Ranger's training thread

[ranger]

Just as it did OTBike yesterday, in my distance rowing this morning, my HR left 160 bpm and floated up to my anaerobic threshold, 172 bpm.

Nice.

I am indeed getting ready for distance trials.

I now need to do most of my work, both OTErg and OTBike at a "threshold" HR (172 bpm), with a push over the last couple of Ks that sends my HR to 185 bpm.

ranger

[ranger]

the race does not simply go to the strong, but to those who have take the trouble to learn how to use their strength to the best advantage

I can only bench press some pathetic amount, not even my weight, I don't know, 140 lbs.?

But I am now pulling 13.5 SPI in my _Steamroller_ sessions and will pull something pretty close to 13 SPI for 2K when I am fully prepared to race this winter.

Sure, you have to be pretty strong for your weight to row well.

But that isn't the whole story at all, or even the main plot.

In the rowing stroke, power is generated by quickness, precisison, length, and leverage, by a zillion interconnected levers, precisely sequenced, coordinated, and rhythmized.

The rowing stroke has only a slight and passing resemblance to weight lifting.

It is more like a whiplash.

ranger

[ranger]

This is a interesting little blurb from today's _NY Times_.

What it points out is relevant to training for rowing, too, I think:

Since March 2009, we’ve watched the market rebound by 80 percent. Whether you’ve sat it out on the sidelines or think you can predict what comes next, I recommend you take a step back and remember a few things.

You are not as smart as you think. Overconfidence is a huge behavior problem for investors. Overconfidence is what happens precisely because we think we know a lot about the subject, but overconfidence can lead us to make mistakes that in hindsight will be glaringly obvious (but the tricky part is that we didn’t know it at the time).

Following the herd doesn’t make it safe. I know it’s exciting and fun to be an investor in Apple or Google right now. Then there’s the talk about getting access to the private initial public offering of Facebook through Goldman Sachs. Buying because everyone else is buying is not an investment strategy. These companies may be great investments, but not just because everyone else is buying their stock.

We’re social animals who feel safer in numbers, but so do sheep. We take comfort in doing what everyone else is doing, and in the back of our minds we know that even if we’re wrong, at least we’ll be wrong with a bunch of other people. But it was the same line of thinking that led us to do very stupid things in high school just because “everyone else was doing it.”

Investing is about behavior, not skill. Maybe you’ll accuse me of beating a dead horse, but successful investing is about how you behave. Buying high and selling low is dumb, but it’s worth repeating given what I’m seeing in the market today. It’s important to remember that you could own a “mediocre” mutual fund, and if you behave correctly you can outperform 99 percent of your neighbors. On the other hand, if you spend your whole life searching for the “best” investment, you’ll ruin your entire lifetime return in one single behavioral mistake.

I know that what I’ve outlined sounds obvious and easy to scoff at, but the fact that it’s obvious didn’t keep investors from loading up on tech stocks in the late 1990s, bonds in 2002, and real estate in 2006. As we enter 2011, and the excitement of our financial New Year’s resolution starts to wear off, please remember that it’s worth taking the time to stop and think before you invest.

Over the last ten years, I guessed _both_ the tech bubble and the housing bubble in the stock market, taking _all_ my retirement money out the market before the crashes, parking it in annuities making 6%, waiting for the crashes, and then buying back into the market when it hit bottom, at about 20% a year, as the market went back up. That is, I just avoided what everyone else was doing and behaved more reasonably and effectively--selling high and buying low, rather than buying high and selling low. As a result, over this time, the market made nothing. It just bubbled and crashed, bubbled and crashed. But I quadrupled my money. Those who followed the crowd, and this crowd included a whole generation of professional financial advisors, got slaughtered.

Robert Frost liked to warn people about the dangers of herd behavior and its devastating effect on learning, skill building, the smart use of personal resources, achievement in the present, and investment in the future.

"Build soil," he advised.

"Don't join gangs."

As Richards points out elsewhere in his piece, in general, social groups act like teen-age girls.

And it is o.k., perhaps, to act like a teen-age girl for a while.

It is fun to be a part of a group.

If this behavior is prolonged into late adulthood, however, there can be pretty serious consequences.

After getting burned, repeatedly, by such behavior, it just might be a whole lot smarter to grow up.

ranger

P.S. As a result of my more individual and independent investment of my retirement savings, I am retiring in two years, at 62, with an income that will be twice what I made when I was working.

Nice!

[ranger]

BTW, if I can really get to daily 3-hour rides OTBike/Kurt Kinetic at 19 mph, in addition to my erging, I will certainly get to weight by the end of February.

That's a long time to be that hot on a daily basis!

The Kurt Kinetic is a fat roaster.

Sweat everywhere.

A deluge.

I did 75min OTBike this morning, after erging.

ranger

[bellboy]

This is a interesting little blurb from today's _NY Times_.

