TimbukTOO Team Room

[Cyclingman1]

1K split of 2:01? Wow...I knew you were fast but not THAT fast!

Isn't the 1:46 side of that range more impressive?

Okay, you guys. I know you are jesting, but I didn't describe my splits well. The pace/500m of my 1Ks ranged from 1:46 to 2:01. My best ever 1K total time is 3:14 @1:37. So I don't get kudos for sub 2:00 1K. Arms still in sockets. That would be a world record and then some. I usually speak of my rowing efforts in terms of pace, not times. I've even got the wife understanding pace.

Actually, I just wanted to give a statistical breakdown of my 5Ks given the previous posts. It is interesting to see what kind of drag factors and SPMs are used for certain paces. And then of course physical characteristics also come into play which are stated in my signature.

Another parameter that may be of some note is that this is my last day at the young age of 67. Tomorrow the downhill slide picks up speed.

[damselfly]

Happy birthday in advance! I don't think the slide will be tilting any more downhill tomorrow than it is today...

[Quatroux]

My first OTW race of the season was this past weekend in Austin, Texas. I was scheduled to stroke a mixed quad and men’s quad. However, the men’s quad on Sunday was cancelled due to weather.

The rest of my mixed 4X had rowed singles and doubles all day Saturday (as many as 3 races each) in very windy conditions. That may have left us in less than ideal shape for our late race, but we still gave it our all.

Unfortunately, the high winds blew us off our point right at the start of our race. We had no problems at the stakeboat until they told us to sit ready. It was at that moment that a gust of wind blew us off our point. We called for a delay which went unheard or ignored. Note to self: you will row off and take a false start if that ever happens again.

Other than the delay of starting the race out of position, we had no issue reaching our race pace (30spm). We settled at 28spm which felt like all we had that day. Just keeping a straight line down the lane was enough of a challenge so there was no power 10 or late sprint. In all, we left about 10 seconds on the course.

We had thundersleet in Dallas on Sunday and all racing in Austin was cancelled. We had thankfully made the decision to drive back late Saturday and avoid all of that. The next race is a month away on home water.

[CONLEJM]

Here's what I did yesterday for rowing, drag factor is around 170 with damper set at 7. As Andy once said, (but I can't find his quote, so I paraphrase), it's better to take up a pace at the start and stick with it than to fluctuate throughout the row.

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I also SkiErged yesterday. Now it has only been a few days, but the new SkiErg machine is literally the most difficult and exhausting exercise I've ever done. Of course, I said that soon after I purchased my rowing machine ...

Happy Birthday, Jim!

[glenmbaker]

Here's what I did yesterday for rowing, drag factor is around 170 with damper set at 7.

Interesting. I tend to row at a much lower drag factor (I keep it under 120), but I do it because it simulates the boat better (some coaches advocate setting the drag as low as possible). When I row at higher drag factors it feels like I get way more burn in my arms (and hence shoulder strain). It probably kills my time a bit, but I'm one of those annoying OTW guys who uses the erg for a different purpose than most people on this forum. And every time I go out I discover yet another thing that I need to work on. Sooner or later I'll start actually improving instead of just discovering new faults!

Happy Birthday, Jim!

OK, all together now: Haaaaappy biirrrrthday tooooo youuuu......

..glen

[Izzzmeister]

...The World Erg Challenge will be a team thing, so Cap'n Izz will have to get us enrolled all official-like, and we'll do the goal-setting deal and all that...

I officializationalized our entrification into the WEC, so everyone can (and should) sign up soon.
I almost changed our classification to "Correctional Facility", since we correct the decades of inactivity & humorlessness here, but I thought I might need some supporting votes on that first...
I was a little disappointed in January for the VTC that we ended up in about 15th Place On the one hand, averaging about 135K per rower for the month was quite good, we had so many of our people pushing out amazing numbers, I think we exceeded 11MM as a team, and in previous years that would've sufficed to put us into the Top 10 of teams. However, this year a number of mega-teams have emerged, around countries (like Czech or French) or age or software, and caused our showing to not look as impressive as it was.
So, I'm hoping to get a better start this time, see if we can get closer to 100 team members, see if we can activate some of our ex-studs & studettes, push out some extra meters ourselves, do a "final sprint" the last week of the contest, and see how close we can get to topping 15MM. Is 15 million too crazy? 160K average per team member?
As for me, I'm raising my goal to 310K...

