University Of New Mexico Rowing Team

[old] ArizonaRower · Post by **[old] ArizonaRower** » January 11th, 2005, 7:58 pm

Here is a quick and easy way to have a "message board" for UNM rowers, instead of sending messages by modifying the comments in your profile - just post your messages in response to this topic. (adding later - I see there's an actual "live chat" area, so maybe that is what this chat room area is for... pre-arranging to meet in the live chat area? If so, perhaps a better place for the UNM rowing team message area might be in one of the other areas, such as the General area? John

[old] kevin · Post by **[old] kevin** » January 11th, 2005, 9:58 pm

Hey John, You guys are doing great at the top of the heap! Keep it up. Deb, How many meters did you do today? One more day and you've got me!

[old] Deb · Post by **[old] Deb** » January 12th, 2005, 12:12 am

Hey! I found you guys! Kevin, I scraped out nearly 30K today...a mere recreational row for the erg-rabbits at the top of the heap. One more day off tomorrow (so good meters, I hope), then it's back to the cabbage patch. Thanks for the nice welcome, everybody; I'll do my best to keep us looking as smart as we do. And count me in on the "meters for relief" fund...fabulous idea. Deb Ford

[old] kamdo · Post by **[old] kamdo** » January 12th, 2005, 5:57 am

Gustaaf, Deb means business! Don't look now, but she'll be passing both of us like a jet over land. Otto is right. Deb, Go for it, just make sure you don't knock me over in your wake! To other UNM ergers, Fantastic effort getting to #3. Let's all try to hit some type of personal best before the season is out. Post your January totals. Whoever is in for the Tsunami relief, let's post what we have contributed this month and I'll post the cumulative amount under the "general" section in this forum. Remember, any amount is fantastic, so let's not make that a competition unto itself. kamdo (Kevin)

[old] ArizonaRower · Post by **[old] ArizonaRower** » January 12th, 2005, 3:26 pm

UNM is doing very well, for having only 35 members. If everyone who rows would follow the government's most recent recommendations (on the news today) for daily exercise, then it would mean 60 to 90 minutes per day of some kind of activity and a LOT of meters if it was rowing. Rowing is my activity of choice. It can be done in the middle of the day or at night, without need for sunscreen or other protection from the weather. Before rowing, I ran, but since Tucson is "skin cancer capital of the nation," I tried to do the running either before 9 am or after 3 pm, when UV levels were least intense. Running at night was too much of a hassle, even with a good bright flashlight to help look out for snakes, rocks, holes, etc. No such restrictions with an indoor rower. I do miss the sound of the sand/gravel under my feet, and the other sounds and sights of the outdoors while running. John

[old] Gustaaf · Post by **[old] Gustaaf** » January 12th, 2005, 10:46 pm

Kevin, I know she means business. At this rate she will have passed both of us by noon tomorrow. Good idea to post the total we rowed together for the relief fund; I agree it should not be a competition and each of us should choose how to convert meters into dollars. I happen to have chosen one dollar for every 1000m rowed in January, but if I were Bill Gates I would have chosen another conversion ... John, rowing is also my exercise of choice, though I have started to enjoy running more and more now that I lost 35 pounds through rowing. My son has sort of challenged me to take part in a triathlon here in August, which means I will also have to start swimming and biking! Gustaaf

[old] Dan Garrett · Post by **[old] Dan Garrett** » January 13th, 2005, 9:55 am

This is great! 3 questions: You folks that row 30K + meters a day... what pace do you row? I row 10k at a 1:57 or so pace and I am wasted. I completed a half marathon once. My butt hurt for a week. I don't have a C2 at home so I can only row at work, but we have a great facility. I would be nice to have a unit at home to do long rows at a slower pace while watching a movie or something. Second question, our gym replaced a model B with a new model D. Now we have one each, B,C and D. My time for the 10K is a minute slower on the D than the C. I row with the damper full open on both. There is a difference in the pull for both, but I see very little difference in the units. I am starting to question my times on the C. It is the competitive side of me, time counts. Do the units vary thay much? Do new units need to break in? Third question. I don't fully understand how the damper changes the rowing. It is clear full open is harder to row, but I have seen in the rules for the competitions that you can set the damper anyway you want. Are they saying that somehow the energy required to keep it spinning is the same no matter how the damper is set? Thanks folks...

