Eye_balls_out_handicap_5k 27th Nov 04

[old] Sir Pirate · Post by **[old] Sir Pirate** » November 23rd, 2004, 2:01 pm

The Eye_Balls_Out_Handicap_5K race for Saturday 27th November 2004 now has 8 rowers signed up. The Rowers are- 1. Sir_Pirate – 17:03 2. DougB – 17:10 3. Ernie/SRC – 18:30 4. Modade – 19:11 5. Weston MA – 17:50 6. Troll – 21:15 7. Oregon – 18:29 8. KC – 16:59 The race order will be 1st Troll – Off First 2nd Modade – at 2:04 3rd Ernie/SRC – at 2:45 4th Oregon – at 2:46 5th Weston MA – at 3:25 6th DougB – at 4:05 7th Sir_Pirate – 4:12 8th KC – 4:16 Looks Good, I am coming after you Doug, Cees, catch me if you can!! Ernie/SRC & Oregon should be a good battle, only 1 second between you. Hope I have worked it out correctly, if not, let me know. Sir Pirate

[old] Godfried · Post by **[old] Godfried** » November 23rd, 2004, 3:40 pm

1 correction : 5th Weston MA – at 3:25

[old] Sir Pirate · Post by **[old] Sir Pirate** » November 23rd, 2004, 4:08 pm

Thanks Godfried, have amended it. Should all be correct now. Sir Pirate

[old] Sir Pirate · Post by **[old] Sir Pirate** » November 27th, 2004, 7:26 am

Can all rowers be in chat 10 minutes before the race start please. Same rules as always. Give it your best. See you on-line at 4:50pm (GMT) Sir Pirate

[old] ceesie · Post by **[old] ceesie** » November 27th, 2004, 2:51 pm

Results from the 5K this morning: <img src='http://www.rerow.com/pics/5k_results.gif' border='0' alt='user posted image' /> I've also put up the replay over here (<a href='http://www.rerow.com/rerow.asp?URL=http ... esults.txt' target='_blank'>Eye_Balls_Out_Handicap_5K</a>). Congrats to everyone breaking their PB today! Cees

[old] SteveV · Post by **[old] SteveV** » November 27th, 2004, 3:23 pm

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td class='genmed'>QUOTE (ceesie @ Nov 27 2004, 01:51 PM)</td></tr><tr><td class='quote'> Results from the 5K this morning: <img src='http://www.rerow.com/pics/5k_results.gif' border='0' alt='user posted image' /> I've also put up the replay over here (<a href='http://www.rerow.com/rerow.asp?URL=http ... esults.txt' target='_blank'>Eye_Balls_Out_Handicap_5K</a>). Congrats to everyone breaking their PB today! Cees  </td></tr></table> Check my boat at 3km to go, it's all over the place, must be an e-row error, my pace seems ok

[old] SteveV · Post by **[old] SteveV** » November 28th, 2004, 3:40 am

This was great fun, I feel a bit guilty that my handicap was based on a training 5km time, but no doublt it will even itself out for next time. Shame Pirate managed to dump himself out of the race

[old] Sir Pirate · Post by **[old] Sir Pirate** » November 28th, 2004, 8:36 am

I think I would of blown up anyway, trying to keep up with Cee's, he is flying at the moment. Give it a month or so and we will have to go again, I will not remove myself from the start list this time Good efforts all round yesterday I thought the cooldown 2K was great fun, How did MarkP do that!!!!???? Sir Pirate

[old] SteveV · Post by **[old] SteveV** » November 28th, 2004, 10:30 am

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td class='genmed'>QUOTE (Sir Pirate @ Nov 28 2004, 07:36 AM)</td></tr><tr><td class='quote'> I think I would of blown up anyway, trying to keep up with Cee's, he is flying at the moment. Give it a month or so and we will have to go again, I will not remove myself from the start list this time Good efforts all round yesterday I thought the cooldown 2K was great fun, How did MarkP do that!!!!???? Sir Pirate  </td></tr></table> it's a good way to do a cool down, makes people go slow and not get carried away. we were all fairly close

[old] MarkPayton · Post by **[old] MarkPayton** » November 28th, 2004, 2:29 pm

What an intense race! Sorry we lost Sir_Pirate (our esteemed leader for the event, no less) at the start. We had quite chase-down going, with Ernie, Steve and I trying our best to catch Christine and Werner, and not to let each other gain too much ground either. Steve passed Ernie and I at 2k to go, Werner caught Christine at 1200 to go, and I caught Ernie at 1k to go (then promptly blew up and barely recovered, but lost the lead by a long shot). Steve - in his 2nd piece of the day, blasted away and was never caught, and Werner and Ernie destroyed their PBs (and Ernie destroyed me in the process!). The sharks put in a huge race as well - it's amazing to some of the times Doug and Cees are pulling down! These races are getting harder all the time as we challenge our own limits and push the field faster and faster. Sandbagging will be a LOT harder to do in future races!

