Lance Armstrong Award

[lucky13js]

So I hesitate to start this topic since I believe anyone who would cheat in a competition that has no trophy or cash prize would therefore have no life, which means I have even less of one - BUT...

I am doing a little math and wonder how some of these individual totals are achievable.

5 people averaging a marathon a day with no days of rest - some people even approaching twice that. There are 35 averaging a half marathon/day again with no days of rest. Of these 35, 30 of them are over the age of 40, 8 of them over 64.

Perhaps some people are incorrectly entering the data?

Am I delusional?

In all sincerity as one one who tries to erg 25-30K/week - while balancing life (the small one that I have)/work/fun, I'm blown away by some of these numbers.

Looking for a life,

Lucky13

[Carl Watts]

Personally I think many of the results are BS.

Until C2 start a decent Challenge with IND_V entries only then take the leaders with a pinch of salt. Even then it's not foolproof, many people use gym machines so you could just write down rows that other people have done and enter those so you can always find a way to cheat.

Even being part of the RowPro Team has been frustating as only 4 of the top 10 are doing their rowing online so you can check the actual rows in the results. The top couple of people have not rowed a single meter online so you cannot verify their results at all.

I notice that a huge majority of people that row Online don't bother to enter the Challenge and who can blame them ?

Cannot wait for RowPro to have their own "Annual Metres Challange Board" that takes actual online row results only, much harder to fiddle that one but I can still come up with ways round even this.

Another thing thats a problem is that it's metres only and they have no AVERAGE PACE. I think you will find that the genuine high metres rowers are basically sitting on the rower all day rowing at 2:40 plus pace, something that the majority of people that have to work and have a life simply don't have the time, and wouldn't want to waste their time doing anyway as it's pointless.

It is possible to do nearly a HM every day with no rest, I did it a year or two ago at 2:03 to 2:06 pace every day when I was not working, I was wasted and got sick at the end of the Challange and finished on 635Km.

Cheers.

[Quatroux]

I favor race entries posted on regattacentral, but you can only look at individual races. The race entries, logcards, ind_v, and rowpro entries from Cocnept2 are great for seeing individual times or who is in the lead in one class or distance. They fall apart when you look at percentiles and averages. It is impossible to filter the rubbish.

I'm impressed by the meter totals of the challenge leaders. That's great exercise, but it is crap training. I find that these meter challenges encourage me to row "junk" meters that don't make me any faster.

[enrage]

The title of the thread made me laugh. You bring up some very good points and I agree with 100%.

if there was money involved then i really believe the system would be revamped to prevent cheating.

[Kona2]

So I hesitate to start this topic since I believe anyone who would cheat in a competition that has no trophy or cash prize would therefore have no life, which means I have even less of one - BUT...

I am doing a little math and wonder how some of these individual totals are achievable.

5 people averaging a marathon a day with no days of rest - some people even approaching twice that. There are 35 averaging a half marathon/day again with no days of rest. Of these 35, 30 of them are over the age of 40, 8 of them over 64.

Perhaps some people are incorrectly entering the data?

Am I delusional?

In all sincerity as one one who tries to erg 25-30K/week - while balancing life (the small one that I have)/work/fun, I'm blown away by some of these numbers.

Looking for a life,

Lucky13

We have several people on our team (Luna-Tics Team) who routinely row distances of half marathon or more a day for most of the year. And these are people who do have jobs, kids, etc. Some of them watch a movie or tv while they row, and you're right -- some are very slow in comparison to some of the numbers that are cited here. One of the great things about rowing is that you can get a good workout when you're past the age where hips, knees, backs often give out for running. We have a lot of highly competitive folks who used to be runners. Most of our team does use the log card method of entry, and many of us are indeed doing multiple rowing sessions in a given day -- just to get the kind of Challenge meters that you might be seeing right now. I know I am not fast - but trying to fit in the team postings, and celebrating the meter milestones PLUS trying to row an extra hour a day is challenging. But that's what it's all about - you rearrange some of your time to compete with other teams - and you hope to high heaven that everyone is playing by the rules.

I'd love to see more people take part in the Challenges, too. And it would be great to have all the results easily verifed by log card entry. But mostly this is for fun and for motivation to get your exercise in for the day or week, and I know you know that. Just wanted to offer up a different perspective that there really are honest people out there who are indeed rowing these kinds of distances...but it's not without some tradeoffs during the Challenges in terms of balance. K2

[Bisballej]

@lucky13js
Your point is well taken and considered...
On the fun side, may I offer that some people choose to spend 1-3 hours on Facebook, twitter, etc.
Other people choose to interact with their concept2 rower! Our family has a tv and computer off-on-weekdays policy. Leaves plenty of time for homework and rowing (yes - 30+ km is no problem).

Perhaps some persons overindulge in their reporting, however I would venture to say that the high-achievers do what they say/report that they are doing. Their records over time may also validate their recording.

My goals are not km/week related. Just staying in a certain percentile for my age group - cheating on that? Just cheating myself for sure.
JB

[Ergmeister]

Good topic - great title. It is what it is. The Captain of our team (The Erging will Continue until Morale Improves) logged 800k meters in the January Challenge and I thought that was nuts. We all use C2 logcards.

Obviously the system is ripe for exploitation. Reminds me of Row2k's popularity polls where you vote without any login so it encourages what I'll characterize as "Chicago style voting"; early and often!

I think it would be nice if C2 would setup multiple categories; meters logged with C2logcard, ErgBuddy, ErgData, RowPro, or other electronic system that logs meters, and then a category for user entered data.

[Carl Watts]

Good topic - great title. It is what it is. The Captain of our team (The Erging will Continue until Morale Improves) logged 800k meters in the January Challenge and I thought that was nuts. We all use C2 logcards.

Obviously the system is ripe for exploitation. Reminds me of Row2k's popularity polls where you vote without any login so it encourages what I'll characterize as "Chicago style voting"; early and often!

I think it would be nice if C2 would setup multiple categories; meters logged with C2logcard, ErgBuddy, ErgData, RowPro, or other electronic system that logs meters, and then a category for user entered data.

I don't have a problem with 800K, it's quite possible but at the upper limit of what I suspect is a respectable pace to go with it. I do have a problem with 2000K however.

Have been campaigning for a better system for ages, IND_V, Logcard, Rowpro or some other legit form of upload or data entry besides the hopeless manual entry system used currently. Yes keep this for PM2 users but allow the PM3 users to enter a VALIDATED RESULT so we get to compete against other rowers using validated results.

There also needs to be a PACE column or better still click on the individual to see the full stats like the number of rows, total time, average pace, average spm and anything else that can be pulled out of the upload that is usefull, i.e. something that looks exactly like the "LogCard Summary" that is already on your PM3 or PM4 monitor.

It may seem strange and will probably cause a s*@t storm, but I don't have a problem with Lance using drugs for the following reasons:-

A. It looks like every other top cyclist is taking them anyway
B. He still actually DID the cycling, not got up in the morning and entered into a computer what he though he could have done for the day
C. The drugs made him faster, they didn't make it easier. The Tour is a killer of a ride no matter how you look at it.

[rlebrun197]

I ses some interesting view here am a cyclist/time trialist in the summer and indoor rower in the winter since i got my concept two i do believe some of the record are far fetch that are IND but i would believe it if it RACE IND_V C2LOG or even ROWPRO recorded i admit to my self i am new to the sport of rowing but in just over 11 days i done 21000M or 21KM it nowhere near as much i do on my cycling in a day but i am working my butt off for a reason Award to me is BS i do for fun and health