New Personal Best! Brag About That New Pb!

[AnimalNige]

New 2k PB this morning even though I woke up at 3am and crawled into the gym at 8 feeling like shit.

I managed 6:47.3 with a higher than accustomed drag factor of 140. At the end of that I fell off the machine and couldn't even get my feet out. The gym regulars who sometimes saw away on the erg pulling 2:30s must have though I was a lunatic!

I'm supposed to be happy, but like a lot of driven athletes, that's a receding target for me. Now I want t break 6:45.

Probably possible with more sensible splits. I had

1:39.2
1:42.5
1:42.8
1:42.9

[rlk]

In my experience the best way to do them is as you suggest with a flat and very deliberate pace with just enough to finish strongly. My internet friend Richard Steventon in the UK though has suggested that for the 1 hour TT you swing from a faster than pace 1k to a slower 1k rather than flat pacing - might just give that a go.

I believe I do best with flat pacing (as flat as I can manage). The problem with alternating like that is that slowing down by a few seconds isn't enough for me to really recover, but then having to pick it back up by that much or more saps my power very quickly.

My usual pacing for longer stuff (30m and up) is that my fastest splits are generally somewhere near the middle, after I'm fully warmed up but before I start getting tired. That's the case for my 30m, 10K, 60m, and HM. For 6K and below, I've generally been able to maintain pace, and sometimes even pick it up a bit.

[rlk]

Couple more goodies this week:

Tuesday, 6K/20:45.3 (that's the one ranking distance I've never done standalone. Wasn't too bad. Called it subjective 95% effort but that's probably a bit high. My target was below 20:50, preferably below 20:48 (1:44 pace), but I should be able to do closer to 1:43.3 or so (about 20:40). I was a bit conservative for the first half, but after that I picked it up since my HR was still below 170 (I get about 10 minutes at 170 before I start to fall apart). Last 1K split was 1.3 sec faster (0.7 sec/500), with most of that coming near the end; I really cranked it up for the last few hundred meters, down to 1:40-1:42, so I wound up at 1:43.7.

Today (Thursday), 16635/60m. That's the big one. My old PR (16604) was about 18 months old, from May 2013. I hadn't done more than 16548 this year or 16490 this season, and I've been a bit annoyed about that. I planned to just go fast (not some silly "minimal fast" a little above 16K), but I wasn't thinking PR until maybe 30 min in when I was up around 8280, pulling 1:47's and 1:48's, and HR still down at 161, I figured I had enough room to go for it. Go for it I did. After an initial 10m split of 2711, the next 4 were between 2785 and 2792. The last 10 minutes I slowed down a bit as the fatigue was coming on and I wanted to ensure that I'd break it, but after maybe 55 or 56 minutes I was pretty confident. The first 45 minutes or so it really felt pretty easy, no more than 90% effort if that. I should have warmed up for 5 minutes, though; my first 5 minutes were only around 1325 or so, and if I could have done another 5 minutes around 1:50, that would have added another 30-35 meters and sub-1:48. Oh well.

So I've completed all of my interesting PR's (FM is a bit more than I'm interested in, and I'm not really interested in 500m and 1K even though I did set those PR's back in August). That's on top of 534K in the FTC, which is also a PR. All of my PR's are now in my second half century

[Gettingold]

Nice rowing RLK. You obviously have a penchant for distance. With your frame you should try giving the competition distances a nudge.

[jackarabit]

Another PB with the warmup in the piece. I started this as a UT1 row. Maybe just as well as HR was way up there at the end. I did try to control HR by explosive exhalations at the beginning of the recovery. That usually works to drop HR by two beats in two strokes. After a minute or so it climbs again unless drive speed or spm is reduced. I did feel like I was in control and pumped up the watts a bit on the last K but I didn't attempt to sprint. Well, rolly coaster splits but 26' improvement over the previous which says high volume of meters in Sept. (377K) and Oct. (192K) slowed me down (don't die laughing!) and got me a little gain in power. Just finished 14 weeks IP wgt loss and starting the last eight weeks of IP 2K. I want to retest the 2K and see longer yardage at 30' and the hour. My big goal is to hold < 2:30 over the HM distance.

Did a Cardiolite/Bruce treadmill walk for the cardiologist yesterday. He didn't let me do the 10' 32" I've done at the gym on my own (half way thru 3' at 4.3mph and 15% incline) but did let me go past the 85% of max as calculated by the one size fits all 220 minus age formula. I saw 146 b/m on the monitor when he called time. So the stented artery is wide open and no scar tissue and I get off the Plavix first of next yr. Jack

[rlk]

Nice rowing RLK. You obviously have a penchant for distance. With your frame you should try giving the competition distances a nudge.

