Hoosiers start new year with trip to Florida

IU rowing head coach Steve Peterson likes to find new ways of doing things in his tradition-laden sport. But sometimes serendipity brings him back to the tried and true. \nPeterson realized the importance of a winter training trip this time last year by not taking one.\nIt was the first winter in Peterson's 15-year rowing career that he did not take a crew to Florida for a week of warm-weather training. He thought the trip might be overrated and decided not to take the Hoosiers south. \nBut when the team embarked on its three months of cloistered weight lifting and rowing machine workouts at the beginning of the spring semester, Peterson noticed that his rowers were not as exuberant as they should be -- he knew why. \n"We didn't take a winter trip last year, and I could see the difference when we started training on land," Peterson said. "The team wasn't demoralized but they were a little depressed." \nPeterson had pulled down the doors on the boathouse around Thanksgiving to close the fall season. Two months later it was evident that rowers need another source of motivation. \n"Rowers need to be on the water, and they need to remember why they are doing what they do," he said.\nSo on New Year's Day, Peterson, his two assistants and 24 members of the crew headed to the rivers of Tampa, Fla., for the IU rowing program's first winter training trip. \nThe goals for the week were to crank out high mileage on the water and to concentrate on the technical aspects of pulling an oar and making a boat go fast. The team rowed five hours a day divided into two sessions. \nIn morning practices, Peterson put the team through what he calls "grueling beat-'em-up" workouts in fours that highlighted seat racing and distance. In afternoon workouts, he placed the crews in eights for drills and steady state rows that emphasized technique and mental toughness. \nPart of Peterson's plan was to determine his team's mental stamina because he believes that the sport's most challenging component is rowing well when fatigued. \nControlling the body and blade, and moving in synch with the crew so that the boat stays set when rowers are physically and mentally exhausted, he believes, can reveal a great deal about a rower. \nThe IU crew showed him the right stuff. \n"It was fantastic," he said. "They were able to step up mentally and row well when I know they were physically exhausted." \nSenior tri-captain Annie Lawson thinks the team's technical improvements during the week will help most when competing against Big Ten rivals like Michigan and Ohio State. But she also acknowledges the training program required the team take rowing to the next level. \n"Everybody needed to step it up a notch in Florida, and we did," Lawson said. "That's how we need to row." \nThe week's focus on technique corrected what senior Laura Lazaridis calls a common problem in rowing: missing water at the catch. She thinks that the team developed most by getting the blade in the water at full compression and pulling a full stroke. \n"Connection with the water made everything more fluid and everything more powerful," she said. "You can feel when the other people in your boat are connected." \nPeterson says the team met his objectives and notes that it was "fired up" when departing Tampa. He expects to see a change in frame of mind and performance in the gym over the coming weeks, but he knows that the real test lies ahead in competitive racing. \nAs he continues to build the IU program around the long-term goal of becoming a national championship contender, the winter training trip probably will remain a permanent part of Peterson's confident expectations. \n"We're as fast now as we were last spring," he said. "I'm psyched."\n-- Contact Staff Writer Bill Meehan at wmeehan@indidana.edu