Will It Make the Boat Go Faster? At Marin Rowing Association, Culture is Key

Hands in after training

 My alarm goes off—it’s 4:22am. 

It’s been a while since I did this. Immediately, I think back to a college dorm room, rolling out of bed and running down the steps to carpool caravan to Marina Del Rey. 

Not this time, though. It’s a Tuesday in late September, and I’m heading across the Golden Gate Bridge to Greenbrae, California, where I’ll meet with the Marin Rowing Men’s Masters squad. Fortunately, it’s an unusually warm morning—and when I roll in, the boathouse is already buzzing with activity. 

Launch time: 5:10.

Heading out into the Bay before dawn

The Marin Rowing Association program has both men’s and women’s masters boats competing to win at every event they attend. In the fall, that can only mean one thing: The Head Of The Charles. 

The boat that Coach Rodrigo Rodrigues and I spend most of our time with is the Grand Masters eight—average age 60+. But that’s just one of five crews that launched with us that morning. Everyone’s up before 4:30am. So, what explains it? Is it some kind of compulsion? Monomania? Love of boats, and sweat, and the early morning whoosh of the water against the gunwales? Of team and competition? All of the above?

“Marin is a very special place, starting with Sandy,” says Rodrigo. “She has a lot of experience, a lot of knowledge, and she’s one of the best human beings I’ve met in my life.”

“The coaching staff—most of us coach different teams, not only the Juniors,” he explains, “and there is so much camaraderie. I can go and talk to Julio if maybe I’m struggling with some technical change, or knock on Sandy’s door and ask her what she thinks about something, maybe I’m struggling with this boat or another. It’s just special top to bottom, and the membership is also amazing—so competitive, and they really understand what we’re doing.” 

So what’s the secret sauce? There isn’t one. It’s just plain… simple.

“I think a lot of it just comes down to the fact that we are here to compete. And yes, if you want to have fun, we have programming for that. But this group of men that I’m coaching—they are just very competitive. It’s not even 5:15 and we’re already on the water.”

Coach Julio Soares on the launch

The same can be said of the Saturday morning practice that I attended with the Marin Masters Women, riding alongside Coach Julio Soares. There’s a culture and a set of standards. When you establish that, people rise to meet the challenge—not because they have to, but because they want to. 

And that’s basically it, right?

Ok, so it’s not quite that simple. How do you establish that kind of culture, where you can have people, with professional lives and families, still be willing to make this choice? What separates Marin’s Masters program from so many others? 

Turns out, that is partly the key. 

It’s about separation—or rather, lack thereof. 

“The overriding intention that I have for the organization, and everyone that is in the organization (Juniors, Masters, old, young, recreational, competitive, former collegiate and national team athletes, people who walk in the door and just want to learn) is guided through their work here at Marin in a similar way,” Executive Director and U-19 Women’s Coach Sandy Armstrong says. “We’re all on a similar path, and the structure is very clear.”

“I hold everyone in our competitive boats to the same standard—or instead, the same intention. If they’re not willing to be challenged, or to rise to the occasion, or improve, then there is another place for them to be here at the club, and get what they do want out of it.”

The Marin Masters Women between pieces

Armstrong, who has been at Marin for over 40 years, certainly isn’t a stranger to answering questions about how to build and manage a program. In fact, there’s a great talk on YouTube from the 2013 USRowing Convention. 

But is this something replicable? 

Is it just that Marin has so many physical advantages? 

Superior recruiting, or… something? 

The answer to the first question, in Armstrong’s mind, is yes. The answer to the second and third questions is, resoundingly, no. Those elements are downstream of the first question—ultimately, it all comes back to having a consistent philosophy, approach, and process. 

“It’s fairly simple. Basically, we have a pyramid that we use. And the base of the pyramid is just the facility. That means that everything has to work, so that whenever anyone walks into the building, everything has to be—on a daily basis—prepared, so that it can be used without a problem. 

The Marin Senior Masters Men after training

“We need gas (or batteries charged) for the engines. We need the engines to be functioning, we need the boats to be in good shape, we need ergs that work well. Without that, everything can just fall apart so quickly, because the smallest delay can mean that one boat is holding up three others from launching; now, the ferry is coming into the channel and we have to delay our pieces, etc. And people generally underestimate the amount of work that that takes. But that is a core job of the staff. We need to be organized.”

The next level up? The goal. 

“The goal for this organization is to develop highly skilled and competitive rowers, particularly the youth, in the art and sport of rowing—that’s our mission statement. That doesn’t change.”

