Concept2 Forum

Having recently tackled the 100k (Saturday), I was asked to give more info about the row. This is not meant to be interpreted as a post bragging, just a "I did it, here's what I did".

To start with, I still consider myself a newbie to rowing. At the time I started the attempt, I had less than 25 hours of "erg-time" under my belt. (Started rowing last month) I don't consider myself extremely fast, the last (only) 2k I attempted came in at 7:26.8.


Food / Water
Unlike some others, I am a strong advocate of regular water intake. I will have a water bottle handy, and take a couple swigs every 15 minutes, even for rows as short as an hour. I went with the electrolyte 'drop-in' tablets added to the water. For 'food', I went with gu every half hour. Figuring 15 seconds for water, and 45 for water/gu, comes to about 2 minutes per hour lost to breaks, but I felt that the intake kept me going stronger. I did force myself to take a couple longer breaks in the last 20k - get up walk around for a minute, stretch, etc.

Heart Rate
I strongly recommend using a heart rate monitor. Get to know what levels you feel comfortable at. For me, anything above 170 for more than a few minutes and I get burned out afterwards. (sore throat, cough, etc) 160-170 I will do for stronger workouts, 150-160 for mid-level, 140-150 for more relaxed. For the 100k, I generally ranged from 160-170 for the first 60k. I dropped the hard pulls after that, and kept HR between 150-160 for most of the remaining 40k.


Pace
2:15 will finish in 7:30:00, 2:30 will finish in 8:20:00. Remember that you will need to add in time for breaks. I felt comfortable pulling under 2:20 for extended periods of time, so felt pretty confident that I could end up averaging better than 2:30, including breaks. For the most part, I started out pacing at 2:15, with the exception of a set of 10 "strong pulls" twice every 1000 meters. The hard pulls generally came in at paces between 1:45 and 2:00. With these, I was able to keep my average (including breaks) under 2:15 for most of the first 60k.

Misc. / padding
I STRONGLY recommend using some sort of seat padding. Gloves are optional, depending on your preference. I went with a pair of newgrip, having seen some positive comments here. Shoes, wear or don't, depending on how you're used to rowing. If you do decide to wear shoes, make sure that you are comfortable with them, and test on at least one session longer than 20k.

Fears
My greatest fears during the attempt was that I would stop for too long, and the PM4 would stop, and I would lose the info. The other fear was that the power would go out, and I'd be stuck rowing in the dark. Afterwards, I was a bit stunned when it wouldn't take my verification code in the logbook, but was able to upload from the logcard.

Recovery
I was a bit nervous regarding recovery after reading some of the notes on the concept2 UK site about the marathon (42k) which stated things like:

"...It is possible to row the marathon distance without undertaking a specific marathon training plan if you are an active 2000m rower. The base endurance you have built up will see you through if you take it easy (50-60% of 2000m power in watts). Your body will not like it, recovery will take many weeks, and you will not produce the best performance you are capable of.

Recovery from a 2000m race may take up to 7 days while it may take 8-12 weeks to recovery from a rowing marathon. ..."

I will admit that I had some odd aches afterwards, but have done 4 HMs since, so I would say I'm not suffering any major issues.

Next goal is to finish first million before end of Feb.

If anyone has any general questions, post them.

Are you crazy?

Thanks very much for your inspirational post. I hope to follow in your footsteps when I'm a little further along. I don't agree with everything you said, but your opinions are valuable.

How old a geezer are you? (I'm 55.) This will help me to interpret your HR comments better.

You can wear a HR monitor for that long without it driving you crazy?

Doug

33

You're definitely entitled to have your own opinions. As I mentioned, this is just my thoughts/viewpoint and what I did.

I've never worn a heart monitor. I imagine it getting on my nerves during a long row and wanting to rip it off. How conscious of it are you?

I wore it for most of my other rows, so I was pretty used to it. If your goal is just to finish, then I would say it isn't as necessary, as you probably have a rough idea how hard you are pushing yourself. I mainly just wanted a "second opinion" of how hard I was going, not wanting to burn myself out early.

Very nice 100K Marving2. I managed 8:00:56.5 last year so quite close on time (although I'm a 45 year old LWT). Especially good considering how little time you've spent on the erg.

I also did a 24hr row last weekend and wore the Sunnto heartrate chestbelt for info only really. Averaged around 130BPM - it was good to see it not doing anything erratic as time went on - in fact in actually slown down as the hours ticked by!

I too, thought I would get sick of it but frankly, I stopped noticing it was there very quickly.

Dave Plumb

Regarding "Afterwards, I was a bit stunned when it wouldn't take my verification code in the logbook, but was able to upload from the logcard":

I know this is a bit off-topic, but I often find that the time on my PM3 right after a row is a tenth of a second shorter than what the LogCard recognizes. I suppose this is some rounding issue. Perhaps the LogCard rounds each split up to the nearest tenth of a second and then adds the rounded times. I've also been surprised to have my verification code rejected and then realized that I wasn't using the LogCard time. No big deal, although I always feel a bit cheated!

I suppose this is old news, but I've never seen it discussed.

Doug

Wow

Well done i am impressed, inspired. Gobsmacked really i am impressed i've heard of marathons on the concept 2 but i take my hat of too you. You can tell i am a newbie at this. At the moment i can only hold 2:40 maybe for 2000m at a push

I've seen the "tenth of a second difference" as well on some pieces. In this particular case, I think that the code not taking may have something to do with the piece being set up as an interval, rather than a single distance. It imported from the logcard fine, I was just used to manually entering verification codes at the time. The C2 support team also responded when I inquired about it, but since it happened over the weekend, I already had it entered via the logcard by the time I heard back from them.

marving2 wrote:I think that the code not taking may have something to do with the piece being set up as an interval, rather than a single distance.

Nope. I definitely see the small time difference between the PM3 display time and the official LogCard time on rows that I've selected for a set distance. I'm quite clear on this, as I don't do intervals. (In the minority, I know...)

Doug

Two separate things.

1. I have seen the same differences between what shows at the end of the row and what ends up on the logcard. When entering the time that appeared on the logcard, in conjunction with the verification code, I have always had it accept the time. (other than on my 100k)


2. In this particular case (referring to my 100k row), I think the interval setup may have affected the verification, and it not being initially accepted as verified in the online logbook. I double checked the verification code and the time in tenths at LEAST five times.

My hat off to you Marving, that is an extremely impressive feat. I'm 17 and still working to my first half marathon.

well done!