Paul Rosenquist

Newest project…

Paul Rosenquist — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 09:55:51 +0000

Well it has been rather quiet here the latest weeks. The reason is that I am up to my elbows into a new thing now. It is the archipelago raid. A six day nonstop catamaran race from Stocholm to Finland and back again. Berotec our partner that sponsored the boat has made a special site for this that I manage. Check it out here:

Have fun reading this and be in touch!

Paul

Lesson 1, how to tame the Tiger.

Paul Rosenquist — Sun, 04 May 2008 07:16:13 +0000

Well, since we have this hugeliy ambitous plan to sail the Archipelago Raid next month, I better get started to learn how to sail the Tiger. Not at all as easy as I expected. Well, I actually thought it would be rather hard. I put a message out on the board at Scheveningen Coastal Sailing club and Charlotte was the only one that reacted on my rather weird message….

She drilled me pretty hard and for me it was just a matter of ‘aj aj capt’n’ Awesome. learned sooo much.

Here is the vid…

Golden Olympic Dreams

Paul Rosenquist — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 16:10:04 +0000

Can’t really help to be really taken by what is happening at the other side of the world. While I am just training mostly easy long distance stuff, Lassi probably is skiing through the forest, Olaf Tufte is skiing in the Alps, and probably everybody else is also doing like that, the main man, Mahe Drysdale (3x World champ) is suddenly up to his neck in a cat fight for his so much desired spot in the singles in Bejing. Don’t really know why I find this so interesting. Must be a combination of things. Firts, Mahe, is a extremely friendly dude, really easy and good fun to have to be around with. I admire his qualities as a rower. (more…)

Hill running

Paul Rosenquist — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 12:01:35 +0000

Last eavening we gathered a happy bunch to go running on Haga backen. A 70 meter high slope at the other side of the lake where we live. Louise, Ruairi, Roland, Britta, Nick and I wobbled of from our front door at 18:45. 20 minute jog later we were at the foot of the hill.

Over excited I pointed out the three paths availble. One long and steep, one slightly shorter and steeper, and one ridicilously steep…but short. Somehow I thought we should try 5 ascents on each and take the shortest way down to get a nice ‘work-rest’ ratio.

So of we went. In the dark, and unfortunately it stopped freezing the night before and the lighte drizzling rain turned hard packed mountainside into mudslide. The long trail up is awesome. Than thundering down the steepes slope I quickly found out that more caution hade to be taken here. On my ass I slid 20 odd meters through the mud. 70 minutes later…we decided that we only had 10 descents in us and that the 5 left on the super steep one would have to wait. It was also only Ruari and me left as the others wisely jogged back to the apartment after 5 runs. A good 2 hours later we came home. Shaking legs, mud clad faces…cant be better.

We quickly threw a huge Bolognese together and had a cosy eavening.

Though training hard, it can still be a lot of fun!

Keep it going all, and good work on that slope!

Work

Paul Rosenquist — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 13:06:09 +0000

Last weeks have been productive. Both at work and training is rolling on nicely. Nice to get some cred for it as well. Richard (my boss) wrote a fun thing on his blog. Yesterday I recieved my new winter running shoes…yess…17 car tire spikes on each foot. Same day it began to freeze and snow litely so I gratefulle strapped them on the last two mornings to try them out on my little morning round over the rocks and throught the forest.
The grips is bloody amazing. Feels like running on velcro or something. I will get a picture posted soon..they are soo bloody green that you gotta see them.
Are now planning a training week and holiday as well. Nothing fixed yett, but looking at training a week in Holland on the Bosbaan and than go for a 10 day mini expedition to Marocko. Biking and climbing. Well see.

Be in touch.

Video of our National Championship race

Paul Rosenquist — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 15:04:08 +0000

Got a piece of vid of our eight race against Falkenberg during the nationals.

What a race! Happy to be at the good side of the Beep beep finish.. Enjoy!

What can you say…

Paul Rosenquist — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 14:58:06 +0000

The Kiwi’s seem to be getting a firm grip on the sculling boats…Rob Waddell beat the greatest rower of the last few years Mahe in a ’small’ regatta… Mahe raced a pretty good race I guess as his time was excellent! But Rob managed to get his super power translated into boatspeed and beat Mahe by a margin…and was only 3sec of Mahe’s world best time. Awesome.

Years of grinding the winches seem to have left its traces….

Not so of Season…

Paul Rosenquist — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 13:45:22 +0000

While we here in cold Europe consider our season over and done with the guys from the Southern Hemisphere are right inte the next one.
Most of the elite guys here either put on some skis or head for sunnier places and easily clock the miles and lift weights in comfy gymes. Some might give the erg a bash every now and than.

