Q&A with womens coach Graham Allin

We caught up with Graham Allin and some of the women in the middle of a 12km ergo session.

RURC: When did your girls start training for Boatrace 2012:

Allin: Training for Boatrace started at the beginning of May and at the moment we’re just really focusing on building up base fitness, doing long ergs, getting as much water time as we can which is difficult at the moment given that the girls have exams, but any opportunity we get to get on the water we take that.

RURC: What would your typical week include (training wise)?

Allin: Typical week probably constitutes 4 ergos, most of them being long, some of them interval training, we have 2 alternate sessions a week and 2 to 3 gym sessions as well.

RURC: Alternate sessions, can you describe those?

Allin: Alternate sessions is just for the girls to mix it up so they don’t get bored cos as you can imagine the long ergs are quite monotonous, so either involves going for a cycle or run at UT2 training.

RURC: … and the gym programme?

Allin: At the moment we’re trying to build up the girls’ maximum strength so really doing a lot of heavy weights and low reps, just really tring to build up that maximum strength early on in the season.

RURC: How is the make-up of your squad at the moment?

Allin: We have 15 girls in our A squad at the moment which is quite comfortable. Rhodes hasn’t enjoyed that for a number of years. We do have 5 to 6 really experienced, high calibre girls, and we do have a large contingent of novice girls, and girls that rowed at school. A lot of girls in the squad, I’m talking about the inexperienced one’s here-the novice girls, although they might not be as technically proficient as the others, we have a big bunch of strong novice girls that are pulling really big erg times so hopefully we can get them up to scratch by the time Boatrace comes round.

RURC: Whats the plan for the next couple of weeks?

Allin: We just try get as many sessions on the water as we can basically, given the fact that we have a lot of inexperienced girls obviously time on the water is king. It is a very flexible programme with the fact that girls are writing exams but dedication doesn’t seem to be a problem especially with the high of girls we have at the moment going for A squad the competition is quite tough for every seat.

RURC: Is there a camp happening?

Allin: Our camp starts early June, it’s a 2 and half week camp out at Settlers dam and we’re hoping to spend a weekend or 2 on the Kowie, that’ll basically consist of gyming and a lot of rowing.

RURC: Anything else you would like to add?

Allin: Nothing other than the fact that we’re looking forward to what the training camp has to hold and it’s a really exciting prospect we haven’t had this much depth for many years at Rhodes and its exciting times to come.