Endurance erging - A place to discuss 42, 50, 100k upwards.

[Dangerscouse]

At the end of the day, I had a 3h18m46s time which was 10m40s faster than my 2021. It put me 51/98 for my age/weight/gender on the C2 logs, 1/1 for amputees rowers and I think approx 20mins faster than the fastest amputee marathon I found in the C2 logs going back as far as they'd let me (2002). If I extrapolate the power for my missing leg using 160% average wattage (the guess here being legs are approx 60% of the total power, and I have 1 completely non-contributing), it put me approx a 2h51m time and 4th for age/weight/gender. Means nothing. The math is way to fuzzy. But it's a baseline that lets me get a better comparison for where I might actually be in terms of normal population.

Huge improvement David, well done, and I think the baseline that you provided is important as you're at a massive disadvantage.

[GlennUk]

Looking at the data from Ergdata today i can see that my HR was above 87.5% of HRmax for c.65% of the 1st 14k which clear is less than ideal.
The story was pretty similar for the next 14K with me spending 59% over the 87.5% threshold I had imposed on myself.

Unsurprisingly, with 7500m to go, my body said 'are you bloody joking' and i had to slow down somewhat, and over that last 7.5K i average 86% of HRmax, and my pace dropped off somewhat.

At this stage i though i may have to abandon, but i shut my eyes and counted every stroke, counting off each 500m, finally coming home with an average pace 2.16.2 in a time of 3hours 11 minutes and 41.1 seconds.

I was somewhat disappointed, not just with the time, but with how badly i have paced myself, or rather how i didn't pace myself. However, i have learned something, analysis the data this AM it appears my average effort was c.88% HRmax across the marathon.

I have worked out the time spent at more than my self imposed target of 87.5% for the 1st half and find that i spent 66% of the marathon at a HR of 87.% or above with a max of 93% on numerous occasions.

When i sat on the erg, i wasn't confident in my physical or mental ability. It is clear post the row, that there isn't much wrong with either department, and with proper control i see no reason why i cannot go somewhat quicker next time. Not saying anything to challenge for top spots on my age range, but definitely quicker than i achieved.

First of all, congratulations on the FM. We both know that your strategy has let you down and you could gave gone faster, and I find it fascinating that you can hold such a high HR for so long. My FM PB was 148 as an average ie circa 80%, and it didn't reach circa 90% until the last 1k. I know I couldn't keep going with an average of 88%.

Your mental fortitude and fitness will both have benefited massively from this, as today's challenge is tomorrow's change. Battling through for another 7.5k when you want to HD is something that feels like a sort of failure to start with (I got my strategy wrong; I shouldn't have done it that way etc) but when the negative feelings fade, the feeling that remains is pride and a knowledge of what's possible next time.

Thanks Stewart, although disappointe din some ways, happy in others. I was surprised when examining the data to find the average so high. Hopefully the xperience wil stand me in good stead for the next one.

[GlennUk]

Well done Glenn. Great to have a result . Its amazing how we all are disciplined enough through our training and, if anything, overthink most of what we do around erging and then when it finally comes to the TT we fail to execute our own plans in the much same way every time, ie go too hard too soon because obviously we're way better today than we have been throughout our training. Doh! Who cares...you fought through it and you got a result well done matey.

...and well done David. You really smashed the target with well over 10 mins off your PB. Awesome stuff.

Indeed, my 60k and 116k wr pretty on point wrt target HR/SPm, so frustrating, although they wer rowed to complete, whereas the marathon was rowed to compete, all beit with myself!!

Still cant moan at being in top 100 for all marathons this season for HWM (or at least i was 99 on the day )

[GlennUk]

Thanks for your analysis, GlennUk! Sorry to see things didn't go as you might have hoped because it's a non-tivial task to try again on these long distance pieces.

