Timing a small head race/practice with the Interval

[NK Amy]

A fairly common rowing practice consists of time trails or head race pieces. This article explains how to time a small head race or practice by yourself.

It can sometimes seem overwhelming, but it's not difficult to manage an entire head race or practice by yourself. As long you can get from the last boat on the starting line to the first boat at the finish line, all you need is one watch.

Here's how:
· Start boats on a reasonable center, somewhere between 10 and 20 seconds.

· Take a split for each boat on your watch, making sure to write down which split corresponds to each boat.

· After the last boat across the line, make your way to the finish line.

· Again, take splits for each boat across the line, noting the splits and boats.

· After the last boat crosses the finish line, stop your watch.

For most watches, you will now have to write down the start and finish split for each boat and do some math. If you have an Interval Watch and interface, you can upload the data and let the software do the work for
you.

If you are running several events, you will need to get back to the starting line before you can start the next event. If you have a multi-segment watch (like the Interval, of course), you can simply start a new segment
and start timing again, without losing the data from the first event. You can continue this way until you've run all of your events, and write down or upload your data later. With a single-segment watch, you'll just need to write down the data between events so you can clear the watch and start over.