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[old] amandacobb · Post by **[old] amandacobb** » June 27th, 2004, 4:01 pm

Congrats on the recent wedding! That's wonderful. I hope this is just the begining of a lifetime of happiness for you both. I had always hoped to run. Fact is though, there are just too many very large hills here, and I'm way too out of shape to make a real go of it. A few years ago, I dragged myself limping across the finish line of a local 1/2 marathon but I had fractured my foot around mile 5 so I basically crawled the last 8.1 miles. Ok, I walked, cried, sat down briefly to whimper pathetically, and then dragged myself limping the rest of the way. But I Was Not Last! And started late. So I'm ok with that. I would still like to run at least 2 (although I know it will take more) marathons. 1) to qualify for Boston and 2) to finish Boston. Then I would be happy. However, I am thinking it might be easier if I get myself into the best shape possible w/the rowing first. Drop the extra weight. And then worry about building up some sort of high impact base on the road. Of course, I think I'd be happy to put away the running shoes at that point and never jog another step. You've got one heck of a swell man there to buy you a C2 as a present. Ahhh that I could aspire to the acquisition of such a beau. What class! What sensitivity! What style. Nice to meet you MKC I think I'll start reading that training manual today. -A

[old] grams · Post by **[old] grams** » June 28th, 2004, 11:49 am

When I started, 20 minutes was forever, and then 30 minutes was a long time, and then 40 minutes....... I need a 45 minute or longer session to get any fat-reducing benefit from it. That's when my body switches over to burning it off. I do keep some glucose tablets or hard candy handy during the row to fend off bonking. Oh, yeah. I have a gel seat cover on my erg. Its one made for a fat-seat bicycle. nd I use the gel-filled blister pads on the tender parts of my feet. These 2 items keep me from wearing out selsected parts of my anatomy. I listen to very loud music while I row. I burned some cds with the songs that have roughly the same rhythm as my natural stroke, and a cd lasts about 60-65 minutes. So I put one on and keep rowing till it ends. I don't look at the numbers constantly, I work out the day's problems in my head until the endorphins take over. Watching the numbers disturbs my stroke rhythm (sp?) You may prefer to watch tv or videos or whatever else that will pass the time. Me, I like classic r&r, intense classical stuff, and ethnic music. Reggae is good for a long relaxed session. You are in a Nonathlon age group with more competition than I am so it will be harder for you to move up. I was happy to do a better time in a distance sometimes. Usually my best times were done by accident, on a good day with good music. Our 19th anniversary is tomorrow, and I just ordered a Model D. My husband has just rebuilt a trail bike for me, so we will likely go cycling tomorrow. Hardly any time left for my home business, but I feel really good. Grams

[old] amandacobb · Post by **[old] amandacobb** » June 29th, 2004, 2:44 pm

First of all,... Happy Anniversary!!! That is so cool. 20 Minutes IS forever. Ok, maybe not. But I can't imagine going an hour or more. At least not right now. I will have to look into the gel seat cover. Now that sounds awfully cushy and nice. I should try to make myself an iPod playlist or whatever. I've got the cute little Altec speakers for it so I could listen to it w/o headphones too. It may be harder for me to move up, but I know I can move SOME at least. If only because I'm so woefully out of shape now, that the only direction to go is up! It looks like just completing more of the distances helps the score too. So I suppose I could work to finish each thing, and then try to improve times on the ones I can manage. Sigh, cycling sounds like a lot more fun than work... woe. -A

[old] Sparky · Post by **[old] Sparky** » June 30th, 2004, 8:32 am

Hi Amanda; Like you, I am fairly new to the erg (and exercise!). I thought I would pass along what I have learned to date. You have no doubt learned some of this already.<ul><li>Start slow, then slow down a bit more. I hopped on my C2 one morning about 7 years ago shortly after I bought it, trying to impress my wife with how fast I could row. I promptly buggered my back, which discouraged me from any other exercise, especially rowing for quite some time.</li><li>Download the training guide from the UK site. Very good reading on a wide variety of subjects.</li><li>Set realistic and specific goals. Both short term and long term. In my case, I had to learn to accept that 10 to 15 years of relative inactivity were not to be undone by 10 to 15 days of exercise. </li><li>Post questions on this site. Lots of helpful people here with much more experience than you or I.</li><li>Use a HR monitor. I found it very easy to overtrain without it. It is also quite useful for tracking one's progress.</li><li>Use the C2 personal logbook to record and track your progress. I even use it to record activities other than rowing. Example, if I cycle 35 minutes, I enter that time in the log, but just enter a distance of 1 meter so as not to skew my distance rowed.</li><li>Do the nonathlon. I haven't completed all of the events yet, but my goal is to do so by the end of 2004.</li></ul> Good luck, Mark

