Forum Flyers

[Yankeerunner]

Not great, but I got in my 4' this morning. 1052m, which is much slower than a couple of months ago. It seems that my mojo has been on strike lately.

Like Graham's 1' though, I am currently leading the world rankings in my age and weight division. I expect Terry to take care of that soon enough.

[Slothful1]

the FF recruitment team has reached out to Prague and we have a new member for the CTC - JardaP. He is an erg buddy of my friend Martin who moved back there after living in Sydney for 20 years (I know what thaa…?) He also added Martin2 in Prague.
I am hoping that we can get them to do a 2k as well next week.

Top work Lindsay! Our global expansion keeps coming along nicely thanks to your persuasive efforts!

Dave

[Slothful1]

Meanwhile,

I had a similar feeling when I popped my 4 minute time in. 15th out of 15! I thought there'd be a nice mix of people having a pop at the rankings on day 1, but unfortunately it seems the slow ones still have to enter a score .

Managed to push my 40+ PB up by 5 metres to 1041m for the 4 minutes. Kept the pace nice and steady and distracted myself by staring at the projected distance, so was pleasantly surprised to see I was at the halfway point when I glanced at the time. The mental issues of going at a time-based ranking always seem to make my 4 min pace look out of line with my 1km and 2km times. Will see how next week's 2km fits against that pace.

After a cooldown I decided to throw a 1 minute time on the board. Added 11m to last year's 291m, so happy enough to leave that there, but might have another go later in the month to add the 9m I need for an age-group PB.

Good to see all the other good entries rolling in. We've floated our second boat tonight, and need some more entries to help Jack out in boat 3.

Dave

[Slothful1]

Hi everyone. I am encouraged to join in on this team by FF Skipper Dave M, a compatriot here in Cape Town, where we still remain in rather stringent lockdown. (Just before the inception of which about 5 weeks ago I bought a a rapidly becoming unavailable C2 model D just in time for my pain cave which also sports an Assault air bike and a WATTBIKE, not to mention a pull-up bar!)

Getting intrigued with this game. Lot of VERY strong rowers on this forum including 60+ years!! I am 74 this year (Dec) 81 kg 177 cm and have been cycling competitively in my age group over the last decade. Bike races over for now I guess..

I recall doing a 7:09 2k At age 60 in the local gym without much training but have not rowed much at all except as a strength training gym warmup module sporadically since then, without pushing it. Towards end of last year I did a 2k at gym out of curiosity and the intervening 13 years added 27 seconds to that previous time (7:36) So the bike racing kept me reasonably aerobically fit for rowing.

Being first day of new season I went for a run this am (we were allowed out for the first time since March) then did another 2k this time hitting 7:41 without total stress.

I shall continue to emphasize indoor bike training on WATTBIKE. I can hold 320-330 W on that for 8 minutes but under 240W seems to be my rowing ceiling for that time frame. I believe this is even more than the usual discrepancy.... I have pretty strong upper body (12 pullups weighted with 10 kg) so I guess my technique leaves a lot to be desired tho I have watched some of the Dark Horse videos. (Also I have bikeerg app on iPhone, PainSled on iPad and am totally unable to connect rowing to my Zwift account despite watching some of the hacks on YouTube. Any suggestions welcome.)

I see there is another 2k test this week? Not sure how these virtual competitions work or what boat I would be eligible for if any ?

Anyway, Cheers from another erger in Cape Town.
Nick

Welcome on board, Nick! I passed on the 6-9am time out today - happier to sleep in on a non-working day .

There are a few challenges on the go, but the main one everyone is talking about is the Spring Series. Each week there is a different distance / time challenge. Until the end of Sunday it is 4 minutes, and then next week is the 2km final round. To enter you need to track down the "Forum Flyers (since 2005)" team under the Teams section of the logbook, and then enter your time / distance in the logbook as normal. I should then be able to allocate your entry to one of the team boats.

The other monthly event we participate in is the Cross Team Challenge. This month is a 1 minute sprint. More fiddly registering is needed because it's an external site, but it's worth joining for the varied events to add to the training mix.

Cheers
Dave

[Slothful1]

Not great, but I got in my 4' this morning. 1052m, which is much slower than a couple of months ago. It seems that my mojo has been on strike lately.

Like Graham's 1' though, I am currently leading the world rankings in my age and weight division. I expect Terry to take care of that soon enough.

