THE OLYMPIC CAMP INVITE
Still glowing from my experience in Boston, I received an e-mail which weakened me at the knee – my only knee.
3/2/11
Greetings Eric,
I wanted to invite you to a development camp we will be hosting in OKC in
April. Most everyone else will have some rowing experience but we will be
in an 8 and will be starting with just technical drills and basic rowing
technique. I think that you would catch right up being such a high level
athlete in softball.
Attached is the flyer for the camp, let me know if you can make it and
send the application information.
thanks
K.
Karen Lewis
Adaptive Rowing
National Team Coach
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a
habit. — Aristotle
I was speechless. I thought could this really be happening? Obviously, with more celebration, I quickly responded back with a resounding, “YES!” Not knowing anything about Coach Lewis or the sport itself, I did find out the following day that Coach was hired in 2005 as The US Adaptive Rowing National Team Coach and did have a sense of humor.
3/3/11
Excellent Eric,
I will send you more information in a week or two . . . and I will look
forward to meeting you . . and having someone who is older than me at camp
. . hee-hee.
Cheers
Could that Saturday Night proclamation, shared with my friend Jack Daniels, of making the 2012 Paralympic Team competing in London, be coming true?
In 2002, the Federation Internationale des Societes d’Aviron (FISA) world championships began to include adaptive rowing in the regular program. The sport gained momentum in 2005, when the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) voted to include adaptive rowing in the 2008 Beijing Paralympic Games. Achieving this major milestone spurred the growth of adaptive rowing worldwide. There are now 26 countries competing at the international level, which is an impressive increase from 2002 when only seven countries participated. As the number of programs worldwide increased, so did the level of competition. Paralympic rowing competition is open to male and female athletes with a variety of physical disabilities.
At the same time, I also received a telephone call from DUKE University Medical Center informing me that I was selected as an honoree at their annual All-Staff Event celebrating patients triumphing over their medical obstacles. Their event was being held after the Paralympic training camp.
TRAINING (JOHN ALLEN ROAD)
With a little over a month away from my debut at Oklahoma City, my workout conditions, routine, and environment needed to change drastically from that of my training for Boston. My daily rowing for Boston was approximately 20 minutes a day, followed by a couple of hours of lifting weights. My rowing machine (ERG) was in my spare bedroom and my weights were crowded into my bedroom. This set-up lacked any type of motivational factors, anything to truly get my body, as well as my mind wrapped around rowing in OK City. As luck would have it, I had a detached shed structure in my backyard. This would become my new training center.
The shed was 10 feet by 16 feet, was not insulated, but had electricity. I moved my ERG into it as well as my workout bench and all associated free weights. It was a tight fit, but the way I laid it out, once I took off my prosthetic, I could maneuver between seats and benches on one leg. With my rowing time needing to increase, I moved a television in attached with a DVD player to watch movies as I rowed. Watching movies would take my mind off of long rowing sessions. It was March, and even though I live in North Carolina, the mornings do get cold. I installed a space heater in the shed for warmth, along with training with layers of sweatshirts on. It was now time for lights, cameras, and action. My workout room was set up and it was time to train.
My training started at 5:00 am every morning, seven days a week. The first daily obstacle was making it from the front door of my house to the shed located in the backyard. The sun was not up and it was dark and cold – breath visible from the mouth cold. Bundled up to fight the morning chill, I would trek across the wet backyard grass and moss, cane in one hand and a flashlight in the other. My cane would sink into the damp earth with every other step. At times it felt like I was treading across an Irish Bog, hearing the suction sound of my cane pulling up from the earth, giving myself another, hopeful shot at dry land. Once in the shed, the lights and heater were turned on, a movie put in the DVD player, my prosthetic was taken off and I rowed.
My daily workouts consisted of three segments. The morning started with rowing, unlike the 10-15-minute row I prepared with for Boston. Preparing for Oklahoma City was a bit more extreme. Before taking my first morning stroke, the television and DVD player were put on and a movie was put in. These weren’t just any movies; these were sports, ‘feel-good’ movies. Here, the underdog triumphs over the odds – ROCKY, HOOSIERS, and RUDY to name a few. I would cast myself into the starring roles as I rowed.
My intent was to row to the movie’s end. This never happened due, partially, to me being out of shape, and my daily workout design. Rowing about ¾ of the way through the movie would complete my morning row. With rowing complete, I would bundle back up and make it back to the house for rest and breakfast. The sun was now up, or at least there was light, making the walk to the house less treacherous than hours before. Once safely inside, I would have a healthy breakfast and two-hour rest.
