HELP! Off slides! Race coming up!

tbartman · Post by **tbartman** » January 25th, 2009, 1:45 pm

I've been training on slides since I got them over a year ago. Last year, I took the erg off the slides about 2 weeks before my indoor race so I could get used to the feel, and I got 6:53 at the race.

I know there's some advantage to being on the slides, so this year I trained for a goal of 6:45 on slides, figuring I'd end up around 6:48-6:50 at the race off the slides. Based on my workouts, this seemed doable. For example, a few weeks back I did 5 minutes at 1:40 (on slides), and could have gone longer - probably could have finished off the last 1:40 to get 2k in 6:40. So I'm thinking "Great. If I can do 6:40 on slides, maybe I can even get 6:45 off slides."

Two days ago I did a 2k test - setting out at a predicted finish of 6:50. I died with 300m left

Now I'm freaking! I could do 6:40 on slides but can't even finish at a pace of 6:50 off the slides?! This is not the experience I had a year ago!

I notice the big difference is stroke rate. On slides I can easily get to 36-37. Off slides I max out at 32-33.

Is there a quick change I can make to get this back? Do I lower the drag factor a lot? Take shorter strokes? I can't believe that I'm in worse shape now than a year ago, but I'm afraid I won't even be able to be last year's time, much less push for 6:48 or 6:45.

HELP ME!!! Race is in 7 days.

tbartman · Post by **tbartman** » January 25th, 2009, 1:57 pm

An addendum:

I looked at my training log from last year when I was on slides a few weeks before the race and this year on slides a few weeks before the race. My times are better now than last year. For example, on slides:

Jan 08 - 5' @ 1:42.8; 3' @ 1:42.4; 2' @ 1:42.5; 2'@ 1:41.7
Jan 09 - 5' @ 1:40.4; 4' @ 1:40.8; 3' @ 1:40.8

This year I can do this "TR" workout about 2 seconds faster, and sustain it longer.

Jan 08 - AT work (8-12' intervals) at 1:52
Jan 09 - AT work (8-12' intervals) at 1:49

So, apples-to-apples (or slides-to-slides) I'm faster this year; why aren't I faster grounded-to-grounded. Did I just have one bad test?

Nosmo · Post by **Nosmo** » January 25th, 2009, 8:27 pm

Looks to me like one bad test or you just need to do a little technical work to get your rating up.
Do some work where You try to bring the rating up on the slide, not on the power. The idea is to be as smooth as possible and in control without trying to kill yourself with the power.
As always when going to high rating make sure you are getting your hands out fast and body angle set quickly.