​Cascadilla Boat Club seeks friendly, enthusiastic and safety-conscious coaches for this fall. We offer programs for: 

• Varsity high school athletes (6-8am MTWRF, 8-10am Sat plus regattas)
• Novice High school athletes (4:00-6:00 pm MTWRF plus two regattas), 
• Modified (middle school) athletes (4:00-6:00pm MTWRF plus one regattas),
• Recreational adult team boat sessions (5:30-7:30 amTR plus one regatta). 

Competitive high school team practices start August 23, all other programs start the week of Labor Day. 
Minimum qualifications:

• 2 years of rowing experience.
• Competitive collegiate or masters rowing experience is preferred.
• Prior coaching experience is preferred but not required.
• We need smart people with common sense who can keep our athletes and other inlet users safe. 

We require and pay for:

• A background check
• CPR/AED/First Aid certification
• NYS boater safety training and
• USRowing Safesport certification.

Perks include a complimentary membership that allows qualified coaches to row club boats after passing a captain's test and executing a USRowing waiver. ​
There will be a mandatory orientation prior to the start of the season including training on how to operate our launches. 
These positions are part time. Pay depends on experience but starts at $15/hour. Option to coach more than one program (morning and afternoon) if interested. Ideal candidate would be able to attend every day of a given program, but we could work with someone only available some of the days (i.e. only M/W/F)

Interested applicants, please send your resume to Emily Rockett, Personnel Committee Chair, at [email protected]. If you have any questions, please email Emily or call 607-342-3011.

Contributed by Riley Heise

​This past weekend, the CBC U23 squad sent a coxed four, two doubles and a single to USRowing Club Nationals on the Cooper River in Camden, NJ. 

The crew consisted of Aram Carpenter, Alex Bloom (Cornell ‘24), Amanda Klafter (Cornell ‘23), Glen Cullings (Cornell ‘24) and Riley Heise (Colgate ‘23). 
​
After placing 7th in the time trial on Friday, the four advanced to the Saturday semifinals. The double composed of Aram Carpenter and Alex Bloom also advanced, placing 14th. And, in the single, Aram was able to secure a semifinal spot placing 16th in a crowded field after already having raced the double and hot seating out of the four directly into his single race. 

Saturday racing brought high stakes and tough competition with the top two finishers in each semi advancing to the final. In semifinal 2, the Carpenter-Bloom double placed 5th. The four entered a semifinal composed of the event's first seed, Mendota A from the Univ. of Wisconsin, and Thompson Boat Center, who had bested CBC by .8 seconds in the previous day's trial. The race was hard fought with TBC edging out CBC for second place by a matter of seconds. 

Cascadilla finished 7th overall in the 4+. This is CBC's first time in recent memory fielding a sweep boat at any USRowing national-level event, and while each member of the crew has their mind set on more, a top 10 finish is something we can all be proud of. 

Following the four, Aram Carpenter took 4th in the single in Semifinal 3 by the slimmest of margins. 

The four was also interviewed by USRowing who asked CBC what it takes to row the coxed four. The answer? Scrappiness and resiliency. A portion of the interview can be found on the USRowing Instagram page. (And at this link: 
https://www.instagram.com/tv/CRcnxRnJlht/?utm_medium=copy_link) 

Summer Nationals was by all accounts a productive event for CBC, and the club was able to make itself known to parts of the rowing world that have never heard the name Cascadilla. Would-be rivals have become close friends and nationals has acted as a spark that has lit a fire that will continue into our separate time at college this year, and which will engulf us once we all return next summer. 

The four would like to thank everyone who aided us in our journey this summer. The Carpenter family arranged transportation and lodging for the team in Philadelphia,  not to mention providing part of their home for the team to use as a weight/erg room. The man who helped to realize the rowers' ambition of a U23 program is none other than Drew Tennant who helped to connect everyone who would go on to race in Camden. Drew also helped to arrange for the four to borrow a shell from Community Rowing in Boston for the race as it was not possible for one to be transported down from Ithaca. 

Finally, none of this would be possible if not for the generous time and expertise lent to us by Tim Willsalen. Coach Tim volunteered to supervise and direct our antics as the U23 crew began to form and with his help, we began to make progress right from the start. Thank you Tim, Drew, the Carpenters and everyone else who supported us along the way. 

This is just the beginning. 

Summer 2020 programming is underway, and some of our learn to row participants have taken their captain's tests! As our new members set out on their own, we wanted to provide a resource for everyone to keep their workouts interesting and challenging. 