What it points out is relevant to training for rowing, too, I think:

Since March 2009, we’ve watched the market rebound by 80 percent. Whether you’ve sat it out on the sidelines or think you can predict what comes next, I recommend you take a step back and remember a few things.

You are not as smart as you think. Overconfidence is a huge behavior problem for investors. Overconfidence is what happens precisely because we think we know a lot about the subject, but overconfidence can lead us to make mistakes that in hindsight will be glaringly obvious (but the tricky part is that we didn’t know it at the time).

Following the herd doesn’t make it safe. I know it’s exciting and fun to be an investor in Apple or Google right now. Then there’s the talk about getting access to the private initial public offering of Facebook through Goldman Sachs. Buying because everyone else is buying is not an investment strategy. These companies may be great investments, but not just because everyone else is buying their stock.

We’re social animals who feel safer in numbers, but so do sheep. We take comfort in doing what everyone else is doing, and in the back of our minds we know that even if we’re wrong, at least we’ll be wrong with a bunch of other people. But it was the same line of thinking that led us to do very stupid things in high school just because “everyone else was doing it.”

Investing is about behavior, not skill. Maybe you’ll accuse me of beating a dead horse, but successful investing is about how you behave. Buying high and selling low is dumb, but it’s worth repeating given what I’m seeing in the market today. It’s important to remember that you could own a “mediocre” mutual fund, and if you behave correctly you can outperform 99 percent of your neighbors. On the other hand, if you spend your whole life searching for the “best” investment, you’ll ruin your entire lifetime return in one single behavioral mistake.

I know that what I’ve outlined sounds obvious and easy to scoff at, but the fact that it’s obvious didn’t keep investors from loading up on tech stocks in the late 1990s, bonds in 2002, and real estate in 2006. As we enter 2011, and the excitement of our financial New Year’s resolution starts to wear off, please remember that it’s worth taking the time to stop and think before you invest.

Over the last ten years, I guessed _both_ the tech bubble and the housing bubble in the stock market, taking _all_ my retirement money out the market before the crashes, parking it in annuities making 6%, waiting for the crashes, and then buying back into the market when it hit bottom, at about 20% a year, as the market went back up. That is, I just avoided what everyone else was doing and behaved more reasonably and effectively--selling high and buying low, rather than buying high and selling low. As a result, over this time, the market made nothing. It just bubbled and crashed, bubbled and crashed. But I quadrupled my money. Those who followed the crowd, and this crowd included a whole generation of professional financial advisors, got slaughtered.

Robert Frost liked to warn people about the dangers of herd behavior and its devastating effect on learning, skill building, the smart use of personal resources, achievement in the present, and investment in the future.

"Build soil," he advised.

"Don't join gangs."

As Richards points out elsewhere in his piece, in general, social groups act like teen-age girls.

And it is o.k., perhaps, to act like a teen-age girl for a while.

It is fun to be a part of a group.

If this behavior is prolonged into late adulthood, however, there can be pretty serious consequences.

After getting burned, repeatedly, by such behavior, it just might be a whole lot smarter to grow up.

ranger

P.S. As a result of my more individual and independent investment of my retirement savings, I am retiring in two years, at 62, with an income that will be twice what I made when I was working.

Nice!

One presumes this is a ham fisted cry for us to marvel at your knowledge and individuality. The fact remains that your training programme is not the success that you presume it is. You are still barking at the moon and your enablers on this site are waiting with a tranquilizer gun.

[ranger]

The fact remains that your training programme is not the success that you presume it is.

On the contrary, it's impeccable.

I have been making steady progress overcoming my weaknesses, while participating in races, nonetheless.

That's ideal.

The last two years, I have had the best time in my age and weight category (55s lwts), without even preparing for my races and even though I was in the last two years in the division.

This last year, no one my age and weight (or older) came within 20 seconds of my 2K.

Competitively, you can't be better than the best.

The major benefit of good investing, though, is future rewards.

As you are achieving in the present, you also have an eye toward better results yet and spend some time and effort laying the foundation to realize those future gains.

Now that my work on technique is done and I am rowing well (13 SPI) at low drag (119 df.), preparing to race, when I am fully trained this winter, I will race like the best 50s hwts even though I am a 60s lwt.

This year, I suspect that no 60s lwt will come within 30 seconds of my 2K.

ranger

[kini62]

When it comes to mastering a complex sport, four years is a blink of an eye.

ranger

Holy crap! That's funny.

Rowing on the water is complex, "rowing" on the erg couldn't be much simpler. Given that, I be you didn't learn to walk until about 7 (since walking is actually much more complex than yanking a chain on an erg) probably didn't learn to run until about 12.

How long did it take you to master putting a fork or spoon in your mouth? That's pretty complex stuff. Maybe your weren't weened off the titty until you learned to walk at 7 or so. That would explain a LOT of things.