There are caveats when running both a highly competitive Junior and Masters program alongside one another, however. 

“When we can’t share—when we’re going to a regatta, or there’s an overlapping practice, the Juniors are going to take priority. And everyone in the club knows that.” Still, just having that established goes a long way. 

Next up is the philosophy. 

“That is, quite simply, at this organization, ‘work hard, and be nice,’” Armstrong says. “Because I’m a coach and I run the facility, so I have both of those skill sets, I know that you can be successful in a positive environment. Respect goes a long way around here, and the staff knows it. We are one team.

“Now this can be a little more tricky with Masters. Juniors are used to people telling them how to engage or what to do, but Masters are… these are people who are running their own companies. They aren’t accustomed to being told what to do. But the way we approach it is, what you do outside of Marin Rowing is left outside of Marin Rowing. All of that life stuff, you leave at the door—and now you have another role to play here, in this context.”

“The goal for this organization is to develop highly skilled and competitive rowers, particularly the youth, in the art and sport of rowing—that’s our mission statement. That doesn’t change.”

The structure is the next level—and it will be very familiar to competitive rowers. As you enter the system, you progress from novice, to the B-level, and finally to the A-level. 

“Tryouts are pretty well established, but we’re looking for all of the buckets. Do you have an erg score? Are you fit? Are you strong? Are you a good teammate? Are you humble? Each person has to work on whatever buckets may be lacking—maybe you’re excelling in two or three. The environment is here for you to work on that stuff.”

Above the structure is the staff. “Who is going to lead us to this goal? That’s why there is consistency, because we all believe that we’re going to achieve that goal. We all have each other’s back.”

And then, of course, the athletes. “Ultimately, they are the only reason we’re doing any of this in the first place.”

Skills and drills with the Masters Women

When I first set out to write this piece, I thought it was going to be focused on the Masters teams at Marin. But, as I’m sure you’ve noticed by now—well, to borrow some Gen Z slang, that ain’t it, chief. The story of Marin—from the youngest to the oldest athletes—is one of consistency. It’s a through line that connects everyone who enters the boathouse, regardless of what crew they may be training with. 

Now obviously (and whether she’d admit it or not), Sandy Armstrong is exceptionally gifted at what she does. And yes, that does help explain Marin’s success on the national stage in places like Boston—or even internationally at Henley Royal Regatta and Henley Masters. 

The Marin Juniors have multiple Youth National Championships to their name, as well as victories—and even course records—at the Charles. 

The Masters, too, can boast similar accomplishments. At the 2013 Head Of The Charles alone, Marin won six events, also setting course records in both the Men’s and Women’s Senior Masters Eight events. Next weekend in Boston, Marin will be defending their title in the Men’s Masters Eight once again (looking to make it a four-peat). The list of Marin Rowing’s achievements could stretch on—I’ve got a word count to consider, though.

But yes, it is a replicable approach. And again, no, it’s not just because it doesn’t snow in Marin. 

The MRA boathouse at dawn

I know that from my perspective, that sense of unity, cohesion, shared sense of purpose—that is something I miss from my days as a competitive athlete, and it’s what drew me back to the boathouse at Drake’s Landing at 5am to write this feature. Masters rowing is something that we’ve poked fun at here on RR before—but this approach cuts through the labels and the different rules. It’s back to just rowing. 

What many former college athletes crave is that sense of competitive excellence that comes with committing so many hours, so much blood and sweat (and yes, sometimes many tears) to a singular, shared pursuit. And that’s what makes Marin tick. It stretches out across generations, like an elite rower reaching for the catch. 

“The Masters Men and the U-19 girls—we train together, because we’re the same speed. My eight can go out against one of Rodrigo’s older eights, or one of the younger fours, and train together. And we can have a great morning. Isn’t it cool for the Juniors to be in that challenging environment; for the Masters to sit right next to what is an elite high school crew?”

Yes, it’s cool. And it’s fast. 

While it was said in jest by Potomac’s Peter Clements, it turns out, he was actually right. “These are crews that treat ‘masters’ as a specific event at a specific regatta, to race or not race—not as a statement of purpose.” 

If you’re here, you’re here to compete. Age is, after all, just a number. 

-RR

Spinning the eight in front of San Quentin

Epilogue: 

Joking around with one of the athletes after that early morning session on Tuesday, it turned out that he, too, had set his alarm for 4:22am. 

“People ask me, why 4:22? And I tell them—it’s because 4:21 is too early, and 4:23 is too late.”

Photos by the author