Relatively Weak 2km Time

[jamesg]

Here is my question, why are my 5km, 10km and Hour times "better" than my 2km time?

Because you are doing them at very high ratings, which indicates bad style; and the bad style makes going higher for the 2k ever more difficult and inefficent.

This is a classic beginner error that means you haven't learnt to row so don't know how to use your legs.

If you watch your Watt/Rating ratio, you can see what you are doing. 10 will be a good quality stroke.

[hjs]

Here is my question, why are my 5km, 10km and Hour times "better" than my 2km time?

Because you are doing them at very high ratings, which indicates bad style; and the bad style makes going higher for the 2k ever more difficult and inefficent.

This is a classic beginner error that means you haven't learnt to row so don't know how to use your legs.

If you watch your Watt/Rating ratio, you can see what you are doing. 10 will be a good quality stroke.

Legs is not the problem James, legs are not his weak link. He rows like he runs, fine for long distance but not for speeding up.

[jamesg]

Isn't that just what he wants to change, to speed up?

[MiddleAgeCRISIS]

Can you guys give me your two cents on this... my 2km time (from 2019) was 6:59. I didn't really row much during the last year (gym was closed), but I did get my 5km and 10km bests times just before the lock-down. Now I recently bought my own Concept2 and have just rowed my Hour best.

Here is my question, why are my 5km, 10km and Hour times "better" than my 2km time?

Is it me lacking anaerobic power in the 2km or is it other rowers not caring so much about things like the 10km and the Hour? Or a little of both?

Here are my 2019-2021 bests and their relative rankings in the 40-49 AG:
2km - 6:59 - 88th percentile
5km - 18:13 - 94th %
10km - 37:12 - 94th %
Hour - 15,740m - 92nd %

p.s. Repeating the sub-7 seems impossible right now.

I found i had awesome gains by rowing strapless and by precisely following the erg timing of an olympic rower.

Up until that point , i was just not using my legs enough.

I practice very quick drives on low drag to practice loading up and then move this technique onto higher drag settings.

I would take a look at your drive speed and force curve.

[OregonERG]

Here is my question, why are my 5km, 10km and Hour times "better" than my 2km time?

Because you are doing them at very high ratings, which indicates bad style; and the bad style makes going higher for the 2k ever more difficult and inefficent.

This is a classic beginner error that means you haven't learnt to row so don't know how to use your legs.

If you watch your Watt/Rating ratio, you can see what you are doing. 10 will be a good quality stroke.

Legs is not the problem James, legs are not his weak link. He rows like he runs, fine for long distance but not for speeding up.

I agree with this observation that I row like I run. Today I did a mile as fast as I could. It was a 5:52 (on a track). I am pleased with that but it is still crazy (to me) that I struggle to run sub-6 pace yet my 2020 half-marathon run pace, for example, was 6:23 for the whole 13.1 miles (1:23:48)! That lack of "speed" seems to follow me from sport to sport. Oof.

[OregonERG]

I wish there was a database where I could look to see if anyone who has a 37:12.5 10km is also only able to row 6:59.2 in the 2km. What are the odds of that? It seems like everyone on these boards rows a 6:34 or 6:43 or something.

[Dangerscouse]

I wish there was a database where I could look to see if anyone who has a 37:12.5 10km is also only able to row 6:59.2 in the 2km. What are the odds of that? It seems like everyone on these boards rows a 6:34 or 6:43 or something.

You just need to adjust your perspective. There's a six second difference in average pace between your 2k and 10k, which is good: mine is seven seconds.

In raw numbers it may not look as impressive as you'd like it to be, but a sub seven is a tough challenge for many people, and when you look at people on here with 6:34 etc, they have probably been erging for years to get there. Don't underestimate your effort to get to 6:59.

There will always be a significant emphasis on 2k results for many people, so that inevitably produces faster, more challenging, results.

[hjs]

Because you are doing them at very high ratings, which indicates bad style; and the bad style makes going higher for the 2k ever more difficult and inefficent.

This is a classic beginner error that means you haven't learnt to row so don't know how to use your legs.

If you watch your Watt/Rating ratio, you can see what you are doing. 10 will be a good quality stroke.

Legs is not the problem James, legs are not his weak link. He rows like he runs, fine for long distance but not for speeding up.

I agree with this observation that I row like I run. Today I did a mile as fast as I could. It was a 5:52 (on a track). I am pleased with that but it is still crazy (to me) that I struggle to run sub-6 pace yet my 2020 half-marathon run pace, for example, was 6:23 for the whole 13.1 miles (1:23:48)! That lack of "speed" seems to follow me from sport to sport. Oof.

It can also be that you are much aerobic with little top end speed, like you sometimes see in track, those people simply can’t speed up. This apart from training, that still matters a lot, if you never train your speed it is untrained and not developed.

[jamesg]

I wish there was a database where I could look to see if anyone who has a 37:12.5 10km is also only able to row 6:59.2 in the 2km. What are the odds of that? It seems like everyone on these boards rows a 6:34 or 6:43 or something.

This means they have a bigger stroke than yours and have trained it, nothing else, so that they can pull the 2k at a lower rating. The size of the stroke (= Work) is Watts/Rating.

Clearly when learning to row you privileged rating over stroke, which being a tall thin marathon runner is hardly surprising. In high gravity it's impossible to run slowly but go fast.