With break time over, it was time for segment two of my workout – lifting weights. Back in the shed, my prosthetic was off and I was seated at my workout bench. Once seated, I never had to get up. My weights were positioned around the bench so I could achieve any of my exercises. There were different days for different body parts – arms, shoulders, and chest. After three hours of lifting, it was back in the house for food and rest.
After lunch, it was back to the shed for a light afternoon row. The shed was becoming my ‘poor-man’s’ version of The Devon Boat House (The Paralympic Training Center in Oklahoma City). My afternoons consisted of a 20 minute, give or take, row. The row lasted as long as the remaining DVD/movie minutes left over from that morning. For 6 weeks that was how I spent my days – row, lift weights, and get caught up in motivational movies. Heads up rowers – here comes the old man. There was a passage that I heard at Bay Leaf Baptist Church, my ears perked up like a dog hearing a silent whistle, and chose to carry it with me.
ISAIAH
ISAIAH 40:28-31
Do you know?
Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
The Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and his understanding no one can fathom.
He gives strength to the weary
and increases the power of the weak.
Even youths grow weary and tired,
and young men stumble and fall;
But those who hope in the Lord,
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings of eagles;
They will run and not grow weary,
They will walk not be faint.
PLANE RIDE/MEETING ROWERS
My plane travel to Oklahoma City was not a scary or unexpected one because I had traveled to Boston the month before. I was more apprehensive in meeting my fellow rowers arriving in Oklahoma than traveling to get there. I gave myself plenty of time to go through airport security at Raleigh/Durham. As thorough as security was, the people conducting the checks were just as respectful. Now boarded, it was off to Chicago to catch my connecting flight to OK City. Chicago was where my ‘traveling wheels’ started to wobble off my travel plans. My arrival time to Chicago was late. If that wasn’t bad enough, my arrival terminal and departing terminal could not be any further apart. The most finely honed athlete would have grimaced at the distance and trying to make it on time. This signified the first time I played the ‘handicap card’. Raising my cane in the air, I hailed an airline terminal golf cart to give me the speed I needed to make in making my flight on time. During my cart ride, I thought I had it all under control until pulling up to my OK City departure gate. It wasn’t the traditional terminal gate. There was a fenced in area that led out to the runway tarmac where the passengers walked to a small twin-engine plane. It might have seated 20 people at the most.
On my best, healthiest day; tall, physically fit and 2 legs, I would have had a hard time fitting on this plane. This became one of my first ‘physical hurdles’ on the way to my rowing/training debut.
In the past, my height made maneuvering around such a small plane tough, but the help of having 2 legs and the ability to ‘bend at the knees’ was always a great help and at times, necessity. Now with one leg and a prosthetic, getting situated in my tiny assigned seat, was troublesome, but do-able. My unexpected reward was I found myself seated next to Jenny, our Oklahoma City boat’s coxswain.
ROWERS AT THE AIRPORT
During the short flight from Chicago to Oklahoma City, Jenny gave me the details and itinerary for the next 4 days of training. Along with all of my answered questions, Jenny also explained that she was going to be the Coxswain on our boat. Jenny, as the Coxswain would sit in front of the boat and instruct the crew while also acting as a lookout. She would direct the rowers in what combinations they would be grouped in to row. Four people at a time, then mix the combinations up, and then the command to have all row. I thought it ironic that a petite, young woman – five-foot nothing and less than 100 pounds – and young enough to be my daughter, would have the command of the boat and 8 rowers.
We shortly landed in Oklahoma and now the nervousness and awkwardness of meeting my fellow rowers was about to happen. They were all flying in on different airlines to different terminals at different times throughout the afternoon. We were all to meet and take a shuttle van back to the arranged housing for the next few days. Jenny and I were the first to arrive and wait. As the hours past, my teammates started to trickle in. Some traveled together and some met again knowing each other from past competitions and trainings. Matt and Brian were the next to arrive from Texas. They were both enlisted and active in the Army. There injuries were suffered in the line of duty. Jason arrived next from Washington, DC and then Michael. Ryan, a teenager from Indianapolis, was being driven to the training facility by his parents and Andrew was on the US National Team already training at Devon. We were waiting for Chris from San Francisco. During the wait, along with some awkward getting–to-know-you conversation, I realized a few things. I was decades older than my teammates and also the only one who had no rowing experience on open water. Also, without asking, it was hard to tell the disability the certain rowers possessed. The street clothes they wore made perfect cover, although I looked for some bunching of clothing that could have been covering a prosthetic. I also looked for any movements out of the norm or even a hint of a painful grimace that would clue me in. With the constant, unresolved detective work, Chris had finally arrived. He was closer to my age, tall, slender, with an apparent rowers physique. And it was quite apparent of his disability, no reason or way to hide it. Chris was blind. The professional way that he carried himself and the thought of how his disability did not stop him from rowing and brought him here to train, left me quite and humbled within my thoughts on the van trip to our living arrangements.
