Ranger's training thread

[ranger]

how do you explain that you are not able to do any of your "predictive workouts" ...

Training is done from the top down, from a FM to 500m.

My first predictive workout will be a FM @ 1:48.

I haven't failed to do this workout.

I haven't even tried yet.

My FM training is coming along great.

ranger

[leadville]

So, how are you doing OTW, Byron?

Answer: A lot better than you.

The way to tell whether you are getting it right is to check how fast you are going.

Another way to tell is to check if you are actually above the surface of the water.



Key Ranger statistics:

Number of OTW races completed while still in the boat: zero.

Number of 60-year-olds (either weight class) beaten in competition: zero.

Lifetime DNS, DNF or DFL races: well into double figures.

rangerboy (or should it be rangerBUOY?)

still haven't heard from you re your statement that you'll be in OKC for master's nationals. what's it gonna be, rangerboy, yes or no?

and Mike - don't know how you found the snap, but the effort is much appreciated. let's make sure someone forwards this to the race officials at the master's nationals so they're prepared in the unlikely event rangerboy actually shows up.

rangerboy - got your liability insurance premiums paid up?

[ranger]

BTW, it doesn't exempt you from doing the rest of the necessary race preparation, but if you prepare to race from the top down, from a FM to 500m and do your first bit of race preparation, the FM, at 2K + 14, it is pretty certain that you will hit all of your other targets, too (HM, 60min, 10K, 30min, 6K, 5K, 1K, 500m, 8 x 500m, 4 x 1K, 4 x 2K, etc.)

Pretty much, one test (a FM @ 2K + 14) serves the purpose of all.

The rest is redundant.

The FM tests your effectiveness, efficency, aerobic capacity, and endurance.

And in this sport, that's pretty much all she wrote.

Sure, you need to bring up your anaerobic capacities in order to do your best 2K, but anaerobic capacities are relative fixed entities.

Everyone gets just about the same training effect from a couple of months of hard anaerobic intervals, about a dozen seconds over 2K.

ranger

[ben990]

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Sure, you need to bring up your anaerobic capacities in order to do your best 2K, but anaerobic capacities are relative fixed entities.

Everyone gets just about the same training effect from a couple of months of hard anaerobic intervals, about a dozen seconds over 2K.

ranger

And it looks like you were able to get a training effect that yielded a 7:02.3 for a 2k! Nice - this is, um, well, pretty good for a 60 year old. Congrats on this.

[lancs]

My first predictive workout will be a FM @ 1:48.

I haven't failed to do this workout.

I haven't even tried yet.

Have you figured out yet how you'll get past 10k at this pace? Something you can't currently do...

[Fred]

Thanks for that link, mrfit - I was (blissfully) unaware of that thread, but a quick flick through shows what I expected - pick a random ranger post out of that thread and this and I wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

Briefly reading that thread, the thing that really jumps out to me is how much better you used to be in your age group. No doubt in my mind that the worse than average decline is due to the steady diet of sub threshold interval training (rowing a particular pace/rate for a bit, backing off when it gets uncomfortable, etc..).

This obsession with "rowing only good strokes" has really hurt your fitness, and ingrained a "handle down when it gets tough" mentality.

The older you get, and the further from 6:16 you go, the worse that training methodology is going to work. Which is exactly what you are finding out. That gap between reality and fantasy keeps growing. I hope at some point that you somehow get shocked back into reality..

[JimR]

Most other people would describe the inability to maintain their stroke in a workout as going to fast (fly and die)

Sure.

If you don't work on upgrading your technical effectiveness and efficiency, this is the inevitable result.

If you just work on your fitness, failure is, necessarily, a failure of fitness.

Then again, just working on your fitness, when your fitness is declining, and neglecting your technique, when you row badly, is just dumb.

So, the punishment fits the crime.

ranger

I have to admit I am never quite sure when I read your replies if you are intentionally obtuse or just plain stupid!

The point is that when you say your fitness is "maximal" (meaning it can be no better) AND that your fitness is "declining" AND your technique is "set AND you have to stop erging to "refocus" on technique it implies that the work (erging) is so hard for you that you have to take breaks. This means you can't go as fast as you think you can ... as fast as a 6:16 2K erger can go.