Some general reminders since we're still in a pandemic:
- Wear a face covering and maintain 6 feet of distance at the boathouse!
- Leave your personal items other than a key and towel in your car. They're safer there, and it minimizes the odds that other people will have to touch your belongings. If you must bring them, for instance because you bike to the boathouse, store them out of the way while you row. 
- Log your row in the Club logbook (bring your own pen or disinfect the one that's there)
- Reserve the boat you'd like row here no more than 24 hours before rowing
- Disinfect oar handles with bleach solution before and after your row
- Check your equipment before going out - are all the fasteners tight? Do you have a seat? Do you have shoes? Are heel ties fastened? 
- Lock the boathouse while you're out and bring your key in the boat with you (a lanyard tied around your rigger would serve you well)
- Respect the traffic pattern - starboard side is closer to shore
- Practice defensive driving! Not everyone is good at the traffic pattern and the only way to ensure the safety of yourself, the equipment, and other inlet users is to look behind you frequently.  
- Be vigilant going down the lower inlet and don't do drills or other slow moving work in the lower inlet unless you're sure nobody else is around. 
- Wash your boat after you row, paying special attention to high touch points like oarlocks, seats, and gunwhales

Now to fun things like workout ideas:
The following workouts assume no timekeeping gadgets other than a watch.* Any time based workouts can be modified for stroke-counting. 

• Pyramid Workouts
  • Do 10 strokes as hard as you can, followed by 10 easy, then 20 hard, 10 easy, 30 hard, 10 easy, 40 hard, 20 easy, 50 hard, 20 easy, 40 hard, 20 easy, 30 hard, 10 easy, 20 hard, 10 easy, 10 hard. You could also make all the easy intervals the same number as the hard intervals for easier memorizing.
  • 20 strokes easy, 20 strokes hard effort, stroke rate as low as you can, 10 strokes hard effort, high stroke rate, increasing the stroke rate each stroke over the 10 strokes. Repeat for a minimum of 15 times.
  • 10 min of earnest steady state effort (you're trying but could hold a conversation), then 7 min of 80% effort, then 3 min sprint. Rest for 5 min, do again. 
• Time-based workouts
  • If you have a watch, fasten it on your rigger or oar shaft so you can see it (but of course, don't focus so hard on your watch that you forget to look behind you!). Otherwise, count strokes.
  • 30 sec on, 30 sec off until failure (probably 15-16 strokes on if you're working hard)
  • Row 45 sec as hard as you can, 15 sec rest, ten times (23 strokes hard, 7 strokes easy). Paddle for a few minutes so you can catch your breath, then do another set of ten. 
  • 5 min (or 100 strokes) of low rate, high power rowing. Keep the recovery as slow as possible. Take 2 min rest in between, and do as many 5 min intervals as you can. 
•  Distance intervals
  • Pages 10-11 of the CBC safety packet include a map with distances between landmarks. Use these to map out lengths for your pieces. And remember pieces don't need to be exact, even if one piece is 1400 m and the next is 1600 m, you'll still get a great workout in!
  • The lower inlet (past the Rt 79 bridge) is about 1500 meters long. The half way point is the big apartment building. The lower buoy to the brown house is about 500 meters. The Rt 79 bridge to the end of the first row of houses on Floral Ave is about 500 meters. Row hard from the Rt 79 bridge to the end of the houses, easy until the brown house, then hard to the bottom buoy. Turn around and do the same thing in reverse, and repeat as many times as you like! 
  • The bottom of the inlet to Lookout Point (Boatyard Grill) is about 2000 meters.  Start at the bottom of the inlet and row steady state pace to the apartment building, then 75% to the first bridge, 90% to the second bridge, and all out to Lookout point. You can then spin, paddle to the bottom and do it again. Play with the distances, and levels of effort and see what works for you. 
• Drills
  • Try to do 30 strokes on the square, followed by 30 strokes hard (normal with feather). If you're not quite ready for 30, do 10, or 5, or 1! 
  • Take three strokes and pause at hands away (10x), then three strokes and pause at body over (10x), three strokes and pause at quarter slide (10x), three strokes and pause at half slide (10x), three strokes and pause at 3/4 slide (10x). When you're finished the pauses, do a few power 10s and see if you feel a difference in how the boat moves. 
  • Everybody's favorite: pic drill! 10 strokes arms only, 10 arms and body, 10 1/4 slide, 10 1/2 slide, 10 3/4 slide, 10 full slide. You can also do reverse pic drill where you start with legs only, do legs and back, then legs back and arms. 
  • Row2k publishes "Technique Features" which are short articles that contain great information on different technical aspects of rowing. They typically include helpful pictures, drills, and explanations for both coaches and rowers. 
• Silliness
  • Try a racing start sequence! Sit at the catch at 3/4 slide with your blades buried. Then, as fast as you can get the oars moving, do one 3/4 slide stroke, one half slide stroke, one 3/4 slide stroke, one "lengthen" stroke between 3/4 and full slide, and then a full stroke. Continue as fast as you can for ten strokes. 
  • Leap frog: Row with a friend. One of you will row at normal steady state, adding a pause if necessary to keep things even, and the other will pass while sprinting. Once the "passer" has finished passing, alert the other person who then becomes the "passer." 

