New Personal Best! Brag About That New Pb!

[rlk]

New PR for 1h: 16304. Avg rate 30, DF 99.

I wasn't planning on a PR today. My normal pattern is two hard pieces a week, two easy (~1:58), and one easy-moderate. I was thinking of just doing about 16K, and indeed, in the first half hour I was barely doing an 8K pace (8022), with my HR maxing at only 155. For some reason, though, I picked up the pace considerably at that point, and pulled negative splits the rest of the way. With a couple of minutes left, it looked like I had a shot at 16300, and I pulled 1:46's for the last 100 seconds. I was definitely getting tired, since my rate fell to 29, but I was able to hold my pace. My HR was above 170 for the last 10 minutes and maxed at 176, but it was under 130 within a couple of minutes. I did another 1700 cooldown.

Normally I'm wiped out after the fall and spring rowing challenges, but for some reason I wasn't this year, despite pulling plenty of meters.

[Atorrante]

New PR for 1h: 16304. Avg rate 30, DF 99.

I wasn't planning on a PR today. My normal pattern is two hard pieces a week, two easy (~1:58), and one easy-moderate. I was thinking of just doing about 16K, and indeed, in the first half hour I was barely doing an 8K pace (8022), with my HR maxing at only 155. For some reason, though, I picked up the pace considerably at that point, and pulled negative splits the rest of the way. With a couple of minutes left, it looked like I had a shot at 16300, and I pulled 1:46's for the last 100 seconds. I was definitely getting tired, since my rate fell to 29, but I was able to hold my pace. My HR was above 170 for the last 10 minutes and maxed at 176, but it was under 130 within a couple of minutes. I did another 1700 cooldown.

Normally I'm wiped out after the fall and spring rowing challenges, but for some reason I wasn't this year, despite pulling plenty of meters.

Two weeks ago you were inspirational for me, but today i hate you. After my bragging for rowing 7931M in 30' you came with this. Hate you...

[Citroen]

Two weeks ago you were inspirational for me, but today i hate you. After my bragging for rowing 7931M in 30' you came with this. Hate you...

He's got a bit of a height advantage. You're 172cm (like me) he's a big'un at 194cm.

[hjs]

New PR for 1h: 16304. Avg rate 30, DF 99.

I wasn't planning on a PR today. My normal pattern is two hard pieces a week, two easy (~1:58), and one easy-moderate. I was thinking of just doing about 16K, and indeed, in the first half hour I was barely doing an 8K pace (8022), with my HR maxing at only 155. For some reason, though, I picked up the pace considerably at that point, and pulled negative splits the rest of the way. With a couple of minutes left, it looked like I had a shot at 16300, and I pulled 1:46's for the last 100 seconds. I was definitely getting tired, since my rate fell to 29, but I was able to hold my pace. My HR was above 170 for the last 10 minutes and maxed at 176, but it was under 130 within a couple of minutes. I did another 1700 cooldown.

Normally I'm wiped out after the fall and spring rowing challenges, but for some reason I wasn't this year, despite pulling plenty of meters.

very nice, some purist might say, you are doing it all wrong with your fuffy rating, certainly for you height, but not from me. Well doen and rowing this way is very gentle on the body.

Ps all your other pb s look very slow now

[rlk]

New PR for 1h: 16304. Avg rate 30, DF 99.

I wasn't planning on a PR today. My normal pattern is two hard pieces a week, two easy (~1:58), and one easy-moderate. I was thinking of just doing about 16K, and indeed, in the first half hour I was barely doing an 8K pace (8022), with my HR maxing at only 155. For some reason, though, I picked up the pace considerably at that point, and pulled negative splits the rest of the way. With a couple of minutes left, it looked like I had a shot at 16300, and I pulled 1:46's for the last 100 seconds. I was definitely getting tired, since my rate fell to 29, but I was able to hold my pace. My HR was above 170 for the last 10 minutes and maxed at 176, but it was under 130 within a couple of minutes. I did another 1700 cooldown.

Normally I'm wiped out after the fall and spring rowing challenges, but for some reason I wasn't this year, despite pulling plenty of meters.

very nice, some purist might say, you are doing it all wrong with your fuffy rating, certainly for you height, but not from me. Well doen and rowing this way is very gentle on the body.

