Blog: Kicking off the (new) Olympic Year

By Hermijntje Drenth

After winning a bronze medal in the women’s eight on the European Championships in Poland, we went straight into a three-week holiday. We use our time off from rowing mostly to distract ourselves physically and mentally from rowing.

During the season, we focus on rowing almost 24/7. In almost every choice we make, we consider the impact of our decision on our rowing results. Will going to this event influence my training program, what are the consequences of my diet for my fitness, do I have to take some extra rest or should I train more? Moreover, we experience quite some stress before tests, selections and races. We want to perform optimally throughout the season and therefore we train six days a week and make sure that all conditions contribute to our preparation. After this long and strange year, we were very much looking forward to do something else than rowing.

Alternative training

During our holiday, we all exercised a little bit. During the European Championships, we were at our fittest and we didn’t want all of our fitness to disappear, so we made sure that we stayed a little bit in shape. We enjoyed bike rides, went hiking and swimming and even skiing. If exercise is not part of a strict training schedule that you’re working you way through, it is just a little bit more fun.

Kick-off

However, all good things come to an end and so we kicked-off the new rowing season on November 2^nd. We were really excited to see each other again and to catch up after three weeks. Our head-coach informed us about the training schedule and about what the coming months are going to look like. Like every year, we train in two-person boats (pairs) during the winter months, to work on our physical fitness and technical skills. As all national competitions are cancelled due to COVID-19, we will organize our own trials to allow ourselves to race against each other. These trials take place on the 28^th of November and will permit us to define our fitness and also give the opportunity to new talent to join our team. The trials are followed by several physical tests on the rowing machine, which we consider necessary evil to get to where we want to be.

2021 rowing season

For now, we are happy to be able to back on the water despite the COVID-19 situation. We keep  our fingers crossed for the COVID-19 numbers to further decrease and thereby allow more people to enjoy playing and watching sports and especially competitions in the coming months. We will for sure work our asses off to give you some rowing spectacle during the 2021 rowing season and Olympic Games in Tokyo!