*Competitive rowers, by and large, use NK speedcoaches to tell how fast they're going. It's basically like an erg monitor but for your boat. They're expensive, and worth it, in the writer's opinion, if you want to race seriously. There is a speedcoach app available for iPhone and Andriod, and some people have had good luck using that app on their phone (with their phone in a dry bag, tied to a rigger).  Smart watches may have apps as well, however these generally do not take into account surges in boat speed within each stroke and do not provide reliable, detailed splits or stroke rates. 

Got any other great workouts? Share them with us below!

With the annual Pull the Plug regatta in Pittsford, NY on November 2, CBC scholastic rowers concluded their Fall 2019 season. CBC competed in a number of races against teams from all over Western New York. 

Results were as follows: 
- First in the Men's HS Varsity 4+(B) , Men's HS Varsity 4+(C), Women's HS Varsity 4+(A), and Women's HS Varsity 4+(B)
- Second in the Men's HS Varsity 8+(A),  Women's HS Varsity 8+, Women's HS Varsity 4+(B), and Men's HS Varsity 4+(A). 
- Third in the Men's HS Novice 4+(A) 
- Fourth in Women's HS Novice 4+(A)

​On to winter training! 

Cascadilla had a very successful couple of days at the Head of the Fish Regatta in Saratoga Springs. Thankfully the weather was about 20F warmer than last year, with markedly less precipitation. The masters competed Saturday, and the scholastic athletes competed on Sunday. Both groups brought back some fish heads - the notorious and much-coveted ugliest trophy in rowing (Rockett's newest fish head, "Caroline," pictured below for reference..nb they don't all come with names, Caroline is special).  

Scholastic Results:
First in the Mixed Junior 4x and the Girls' 1V 2x! 
Eighth of forty-one crews in the Boys' 2x
Eleventh of thirty-one crews in the Boys' 2V 4+
Tenth of twenty-six crews in the Girls' 1V 4+
Eleventh of twenty-six crews in the Girls' 2V 4+
Fourteenth of thirty-three crews in the Girls' 1V 8+
Eleventh of twenty-three crews in the Boys' Freshman/Novice 4+
Sixteenth of thirty-one crews in the Girls' 1V 2x
Thirteenth of twenty-one crews in the Boys' Lightweight 2X
Eighth of ten crews in the Mixed Junior 8+
Eighteenth of twenty-four crews in the Girls' Freshman/Novice 4+
Seventeenth of twenty-seven crews in the Girls' 1V 4x
Twenty-fourth of twenty-nine crews in the Boys' 1V 8+

Masters Results:
Marty van der Heide placed third in the Men's Masters 1x (40-49)
Emily Rockett won the Women's Masters 1x (30-39)
Tim Willsallen won the Men's Veteran 1x, with Kim McKnight placing 3rd in the same event.
Liz Ellis placed second in the Women's Masters' Lightweight 1x (with the fastest raw time by 40 seconds)
Tim Willsallen and Marty van der Heide rowed with the Free Radicals to a first place finish in the Men's Masters 8+
Emily Rockett and Savannah Brija placed fourth in the Women's Open 2x, behind three Arion boats (.04 seconds behind the third, to be exact...)
Tim Willsallen and Marty van der Heide placed fourth in the Men's Masters 2x (second in raw time)

In an exciting Mixed Masters' 2x race at the very end of the day, Kim McKnight and Cornell grad assistant Savannah Brija rowed to a very respectable fifth place finish (third in raw time). Emily Rockett subbed into an Upper Valley boat with John Tunnicliffe, placing third (first in raw time.)

Full results should be on Streamline Rowing, but I can't get them to show up. Your best bet is twitter: https://twitter.com/nysrowing?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor. 

Many thanks to all the parent volunteers who helped with our most logistically challenging regatta. The juniors' season wraps up next weekend with Pull the Plug in Pittsford! 

The 55th Head of the Charles was quite the experience. Beautiful weather, numerous spectators, and solid performances for the Cascadilla crews made for a memorable weekend. 

