Annual Meters - Distance

Chad Williams · Post by **Chad Williams** » March 28th, 2006, 5:39 am

For example, lets say if someone was to row 45,492.6m Average per day, From 1st May 2005 to 28th March 2006

At 2.00/500m pace that will take you approx 3 hours 2mins without breaks.

That is 21 hours 14mins Approx of rowing a week.

That means every week you will spend close to 1 full day (24 hrs) rowing.

15,103,561 is a lot of meters, with a projected end year total of 16,604,580

Who could do such a thing? Fitness Instructor? Part time worker? Retired Person?

It must be nice to be able to row a full marathon distance every day of the week, every week of the month, every month of the year.
You cant afford to be ill or go on vacation, how would you catch up on losing 45k everyday you are away from the erg.

I am amazed. That is amazing.

polaco · Post by **polaco** » March 28th, 2006, 5:55 am

Yes,_it_is!!!

Daren · Post by **Daren** » March 28th, 2006, 6:01 am

At 1:45 pace it's only 2 hours, 40 minutes. An hour and 20 minutes in the morning as a "wake-me-up", and an hour and 20 minutes in the evening. I don't think it's that unlikely, and certainly doesn't need to be someone that's retired or unemployed. Just someone that likes using the erg. =)

At 1:30 pace it's only 2 and a quarter hours. O_o

Chad Williams · Post by **Chad Williams** » March 28th, 2006, 8:03 am

I have been looking at the top 3 overall distance ergers. I can find information on a guy named David Hislop, he has just rowed over 50 million life time meters, he does 20,000m most days first thing in the morning and then another session during the day, seems he is a fitness instructor of some sort.

Does anyone know what sort of pace he rows the 20K at?

To row any sort of distance more than 25K in one sitting can not be productive to training, you need to break it up into manageable sessions, this then adds to the time spent on the erg.

90mins at 1.48 is the most I would dare as a training session. At some point within 25K of rowing, you hit a point when the meters become junk meters as you are fatiguing and dropping your shoulders and the stroke is becoming sloppy.

But if you are not racing I guess that does not matter much.

RST · Post by **RST** » March 28th, 2006, 8:12 am

Chad Williams wrote:I have been looking at the top 3 overall distance ergers. I can find information on a guy named David Hislop, he has just rowed over 50 million life time meters, he does 20,000m most days first thing in the morning and then another session during the day, seems he is a fitness instructor of some sort.

Does anyone know what sort of pace he rows the 20K at?

To row any sort of distance more than 25K in one sitting can not be productive to training, you need to break it up into manageable sessions, this then adds to the time spent on the erg.

90mins at 1.48 is the most I would dare as a training session. At some point within 25K of rowing, you hit a point when the meters become junk meters as you are fatiguing and dropping your shoulders and the stroke is becoming sloppy.

But if you are not racing I guess that does not matter much.

I think the guy you are speaking of is known as Roadrunner on the UK thread. You might be able to find his training stuff there - try the diaries section. I think he medalled in his weight group at this year's WIRC.
Cheers
RichardT

RST · Post by **RST** » March 28th, 2006, 8:14 am

yes - here is teh link http://www.concept2.co.uk/forum/weblog.php?w=20

Chad Williams · Post by **Chad Williams** » March 28th, 2006, 8:53 am

RST wrote:yes - here is teh link http://www.concept2.co.uk/forum/weblog.php?w=20

Thank you for pointing this out RST, I have looked at some of his posts on the other forum. 2.05 pace for 20K for a 50 year Lightweight is good steady mileage. I could not find anything with regards to what stroke rate he rowed these sessions at, r18 to r20 would be very nice productive training sessions.
I was glad to see that he mixes in some intervals as a second session.

Does anyone know anything of Eric Nelson, he is sitting in 2nd place in the ranking list.

csabour · Post by **csabour** » March 28th, 2006, 9:24 am

I'm a little concerned about this whole uber mileage thing.

I just don't believe it's possible to do that kind of mileage everyday for a year without suffering from an overuse injury... I don't know if you guys noticed but, your body is in BAD shape after 2 hours of erging even at a nice pace. do 2+ hours a day for a week and somthing is bound to give out. I hurt my back in the fall after double training for 2 weeks on the water and on the erg and i was out for a week as my back repaired itself.

Another thing is that with all that mileage one's muscles are going to do some crazy transformations. Obviously your body is in favor of building slow twitch muscles if you train every day for 50km. the book, Rowing Faster, warns that one should be careful not to overdo endurance training or otherwise your fast twitch muscles will actually TRANSFORM into slow twitch muscles to favor your endurance pieces. It warns to not do too much over 9 000 000m a year.

I guess that's fine for those not interested in 2k racing. but for the rest of us, that is a huge power loss that will disadvantage you hugely on the course.

Chad Williams · Post by **Chad Williams** » March 28th, 2006, 9:42 am

You have a good point; I also feel that doing long distance work of anything over 25K day in day out will affect your ability to row a fast 2000m time.

I will never row for more than 90 minutes in any one session. My coach allows an option of a 5 min break at 45 minutes to get off the erg, stretch and loosen off again before continuing for another 45 mins.

Consistency in the stroke is very important, the stroke must be strong, the technique and form has to be correct for each and every stroke, I am taught that each stroke has to be better than the previous one.

With longer sessions of 90 minutes and over, the body and mind will start to switch off, bad stroking turning into junk meters.

whp4 · Post by **whp4** » March 28th, 2006, 11:21 am

I think perhaps you guys need to worry about your own rowing, not anyone else's!

