Rowing Alumni Update: Connor’s Erg Challenge ‘23 and Marist Biathlon!

Dear Marist Rowing Alumni, Family, and Friends,

                February has arrived and, so far, it’s been one of the warmest years on record. In spite of two days last weekend that focused all of winter’s bitterest rage, today was a sunny 50. ZERO ice has appeared on the river and we are already scheduling a date to put in the docks earlier than any other season since I’ve been at Marist! Meanwhile, the athletes have been training away with gusto. After returning from our winter trip in Florida the men have been extremely motivated and diligent and we are feeling really great about the young group that is forming some serious grit in the sweat lodge!

                I’m writing today with one quick fund-raising note AND to invite you to join us online for two events this weekend on facebook live.

Connor’s Erg Challenge:

                Both and Men’s and Women’s teams are once again competing in this year’s Connor’s Erg Challenge which supports the Robert Connor Dawes Foundation. Connor Dawes was a young athlete from Australia who was recruited by both Wisconsin and Stanford but unfortunately was diagnosed with and passed away from pediatric brain cancer which is the worlds leading disease related killer amongst young people and adolescents. Along with his two schools and fellow programs in Australia, Connor’s family founded the RCD Foundation to raise money for research into this disease. Their vehicle has been an inter-school erg race challenge raced every February with all funds raised going straight to the RCD Foundation. The challenge is for teams of up to 25 oarsmen to race in a relay format over 100K. The Marist Men are in our 3rd year of participating after breaking the Connor’s Erg record in 2020 and then again in 2022 (both times with a team average split under 1:30)! We are proud to be helping to support a great cause once again and to have already achieved 100% participation from our team members. We’d like to invite all of our excellent alumni and families to join us in donating $20 to the foundation. To join our team and place a donation to the RCD Foundation you can go to the following link which will take you to our team page. Last year, this group raised over $2000 to fight brain cancer! Thanks in advance for your support of the RCD Foundation!

https://www.connorserg.com/join/maristcollegemensrowing

New Tech Online Open House:

                I am really excited to announce that the men’s rowing team has invested in a new tool for use with our training. The team has purchased a subscription and equipment from a company called FIRSTBEAT. FirstBeat provides a system of heart rate monitors that can be read both by the athlete’s cell phones AND by a centralized coach’s tablet. Data is stored long term on a cloudbased system that provides ongoing updates into training loads and recovery. The system is going to be giving us really fantastic insights into our training regime and the athletes and coaches are super excited to have access to a vast amount of additional data through this program. Those of you who were on recent crews, know that I’ve been talking about investing in a system like this for some years and even ran a demo with the FirstBeat rep on the water in 2018 or 19. I wanted to thank all of our Red Fox Navy members over the last few years who have made our fund raising efforts so successful that we are now able to make fresh investments in systems like this that directly impact the quality of the training and education our athletes receive. Tomorrow morning during our morning practice (9am) I am going to be conducting a Facebook live session on the Alumni and Friends of Marist Rowing facebook page. I thought it would be cool to show everyone who’s interested what this system does and why we’re so excited about it! For those of you interested in checking it out, feel free to catch us on that page at 9am tomorrow. You can find the page at this link:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/MaristRowingAlumniFriends

Annual Biathlon!

                Finally, I am pleased to advertise that our annual Marist Biathlon will be raced this Sunday (Super Sunday). This annual tradition involves a 10K erg followed immediately by a 4mile “Bridge Run” down across the Mid Hudson Bridge and back. Winners receive a high five and 1 full year of clout! This year we will once again be streaming live from the race course showing the latter half of the erg portion of the race and the run with color commentary from the coaching staff. For those of you seeking to get your competitive spirits awakened before the big game, and to watch some athletes suffer from the comfort of your kitchen (or bed), we encourage you to join us! The racing will start at 8am sharp and you should expect the live stream to begin at 8:30am. This stream will be on the main Marist Rowing Facebook Page which can be found at this link

https://www.facebook.com/maristrowing

Wrap-up and Upcoming:

                As always, we owe a special thanks to all of the alumni, family and friends who make Marist a special place to train and compete. We hope you’ll be joining us for one or both of our Facebook streams this weekend and also thank you in advance for your generous support with our Conner’s Erg Challenge.

                The spring is fast approaching and you should be expecting to hear from us again with lot’s more news about the team. In the coming weeks we’ll be sending

·         Spring season official race calendar announcement, analysis, and preview

·         Opening of the Red Fox Navy Alumni Rowing Gear Store!

·         Updates about team fundraising for the 2023 campaign

GO RED FOXES!!!