Ps all your other pb s look very slow now

Someone else at the gym, who apparently rows or rowed quite a bit OTW and whose wife is a rowing coach, also raised some eyebrows at my technique. He was very surprised at my high rating and low DF. So one day I tried (for a slow piece) a DF closer to 120 and a rating of 23 or so. My back and knees proceeded to hurt. I chalked that up to oh well, and a few weeks later tried it again. My HR was maybe a few points lower than normal for the intensity of the workout, but again my back and knees were sore. I decided at that point that they were telling me something, and went right back to my normal rating (which is 27-28 for a 1:58 slow piece and 29-30 for a long, fast one). No more problems. I'm rowing for fitness, so being gentle on the body is a good idea. I'm not short stroking (I've done that for intervals or quick starting), but I'm not going for maximum extension either. Max flex/extension seems to be where the back and knees get into trouble.

Last spring, when I set my 30m PR, I was probably using a slightly higher DF and rating about 29 (I didn't record it). The higher DF does seem to allow faster pulls, but definitely at the cost of higher muscular effort. At low DF, it feels like I can go all day with very little effort. I suspect the low DF contributed to my not feeling burned out at the end of the rowing challenge -- that made it all CV endurance, which is my strength, and I seem to be able to train my CV endurance very easily. Maybe when I start doing some weights and intervals again I can raise the DF slightly.

Every now and then I run into someone at the gym who sets the damper wide open because he (or occasionally she) thinks they'll get a better workout and/or can go faster that way. I explain how it works, and that with the damper completely shut (which on one of our machines is a DF of about 75) I can still go faster for an hour than just about anyone else can for 5 minutes

Incidentally, based on what I've determined my derating factor to be (3 sec for every doubling of time), this PR and my 1/2M are about .5 second slower than what I would expect. That's consistent with neither of them being on what felt like a particularly good day. On a good day, I expect I should be able to do about 16400/1h and 1:18:00/.5M.

[hjs]

For the shorter stuff, the dubble the distance ad 3 does not count, the anaerobic factor makes it possible to go faster.

Rowing or any other sports for an hour is a pure endurance sport, so the rating and drag that builds the less fatique is the best, look at nowedays cyclers, often riding at a very high cadens.
In a boat it would be different, but erging is not rowing

[bepah]

This is not a PB per se....but this looks like the bragging area, so here goes.....

I started this season with only a few meters, a bad back, and a stent in my heart.

2 minor back procedures relieved the pain so that I could return to rowing. On December 27, I started my return to fitness. At that point, I had less than 50,000 meters completed.

This morning, I rowed like the cyclists on the last leg of the Tour de France with an easy 6K.......and completed 1,000,000 for the season.

Next year, my goal is 2 million plus. It is good to be able to get back in the groove after years of being away.

[RBFC]

This is not a PB per se....but this looks like the bragging area, so here goes.....

I started this season with only a few meters, a bad back, and a stent in my heart.

2 minor back procedures relieved the pain so that I could return to rowing. On December 27, I started my return to fitness. At that point, I had less than 50,000 meters completed.

This morning, I rowed like the cyclists on the last leg of the Tour de France with an easy 6K.......and completed 1,000,000 for the season.

Next year, my goal is 2 million plus. It is good to be able to get back in the groove after years of being away.

Congratulations on a big milestone! As Muhammad Ali said, "It ain't braggin' if you can back it up!" It's terrific that you had the courage to get back into action!

Lee

[rlk]

For the shorter stuff, the dubble the distance ad 3 does not count, the anaerobic factor makes it possible to go faster.

Rowing or any other sports for an hour is a pure endurance sport, so the rating and drag that builds the less fatique is the best, look at nowedays cyclers, often riding at a very high cadens.
In a boat it would be different, but erging is not rowing

When I rode a bike, I always used a high cadence (90-95 when cruising). I used my granny ring (and big cog!) a lot more than the smaller cogs on my big ring. Even on fairly moderate hills.

Erging, I find that high DF and low rating tires my muscles out very quickly. I can keep going as long as I keep the force down, and that also makes my knees and back a lot more comfortable.

I don't have a lot of anaerobic reserve -- my LP is less than double the wattage of my best 30 minutes. Intervals help some, but it definitely seems like I have a lot less trouble training my CV system than my anaerobic or strength systems. But CV endurance is probably more important over the long haul...