The only way you will get to a 6:16 2K is to get more "power" ... which means your fitness has to improve ... which you claim is "maximal". That you think you will avoid this reality by claiming erging is art is lunacy.

But I think you know all this, yet can't quite accept it.

JimR

[JohnBove]

If you just work on your fitness, failure is, necessarily, a failure of fitness.

So if one works on fitness and ignores working on technique, weight control, developing racing toughness, etc., one's failure, should one fail, will be due to (lack of) fitness?

You're such a fatuous shithead. And a contemptible, dishonorable welsher.

[leadville]

If you just work on your fitness, failure is, necessarily, a failure of fitness.

So if one works on fitness and ignores working on technique, weight control, developing racing toughness, etc., one's failure, should one fail, will be due to (lack of) fitness?

You're such a fatuous shithead. And a contemptible, dishonorable welsher.

JB - perhaps rangerbuoy was referring to 'mental fitness'?

[mikvan52]

It's cruel to take joy in such a photo... aw, what the heck!

Key Ranger statistics:

rangerBUOY

I wonder if RIch would honor us with yet another assertion of how he'll win the 2011 installment of the HOCR 60+ 1x w/o ever having completed a 5k race OTW...
- dude!

Do they have a clown division?

[ranger]

I wonder if RIch would honor us with yet another assertion of how he'll win the 2011 installment of the HOCR 60+ 1x w/o ever having completed a 5k race OTW

By rowing 1:58 @ 30 spm?

ranger

[ranger]

As both Matthias and Rocket Roy, two of our lightweight 2K WR holders, have demonstrated, one of the hallmarks of good rowing is to be able to keep a pretty high rate (e.g., 26-27 spm) for considerable distances, perhaps even for a FM, without meddling with drag or breaking technique, except perhaps by lightening up a little (1 SPI or so) from a 2K stroking power.

If you can do this, rating 36 spm or more in a 2K is no problem.

As you shorten the distance, you just raise the rate, pace, and heart rate proportionally.

26 spm FM middlin' UT1
27 spm HM high UT1
28 spm 60min top-end UT1
29 spm 10K pushing into AT
30 spm 30 min AT
31 spm 6K AT, pushing into TR
32 spm 5K ouch

I am now doing this.

Feels great.

120 df.

1:44 @ 26 spm (12 SPI), 1:42 @ 27 spm (12 SPI, etc.

ranger

[ranger]

Briefly reading that thread, the thing that really jumps out to me is how much better you used to be in your age group.

Hardly.

My 2Ks in 2009 and 2010, done without even preparing for them, were at WR pace for my age and weight and well beyond the efforts of anyone else in my age group.

No 58- or 59-year-old lwt has ever rowed as fast (6:41).

In 2006, my sub-6:30 hwt 2K, also done without even preparing for it, was unprecedented.

No one else my weight has come anywhere near sub-6:30 at 55 years old (and probably never will).

Now, I am right on pace to pull 6:16 at 60, rowing well at low drag, fully prepared.

That will break the 60s lwt 2K WR by 26 seconds.

At 60, no lwt will _ever_ row as fast.

6:16 will not just beat the 60s lwt WR.

It will beat the 60s hwt WR, the 55s hwt WR, the 55s lwt WR, the 50s lwt WR, and the 40s lwt WR.

Give or take a bit, 6:16 is rowing as fast as this 38-year-old guy, who, with three golds and a bronze, is now training for his _fifth_ Olympics.



ranger

[snowleopard]

No one else my weight has come anywhere near sub-6:30 at 55 years old (and probably never will).

Rubbish. You were a hwt and that's the only weight of any significance. Your 6:30 was way way off the WR.

[hjs]

It's cruel to take joy in such a photo... aw, what the heck!

Key Ranger statistics:

rangerBUOY

I wonder if RIch would honor us with yet another assertion of how he'll win the 2011 installment of the HOCR 60+ 1x w/o ever having completed a 5k race OTW...
- dude!

Do they have a clown division?

That will be a no