Thanks.

I'm hardly ashamed of my 2K. It would be nice to break 6:30; if I do I do, if I don't I don't. My 6K could also be faster, but that's probably the least interesting of the rating times/distances.

This week has been a big struggle. I think I'm fried from the past 3 months and need to take it easy for a spell.

[jackarabit]

This 5K today at the gym is a second less than the one posted yesterday. Plenty of warmup, mile on treadmill, another 5' on the Woodway manual tmill, three or four minutes on an elliptical, and a couple of sets of cable rows and lat pulldowns while I waited for one of the rowers to open up. So I go out too quick and have to take a long nap in the middle! Jack

[jackarabit]

First time I've ranked this distance. There's a power reduction in the third 2K but overall I was satisfied to stay under 2:30 and have something left for the final 2K altho pretty well topped out on HR. Warmup was included in the piece but this seems to be working for me rather than against me as I don't have endurance to spare. Jack

[jackarabit]

2500m Fischer/fartlek style warmup then decided to switch up what I've been doing and go for it early, limit the damage from the inevitable positive splitting by avoiding seeing current pace of 2:15+ and flirt with the redline enuf to hurt but not enuf to crack. I thought the double the distance add 5" per split formula meant I should be able to do 8:36. My old lungs don't really concur in that estimate but the merest touch of over-optimism can be useful. Mr. Smith's statement that it's amazing how bad you can feel and not die pretty much sums up what's necessary. So the pacing is inside out but not quite upside down. Sort of a fly and survive. I'll take the 17+ seconds below my old number as the product of the increased volume during the FTC and a good baseline for the 2K IP. Hope to go faster with more orthodox splitting in future. Jack

[Citroen]

You went out way too hard for the first 500, that is the way of the "fly'n'die".

Divide your 2000m into these parts
#1 800m @ 2:11 (155.7W) duration 3:26.9
#2 600m @ 2:10 (159.3W) duration 2:36.0
#3 400m @ 2:09 (163.0W) duration 1:43.2
#4 last 200m @ 2:08 (166.9W) or better duration 0:51.2

That way you won't go out too hard and you'll finish in 8:40 or better depending on how much you throw at the last 200m.

[lindsayh]

You went out way too hard for the first 500, that is the way of the "fly'n'die".

Divide your 2000m into these parts
#1 800m @ 2:11 (155.7W) duration 3:26.9
#2 600m @ 2:10 (159.3W) duration 2:36.0
#3 400m @ 2:09 (163.0W) duration 1:43.2
#4 last 200m @ 2:08 (166.9W) or better duration 0:51.2
That way you won't go out too hard and you'll finish in 8:40 or better depending on how much you throw at the last 200m.

Hi Jack - a 17s PB for 2km is a really nice thing to do. Well done
I agree with Dougie though - hold back a little and neg split will get you well under 8:40 - good luck for next time

[jackarabit]

OK. So the visual cues on the monitor for the uptick in pace would be 1200m, 600, 200 remaining and 1" off pace at each change. Bit sophisticated physiologically or maybe psychologically but simple to remember. I like that. I think I can do that. Thanks Doug.

And thanks for the encouragement, Lindsay. I told my wife that my goal for the 2000 is to have the average time in our ranking age group (currently 8:33). She says that's a "noble aspiration."

Jack

[DanielJ]

OK. So the visual cues on the monitor for the uptick in pace would be 1200m, 600, 200 remaining and 1" off pace at each change. Bit sophisticated physiologically or maybe psychologically but simple to remember. I like that. I think I can do that. Thanks Doug.

And thanks for the encouragement, Lindsay. I told my wife that my goal for the 2000 is to have the average time in our ranking age group (currently 8:33). She says that's a "noble aspiration."

Jack

That shouldn't be too tough for you. I think you'll probably manage that before the end of the month, or definitely sometime in December.

I think (for me, at least) 2ks are best done at something like this:

First 500 m @ target pace + 1 second;
Middle 1000 m @ target pace, thus remaining @ target + 1 second;
Put everything into your last 500 m, thus recovering that forfeited second and hopefully more.

So your 8:33 target time would be split into 500s of 2:09.2, 2:08.2, 2:08.2 and 2:07.2.

An 8-second pace drop from first 500 to second 500 is huge, even by fly-and-die standards. If you insist on going out hard, give yourself a bit more of a chance by relaxing that first 500 down to more like 2:08.

[jackarabit]

The recipe comes out to exactly 8.6' or 8:36. How do you do that, Citroen? Must be a complex pace chart! Jack

[jackarabit]

DanielJ, your schedule also sounds good. The usual division into .5K segments is more familiar to me. I am encouraged to think that a bit more is possible. Jack