[Bob S.]

When I rode a bike, I always used a high cadence (90-95 when cruising). I used my granny ring (and big cog!) a lot more than the smaller cogs on my big ring. Even on fairly moderate hills.

Cycling cadence and rowing stroke rates really do not have much in common, since cycling is a continuous motion and rowing is an alternation of hard drive and relaxed recovery. Cycling has no equivalent to the drive/recovery ratio which is important in rowing technique. Also bicycle gearing and rowing machine drag factors should not be compared. They are not at all same.

Bob S.

[rlk]

When I rode a bike, I always used a high cadence (90-95 when cruising). I used my granny ring (and big cog!) a lot more than the smaller cogs on my big ring. Even on fairly moderate hills.

Cycling cadence and rowing stroke rates really do not have much in common, since cycling is a continuous motion and rowing is an alternation of hard drive and relaxed recovery. Cycling has no equivalent to the drive/recovery ratio which is important in rowing technique. Also bicycle gearing and rowing machine drag factors should not be compared. They are not at all same.

Bob S.

Not comparing them, just noting that I tended to use high cadence/low gears on the bike and high rate/low DF on the erg.

[comictimes]

1 hour piece, 20spm cap (with an average of 20spm throughout the entire piece): 16,418m, 1:49.6 split/500m.

Not my PR for an hour, but definitely PR for a low rating cap, and I'm amazed I managed it!

I'm working towards doing 17k in an hour (right now my best is 16,711 going at 23-24spm) and severeal weeks ago I thought to myself that if I could keep it under 1:50 for an hour at 20spm I might be able to pull off 17k at open rating. So now I get to start considering trying for the 17k mark!!

[rlk]

New PR for 10K: 35:54.8. Totally obliterated my old PR of 36:14. Rate 31, DF 105-ish. Max HR 174, subjectively 90-95% (yes, I probably could have gone a bit faster).

Like last time, I wasn't specifically planning a PR today, but I wanted a fast piece. I only had about 40 minutes between a meeting and abs class at the gym, which I figured was good for a fast 10K. I realized that my recorded best time for 10K this year was 36:48 (since I don't normally do that distance), but that was ludicrously slow, so I figured I'd go for a PR, and while I was at it, see if I had the juice for a "real" PR. My first 2K split was 7:25.6 (my first 1K was almost exactly 3:45, I think), my second 2K was 7:09.4, and then I settled down into the mid 7:06's the rest of the way. After a while, I realized I had a shot at breaking 36:00, and I wasn't getting fatigued, so I went for it (and made it, with plenty to spare). Trailing 5K was about 17:46, trailing 6K was 21:20.0, and trailing 30m was about 8410 (probably slightly more, but I just linear extrapolated). That's not far from my 8427 standalone 30m. My trailing splits weren't quite as fast as that (since the first 5-10 minutes or so are considerably slower), but they're within about 1 second of pace of those.

I've mostly been doing much longer stuff since last summer (and I did a PR 1/2M and 1H in the past few weeks, both of course above 1:50), so I didn't really know if I still had the power for a really fast middle distance. Guess I do.

So that's 3 PR's this month. Of course, this one only stays on the leaderboard for a few more hours It has been a very successful rowing season for me. While my average pace has been a bit slower than in previous years (1:56.57, vs. 1:51.94 in 2010), I did a lot of meters (2066839, vs. 1139011 that year) and set PRs for 30m, 10K, 1H (twice) and 1/2M (twice). I should have set a PR for 2K, when we did a 1.5K race at the gym; I was going to set it for 2K and just count my first 1.5K (I won it by about 20 seconds). In previous years, I mostly did 30m with only occasional longer pieces; this year (particularly the last 6 months), I've done mostly over 40 minutes, with a lot of 60's (and beyond).

[RBFC]

Finished the season with a 1:26.9 for 500m. Looking forward to next time around!

Lee

[Atorrante]

Altough it is not a PB I want to brag about this. Today, for the first time in 8 years, I have been in the #1 position in my age group for a fixed distance (5K) ranked workout. But it not last ... I did two 5K, first one at noon was the one that place me 1st (5k in 19:00); then at 5:30 pm I was 2nd, then did a 5K in 18:52 but this didn't suffice. Only hope to mantain 2nd place to the end of the day.