Training continues on Carnegie

With Eastern Sprints approaching for all four Princeton crews, no teams raced last weekend, but they were not resting either.

"We were lucky to have a week off from racing as we trained hard all last week and through the weekend," senior heavyweight captain James Egan said. "We try to train in cycles such that we use all the time in between tough races to train hard and then taper slightly in preparation for big races so we can 'peak' at the right time."

The heavyweight crew is the only team with a race left in the regular season. They will face Navy in Annapolis, Md., next weekend to finish up the regular season.

"While not overlooking a strong Navy crew, our priority has been to develop our fitness as well as clean our stroke up before Sprints and IRA," assistant men's heavyweight coach Marty Crotty said. "The Navy dual is a great race to prepare us for Sprints. Win or lose, it gets the team in the flow of traveling together, racing on hostile waters, and taking care of business in an uncomfortable situation."

"Racing Navy in Annapolis is tough because the conditions are tricky and Midshipmen like to race at about dawn," Egan said.

The race against Navy is all that stands between the heavyweight crew and the EARC Sprints in Worcester, Mass., on May 21.

The men's lightweight crew, having already completed its regular season, is using its time off before EARC Sprints to step up practices.

"Since we have a big break between our last regular season race and Sprints, we could afford to train a little more aggressively this past week than we could in the middle of the regular season," senior captain Prentice Stabler said. "Although this past weekend was technically off since we had no race, we actually trained harder going into it and during it since we didn't need to taper down. We'll be able to go hard again this week and try to tune up our race plan so we can execute it better and then ease into Sprints."

"During the regular season we get into a weekly pattern," assistant men's lightweight coach Scott Alwin added. "Three weeks between races gives us the flexibility to do more hard work without being too tired leading up to a race."

The Tigers not only changed the intensity of their practices but also changed the style. "We spent last week rowing smaller boats — fours, pairs, singles," Alwin said of the freshmen's practices. "We only rowed the eight a few times. This keeps the eight from getting stale and also gives the freshmen more boat feel."

The women's teams took a different approach to the week off, as the EAWRC Sprints will take place next Sunday on Cooper River in Camden, New Jersey.

"Last weekend we spent some time doing race rehearsal work," assistant women's open coach Helen Betancourt explained. "Practice this week will be a little bit lighter than our normal training weeks during the regular season. Our main focus will be polishing up our race pace and race plan for the weekend. We are pleased with the way the regular season ended up and are looking forward to Sprints."

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The Tigers are undefeated entering into Sprints next weekend.

For the lightweight women's crew, it was all about staying consistent on their weekend off after having swept Radcliffe the previous week and Georgetown the week before that. The team has swept all its home races this season, but placed second when it raced in Camden for the Knecht Cup last month.

"We didn't make many changes the last two weeks when it comes to our training, but rather worked on gelling our lineups, finding a more efficient rhythm, and doing a bit more speed work than in weeks past," head women's lightweight coach Paul Rassam said. "We were of course very pleased to end the season with a sweep of Radcliffe, but we also realize that we will probably have to go a bit faster this weekend to win Sprints — we anticipate a good battle out of our top opponents."