[Izzzmeister]

If you want to go randomly romping around the team room

I did some of that. It appears that Dec, 2010 and Jan, 2011 were pivotal times for TimbukTOO. You and Izz took over leadership of the team and continue today. That is a very long time to continue to give the time to keep the team going. I hope you all feel the love. Jim G

Technically, Izz took over the team and I felt sorry for him, so I offered to help, and was appalled that there were no back-end reporting tools for team captains on the website. I'd always assumed that's where Pat got the stats. C'mon, C2! Get on the ball!! So I wrote our stats tracker. Now I basically have a job for life. I couldn't leave the team even if I wanted to, or Izz would put a contract out on me.

I'm Jewish, so the only one we try to eliminate is the Middleman. Being that you're harvesting the numbers, and the team members consume those numbers, that makes ME the Middleman, so I think it's less than a good idea in this situation.
You WERE going to work on having your tracker harvest the numbers automatically, maybe even generate an automatic e-mail, etc., but chose to stay personally involved, and for that we thank you.
Also, thank you for feeling sorry for me. When you're 6' 2.5", 260lbs., reasonably good looking, and you can draw, sing, write, speak, think, run, lift and learn new skills quickly, you don't tend to garner a lot of sympathy. I was unemployed for 7 months about 8 years ago, and got close to a zero on the sympathy meter from people. (I still have thousands in credit card bills to show for it.) So, any time someone's willing to help me out, i'm probably a little more appreciative than most...

Yes, Jim, 3 years is a long time - especially since I only took the reins for 2 weeks until the 2 previous captains could iron out their differences...

[Citroen]

You WERE going to work on having your tracker harvest the numbers automatically, maybe even generate an automatic e-mail, etc., but chose to stay personally involved, and for that we thank you.

I've got some perl, php, MySQL programs that harvest the data for SUB7. You're more than welcome to have a copy of my ugly code.

[Janirower]

Hello, Im new to the team but have been using the erg for over ten years. Im not too fast though, as I row for distance and not speed. I do row about 90-100min a day, mostly for cardio. Its really the only form of cardio I truly love! Looking forward to the challenges! Thanks.

[D6K9Cop]

Welcome aboard janirower...

[D6K9Cop]

My God Conlejm, How big are you that you are rowing 170/7?

[Izzzmeister]

Hello, Im new to the team but have been using the erg for over ten years. Im not too fast though, as I row for distance and not speed. I do row about 90-100min a day, mostly for cardio. Its really the only form of cardio I truly love! Looking forward to the challenges! Thanks.

Welcome to Team TimbukTWO, Janice!

I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but what you signed up for is the "Team", which only functions during Team Challenges a couple times a year, like the World Erg Challenge which will begin March 15th.

We would appreciate it if you also joined TimbukTOO, which is the year-round affiliation.
To join the year-round Affiliation, from the home page, hit "Logbook", then "Profile", then "Edit Profile". Near the bottom of that page, you should see "Affiliations (optional)" - please pick TimbukTOO from the drop-down list.

Again, welcome Janice! I hope we can encourage each other to greater levels of fitness & health!

Your (sometimes) humble Cap'n Izzz

[Izzzmeister]

...I do row about 90-100min a day, mostly for cardio. Its really the only form of cardio I truly love!...

Janice, if you have a few months of rows that you want to upload, but don't want to do it painstakingly by hand, here's Concept 2's utility that you can use to upload straight from your Performance Monitor/LogCard using a USB cable: http://www.concept2.com/service/softwar ... t2-utility. Hope this helps! Izzz

[CONLEJM]

My God Conlejm, How big are you that you are rowing 170/7?

I'm 6' 4.5" and 205lbs. I'd like to lose about 5 more pounds, but I'm not trying too hard to lose it.

When I was younger - starting in college and up through my 20s - I always rowed with the damper set at 10. But back then I was very much into weightlifting and I was about 25lbs heavier. I'll guess the drag factor must have been 200 with the damper at 10. That was back on the good ol' Models A and B.

[Janirower]

Izzz, thank you, and Ive joined the team!

I've unfortunately, just discovered this site a few days ago, so my log only goes back to March 1. Im currently trying out the March challenge, and hoping to participate in the marathon in May. Oh, and of course, the Global challenge in March/April!

Looking forward to all this! Thanks again!