Thursday, November 10, 2011

A College Sailor's Life: A Little Bit for Everyone

By Kelly Stannard


College Racing

This coming weekend will wrap-up the fall dinghy season. On the schedule is the Co-ed Atlantic Coast Championship for the 38th Fiske-Harriman-Sleigh Trophies hosted by Harvard University, the Women’s Atlantic Coast Championship hosted by New York Maritime and the 2011 Pacific Coast Championship hosted by the University of California Santa Barbara. These events are the last big “hoorah” for fall dingy racing. Some even compare the caliber of competition to the spring dingy nationals.

Teams competing at the Women’s Atlantic Coast Championship: Georgetown, Hobart & William Smith Colleges, U.S. Naval Academy, Cornell, SUNY Maritime College, St. Mary’s College of Maryland, Old Dominion, Dartmouth, Rhode Island, Connecticut College, Brown, Yale, Bowdoin, Vermont, Tufts, Eckerd, College of Charleston, South Florida

Teams competing at the Atlantic Coast Championship (co-ed): Georgetown, St. Mary's College of Maryland, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Old Dominion, U.S. Naval Academy, SUNY Maritime College, U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, Penn, Dartmouth, Harvard, Yale, Brown, Roger Williams, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Tufts, College of Charleston, Miami (Fla.), South Florida

Teams competing at the Pacific Coast Championship: Oregon, Washington, Western Washington, Arizona State, California Maritime Academy, Cal. State - Channel Islands, Long Beach State, Cal. State - Monterey Bay, Chapman, Santa Clara, Stanford, UC Berkeley, UC Davis, UC Irvine, UCLA, UC San Diego, UC Santa Barbara, UC Santa Cruz, Hawaii, Southern California

You can follow the results of these events on TechScore.

Fitness Surprises

So I can’t speak for all the college sailing teams and their fitness routines but at Roger Williams we have weekly workouts and usually once a month our coach slaps us with a fitness test. Tuesday morning I was expecting to have a fun team workout, you know something like indoor soccer, for our last week of the season but that would be too nice. Instead, while I was half asleep and just stumbled to the gym I was greeted with the “nice” surprise of our final fitness test of the year… Fabulous!

Our fitness test includes, a timed two mile run (if you can’t run for whatever reason you compete for distance for 20 minutes on a bike), maximum rep push-ups and sit-ups, and a timed wall-sit. Our times and numbers are then graded against the U.S. Army scoring system. For example, to receive a 100% in our age category you must complete 80 sit ups (no one holds your feet, arms crossed, sit ALL the way up).  I was glad to get this last fitness test out of the way even though I wasn’t ecstatic about the 7 a.m. surprise.

I was curious. What do other college teams do for their fitness? Do you have a fitness test? 

Please share.


Other News

I’d like to ask all of you if you’ve voted for the US Sailing's 2011 Rolex Yachtsman & Yachtswoman of the Year Awards? These two awards are the most prestigious awards in the country for sailing. The people who win these awards are the sailors you race against, the ones who you follow their results, and the ones you race against every weekend. If you haven’t taken the time to nominate someone, think about it and send in your nomination. The awards go to sailor’s who have had outstanding results throughout the calendar year, so if someone instantly pops into your thoughts it probably means they are worthy of a nomination. Give your peers some recognition. More info here..

Who do you think deserves these awards?

No comments:

Post a Comment