Started Rowing - Need some help, please

geekysports.com · Post by **geekysports.com** » October 23rd, 2007, 9:24 pm

Hi, my first post in this forum! I just discovered indoor rowing this month! It's a lot of fun and I think it's an excellent workout! Before that I was running and lifting some weights.

I'm always searching for motivating gadgets to track my progress. What do you think about the LogCard? I consider buying one together with the reader.

Can someone give me a link where I can see what the software does? Are there a lot of statistics or only the time and the distance?

Would be great if you could give me any advice!

Best Regards from Germany.

Markus

andyb2004 · Post by **andyb2004** » October 27th, 2007, 3:16 pm

Markus, a logcard is a very convenient way to track all your workouts, and also the s/w allows you to upload everything to the online training logs with one click. It records limited information, basically snapshots of data every so many metres - you can select how many metres but it is limited to (if I remember correctly) every 100m for a 2k, or every 400m for a 10k etc. The s/w does not analyse data but exports to excel.

If you really want a lot of data then look at rowpro - this allows you to connect your laptop to the USB on the erg monitor and record data for every stroke (as I understand it - someone will correct me if I'm wrong!)
It will also allow you to join races with people anywhere in the world

Good luck...

geekysports.com · Post by **geekysports.com** » November 21st, 2007, 6:05 pm

Hi andyb2004! Thank you very much for your fast reply. Unfortunately I did not enable notification for this post, so sorry for my late answer.

I will definately consider rowing pro. But I guess people in my local gym will look very curious if I bring my laptop with me

Thanks!

andyb2004 · Post by **andyb2004** » November 22nd, 2007, 4:29 am

geekysports.com wrote:I will definately consider rowing pro. But I guess people in my local gym will look very curious if I bring my laptop with me
Thanks!

I am thinking about using Rowpro in the gym also (I agree, people might think I'm strange, but who cares?) - they have wireless there and with an internet connection you can race/train with people anywhere in the world

Since you are a gadget man maybe you can see if Rowpro could be used on a PDA?

michaelb · Post by **michaelb** » November 22nd, 2007, 8:40 am

If you have a laptop running XP or vista, RP should work fine. It needs to plug into the PM using the USB port (so you would need to bring the cable). Other than the time to boot up and start RP, it would not be hard to use it at the gym. You do want the display at a convenient eye level location, not on the floor, since you don't want to develop bad habits looking down to one side while you row.

Rowpro records stroke data, but doesn't store any more info than the PM about the row. It would replace the log card so you don't need that and one of the great features of RP is being able to unload rows to your C2 log.

RP doesn't serve as "verification" of a row, but you can still get the verification code, and from my experience, if you do a row online in RP with real opponents where we can watch you row, no one is going to question that veracity of that. So give it a try.

RP is just in the process of switching to a new and better race server, so there is the old version, 2.0 and the new version, 2.1. There are only a few of us rowing on the new server, but it would nice to move everyone over soon.

Bob S. · Post by **Bob S.** » November 22nd, 2007, 2:49 pm

michaelb wrote: RP doesn't serve as "verification" of a row, but you can still get the verification code, and from my experience, if you do a row online in RP with real opponents where we can watch you row, no one is going to question that veracity of that. So give it a try.

Michael,

I had assumed that RowPro entries in the ranking lists were regarded as verified, but your message pushed me to check it out in more detail. I found the following in the C2 FAQs:

What do "IND", "IND_V", "RACE", "RowPro", and "C2Log" sources mean on the ranking page? The entry's SOURCE field is determined by how the piece was entered into the ranking.
RACE is a piece entered by Concept2 into the Ranking from a race results disk
IND is any piece entered by an individual (like yourself)
IND_V is a piece first entered by an individual and then verified by Concept2 having met the requirement of being rowed in a public rowing location with a witness or by using the built in PM3/PM4 verification code.
C2Log will appear for pieces that have been uploaded directly from a person's logbook using the Concept2 LogCard Utility Transfer version 6.0 or higher.
RowPro is entered as a RowPro result from individuals like yourself who are using RowPro to upload their workouts. These entries contain an embedded Rowfile that other RowPro users can download and row against stroke by stroke. For more information see www.digitalrowing.com
Please note: The IND_V or RACE source is required in order for a piece to be considered as a world record row. A piece rowed with the IND source will not qualify as a world record.

What puzzles me is the last sentence, which lists only the IND as not qualifying, without saying anything about C2log and RowPro. The previous sentence clearly leaves them out as well, so I realize that you are right, i.e. that RowPro does not qualify as a verification.

Bob S.

michaelb · Post by **michaelb** » November 22nd, 2007, 5:13 pm

When you use RP, you can upload a row to your log, and if it is a ranking distance, you can then rank that row. But if you edit the time in the row in your log, say for a 5k, from 20:00 to 19:00, it will be ranked as 19:00 and show RP. The RP file is unchanged and so if somebody downloads it and rows with it in RP, they will see you actually row 20:00 and not 19:00 obviously. So the actual time listed in the rankings for a RP can be edited. I don't know if the underlying RP data file could be edited.

The reason people do this is because many races online using RP are "handicapped" meaning the fast rowers give the slow rowers a head start. So in the example above, that person waited 1 minute before starting, then rowed a 19 min 5k (but the clock on the PM3 will show 20:00).