WHO GETS THE BIG BED
My time spent in North Carolina, before arriving at the Paralympic Camp in Oklahoma City, entailed training, doing homework on the sport of rowing, and The Devon Boat House/Paralympic Facility. Obviously, I wanted to be prepared both physically and mentally. I wanted no surprises. Seeing the photos of Devon on my computer quickly made this a reality. The facility was brand new and state-of-the-art situated right on the Oklahoma River. But one thing was missing – the information on the rower’s housing. Where were we staying? All I had was images of Olympic Villages seen on TV from past competitions. My fairy tale, heroic imagery was quickly washed away upon arriving at the complex.
Direct from the airport and quite a long distance from Devon, which I hadn’t seen yet in person, the van pulled up to the security gates of an outdated, circa 1970’s extended stay, garden apartment complex. My past Olympic Village imagery, seen on television as a kid growing up on Long Island, was gone. This now became my reality check that this was training for the team, earning a spot on the team, not celebrating something that I had not earned. There were 100’s of units that were centered by a small lake with walkway bridges spanning across the water connecting various areas of the complex. The ducks were an added visual bonus. Along with the apartment structures, there was a building that housed the breakfast and dinner buffets. These were afforded to the rowers by the Paralympic committee for free. Another large building contained the fitness center. This was used by not just the people staying at the complex, but also memberships by the surrounding communities.
Our rooming assignments consisted of 4 people to an apartment. The apartments were clean, small, furnished, and undistinguishable from any ones across the country. They were made up by a living room, full kitchen, two bedrooms and two bathrooms. My apartment mates were Matt, Brian, and Michael. Matt and Brian grabbed the largest bedroom with no hesitation or discussion. Michael and I took the remaining, smaller room. It was so small there was no room to walk around. I had to step over everything including our luggage and beds. Besides the slight disappointment of the housing, which was largely due to my high expectations, I quickly found out three things, Matt and Brian were not shy about exerting themselves, my roommate Michael did not like to talk, and the apartment was not handicap-accessible. Here we are at the Paralympic housing complex and the housing was not handicap applicable/accessible. The eye-opener was the following morning trying to get ready for our first day of training. Because the bathroom had no grab bars or walk-in shower, I was left starting my day with crawling into the bathroom (without my prosthetic) hoisting myself off the floor onto the toilet. From the toilet I had to get my body over the bathtub wall and lie in the bathtub to take a shower. The order was reversed to get out of the tub, bathroom, and into my room to get dressed. I had a quick bite to eat at the breakfast buffet and stood waiting anxiously, as well as nervously, at the van to get to the Devon Boat House and my first day of training.
THE DEVON BOATHOUSE
The Devon Boathouse is a $10 million facility, home of OCU Rowing and Canoe/Kayak and headquarters for the OKC National High-Performance Center. The OKC National High-Performance Center provides training opportunities for Olympic hopefuls in both rowing and canoe/kayak. The Devon Boathouse is the 2nd world class recreational facility and training center to open along the Oklahoma River south of Bricktown in Oklahoma City, joining the Chesapeake Boathouse in drawing national attention and events to the area.
The 33,000 square-foot facility is the home of the Oklahoma City University rowing and kayaking teams and will also serve as a training center for Olympic Athletes and the headquarters for the OKC National High-Performance center. The Devon Boathouse offers training tools for elite rowers and beginners alike. It is open year-round and includes an indoor rowing tank, lap pool, and weight and cardio space options and more. The US Olympic Committee has recognized the Oklahoma River as a US Olympic & Paralympic Training Site.
FIRST DAY OF ROWING
My rowing debut turned out to be more psychological, even a bit emotional, than physical. The day before, I met my rowing teammates, today was the introductions to the coaches. This would be my first meeting with Coach Lewis. Being six foot, 5 inches tall, I had the perfect height for a rower. It was my size/weight that came into question, or maybe some concern.
Upon approaching Coach Lewis, I couldn’t help but notice the look on her face. She looked at me, then the boat, again the boat, and then to my hulk-size, 300 pound, non-rowers body. Oh yes, there was also the saddened shake of the head sizing me up with the narrowness of the boat. This disappointment/awkwardness couldn’t hide on her face, like a ‘blind-date’ gone horribly wrong at the opening of the front door. At this point, my destiny was fated to Seat #4 of the boat – ‘The Engine Room’. Before I describe the rowing duties, let me first give you the semantics of the boat.
