Concept2 Forum

Hi everyone,

First of all, I'm new to this forum so I apologize if I'm posting this in the wrong place or if I should even be sharing this at all, at least here. I'm 16 years old (sophomore), I've been rowing for about 6.5 months now as I started on my novice high school club team at the beginning of spring season. I just weighed in today at 146 pounds and I'm about 6'1", and basically what I'm asking for here is some opinions. I pulled my second 6000 meter piece of our fall season today and even though I PR'd, I'm still feeling really frustrated about how things went and I'm wondering if it's just me or if I need to change my mindset/training routine further to get better results.

My time for the 6k was a 24:37:05, about 23 seconds better from my 25 min flat last time around about a month ago. I was feeling great throughout my row as I was aiming for a sub 2:03 split for the first 3-4k, and ended up getting just that for the entire piece. I realize that my score for today isn't something to necessarily put myself down about, but what a few of my teammates did today surprised me. I finished 5th out of 6 in my group and two of the people ahead of me I had beaten in my last 6k within a range of 15 seconds, and today they both ended up beating me by that same amount. My teammates are like family to me and every time they do well I'm genuinely happy for them, but the fact that one of them is a year younger than me and had such a huge PR difference makes me feel as if I'm not doing something right, even though both of the two are heavier than me. I've missed one day since the season started in late August and my goal is to row in college, and I guess what I'm asking for is just some insight on how I'm doing right now and what I can do on/off the water to mentally and even physically hammer down more on my next pieces. Maybe I'm just overreacting, but I feel as if I can't redeem myself unless I can show that I can over perform certain teammates that I had done so with before and meet my own expectations during our next 6k.

Thanks in advance

Someone will win and someone will be last, no getting around that.
Some people react better to training than others, why? Simple fact.
You can only look at yourself, you did improve, so thats nice. Can you improve more? Maybe
Do you eat well, sleep enough, etc etc

Look at the big picture and see if you can change some stuff, on the other side, you are joung, you will improve a lot the next few years, where you will end up? Time will tell.

Do you best, enjoy and go for it. But don,t let one lesser result get you down. You can only fo you best, if you did, you did fine.

If all of you started out as novices, you have to keep in mind that everyone is going to progress differently depending on their "baseline" fitness coming into rowing. So even though you may have been faster than someone else at the beginning, maybe you were in better shape to begin with so they have much more to gain and in a faster time than you. Hope that makes sense. Also, if someone is heavier, they'll probably make bigger gains due to their size advantage.

I wouldn't let the results get you down. As you said, you PR'ed by 23 seconds, which is a really big improvement. Keep training, eat well, rest, and your splits will continue to come down.

Thank you guys for the responses, I do think it was also kind of a being-in-the-moment thing, so I feel better about it now. I'll keep getting plenty of sleep, good nutrition, etc. and hopefully I can PR next time as well.

Where do you sit in the boat?

C2 have a lot to answer for, letting coaches give all that anguish to someone who's only just started.

Rowing is about poling down the river, listening to the gulls (or geese), hoping the swans won't catch us and watching fish jump; and hopefully listening to the boat sing. Lots of it, takes time to get the crew together and pulling with some style so that we go fast easily. Do it, even if your coach has to get wet and cold, that's his job.

A 6k at almost 200W is far too high for someone weighing 146 lb (less than 70 kg !). Long pieces like that are done at low HR, low lactate, that's what they're for.
If you learn to row well, you won't burn out too soon and your career afloat can last you the rest of your life, with at least ten years racing.