Smokin' the South End Or, How I Learned to Love the ERG
by Sid Hollister
photos by Susanne Friedrich

We got one,shouted Greg LaRoche, coxswain and coach of the Wieland's six-woman crew, as the stern of the Dolphin barge pulled past the rower in the stern of the South End barge. Oars swung and dipped, arms pulled, legs thrust out.

We got two, came another shout as the Wieland slid smoothly through the dark blue water and its stern cleared another rower's position in the rival boat.

We got three, and the race was all but over. Just a few hundred yards from the starting line, there was open water between the Dolphin barge and the lagging South End boat.

The Wieland (Right) pulls ahead of the South End Barge

It was a perfect morning, Racheal Perry remembers, just beautiful. But the start seemed to take forever. Strong currents made lining up the two boats a tricky bit of business and the strong flow of adrenalin in the eager rowers did nothing to steady matters. It was so exciting, Racheal recalls, waiting for that horn to blow. And when the Wieland shot out to a lead, you could hear the excitement in Greg's voice.

Finally, those grueling twice-a-week sessions on the ERG (rowing machine) and those crack-of-dawn rows were paying off. Under Greg's tutelage, Rachael, Margaret Keenan, Sunny McKee, Diane Schatz, Cynthia Skovlin, and Corinna Witt had melded into a strong, smoothly efficient team. Susan Allen and Katie Cronin, alternates who had trained right along with the other six women, had a perfect view of the Wieland victory from the Avon that tracked the race. What they saw, after almost two months of training, were six individual rowers transformed into a single unit.

Watching that transformation was, for Diane Schatz, the high point of the whole experience. Having rowed in singles and doubles off and on for over 20 years, she was particularly impressed by the women who had never rowed or had very little rowing experience. They learned so quickly and stuck with it.... To see them master rowing was a treat. And, she adds: It's always nice to beat the South End.

Smokin' the South End, as Margaret Keenan puts it, was also a high point for both her and Sunny McKee. Margaret had rowed crew in her first year in college but since had focused mostly on the individual challenges of swimming. Being part of a Dolphin team was exciting and new. We all depended on each other...and got better and better each time out, she recalls. Every time on the Bay was a new adventure. We were a huge hit with the sea lions and it was a wonderful rush when we were all in sync and the Wieland was flying.

The victorious Wieland flies by the Muni Pier

Sunny, too, had mostly taken on individual challenges, though for her triathlons and marathons were the sports of choice. In training for the Wieland crew, individual effort was needed early on, when Greg would look for any flaws or weaknesses in each woman's stroke as they worked out of course on the ERG. The hardest part was putting all the parts of the stroke together...which was even harder in the boat because you had to be in sync with everybody else. That's where the difference became clear between an individual sport and a team sport. If you don't show up for a triathlon, you're the only one who's disappointed. In a crew, if you don't show up, you let everyone down.

For all the women, rowing a beautiful boat at dawn during the Bay Area's crisp and sunny fall weather was unforgettable. That alone, for most, was worth the hours of exhausting and monotonous work on the dreaded ERG. Susan Allen recalls: Being out on the water in that beautiful boat as the sun rose...and being in sync with the other rowers... it was beautiful a connecting experience.

Katie Cronin, captain and general sparkplug of the crew, made it her job to keep the Wieland women connected in a number of ways by using her organizing skills, Irish charm, hot tea, and hot oatmeal (Irish, too, of course) after those morning rows. When Katie started rowing at the Club a few years ago it was, she remembers, like opening a door in a familiar place, a door you'd never opened before. It was great both the rowing and the new people I met. John Latta asked her to be the captain early last summer and to help him put a crew together. She was disappointed at not getting past the ERG barrier and securing a spot on that crew but her captain's role as a problem-solver, morale booster, and videographer kept her involved. She also learned the complexities of rowing technique, and, like Susan Allen, got in terrific physical shape. Being part of the Wieland crew meant the most to her. It was such a great experience, being part of the team. I was so proud of those women.

Katie is quick to point out, however, that I might have made the oatmeal, but Greg did the training and teaching. Racheal remembers the first time they went out in the Wieland: We were all over the place. I thought we were so ragged we wouldn't even finish the race, never mind win it. Greg, though, never wavered in his confidence in us.

Once he had put them through their twice-a-week paces on the ERG coaching them once a week and using the videotape that Katie shot he probably knew he had the makings of a strong crew. Doing those three-, five-, and even seven- thousand-meter workouts, with barely a minute's break between thousand-meter pieces, did the job. But it certainly wasn't fun. The ERG... gives you all the work of rowing, but none of the pleasure, Corinna Witt says emphatically. And you do it all alone, she adds, even if Greg were there sometimes to help you out.

That ERG work, however, was the foundation of success out on the water. Once the women had good technique, mechanics, and stamina, Greg says, we got out on the water to do blade work learning how to get the oar blade to enter and move through the water most efficiently.

Practicing starts came next, followed by rowing the course over and over, which taught the team how to use the currents and tide to best advantage. The morning rows gave Greg, as they did the women, many pleasures: Being on the water early in the morning, often followed by sea lions who seemed curious about our big boat, and seeing the satisfaction of the women as they improved was really satisfying. The high point for Greg, though, was seeing the crew work together so well...performing superbly in the race, when it mattered most. After just 500 yards, it was clear that we'd win.

The excitement of the competition, especially as the Wieland pulled away from the South End boat, was capped by a cheering crowd on Muni Pier that waved and whooped as the Dolphin women swept victoriously into the cove. That was a high point for me, Corinna Witt says.

Corinna experienced another high point, too, and it came as a surprise to her. The day of the ERG test, I had a hard, difficult day at work. I felt low, she remembers, but after the ERG session I felt much better. And not just because I did well. It was the rowing that did it.

To Cynthia Skovlin, and to the many regular Club swimmers who enjoy aquatic meditation, that's no surprise. Greg's coaching, she says, had a lot to do with that particular feeling. He didn't just break down our strokes and rebuild them, he taught us to focus our minds, to concentrate.... During the early weeks of training, Cynthia saw...on the ERG monitor that my stroke rate and efficiency decreased the moment my mind wandered. And when we got out on the water, she remembers, Greg taught us to listen to the boat...to the sound of our oar blade entering the water, to the creak of the oarlock as you recovered your stroke...Learning to ‘be in the stroke,’as Greg says, was quite a challenge.

Each rower met that particular challenge on her own. The more complex challenge was to get all six rowers to work as one in moving the Wieland swiftly through the water. When we finally got it, Cynthia recalls, the boat took on a life of its own. Against such keenly focused energy, against such a smooth-working crew, the South End rowers were no match. From the moment the starter's horn was blown, all of their oar blades hit the water at different times, Cynthia remembers. They didn't stand a chance! The Dolphin women were rowing as one: it was Zen. With some serious smokin' of those tricky South Enders for good measure.