No complaints from my side to get another team boat floating. And on a personal level, I'd happily take that time off you! But I hear you on the mojo side - if it's not there, the effort is a massive grind. At least you know what the other side of things also feels like, so hopefully it comes back soon.

Dave

[lindsayh]

Kenni's 372m is mighty strong - well done

[KenniEliasen]

Kenni's 372m is mighty strong - well done

Thanks !

Did some 45s/3.45s intervals yesterday and felt good, so decided to take a go at the 1 min today. Never done it before, but kept my pace pretty consistent.

[MartinSH4321]

Kenni's 372m is mighty strong - well done

Thanks !

Did some 45s/3.45s intervals yesterday and felt good, so decided to take a go at the 1 min today. Never done it before, but kept my pace pretty consistent.

Well done Kenni!
With a different pacing strategy you'll be even faster I think. If you go for 1:17-1:18 for the first 30-45'' and then hold the pace as good as you can (controlled fly and die ) there are some more meters possible, maybe you want to give it a try.

[KenniEliasen]

Thanks, Martin!

Will definately give that a go next time!

[graycyn]

Not sure what his shopping skills are like, but you might have to rethink the decision when he comes back with a range of off-list items, or odd substitutes to what you wanted.

I do most of the cooking at home, so can normally be trusted to buy sensible things on the food side, but the next shopping list does get very passively-aggressively detailed (including pictures sometimes) when I get something wrong!

Dave

He isn't too bad About shopping as long as he has a list, but he tends to forget to look at the list and/or over buy. And he never thinks outside the list....

I was hurting after both the Walmart and Safeway run, couldn't be comfortable sitting or standing, so I took naps after both. Sorry I haven't been over here, it's just that I feel a bit depressed when I can't row. I decided Saturday and Sunday and maybe Monday I could try, but avoid it mid-week next to the shopping runs.

So I did both my 4 minute row and CTC today. On the theory that if things go way south, there's something for y'all.

It didn't start well, first 4 minute row, some BAD knee pain In my left knee popped up immediately. So I slowed down to 15spm and went for just hoping to finish. But as I slowly rowed, it lessened, I finished and set up again for 4, going just a little harder and that went OK. So I set up again, gave it more, because I was feeling a bit grooved in. Then I was wondering if I still could do a decent one minute, as I was feeling tired, so I got up, walked around a bit to get my breathing normal.

Fastest I've gone yet! Broke out at 28spm and kept going. So I guess the long warm up helped. Maybe can do better, will try again if able on another day. It's entered, so even if I'm next to last on meters, y'all have something!

Hip pain did pick up a little after, so I'll have to be careful and cautious, but it felt so nice to row after getting past the first bit with my knee. I went with an album I haven't listened to in a long for max happy quotient! Rick Wakeman's Journey to the Centre of the Earth.

Also, new weight low today, 195.2 pounds. Was a shocker, because not much loss previous this month. I'll go easier for a week, then dial back again, push on.

[graycyn]

And Cynthia - looks like I was wrong about the MAD team choice for the CTC. I expected something long which wasn't based on any research to be fair (I seem to remember them getting rapped over the knuckles for a 12000m choice years ago), but they've gone for a 1 minute blast. A repeat of a choice they also made some time back.

Should be fun, and a good excuse for the team to press any spouses and children into action too!

Dave

I was scared to look yesterday, but I knew I was going to row something today, so I looked and had a Snoopy happy dance moment when I saw!

[graycyn]

So it is possible to to do a marathon with next to no training......it is not completely advisable though.

So cool and great job! Pretty sure I won't be emulating you, but I wish I could!

[lindsayh]

Not only that Cynthia but we have boat floated and in third place right now.
(And Dirk is at the top just like the old days)
For those who are new Dirk Moller is a long time Flyer and one of the fastest 40/50+ guys ever - hugely strong Norwegian based German

[rtbrouwer]

Wow, some really strong efforts on the CTC for the 1 minute. Looks like I won't be able to make the first boat . Will give it a try however!

[MartinSH4321]

Wow, some really strong efforts on the CTC for the 1 minute. Looks like I won't be able to make the first boat . Will give it a try however!

I don't know if Ewen (macroth) will also participate (he must be good for about 390m if I remember right) and there may be some others who haven't participated in recent CTCs, so I'm also not sure if I reach boat 1, hopefully I get a new PB and can match Dirk