Something Moore

Saturday was my corporate regatta. The Oklahoma River and the Chesapeake Boathouse are Olympic facilities and in the last year I have fallen in love with rowing! I row on my own with a coached program but the boathouse also gets the community involved with corporate rowing. For corporate rowing, a company can sponsor a team (or teams) and they train for 8 weeks and then compete. This spring season I was lucky enough to compete with two teams.

Originally I signed up for one team, my novice open team. We were in the "open" category because we only had 3 women and you had to have 4 women for a co-ed team. For corporate rowing we row an 8 man boat which mean we row "sweep" style so each person has one oar (as opposed to "skulling" where each person has 2 oars). My open team was all new rowers and I happened to be the person with the most experience which means I got to row stroke (I sat in the back of the boat (front of the rowers) and set the stroke rate for the boat.

About a month into the season I got picked up on an all women's boat. One of their team had broke her ankle (not related to rowing) and they needed another lady who could row on an intermediate team. I was really lucky to get picked up with this team because I learned a lot from rowing with a group who was more advanced than I was. It was great to be pushed to a new level. In this boat I rowed seat 5 which was also a learning experience because I had to follow someone else's stroke rate.

So about the regatta...

My open team was awesome! Before the regatta each team does a time trial to find out where you stand in the heats (if there are enough teams for heats). Our team decided that we wanted 3 power 10s during our time trial (our coxswain thought we were crazy, but obliged). A power 10 is equivalent to the sprint at the end of a 5K where you just push through the end. In rowing you do a power 10 at the begining to get going and at the end to finish strong. We decided a third power 10 in the middle of the race would give us the boost we needed to win. Our time trial put us at 2:04 which was on the low side of average for the teams so we were pretty happy.

By the way, the race is 500m (in case you were wondering).

So the day of the race our coxswain (the person who yells at you from the front (back) of the boat) informs us that our competition has a former collegiate rower on the team. This of course brings out the competitive spirit! So the start went well but the other team pulled ahead. But then came our secret weapon - the middle power 10! This got us going and we nearly caught up with the lead boat. So for our last power 10 we kicked it into high gear and pulled out a win! The amazing thing is when we started our last power 10 we were a boat length behind and we won by over half a boat length!

I've discovered my favorite app on my iphone. It's called "Lose It" and it is the best weight loss tool ever! Sadly, I put on a few pounds during law school and have struggled to take them off. Clay has reminded me that your metabolism at 30 isn't what it was at 20. When I was 20 all I had to do was pick up my workouts a bit and the weight magically fell off. Not true when you're 30.

So I vainly struggled to workout hard enough and often enough to take off the weight. Finally, a friend of mine discovered this app and suggested we try it together. In discussing our weight loss goals we realized that we weren't trying to lose a lot of weight, nor did we have an unhealthy life style (we exercise regularly, eat lots of fresh fruit and veggies, and limit our sweets) but we struggled with portion sizes.

My friend said she found this "Lose It" app and it seemed pretty easy to track calories. Plus, the best part was it gave you a recommended daily calorie allotment based on your weight loss goals. Additionally the program made certain assumptions (that you can change) and gave you extra calories if you did exercise above and beyond those assumptions. The program has tons of pre-loaded foods and exercises, but also allows you to enter new foods, recipes, and exercises to be more accurate in tracking your input and output.

Long story short, it worked! I started a couple of months ago and am happy to report I'm half way to my weight loss goals. Additionally Clay has joined in the fun and has lost several pounds. We've both enjoyed seeing our progress and learning a lot about ourselves along the way. Neither of us wanted to go on a diet because once you say "I can't have ____ " all you think about is how that one food would completely satisfy all of your cravings. This way I'm not limited but I really think before I eat certain things to determine if I really want to enter that much of that food into my daily calorie counter. Typically the answer is "no", but sometimes the answer is "yes, but not quite that much". So I automatically limit my portion size. It's been a miracle!

Clay and I recently took a trip to my hometown of Green River. It's funny to say it's my home town because I didn't spend all of my growing up years in GR. However, I tend to claim it as my home town because that's where I graduated from high school so it's as good a place as any. Also, it's weird to say it's "home" because my folks no longer live there so going back isn't "going home." However, I do have good friends that still live there so Clay and I go back from time to time.

This time we went back to visit Gene and Pati and it happened to be their retirement! Congrats to them! We had a great time relaxing and sailing on the gorge. Overall it was an excellent weekend.