But in rowing we always row slowly but go fast, since we are seated and can ignore gravity. Using two legs together, just put a lot of Work (= Length x Force) into each stroke, then let her go. If the stroke is big enough, rowing at 20-23 is enough to offer intensive endurance training.

You'll need to change your technique, if you want to go there and think it possible given your shape and size. Try it, there 's nothing to lose.

[Remo]

You worry too much. Your 2k time is NOT relatively weak.

First off, unlike the other distances, the 2k is special. It is the official race distance for on the water and for on the erg. There are a rowers (particularly on the water rowers) that compete at the 2k on the erg and nothing or little else. Looking at the top 10 ML40-49 rankings, 8 out of the top 10 did the 2k and little else. If you discount those 8 rowers, it moves you up to the 94th percentile for the 2k

That said, you do skew towards the slow twitch/aerobic side.

There is a nice little app that I use to predict (and/or support) my time for various distanceshttps://www.freespiritsrowing.com/forum ... -predictor. If you use it, you will see that your 2k time is not out of whack with your other rows.

Best of luck

[hjs]

I wish there was a database where I could look to see if anyone who has a 37:12.5 10km is also only able to row 6:59.2 in the 2km. What are the odds of that? It seems like everyone on these boards rows a 6:34 or 6:43 or something.

You just need to adjust your perspective. There's a six second difference in average pace between your 2k and 10k, which is good: mine is seven seconds.

In raw numbers it may not look as impressive as you'd like it to be, but a sub seven is a tough challenge for many people, and when you look at people on here with 6:34 etc, they have probably been erging for years to get there. Don't underestimate your effort to get to 6:59.

There will always be a significant emphasis on 2k results for many people, so that inevitably produces faster, more challenging, results.

Nah, you are just like the op, you do lots of long work and close to nothing for your speed, so call it whatever you want, but trainingwise, you long distance is much developed. If you had put in the same work on your 2k as you had put in the longer work, you would have a very different profile.
And being a slow fiber rower is not a reason to have a slower 2k, the best rowers are non sprinters, pure sprinters do not have a good 2k. Nomatter what they do, above 1k their relative performance rapidly slows down.

[Dangerscouse]

Nah, you are just like the op, you do lots of long work and close to nothing for your speed, so call it whatever you want, but trainingwise, you long distance is much developed. If you had put in the same work on your 2k as you had put in the longer work, you would have a very different profile.
And being a slow fiber rower is not a reason to have a slower 2k, the best rowers are non sprinters, pure sprinters do not have a good 2k. Nomatter what they do, above 1k their relative performance rapidly slows down.

Yeah, fair comment. I've never been too bothered by a faster 2k, but I'll probably set my sights on 2k and 5k this summer when I lower my average distances.

[hjs]

Nah, you are just like the op, you do lots of long work and close to nothing for your speed, so call it whatever you want, but trainingwise, you long distance is much developed. If you had put in the same work on your 2k as you had put in the longer work, you would have a very different profile.
And being a slow fiber rower is not a reason to have a slower 2k, the best rowers are non sprinters, pure sprinters do not have a good 2k. Nomatter what they do, above 1k their relative performance rapidly slows down.

Yeah, fair comment. I've never been too bothered by a faster 2k, but I'll probably set my sights on 2k and 5k this summer when I lower my average distances.

In general, we could only speak of “relative” weak distance if a population would do the exact same training and then see how that would translate to the different distances. Ofcourse this will never be possible in practise.

[OregonERG]

In general, we could only speak of “relative” weak distance if a population would do the exact same training and then see how that would translate to the different distances. Of course this will never be possible in practise.

And there is the secondary aspect that we, as athletes, are not the same people as we used to be. The 2010 version of myself felt old and slow compared to the college (1990s) version of myself. Now, at 48, I think back on 2010 and am pissed that I didn't do more with my "youth." Though, and I know this for a fact, back in 2010 I was ramping up for an Ironman so at that time thought I was doing all I could in terms of training.

My point being, not only is it hard to compare to other athletes, I also have a hard time comparing to myself!

My Hour PB from last week left me relatively chuffed but had I rowed, even casually, a decade ago, that might have just been a normal effort and nothing to write home about. I had the same problem in running in as far as I never ran a marathon until after I was done with serious training and racing. If I had, I think my PB would be a lot let pedestrian! But we'll never know because I waited until I was "done with real running" to do one.

[hjs]

In general, we could only speak of “relative” weak distance if a population would do the exact same training and then see how that would translate to the different distances. Of course this will never be possible in practise.

And there is the secondary aspect that we, as athletes, are not the same people as we used to be. The 2010 version of myself felt old and slow compared to the college (1990s) version of myself. Now, at 48, I think back on 2010 and am pissed that I didn't do more with my "youth." Though, and I know this for a fact, back in 2010 I was ramping up for an Ironman so at that time thought I was doing all I could in terms of training.

My point being, not only is it hard to compare to other athletes, I also have a hard time comparing to myself!

My Hour PB from last week left me relatively chuffed but had I rowed, even casually, a decade ago, that might have just been a normal effort and nothing to write home about. I had the same problem in running in as far as I never ran a marathon until after I was done with serious training and racing. If I had, I think my PB would be a lot let pedestrian! But we'll never know because I waited until I was "done with real running" to do one.

Yes, youth is wasted on the young, you are now again young compared to yourself in 10 years time whats been done is done, you are living in the now. If you work on your stroke, you will be amazed what you still can do. Erging is an old man sport, its really friendly agewise.