Not so in New Zealand. Here 3 times world champ Mahe got an unexpected (assumingly) surprise of his once example Rob Waddell. If everybody in A final of Single races are super human, than Rob might be classed as hyper human. In 2000 the 200cm long kiwi weighing 97kgs won the Olympic final in Oz. He had by than won the world champs two years in a row before that. Mahe has now won all three and has his bow ball fixed on the Beijing gold. Rob turned to grinding winches on the Kiwi America’s cup boat. Having not been able to return the prestigeous cup bask to New Zealand probably made him think of his successes as a rower. He has obviously worked really hard during a couple of months losing 30 kg’s of upperbody grinding muscle and retaining his extreme fitnes levels. Rumours go that he has crushed the 15 min barrier on the 5 k erg! Lassi last year was awesome with 15:11,2. Not completely confirmed but I read a 14.58 (1.26 last 500mtr) somewhere…that together with a 2k test that left him 1 second short of the world record 6.38…. Inspiring stuff to see how, with some talent, you can just open the bag again and come back to this extraordinary level!

THIS weekend on sunday he will race Mahe for the first time…a friendly match but you can bet there are lot of eyes on this regatta. Mahe, the coolest rower I know probably doesnt get to stressed about it all…the trails wont be until march or so.

I will be thinking of that while cruising up and down on our nearly frozen lake here in Stockholm.

Some links:
http://nz.sports.yahoo.com/071212/3/39un.html

Some Video:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=d0JOq0HCBAs

Cold but cool…

Paul Rosenquist — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 10:14:01 +0000

Rowing with Henke in the double has a double side to it…A bit like a controlled drug addiction. The more you do it the more you want it…but unfortunately we cant get our hands on it more than say twice a week…at best. So I dragged myself back into the single as I noticed that to many sessions on the erg are not to beneficial to our rowing rythm in the double. The last weeks have been blessed with nearly windstill conditions making the cold weather just a joy to row in. When all warmed up, slicing through the black cold, mirror flat water, blades digging in , accelarating away the boat and setting her free when they explode out the water…total silence…just the water swooshing under the hull. A duck paddling out of the way…just in time.
13.000meters rowed…7000 to go. When the strokes are coming smoothly and the connection between the boat, feet, and hands is all solid you can easily sink into a semi contious state where just the body is working on getting everythin perfect, all the time. Don’t need a lot of head for that.
But the 2° warm water, the odd tree trunk, the 10 bouys, perhaps some other rowers or floating fisherman are all very good reasons to stay awake! A few weekends ago I screwed up…I was struggling with getting a smooth stroke going. After 1700mter things started falling into place and I was just working with that…I threw a quick look over my left shoulder and quickly looked back and braced for the un evitable impact that was going to come… the 4 old guys were meters away of my bow rowing in their East German BBG called Kiwi. These boats are built to survive WWIII. Not my Hudson… Seconds later a loud bang. All went pretty smooth, but I found myself sitting with only one oar left, the other went straight of…Trying to relax and balance on one oar the guys backed up and towed me all the way over the lake back to the dock. There I noticed the underside of the bow got a good wack as well. One of their oars pulled a 15 cm piece of the outer carbon skin away. LolaII now cripled I quickly rigged her of and brought her to work where I can patch her up… FUCK…
Back to LolaI. Lucky me. Repairs are going well and I guess it will be all invisible after I’m done painting.

Training seems to go pretty good. I am not putting in as many sessions as last year, but I am and feel stronger than same time last year. Perhaps because I am more rested in to each session now? The one hours on the erg are going pretty good and I have started to add some threshold level stuff on wednsdays now. 4 x 10 min, 10 x 4 min etc. Ruairi and I meet up to help eachother on these. Yesterday eavening was no different. 4 pieces in 24(25), 4 in 26(27) and 2 in 28+. The last one was serious work…Finishing that one on a 1.35 gave me some selfconfidence and it gave Louise a very tired husband that eavening…

Ok, lets hope for more windstill days and not to many minus degrees.

Paul

First few strokes in Lucerne 07

Paul Rosenquist — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 11:04:01 +0000

Lola2 and I in action during the Heats in Lucerne. In the back Alen from GB. I think a became 2nd in this race. Alen here shows how nice he keeps his arms really straight at the catch. Something to work on for me there! Crooked arms at the catch and basically all the way through the stroke. I guess this gets better during the race as my arms must be getting tired…The start is never the most pretty rowing to look at.
Anyway, lying sick in my bed right now, it is a good memory to look back at!