As a contrast, I did my seasonal full marathon two weeks ago. I also had been running through the Eddie Fletcher plan (all
be it an old version of the plan which is very likely somewhat different now), but I always work to pace instead of to heart rate. In part this is because I just don't like wearing the monitor. In part, I don't want to actually subject myself to the max heart rate test. And finally, because I personally don't actually put a ton of stock in heart rate training vs rate of perceived exertion.

This was my 3rd time through this plan over the last year but the first time I'd done it since my 2k made the plan's pace chart minimum time of 8:00. Over the 3 months of training I upped my pace from the minimums suggested by 3-4s.

I replaced one of the 2x45min workouts in the next to last week of the main plan with a half marathon in which I tried reasonably hard to see how it went. I managed to average this out at 2:18 split with a consistent negative split from the half way point to the end I definitely had a decent bit left over at the end of it but it helped inform my pacing decision for the full marathon approx a month later

I ate garbage and had a few beers the night before my race because.... reasons. Woke up early and prepped my glorified kool-aid and got at it. My out there goal for this was 10 minutes faster than the one I did last year roughly the same time. The 2021 marathon was right at the end of my first 6 months of rowing. The 2022 one was after a year of very consistent training, a bit more weight loss, and just an overall huge fitness and strength increase. So while I just wanted a 3h30min or better in 2021, this time I had an actual pacing plan and fueling strategy (having learned I needed much better plan than I'd had previously based on the 50k and 100k which I'd done in the interim). For 10 mins off I needed an overall split of 2:22 or faster. So my plan was to do all the rowing at 2:20 and stop after each 12k for the kool-aid and a quick stretch of my hamstring.

And for me, this worked a treat. 30s stop after 12k, approx 45s at 24k, and approx 1 min at 36k. The last 4k for me was torture, but I was doing way too good on making my goal time to give up that close to the end. I had almost nothing left to give to sprint finish the last 500m which to me says this really was just almost as fast as I could possibly manage for this distance.

At the end of the day, I had a 3h18m46s time which was 10m40s faster than my 2021. It put me 51/98 for my age/weight/gender on the C2 logs, 1/1 for amputees rowers and I think approx 20mins faster than the fastest amputee marathon I found in the C2 logs going back as far as they'd let me (2002). If I extrapolate the power for my missing leg using 160% average wattage (the guess here being legs are approx 60% of the total power, and I have 1 completely non-contributing), it put me approx a 2h51m time and 4th for age/weight/gender. Means nothing. The math is way to fuzzy. But it's a baseline that lets me get a better comparison for where I might actually be in terms of normal population.

And for me, rowing is now hugely back seated for the rest of the season. I'll likely do approx 10k 6x a week just to keep myself reasonably aerobically fit unless some amputees put up faster numbers than my current ones. In which case I'd feel obliged to try and beat them again. But I'm cutting weight from the 180 I've been holding most of this year down to 165 and looking at attempting para climbing competitions next year. So rowing is what's going to take the hit because to make the cut, I have to cut way way back on carbs and I can't afford the rowing to have an appreciable energy cost as I shift my training focus to the climbing specific strengths.

Well done David good to se another rowr taking on the challenge. Looks like you may have a WR for an amputee if i understand your post correctly. Not to be sneezed at., well done.

[Erik A]

some not rowing related but here goes.
last weekend i did a marathon walk. took 7 hrs 19 mins and 10 seconds and it destroyed me
between my waist and neck i was ok. my head was all stuffed up with the inner chimp giving me grief from the 30km mark. 35km was getting worse and at the 40 i was not sure i would make it. below the waist i was dead. my hips felt like they had sand in teh joints and my muscles and tendons were numb. i ended up with a couple of big blisters on the ball of my right foot at about the 33km mark.
now that that is out of the way i am going to start training for a marathon on the erg. then look at the longer distances
one thing i learned with the walk was that i didnt do enough training. so lesson learned.
let the training commence. i will probably start out with 3 or 4 rows during the week up to about 10km and most weekends will do a longer one 15-21km i will also add in some walks as like a dumbass i have said i will do the marathon walk again next year to try and reduce my time. (8 months till it rolls again)
wish me luck

[Elizabeth]

I broke the C2 American women's marathon record on Sunday with a time of 2:49:38.0.