[old] Pete Marston · Post by **[old] Pete Marston** » January 13th, 2005, 10:05 am

I'll butt into your thread if you don't mind, and answer one or two of your points there on drag. Firstly, you should look at drag and not just the damper position. Chances are with the damper "fully open" on both, the D will have a lot more resistance than an older C. If you check the drag you can see. Having the damper higher does not make rowing harder - a certain split requires a certain production of force, no matter what drag (damper) you have the machine set on. Changing the drag merely changes the mechanics of how you are applying that force - smooth, fast and efficiently (low drag) or high peak force grunting heave (high drag). Somewhere in the middle is generally the preferred option for most people. Basically on a higher drag you have more resistance to pull against, so don't have the acceletate the wheel as much to get the same force. On the recovery though this extra air resistance causes the wheel to slow more, and so you have to accelerate it from a slower speed. Need more info? Pete

[old] whp4 · Post by **[old] whp4** » January 13th, 2005, 1:46 pm

<table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td class='genmed'>QUOTE </td></tr><tr><td class='quote'> You folks that row 30K + meters a day... what pace do you row? I row 10k at a 1:57 or so pace and I am wasted. I completed a half marathon once. My butt hurt for a week. I don't have a C2 at home so I can only row at work, but we have a great facility. I would be nice to have a unit at home to do long rows at a slower pace while watching a movie or something.  </td></tr></table> I think you'll find that >90% of the people who frequently do more than 15-20k in a day have a machine at home. Once you've got a machine at home, it's much more feasible to pile up the meters by doing a couple of sessions a day. Days where I do more than 30k are almost always multiple sessions, maybe a fast (by my standards) HM in the morning (2:03-2:05) and a lazy 10k at night. If it isn't a multiple workout day, it's probably another pokey marathon, or a movie watching session (2:10-2:20). My 100k days will always be slow, if the first one is any predictor! Was your butt pain due to the effort involved, or the seat discomfort? Both will diminish somewhat with further long rows. Adding 5 or 6 seconds per 500m to your comfortable 10k pace should give you a comfortable half marathon pace, and doing so again should give you a pace that will be survivable for a marathon (seat discomfort will likely be an issue there!). With your 10k time you ought to be able to knock 5 minutes off your HM if you just go out with a steady pace and get a bit of water around the halfway point, perhaps. My HM PB (a bit stale) is about 5 minutes faster than yours, and my 10k PB (set yesterday) is right at the 1:57 pace you mention for your 10k rows, so I'm confident in this prediction. <table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td class='genmed'>QUOTE </td></tr><tr><td class='quote'> Second question, our gym replaced a model B with a new model D. Now we have one each, B,C and D. My time for the 10K is a minute slower on the D than the C. I row with the damper full open on both. There is a difference in the pull for both, but I see very little difference in the units. I am starting to question my times on the C. It is the competitive side of me, time counts. Do the units vary thay much? Do new units need to break in?  </td></tr></table> The position of the drag lever isn't really a suitable way to compare the drag settings of two different machines, as the amount of built-up dust in the flywheel housing can have a big impact on the drag. One would expect a new machine to be cleaner -> more air flowing through the housing -> higher drag setting. For an true comparison, adjust the drag setting on each machine to a common value as measured by the drag factor display on the monitor. With the model D, press the menu button until you get the main menu, then select "More Options" and "Display Drag Factor" (row a consistent pace while displaying it, too). On the older monitor, press Ready and Rest together and row to see the drag factor. Most "distance" rowers seem to prefer the lower drag settings, and it's possible that if almost all of your meters have been on a dust-filled model C, that you've learned to be most efficient at the lowest drag. If you slowly nudge the drag up on the model C over the course of a dozen workouts to where it is on the model D, you'll probably adapt just fine. With your competitive nature, you ought to check out the <a href='http://www.matrix.uk.net/nonathlon/' target='_blank'>Nonathlon</a>. Racing online with <a href='http://www.digitalrowing.com' target='_blank'>Rowpro</a> is also quite enjoyable once you've got a rowing machine at home and a PC on which to run the software. Bill