Size of Boat:
- An eight is a rowing boat used in the sport of competitive rowing. It is designed for eight rowers, who propel the boat with sweep oars, and is steered by a coxswain, or cox.
- Each of the eight rowers has one oar. There are four rowers on the stroke side (rower's right-hand side) and four on the bow side (rower's lefthand side
- However, octuple sculls are not used in main competitions.
- "Eight" is one of the classes recognized by the International Rowing Federation and one of the events in the Olympics.
- “Sweep”: A style of rowing in which each rower uses one oar
Rowing Equipment:
An eight-person shell can be over 60 feet long (18 meters) and only be 2 feet wide (.61 meters). The seat's rowers sit on slide on a steel runner. Because of this rowers are able to use their legs as well as their arms when rowing and this means that the power they generate will result in fast speeds.
Rowing shells are made out of carbon fiber because it is durable and lightweight.
Octuple (8) Scull Coxed:
An Octuple Scull is a sculling boat that has an eight-person crew, which has a coxswain and is abbreviated 8X. It is 65.2 feet long (19.9 meters) and weighs 211.2 pounds (96 kilograms). Men and Women compete in Octuple Sculls.
Seating Nicknames:
- The Engine Room Seats: The middle rowers in the boat. In an 8-person shell, these are generally seats 6, 5, 4, & 3. They are generally the biggest and strongest rowers, who provide most of the power to the boat.
- The Bow Pair: (in an 8) are responsible for the set, or balance of the boat. Rowers in the Bow Pair (seats 1 & 2) tend to be more technically sound.
- The Stern Pair: are the most technically sound in the boat (seats 7 & 8). Stroke seat 8 is responsible for setting rhythm and stroke rating for the boat (the best technical rower in the boat). The 7 seat is responsible for backing the “Stroke Seat” and helping set up rhythm and pace.
My rowing assignment in the boat was the 4th seat – the ‘Engine Room’. I had no idea what the seating assignments were or what they entailed before I got there. Unlike the ‘homework’ that Melissa and I did on the Devon Boat House before I arrived in Oklahoma City, I knew nothing about seating assignments, technique, the boat, and/or equipment that I would be associated with. It was learn as you go without asking questions, while looking like I knew what I was doing. I never rowed on the water before, especially in a boat like this containing 7 other rowers. The roster/rowers for the next 4 training days were as follows:
The Rowers:
(#1) Chris Downey (San Francisco, CA) Blind
(#2) Matt Anderson (Army) Foot Injury
(#3) Jason Beagle (Washington, DC) Back Injury
(#4) Eric Gabriel (Wake Forest, NC) Right Leg Amputee
(#5) Ryan Hurd (Indianapolis) Leg Injury
(#6) Andrew Johnson (National Team) Blind
(#7) Michael Hart (?) Arm Injury
(#8) Brian Ipock (Army) Foot Injury
(Coxswain) Jenny Sichel
National Team Head Coach: Karen Lewis
Assistant Coach: Pat Brown
Coach Lewis’ quote: “We are what we repeatedly do
Excellence, therefore, is not an act,
but a habit”: Aristotle
Jenny Chris Matt Jason Eric Ryan Andrew Michael Brian
At this time, I could see, in further detail, my fellow teammate’s disabilities. During the introduction to my Coaches, teammates, and boat, there appeared to be one more handshake left to be made – the DUKE Photographer for the video for The All-Staff Event – Tim. Along with the vast photography equipment in tow, Tim had a clipboard with authorization forms for the rowers and coaches. Signatures were needed from all that participated to allow them to appear in the video. Some rowers were meeting me for the first time through Tim’s explanation and signature request. “Who the hell is this guy?” They would soon find out that I was not a famous rower.
With rowers taking their assigned seats, Coaches, along with Tim, took their position behind the helm of their motorized boat. This boat paralleled us during practice, observing and shouting criticism through a bull horn. It was now time to shove off from the dock, it was show time. Me, having no rowing experience on the water, hasn’t presented a problem as of yet. The latest obstacle was the next four days of weather. The time I made my introduction to the sport was the worst weather they had on the river in years. It wasn’t rain or even cold temperatures that hampered us, the ‘beast’ was the wind. It was so windy that it caused ‘white-caps’ on the river. I grew up with ‘white-caps’, fishing on the Long Island Sound (Ocean) in a motorized fishing boat, not rowing a boat on a river. It made rowing tough even for the most seasoned rower. Unlike the videos I previewed of The Devon Boat House with boats gliding across the glass-like surface of the river. I was taking my maiden voyage with ‘small-craft warnings’ on the Oklahoma River.