A "normal" training week going into this looked something like this:
S - Long row, 28k-35k, typically more on the 35k end.
M - Speed intervals, such as 8x500/3:30r or 4x1000/5:00r. 20 minute warm-up, 10-20 minute cool-down, either followed by or interspersed with strength. (For example, one set strength, 1:00 easy row, repeat.)
T - 18k-20k total, typically a run-row brick. Ex: run 7 miles, a couple minutes transition to get Netflix on, row 7-9k.
W - Endurance intervals, such as 5x1500/5:00r, 4x2000/5:00r, 3000-2500-2000. Same warm-up, cool-down, strength as Monday, but with different lifts.
T - Repeat Tuesday.
F - 18-20k row.
S - Either off or ~20 minutes of yoga.

I've adjusted training some weeks for various reasons. For example, I participated in the WOD Week Challenge by taking 3 of the WODs hard and completing another 3 with heart-rate caps (plus some additional steady state work). I also had a road 10 miler race in September, and a 5k erg race earlier in October.

Between the overall weekly training mileage, the longer Sunday rows, and how many of the rows have felt, I've been thinking that I had a good PR in me but didn't have a specific time planned out to try it. I decided to go ahead on Sunday morning. My most recent marathon was from May, which wasn't helpful as far as pacing for this one, but I rowed a half-marathon in August at a 1:58.0 pace. I decided to target a 2:03.0 split, and since that was nearly three months ago and I've shown general improvements since then, gave myself permission to bring up the pace a bit if it seemed not stupid as far as RPE/HR.

After warming up for about 1k, I stopped and set 42,195 on the monitor. I mentally approached it as a 20 miler plus a 10k. In the 20 miler section, I felt comfortable bringing the pace up to 2:02. I celebrated the little distance and time milestones on the way, like seeing the meters left ticking from 4x,xxx to 3x,xxx. At 30 minutes in, I started sipping Gatorade every 15 minutes, which gave me another milestone to look forward to. With 22k left, my Netflix documentary finished, and I successfully rowed at pace while holding the handle with both hands and the remote in my right hand to switch over to music. With 12k left, the music algorithm decided that it was a great time for lullabies, and I tried much less successfully to switch the music - the remote went flying on the recovery of one of my strokes. I yelled for my husband to come help, and he got me set up with much more suitable music to go into what I knew would be the hardest part of the row.

As 10k remaining approached, I gradually picked up the pace, and then tried hard to focus when I got down to 4 digits. With something like 5000 left, I started to see some estimated completion times under 2:50:00, which really motivated me to keep going strong - and to pick it up when the estimated completion time rose above 2:50:00 after a couple of weaker strokes. When I saw 3000m remaining, I told myself that this was one of the intervals from a recent 3000-2500-2000 session, and I was able to row strong during that. I told myself similar things at 2500, 2000, and 1500, and then really tried to bring it in with 1000 remaining. The last 250 were an all-out sprint.

Time Meters Pace Watts Cal/Hr S/M HR
2:49:38.0 42,195m 2:00.6 200 986 27 157
24:26.3 6,000m 2:02.1 192 960 24 140
24:27.2 6,000m 2:02.2 191 959 25 143
24:23.2 6,000m 2:01.9 193 964 25 149
24:17.3 6,000m 2:01.4 195 972 25 152
24:21.0 6,000m 2:01.7 194 967 25 154
23:58.2 6,000m 1:59.8 203 999 27 163
23:04.0 6,000m 1:55.3 228 1085 29 180
0:40.9 195m 1:44.8 303 1344 37 181

I knew this was a really strong time and better than I expected, but didn't realize that this broke a record until I looked afterwards to see how far off I was. Overall, I'm really happy with how it went.