[mad39]

why does anyone bother engaging with him....its insanity...

it's like being offended when the monkeys in the zoo knock one out for the passers by....they're just monkeys, its what they do...same with the prof, he's a world class mentalist, you can't blame him...

it's amusing, but like watching someone get more mental as the years go by and we should stop watching really safe in the knowledge that the monkeys wank even when we're not there.

[MRapp]

Due to the fact ranger has been caught lying approximately 2000 times on this thread, I'm a little bit skeptical about his claims that he perfectly timed the bottoms of both bubbles. Your word isn't exactly considered gold around these parts my friend. Why would I ever doubt him...not only is he the world's greatest athlete, he's also the most intelligent human being on the planet. The rest of us just don't get it.

[ranger]

Due to the fact ranger has been caught lying approximately 2000 times on this thread, I'm a little bit skeptical about his claims that he perfectly timed the bottoms of both bubbles. Your word isn't exactly considered gold around these parts my friend. Why would I ever doubt him...not only is he the world's greatest athlete, he's also the most intelligent human being on the planet. The rest of us just don't get it.

You missed the point of the NY Times piece, just as Richards predicts.

Investing well isn't about skill or intelligence.

It's about social behavior.

If you believe everything you hear and follow the crowd, you get slaughtered.

If you behave more independently, daring to be a contrarian investor, selling when others buy and buying when others sell, you make money hand over fist.

I am no smarter than anyone else.

I just don't follow the crowd a lot in the things that I do, including investing and training for rowing, and therefore live in a world that isn't fogged over with social pressures, aspirations, motivations, rationalizations, etc.

The claim that I am lying about my rowing, and now, suppposedly, about my investing, has no foundation in fact.

It is just what the crowd does here does in response to my more independent behavior, whether it is training or investing.

This response to my training and investing is just standard social behavior.

Social groups act like teenage girls.

They stick together, even if the result is nasty, and isn't in even their own best interest.

As I have been suggesting all along, those who follow this crowd in their training get slaughtered.

The average decline with age among veterans who follow the standard training plans--sharpening and racing, sharpening and race, without bothering to learn how to row well--is 17 seconds a decade, 1.7 seconds a year.

That is, for older rowers, training in standard ways for rowing just makes you worse--precipitously.

If you follow a traditional training plan for rowing, you invest lots of money in a bad bank--and lose your shirt.

Yet everyone in and around this forum does it, and keeps doing it, by and large, just because everyone else is doing it.

There is no other motivation possible, given that--iin as astonishingly self-defeating way--this behavior just makes everyone worse and worse.

ranger

[ranger]

Rowing on the water is complex, "rowing" on the erg couldn't be much simpler.

Rowing well (13 SPI for lightweights; 16 SPI for heavyweights) on the erg is not easy at all.

In fact, no one over about 40 years old has ever done it; and _very_ few who are younger than 40 can do it.

Do you row well?

If you do, at 32 spm, you do 2K in 6:16 if your are a lightweight; 5:52, if you are a heavyweight.

What do you pull for 2K on the erg?

And what is your weight and age?

Congratulations if you are one of those accomplished few who row well.

You must be a _very_ "natural" rower indeed if you learned to row well quickly, and with no difficulties!

I guess the rest of us don't have your natural talent for the sport.

The hwt 30s American record on the erg is Xeno's 5:53.

ranger

[ranger]

Over the last few years, T.J. Osterling has been the only 60s rower to pull 1:45/17:30 or better for 5K, and his best as a 60s rower has been 1:43/17:10, the 60s hwt 5K WR.

Given that he pulled 1:36/6:24 for 2K when he was 60, Hendershott must have been able to do 5K at 1:41/16:50 when he was 60 but just didn't bother.

Given my stroking power now, if I can rate 26 spm for 5K, I'll do 1:41.

If I can rate 27-28 spm, or even 29-30 spm, for 5K, I will go faster than that.

It's time to start doing some hard 5Ks.

ranger

[ranger]

Just holding my technique together, rowing well (13 SPI) at low drag (119 df.), I'll now do a 1:37/6:28 2K at 30 spm in a 3-to-1 ratio, .5 seconds for the drive, 1.5 seconds for the recovery.

Back in 2002-2003, I did my 1:37/6:28 2K at 10 SPI, max drag (200+ df.), and 38 spm, in something close to a 1-to-1 ratio, .8 seconds for the drive, .8 seconds for the recovery.

It is hard to imagine two more radically different/distinct/contrasting techniques.

ranger

[ranger]

By the end of this winter racing season, one of my goals is to do 4 x 2K @ 30 spm, rowing well (13 SPI) at low drag (119 df.) in a 3-to-1 ratio.

That would predict a 1:34/6:16 2K.

ranger

[ranger]

BTW, why is the edit function on the forum being disengaged after a short delay?

If posts are written quickly, as they often are, but remain permanent, as the do, it is better reading for everyone if the edit function remains engaged so that the poster can go back and correct typos, etc.

Clearly, the moderator of the forum doesn't think so.

Why?

ranger