[old] MarkPayton · Post by **[old] MarkPayton** » November 28th, 2004, 2:40 pm

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td class='genmed'>QUOTE (Sir Pirate @ Nov 28 2004, 05:36 AM)</td></tr><tr><td class='quote'>Good efforts all round yesterday I thought the cooldown 2K was great fun, How did MarkP do that!!!!???? Sir Pirate </td></tr></table> For those that aren't familiar, our 2k cooldown has now become almost a tradition: all the wiped-out rowers pool together and do a 2k with a target of 9 minutes (2:15 split). Whoever finishes in the closest time to 9min wins. I was LUCKY enough (and I think it really does come down to luck sometimes) yesterday to finish in exactly 9:00.0! My strategy is to watch the average pace, and to let it drift around 2:14 - 2:16 for the first 1k, then to really narrow the range by bringing current pace to almost exactly 2:15 for the final 1k. It really gets challenging when the avg pace shows as 2:15, but you have no way of knowing if it's 2:15.0 or 2:15.4! Its so easy to overshoot the mark, that I often intentionally speed up or slow down at the very end just based on the "feel" of where my average pace is. So much fine-tuning - it seems almost like docking a boat! Speaking of strategies, what strategies to people use during their handicap races? I like to use a dual strategy - chase down and target time. In other words, I pick a rower ahead of me (in this last case, Ernie) that I'd like to try to chase down and at least stay even with. At the same time, I set my PM2+ to display projected time, and I watch to make sure the time shown is at least at good as the target time of the lead rower (in this last case, Christine with 21:15). That way, I get the immediate challenge of trying to race another rower, combined with knowing all along whether or not I'm headed for a PB. Lastly, I watch the current splits of other rowers to see who's coming up fast or slowing down. With all that to think about, the race seems a lot shorter, and there's less time to think about the pain!

[old] Canoeist · Post by **[old] Canoeist** » November 28th, 2004, 11:01 pm

It looks like it was a great race! Most of the sandbaggers have had their day. Now everybody will really hurt when they hit a PB. Doug B and Cees will be great company when I enter the next 5K handicap. I might be the sandbagger as my best this season is "only" 17:05. I have never come close to winning a handicap race because there is always someone like Steve V who knocks an absurd amount off thier best. But, it won't be so easy next time round. My strategy on the cooldown races is to maintain a 2:15 pace. With 500m remaining, I switch to "projected time" to get a little more refinement in the readout. I can usually hit the target within plus or minus 0.4 seconds. Once I came in third with a time of 9:00.2. Hitting 9:00.0 is a bit of luck, but I have accomplished the perfect score twice. My strategy in the 5K handicap is to watch my pace in the beginning so that I am not going too fast. The tendancy is to go out too fast and die early. Around halfway, I start too look for the poor saps who took off too fast and try to catch them for an ego boost. At the end, the fun starts if everyone predicted their time right. My pace is lower than theirs and I try to catch them before I run out of room. Cheers, Paul Flack

[old] DougB · Post by **[old] DougB** » November 29th, 2004, 12:38 am

That was another eventful race. It was my 2nd attempt at 17:10, but that's just too fast for me. My last three 5Ks are 17:20.3, 17:17.9, and 17:20.1, so I guess I found my limit at that distance! My strategy this time was different, raising the stroke rate to 32 spm to avoid burning out the legs and trying to start a little slower, somewhere just under 1:44 pace (17:20). Just not enough determination to keep it going, though. I seemed to be flailing away too much at 32 spm, so next time it's back to 28/29 spm. I might even try strapless to see if that helps. I don't know how we lost Pirate, but if I explain what happened maybe we can avoid it next time. I know Pirate checked in for the race, but I noticed he was in the 8th spot and I was in the first spot. (Pirate - you must have withdrawn and re-registered?) At that point I sent out a chat saying I was the admin now. Pirate - did you see that? Once everyone checked in (and everyone had to), e-row enabled the "start" button and I pressed it. I know I didn't press "continue with no-shows". The next screen was the one that shows PM2's in motion. At one point I remember seeing PM2 #8 in motion but not seeing an 8th rower listed. I just thought it was another e-row quirk and didn't think anything of it. At that point we must have lost Pirate. Pirate - did you ever see that screen, with the "computers in motion" messages? Then, once everyone stopped I quickly pressed the "start race" button to get the show on the road, and off we were. Not until a good 2000 meters into the race did I notice Pirate was missing, when I looked to see where he was in relation to myself. So, the question is how did we lose Pirate? Also, I guess next time whoever's admin needs to remember to count the number of rowers checked in and then the number at the start, to make sure we don't lose anyone again, and then cancel the race (if it's possible at that stage) if we did. We may never figure out what sequence of events caused this, though.

[old] Christine · Post by **[old] Christine** » November 29th, 2004, 2:29 am

Hei, when I checked in I saw only 7 rowers registered. I then saw the text "waiting for the home computer...". Then I got an error message saying, I had the wrong race file. I then cancelled and checked in again. This time 8 rowers were registered. So I think Sir Pirate was a little bit late to sign in. Signing in when the first rowers already have pressed "Proceed with check in" can cause problems. That is what I have experienced before. Sorry for not answering your questions after the race, but I got an unexpected visitor when I crossed the finish line. I think next time I have to aim for 21:30. The 21:15 was rowed in mai, but I am not even close to that at the moment. Regards Christine

[old] SteveV · Post by **[old] SteveV** » November 29th, 2004, 2:40 am

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td class='genmed'>QUOTE (Canoeist @ Nov 28 2004, 10:01 PM)</td></tr><tr><td class='quote'> I have never come close to winning a handicap race because there is always someone like Steve V who knocks an absurd amount off thier best. But, it won't be so easy next time round.  </td></tr></table> i had the same problem when my predicted time was set as 17:02, no chance of reproducing that. But at the moment I don't think 17:57.1 is my limit, there is a bit more sandbagging to come yet. Might miss it for a while now though, am having a change in training program, and it doesn't involve 5km thrashes.