CBC results: 
- Tim Willsallen finished 8th of 59* in Men's Veteran Singles
-  Gill Haines-Sharp finished 8th of 32* in Women's Grand Master Singles
- Cornell alumni incl Marty van der Heide and Drew Tennant finished 25/41 in Men's Senior Master Eights
- Emily Rockett finished 2nd of 18* in Women's Master's Singles
- Varsity Girls' 4+ finished an impressive 32nd of 85 boats* in the Women's Youth Fours! They had a very nice line under Weeks Bridge, where those of us spectating got to see them pass a couple of crews in front of them! (See photo below)
- Varsity Boys' 4+ finished 51st of 85 boats in the Men's Youth Fours
- Coach Marion's boat finished 24th of 37 boats in a hotly contested Directors' Challenge Mixed 8+ event

Alumni: 
- Cameron Grover (Marist) finished 26/40 in the Men's Collegiate 4+
- Carrie D'Aprix (Cornell) finished 10/14 in the Women's Champ 4+
- Cecelia Madsen (Cornell alumni) finished 20/44* in the Women's Alumni 8+
- Patricia Jones finished 18/19 in the Women's Club Single
- Karina Feitner (OKC High Performance Center) finished 8/16 in the Women's Champ Double

*Qualified for entry in the 2020 HOCR

CBC Varsity Girls making moves around the Weeks turn!: 

This weekend, tens of thousands of athletes and innumerable spectators will descend on a three mile section of the Charles River for the 55th annual Head of the Charles Regatta.  CBC is proud to be sending several athletes (and a number of former athletes and coaches!) to the regatta in a number of different events (see below). 
If you're interested and can't make it to Boston, a live stream of the racing is available here: https://www.hocr.org/the-regatta/livestreams/ (click on 2019). 

To be able to race at the Charles, your boat must either win a bid in a lottery, or meet a qualifying standard the prior year. Qualifying standards for sculling boats are top 25% of finishers in the event. Qualifying standards for sweep boats are top half of finishers. 

The following is a list of CBC and friends' entries and race times: 
- Tim Willsallen - Men's Veteran 1x, Saturday 8:37 am. Bow #7
- Gill Haines-Sharp - Women's Grand Master 1x, Saturday 9:25 am. Bow #12
- Marty van der Heide (5) and Drew Tennant (7) - Men's Senior Master Eights (Cornell Alumni 8+), Saturday 9:47 am.  Bow #38
- Emily Rockett - Women's Master 1x, Saturday 12:36 am. Bow #5
- Cecelia Madsen (7)- Women's Alumni Eights (Cornell ), Saturday 1:22 pm . Bow #4
- Karina Feitner (recent CBC masters rower) - Women's Champ 2x, Saturday 3:57 pm.  Bow #5. 
- Patty Jones (recent CBC masters rower) - Women's Club 1x, Sunday 8:51 am. Bow #19. 
- Cascadilla Girls' 4+ (Savannah Stuhr (c), Isabelle Zanen (s), Kaisa Mackey, Debora Hoffstaetter, and Katrina Jander)- Junior Women's 4+, Sunday  9:04 am. Bow #40.  
- Cascadilla Boys' 4+ (Sara Xin (c), Wiley Anderson (s), Glen Cullings, Miles Marteal, and Larsson Wing) - Junior Men's 4+s, Sunday 11:58 am.  Bow #41.
- Coach Marion Penning  (2) - Director's Challenge Mixed Eights (Baltimore Rowing Club), Sunday 4:12 pm, Bow #10

On Sunday, October 13, Cascadilla scholastic crews competed in their third race of the season - the recently reinstated Head of the Onondaga in Syracuse. The race coincided nicely with peak foliage and a fall festival. 

In what was undoubtedly the highlight of the day, Head Coach Theresa Alessio dominated the pumpkin race! Yes, ladies and gentlemen, our esteemed head coach hopped into a surprisingly large and buoyant pumpkin, grabbed a kayak paddle, and made us proud with her versatile athleticism. Thanks to Varsity parent Lindsay Anderson for the photos. 

As for the actual rowing...CBC competed in numerous events, giving our athletes ample chances to challenge themselves with multiple races in a day. Our crews won the Junior Men's 1V 4+, and both Junior Women's 4+s events. Our state champion 2x of Isabelle Zanen and Deborah Hoffstaetter teamed up once again to dominate the Women's Junior 2x race, besting the competition by over two minutes. Way to go, ladies! The Junior Women's 1V 8+ finished a mere two seconds behind Niskayuna (Coach Greta's alma mater!).  CBC boats placed second in the Junior Men's 2V 4+ and the Junior Women's Novice 4+, 3rd in the Junior Men's 1V 8+, and 4th in the Junior Men's 2V4+,  Junior Women's 2x,  and Junior Women's 4x. Full results available here: https://www.row2k.com/results/resultspage.cfm?UID=86E24098688129397C3DCD101678026D&cat=6. 

On to the Charles!