To sum up my four days of training camp in Oklahoma City; carrying the boat to and from the river was scary enough, if not treacherous, without throwing a 200-foot concrete ramp incline in for good measure. Right off the bat, the first physical challenge was getting the boat from the Boat House to the water. Stupid me, I thought it would be sitting, ‘parked’ at the dock, waiting to row and go. Instead, the boat was sitting in the Boat House, along with dozens of others, stored up on storage racks. They glistened in their racks and sprawled across the Boat House in long lines as long as they stood high. Our boat was stored at around chest height. To get the boat to the water, all 8 rowers lift and carry the boat, 4 on one side and 4 on the other in a staggered configuration. We hoisted the boat on our shoulders and proceeded out of the Boat House and down the ramp toward the water. Now, you would think lifting a boat on the shoulders of the handicap would be one struggle/accomplishment, but that was just the beginning. We now had to carry the boat down a ramp to the river – a very long, steep, concrete ramp. From the roll-up door at the boat house to the floating dock, the concrete slope towards the water was approximately 200 feet long. This was a terrifying trek both down to the water for training and back up to the boat house afterwards. Here were 8 people with varying disabilities, staggered 4 on each side working in unison with the goal of launching the boat. Hoisting it on my shoulder was not a problem, but holding it up on one side while walking with a prosthetic and cane on the other side was quiet scary. I felt I was going to trip and take down the boat and my fellow rowers with every step. This was a true definition of the ‘domino’ effect. The carrying of the boat seemed like a ceremonial rite of passage with the rowers being thankful, willing, servants. This seemed to me like Romans lifting their emperor over their heads in the ceremonial chair and carrying him through the streets of Rome. I just didn’t want to create history with an unceremonious spill on the dock.
With the boat in water, I was now confronted with quickly taking off my prosthetic, lying on my back, and fumbling around on dock for my oar. I felt like a fish out of water, flopping around on land. There were two sets of oars – port (left side) and starboard (right side) - which were all over 12 feet long. Some oars were specifically altered for specific disabilities. Given my oar, it was now time to get into the boat, into my seat #4. My God, could this boat get any narrower? The approximate 2-foot width was not nearly enough for my fat, non-rower’s physic. My hips and legs were not a marriage made in heaven with the boat. Inside, I cried for a shoe horn and prayed that nobody noticed my wedge-in approach in seating. The problem getting into the boat was not just with the width of the boat battling my size, but also the un-balance I had trying to sit in a bobbing boat on a river without my prosthetic on. Fitting in a boat where my body had no business fitting, the rubbing caused cuts, bruises, and callouses on my ‘good’ leg and hips. To explain my four days was defined on day one. My first morning of rowing was spent quickly watching and regurgitating what was learned with every oar stroke. Unaware of the meaning, or strategy, of my seat position in the boat, I was left looking around at my fellow rowers and their physical make-up, as well as their experience, and wondering how the so-called seating, or ‘batting’ order was picked. I was in seat #4, the ‘Engine Room’, the middle of the boat. On face value, I was twice the weight of my colleagues, as well as twice the age, so the middle seemed to make sense. But my mind wandered to the result of me sitting elsewhere on the boat. Sitting in the back of the boat had imagery having my body weight forcing the boat into a water ‘wheelie’ down the river. Up front was worse, it would be like a submarine diving from the surface – nose first to the bottom of the river. Seat #4 made sense. There is no talking on the boat, other than Jenny – The Coxswain – yelling out the rowing groups in sequences, “front 4, back 4, all row”. The silence of the rowers reminded me of old movies of slave rowers in Viking Ships, rowing as commanded, doing their job – no talking.
Comments would come from the Coach’s boat via bull horn. There were constant orders being barked out; “Eric – Fully Extend Yourself”, “Eric – Follow Through”, “Eric – Use Your Leg”, “Eric – Quicker with the Oar, Keep Pace”, “Eric, Eric, Eric. . . “On my extension of one of my strokes, I leaned back towards the rower behind me. Breaking silence, I said, “Wow! I can’t believe how many guys on this boat are named Eric”. The reply came back quick and dry, “Hey pal, she’s talking to you”
My Oklahoma experience made me realize, appreciate, and give thanks for the gifted rowers, and coaches that recognize and grab all of their potential that they have – in or out of a boat. My teammates were quick to listen and learn to get better, but also ignored their disabilities with a well-seasoned athletic bravado and swagger. They had the patience and willingness to welcome me with open arms to the adaptive rowing fraternity.
Comments