Looking at the top of the annual meters board, I see:

Dwayne Adams
Eric Nelson
David Hislop (aka Roadrunner)
Don Siebert
Richard White
David A Jacobs
ahmed khairy
Fred Jones
omar khairy
Tom Orlow
Jose Maria Ribot
Bria Hallinan
Dennis Kline
Abdelrahman Adel
Eric Hagberg
Mohammed Salem
etc.

Khairy x2, Adel and Salem were claimed to be part of an Egyptian rowing team at the start of the season when their totals were questioned. Is it true? Don't know, don't care - if it is, I'll let their coach worry about their mileage, and if it isn't it really doesn't matter.

Eric Nelson is the Exec. Dir. of a YMCA and according to an article in the C2 2004 Spring "Update" rows 5 or 6 times a day, 30-60 minutes per session, trying to average 40k/day. Read the article here:http://www.concept2.com/05/rower/servic ... ng2004.pdf

People who race:
David Hislop
Eric Hagberg
Fred Jones
all have won medals at CRASH-B or qualified for a free ride there. They sound like perhaps they can be trusted to look after themselves.

That leaves:

Don Siebert
Richard White
David A Jacobs
Tom Orlow
Jose Maria Ribot
Bria Hallinan
Dennis Kline

Several are members of the Ancient Mariners, one credits his extensive rowing as instrumental in his sailboat racing, looks like one or two of them might also row OTW, what the heck, maybe they all just enjoy doing it? I understand there are people who run for hours a week even though they aren't training for marathons, will they be your next concern?

Dwayne Adams

Ah, here we come to the real reason for Chad's interest, I'm sure. Very thoughtful of you to be so concerned about Dwayne's overtraining!

I find it very hard to believe that Xeno Muller spent as much time during the year before any of his medal-winning appearances in the Olympics publicly worrying about the training habits and alleged improprieties of his competitors, much less people who were unlikely to be his competitors. Why not take a page from Xeno's book and concentrate on your own efforts? Admittedly, that isn't as glamorous as the hard-hitting expose about how there might be people bending the truth about their efforts on a piece of exercise equipment

As for my body being in bad shape after two hours of rowing, or junk meters, I can only say this:

I feel much better after a two hour row than after a 2k race!

I find that ErgMonitor provides a fine tool for keeping the brain in the loop.

Bill

johnlvs2run · Post by **johnlvs2run** » March 28th, 2006, 11:24 am

A friend of mine met Eric Nelson and said he's a great guy, very helpful.

He told me what pace Nelson rows but I don't recall and would need to check.

It wasn't very fast. I think it was 2:30 pace.

Also he manages a YMCA fitness center, and I think he does 10k at a time.

Personally I would say anyone doing a lot of distance every day is going to be doing most of it very easily.

Dickie · Post by **Dickie** » March 28th, 2006, 11:34 am

When I was younger, as a weightlifter, I regularly trained in excess of 3 hours a day. I've read that Olympic Athletes train as much as 6 hours a day in various sports. One of my sons friends trained daily in gymnastics from 4 to 6 hours to make the national junior olympic squad. We even have ranger who trains 4+ hours daily and was/is? a world record holder.

Maybe some of the ex-runners would know more about this. there was a Marine who was called Captain America, he was a running fanatic. It has been reported that he ran double marathons everyday for 2 months.

When I started erging 7 years ago, I thought 10k a day was impossible. At that time I could not erg more than 10 days in a row without taking time off to recover and my best year was 2002 where I completed in excess of 2.1 million meters. Then at the end of the 2002 season my time requirements changed to allow me more time on the erg, the result was 370 consecutive days without a break and 5,000,000 meters in the 2003 ranking year. No ill affects, no problems of any kind.

Just because you don't have the time or the inclination, does not mean it can not be done. Until the 2003 season, I might have been inclined to disbelieve, but not any more.

johnlvs2run · Post by **johnlvs2run** » March 28th, 2006, 11:47 am

I believe it is possible.

I also believe that Dwayne Adams is not doing it.

csabour · Post by **csabour** » March 28th, 2006, 7:08 pm

whp4 wrote:I think perhaps you guys need to worry about your own rowing, not anyone else's!
...
...
...
As for my body being in bad shape after two hours of rowing, or junk meters, I can only say this:

I feel much better after a two hour row than after a 2k race!

Bill

Frankly I don't care about other peoples routines, unless I'm competing against them. But what i do care for is rowing theory. If i spend over 400 hours/year rowing, i want everything i can about it; physiologically, psychologically, logistically, and it's history. I'm not proposing that anyone should be doing exclusivley speedwork. Infact i reconize the importance of a broad aerobic base, but what I'm trying to illustrate is that huge volumes 90'+ are good in moderation, too much of a good thing is bad! It takes 8 years of training for an average rower to peak aerobically. The same rower can STILL make improvements, but we're talking a little for ALOT of work. Once athletes get to the 8th year of competitive training(i.e. Olympic/Nationals) they are more concerned with developing power and threshold training more than anything. They STILL do the long pieces however they are almost only for a recovery of the muscles.

All i'm trying to say, is that at the level where you are a sub 6 man and you are trying to push the bar higher, maybe a more comprehensive training scheduale is in order.

RST · Post by **RST** » March 29th, 2006, 8:13 am

To achieve the number of metres logged by Dwayne AND maintain the muscle bulk (or rather, the training required to maintain the muscle bulk) is an incredible feat.

How many hours sleep do you get Dwayne? You work full time and still have the time to do full time athlete type sessions?

Cheers
RichardT