I got a really powerful fan at the beginning of summer, and I think that's helped considerably with some of the chafing issues that I had during the rows in May. I had very few problems with chafing/blisters/etc. with this one. I was a little cold for the first 2k but I knew that would pass, and it did.

[Sakly]

I broke the C2 American women's marathon record on Sunday with a time of 2:49:38.0.

A "normal" training week going into this looked something like this:
S - Long row, 28k-35k, typically more on the 35k end.
M - Speed intervals, such as 8x500/3:30r or 4x1000/5:00r. 20 minute warm-up, 10-20 minute cool-down, either followed by or interspersed with strength. (For example, one set strength, 1:00 easy row, repeat.)
T - 18k-20k total, typically a run-row brick. Ex: run 7 miles, a couple minutes transition to get Netflix on, row 7-9k.
W - Endurance intervals, such as 5x1500/5:00r, 4x2000/5:00r, 3000-2500-2000. Same warm-up, cool-down, strength as Monday, but with different lifts.
T - Repeat Tuesday.
F - 18-20k row.
S - Either off or ~20 minutes of yoga.

I've adjusted training some weeks for various reasons. For example, I participated in the WOD Week Challenge by taking 3 of the WODs hard and completing another 3 with heart-rate caps (plus some additional steady state work). I also had a road 10 miler race in September, and a 5k erg race earlier in October.

Between the overall weekly training mileage, the longer Sunday rows, and how many of the rows have felt, I've been thinking that I had a good PR in me but didn't have a specific time planned out to try it. I decided to go ahead on Sunday morning. My most recent marathon was from May, which wasn't helpful as far as pacing for this one, but I rowed a half-marathon in August at a 1:58.0 pace. I decided to target a 2:03.0 split, and since that was nearly three months ago and I've shown general improvements since then, gave myself permission to bring up the pace a bit if it seemed not stupid as far as RPE/HR.

After warming up for about 1k, I stopped and set 42,195 on the monitor. I mentally approached it as a 20 miler plus a 10k. In the 20 miler section, I felt comfortable bringing the pace up to 2:02. I celebrated the little distance and time milestones on the way, like seeing the meters left ticking from 4x,xxx to 3x,xxx. At 30 minutes in, I started sipping Gatorade every 15 minutes, which gave me another milestone to look forward to. With 22k left, my Netflix documentary finished, and I successfully rowed at pace while holding the handle with both hands and the remote in my right hand to switch over to music. With 12k left, the music algorithm decided that it was a great time for lullabies, and I tried much less successfully to switch the music - the remote went flying on the recovery of one of my strokes. I yelled for my husband to come help, and he got me set up with much more suitable music to go into what I knew would be the hardest part of the row.

As 10k remaining approached, I gradually picked up the pace, and then tried hard to focus when I got down to 4 digits. With something like 5000 left, I started to see some estimated completion times under 2:50:00, which really motivated me to keep going strong - and to pick it up when the estimated completion time rose above 2:50:00 after a couple of weaker strokes. When I saw 3000m remaining, I told myself that this was one of the intervals from a recent 3000-2500-2000 session, and I was able to row strong during that. I told myself similar things at 2500, 2000, and 1500, and then really tried to bring it in with 1000 remaining. The last 250 were an all-out sprint.

Time Meters Pace Watts Cal/Hr S/M HR
2:49:38.0 42,195m 2:00.6 200 986 27 157
24:26.3 6,000m 2:02.1 192 960 24 140
24:27.2 6,000m 2:02.2 191 959 25 143
24:23.2 6,000m 2:01.9 193 964 25 149
24:17.3 6,000m 2:01.4 195 972 25 152
24:21.0 6,000m 2:01.7 194 967 25 154
23:58.2 6,000m 1:59.8 203 999 27 163
23:04.0 6,000m 1:55.3 228 1085 29 180
0:40.9 195m 1:44.8 303 1344 37 181

I knew this was a really strong time and better than I expected, but didn't realize that this broke a record until I looked afterwards to see how far off I was. Overall, I'm really happy with how it went.