[old] Guest · Post by **[old] Guest** » January 13th, 2005, 2:15 pm

Gustaaf, you have my cheers for wanting to try the triathalon thing. My "hat" is off to anyone who indulges in triathalons. My knees won't allow me to do much in the way of impact stress any more, after 27 years of running plus a knee injury sustained in the late 60's that finally required surgery in the 90's. But rowing fills the gap and gives the added benefit of upper-body exercise. Dan - I tend to row slower on the longer distances because I'm not really concerned about beating my personal best times. My first priority it to invest time in rowing so as to average more than one hour per day. Some days I have more energy than others and am inclined to tackle a personal record. But a typical rowing session for me is to start out with warm up that brings my heart rate from its resting rate of around 50 to 60, up to a rate of around 100 to 110 bpm. I row at that pace for at least 10 minutes. It is usually a warm-up pace of around 2:15 to 2:25. Then, if my energy level is normal, I increase the pace to between 2:05 to 1:55 for the harder-working part of the session and that accelerates my heart rate slowly (if at the 2:05 pace) or more rapidly (if closer to 1:55 pace). I aim to get my heart working in a range of between 132 - 162, which is where it would be when I was running instead of rowing. It seems to take a lot more effort elevate my heart rate quickly with rowing than it did with running. If I row at a pace of between 2:00 and 2:05, it will take almost a whole hour to get it to climb gradually to 162. It takes much less time to get to 162 if I row at a pace of less than 2:00. But I think rowing should be pleasant, so I aim for sweat but not too much pain. As far as seat discomfort - the best solution I have found to avoid pain from long rows is a gel-filled bicycle seat cover. I found one at a local bike accessories shop. It is by Serfas and it is the size of seat cover made for the huge, wide seats on most stationary exercise bikes. In fact, they call it an exercise bike seat cover. It is shaped to fit over the seat of an exercise bike and those seats are not square like the rower seat, so it doesn't fit over the rower seat but it lays flat on it and perfectly cushions and molds itself to remedy the pain problem from rowing more than an hour at a sitting. Regarding the damper setting, it is like choosing a gear on a bicycle that you are riding uphill. The higher the damper setting the higher the gear. Like Pete says, changing the setting doesn't give you any "advantage". Work is work. You just have to do the work in a different "style" for each significant setting change. I like a Model D damper setting of around 7, and I think that gives a drag rating of between 125-150, but I haven't checked the exact drag measurement with the PM-3 menu for a while and I'm not sure of that. John

[old] ArizonaRower · Post by **[old] ArizonaRower** » January 13th, 2005, 2:19 pm

I forgot to log in before posting the previous message, so it shows it as from "Guest." John

[old] boblevy99 · Post by **[old] boblevy99** » January 13th, 2005, 10:24 pm

How long does it take to recover from a 30K row ?

[old] ArizonaRower · Post by **[old] ArizonaRower** » January 14th, 2005, 2:27 am

Gustaaf- How long it takes to recover from a 30K seems to depend on how many calories you burn during the 30K. Recovery time is directly proportional to calories or sweat). You are probably referring to a more competitive effort than I usually put into rowing, so I don't think I have a clue as to the answer to that. My first (non-competitive) half-marathon, I was a little sore the next day. Today I didn't have much energy and took several breaks while rowing 21097 at a pace that burned 81 calories less than yesterday and didn't get a drop of sweat on the machine. Yesterday I got a few drops of sweat on the machine during the same distance, taking less than two minutes of stand-up breaks. The day before, no breaks and only 91 calories more than today, but 12 minutes faster than today and pools of sweat on the rower. But no soreness after any of those sessions. The first time I did a marathon, I had only been rowing for a month and was VERY sore the next day. But the body gets used to it. The soreness was a pleasant soreness - an enhanced awareness of the parts that had been used. Dan - it's true, like Bill (whp4) said - if you have a rower at home you can do a LOT more meters. I wouldn't be rowing much if I had to drive to a gym. But one day, while I spent all day installing and re-installing an operating system and formatting & re-formatting a hard-drive, I rowed during the waiting times and in 11 (yes, eleven) rowing sessions throughout that day, managed to row a total of more than 63K. Was a little sore the next day, but the soreness evaporated during the rowing session for that next day. I don't try to row at a pace that leaves nothing by the time I'm done - that would be an all-out race pace. I prefer to row at a pace so that I feel the "runners high" from rowing, have no regrets the next day and want to come back for more. Everybody is different. Some like to go all out and more power to them. When I started running in 1976, the advice I followed was to gradually increase it, keep the runs easy and "fun" and aim for consistency and l(ong distance that resulted in a positive addiction. In other words, to say it negatively, don't make it such an experience that you find yourself making excuses to avoid it on following days. John

[old] boblevy99 · Post by **[old] boblevy99** » January 14th, 2005, 2:16 pm

Thanks for answering my 30k question. Bob

[old] ArizonaRower · Post by **[old] ArizonaRower** » January 16th, 2005, 11:40 pm

There is actually a chat room here. Well, since I'm online, it might as well be tried out. It is 1/16/2005 and 8:37 pm mountain time (7:37 pacific and 10:37 pm eastern) . I'll set my watch's countdown timer and be in the chat room for about 20 minutes, before going on to something else.

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