he and Adam had both rowed at UCal Berkeley, albeit a couple of generations apart, and 'Go Bears' became the phrase of the day.
At one point between warmups on the ergs I was doing some stretches and snuck off to a quiet corner to not give away any secrets and there sat legend Carie Graves. I said hi and wished her good luck and hoped that I hadn't intruded on her concentration and mental preparation. If I did she recovered adequately because as I resumed my erg warmup I heard over the loudspeaker as she took yet another hammer (her 12th according to one source). Bob Spenger not only won, but set yet another World Record in the 90+ division, this time as a heavyweight. Luanne Mills also won her umteenth not-a-drill, and Carla rowed a decent 5th behind her friend and dominator Ann Bourlioux.
Carla Stein (Seat5) on erg 8 and Ann Bourlioux on erg 9 in the Women's 50-54 division.
10:20am and time to light this candle. I sat at erg #42 (Jackie Robinson's number) and set it to a drag of 114. Heard some yelling and saw Barbara Grandberg and old running nemesis Henry Finch in the stands lending moral support. Current erging nemesis Peter Francis of Colorado sat to my left, and I figured him to be the bronze medalist, but maybe, just maybe, someone I might be able to nip if he had a badish day and I had a goodish day. Sit Ready, Attention, ROW, and off we went! Alain Mangin of France, our defending champion, took off like a shot and never was threatened. I'd hoped to do some moderately negative splitting, but was finding it difficult to quite hit my intended targets. The goal for the first 500m had been 1:56, but I'd barely managed to get it under 1:57. But waitaminute, Peter Francis was only 1 or 2 meters ahead of me at any point, and that was good to see. For the second 500m I'd planned on 1:55 pace but could only manage 1:56s (which would have been nice during the first 500m). And yet Francis remained only a tantalizing 1m ahead. "Good," I thought, "If I can just keep the gap at 1-2m I should be able to unleash a devastating kick in the final 500m and nail him." At 1000m the plan was to pick it up to 1:54s and it actually seemed to be happening. Good. But whattheheck, Peter Francis is suddenly pulling ahead, 4m, 6m, 8m. This is not what I'm wanting! At 500m to go he's built up a 15m lead even though I had picked up my pace. Crunch time, tried for 1:53s and actually got 1:52s. 400m, and some 1:51s, but I'm not gaining dammit. 300m, sub-1:50s, 200m 1:48s, 100m and hanging on but still at sub-1:50. Finish, gasp, gasp, gasp, and still some 14m behind Peter Francis and in 4th place to his 3rd. His game plan must have been similar to mine, but better. He buried me in the third 500m and the best I could do with a strong finish was to not lose even more ground. Well done Peter! I've got to find 3.4 seconds more than him before next year.
Like Carla Stein, I like to 'have erged' and get to enjoy watching others doing their thing. It was off to the front row to watch the heavies. For the 60-64s Steve Krum sat at erg 9 between Larry O'Toole on 10 and, er....the self-professed Greatest-Erger-In-The-History-Of-The-Sport on 8. Krum sped out with 1:37s and 1:38s and quickly opened a big lead that held. O'Toole was hot on his heels. A four-way battle for 3rd went on between ergs 4, 5, 6 (NE2KC Sledgehammer winner Tom Cattell), and 7. In the row behind them forumites Tom Rawls and Frank Knight duked it out for 5th and 6th in the 65-69 division only a meter or two apart from each other but well behind the great Bob Spousta, and at the far end Jim Castellan led the 70-74s. PaulG and I shifted our focus from one to another, then another and repeated. Suddenly, erg 8 was empty! Where did he go? Racing continued. Krum rowed a strong 6:30.2 for an excellent 60+ hammer, one of many in his toolbox. O'Toole got second, and big Tom Cattell 4th. Spousta took yet another hammer at 65-69, and Castellan took his first 70+ after years of wins in younger divisions. At the awards ceremony one of the medal winners to finish behind him shouted, "And with a broken leg," to explain the short slide that I'd seen earlier. Jim hobbled off the podium with his right knee severely wrapped and nearly immobilized, but with yet another hammer.
From there I headed to the other end of the front row to watch Adam Rosenthal in the next heat, and from there up and over to the left side of the arena to see the 40-40 lightweights, which I'd thought might be a good race. Good? It was one of the best of the day. Gregory Cook was here again from Washington State and rowing decently, coxed by his beautiful wife Arlene Wade (Fish). Jonathan Doyle of Ireland was on machine #42, which I had warmed up for him an hour earlier, and his facebook posting stated that he was, "..f**king psyched!!!! Gonna bury myself into the f**king floor tomorrow...!! Bring it f**king on!!!" which is always a good thing to see. Even better though, it turned out, was the battle waged beside Jon on ergs 40 & 41 as Jesus Gonzales Alvarez and Mark Mitchell bashed away never more than 1m or 2m apart. There couldn't have been more than an ounce or two of fat on the entire row of ergers, as they all looked ripped and tore into the race. On and on the race went, Gonzales up by 1m on Mitchell, then 2m, then 1m, then even, then 1m. At about 150m to go they were even and stayed that way for nearly 100m until a final surge by Mitchell took the hammer 6:19.2 (only 1 second behind Mike Caviston's meet record which had been the world record in 2002) to 6:20.9. Doyle finished strong at 6:28.9 despite a tough time travelling that involved messed up flights and long delays. Gregory Cook came in 7th at 6:46.5.
Gregory Cook, coxed by Fish
From the arena a bunch of us headed out across the trolley tracks for breakfast/brunch/lunch as Carla, Adam, PaulG and others of us watched BobS explaining the subtle differences between fat Bob and skinny Bob as he dove into a massive bowl of food and declared that fat Bob was in control. The day wound down for us as we watched the morning hammers and medals awarded, then watched a race or two of the juniors. Alas, age took it's toll and an afternoon nap beckoned and we headed back to West Newbury. Another year, another CRASH-Bs. Good day. On to 2016.
Renegade Rick Bayko,
Cub Reporter