I got a really powerful fan at the beginning of summer, and I think that's helped considerably with some of the chafing issues that I had during the rows in May. I had very few problems with chafing/blisters/etc. with this one. I was a little cold for the first 2k but I knew that would pass, and it did.

Wow!
Only Wow. Nothing else to say!

[missing1leg]

Congratulations! That's amazing!

[Gustel]

Time Meters Pace Watts Cal/Hr S/M HR
2:49:38.0 42,195m 2:00.6 200 986 27 157
24:26.3 6,000m 2:02.1 192 960 24 140
24:27.2 6,000m 2:02.2 191 959 25 143
24:23.2 6,000m 2:01.9 193 964 25 149
24:17.3 6,000m 2:01.4 195 972 25 152
24:21.0 6,000m 2:01.7 194 967 25 154
23:58.2 6,000m 1:59.8 203 999 27 163
23:04.0 6,000m 1:55.3 228 1085 29 180
0:40.9 195m 1:44.8 303 1344 37 181

Amazing result. The pace for the last 6k is incredible after more than 36k of rowing.

[Dangerscouse]

I broke the C2 American women's marathon record on Sunday with a time of 2:49:38.0.

I'm not surprised you did this, but that in no way diminishes your achievement. You're an incredible athlete, and this is an excellent result.

[aussie nick]

outstanding Elizabeth! congratulations

interesting to see your training schedule too - how are you fitting it into your day? early am rows?

[Elizabeth]

Thank you!! And Dangersouse, you're really kind.

Time Meters Pace Watts Cal/Hr S/M HR
2:49:38.0 42,195m 2:00.6 200 986 27 157
24:26.3 6,000m 2:02.1 192 960 24 140
24:27.2 6,000m 2:02.2 191 959 25 143
24:23.2 6,000m 2:01.9 193 964 25 149
24:17.3 6,000m 2:01.4 195 972 25 152
24:21.0 6,000m 2:01.7 194 967 25 154
23:58.2 6,000m 1:59.8 203 999 27 163
23:04.0 6,000m 1:55.3 228 1085 29 180
0:40.9 195m 1:44.8 303 1344 37 181

Amazing result. The pace for the last 6k is incredible after more than 36k of rowing.

I know that even splits are supposed to be optimal, but the relatively manageable pace of the first 30k helped in feeling fresh enough to turn things up at the end.

outstanding Elizabeth! congratulations

interesting to see your training schedule too - how are you fitting it into your day? early am rows?

You got it - usually up at 5, with 6-8 blocked off for training. I try to start a little earlier on Sundays so that it doesn't spill too much into family time.

[aussie nick]

You got it - usually up at 5, with 6-8 blocked off for training. I try to start a little earlier on Sundays so that it doesn't spill too much into family time.

it's really the only way to do it with a family and a busy life. I did that for 15+ years pre Covid...regular as clockwork. 5.15 up, 5.30 out of the house and do the commute, train 75-90 mins, start work at 8.15.

these last few years working from home....I'm so much more Princessy about my sleep than I used to be! Plus, I have 3 kids 12-16 and getting them all to sleep by 11 is a huge victory so my days of being in bed by 9.30 are in the rearview too.

[MPx]

I broke the C2 American women's marathon record on Sunday with a time of 2:49:38.0.

As others have said ... Wow! Fantastic result Elizabeth about 3 mins inside the UK record and only a minute off world record pace. I can see we're going to continue to enjoy watching your successes.

[GlennUk]

Hi Elizabeth,

A huge congrats on that marathon, a USA record to boot.

You're not far out of the world records for HW (2:48.29.6), inside the WR for LW (2:50:31.9) in you age bracket, huge, absolutely huge achievement.