[old] amandacobb · Post by **[old] amandacobb** » June 30th, 2004, 10:02 am

Mark, Thank you. All helpful and sound advice. I have, and use, a HR monitor... and this may be a stupid question, but how do you know when you're overtraining? For many, many, years.. (and perhaps as a stall tactic), I've read various articles and books about training and dieting and metabolism and nutrition and such. And I what I don't understand is how the body distinguishes "overtraining" from just being "really active." I sit on my butt all day in front of a computer. And when I come home, I do my part to make sure television shows stay on the air. But I know some people get up every day and build houses or make wine barrels or heft sacks of feed or whatever. Clearly, they burn about a trillion more calories a day than I would. Is is merely the frequency of the activity that tells the body that this is 'normal' as opposed to 'training.' It seems that if my lifestyle were different, my muscles and heart could be taxed to a greater degree than with an hour or three of weightlifting or rowing a day. And yet, if I were to exercise for three hours a day, people might consider it excessive. Is overtaining somehow an objective thing? Or is it always subjective? Are people able to add 10% to their base each week and continue to improve? The HR Monitor I got (Polar s610i- I think that's the #) will transfer all the exercise data to the computer via IR sensor. Just thought I'd mention it since you talked about logging everything. I've been using the C2 log on my computer after connecting to the PM3/Logcard. Then entering it onto the site. But have been keeping a duplicate set of records in the polar software along w/the HR graphs. It's really very cool. I have a record of how much time I spent in various HR zones for the day/week/etc. Anyway, thank you for the advice. I do appreciate it. And I just may go print out those 250 pages of the training guide today. Cheers, -A

[old] eurofoot13 · Post by **[old] eurofoot13** » July 2nd, 2004, 11:16 am

The best way for you to determine overtraining is by keeping a log of your morning heart rate. Take your pulse right as you get up in the morning - even before you get out of bed if you can. After a while you will get a sense of where it is "supposed" to be. if this increases you have not recovered enough. At least that's the easy answer. In truth over training is much more complicated. It involves specific neural and hormonal responses to the training - they simply become overloaded with the work. The most common kind of overtraining is sympathetic overtraining - this involves those actions of the sympathetic nervous system - the one that excites you; this is as opposed to the parasympathetic which calms you down. Sympathetic overtraining results from training too hard without adequate rest. That's basically all there is to it. The symptoms range from incresed resting heartrate and decreased performance to nervousness, trouble sleeping, and emotional problems. The only real cure is to cut back on training volume, and recover. Parasympathetic overtraining occurs when athletes don't listen to the symptoms of sympathetic overtraining. The symptoms are the exact opposite of sympathetic overtraining, such as lower resting HR, increased enthusiasm for training, poor performance, fatigue, and lethargy. Thankfully, parasympathetic training is usually only found in those individuals with a very high training volume.

[old] amandacobb · Post by **[old] amandacobb** » July 2nd, 2004, 11:42 am

So, if I understand correctly: If I took my morning resting HR daily or every 2 to 3 days and basically watched it to make sure it isn't creeping up, I should be ok? I'm thinking it should probably go down as I get into better shape. I'm starting out from zero. So I notice that pretty much all workouts are done in what my polar s610i claims is 65% MHI & MAX and 35% LMI. (I think these must mean Moderate High Intensity and Low Moderate Intensity. But goodness knows, I'd have to read the manual to know for sure.) To tell you the truth, I could probably push it 20-30% harder than I am. But I'm trying not to overdo it and then quit because I'm frustrated and hurt. Or maybe I'm just lazy at heart and desperately hanging onto my old ways by justifying it. What I'm expecting is that the work will get "easier" and thet my HR will go down doing the same effort/distance/time of work. And I was planning to keep adding intensity and time to keep my HR up as it got easier. Does that seem like a reasonable course of action? I apologize in advance for what may amount to stupid questions.. and please, if there's some book out there that will illuminate everything, I'm more than willing to go buy it and not bore everyone with my questions. Thank you for your help... -A

[old] MKC · Post by **[old] MKC** » July 16th, 2004, 9:55 am

H Amanada, MKC again..I had lost track of this thread for a while... When I did the 1/2 marathon it was on the rower, about 21K (21043 to be exact) and it took me a long time 1:52. It was just a challange for me to see if I could last long enough on the rower - c2 hadd a challange on the website to row a 1/2 marathon on the 21st of June (the longest day of the year). I have run 2 1/2 marathons here in Colorado. I also was signed up for the London marathon a year ago ( I had lived there for 3 years and it is where I met my wonderful husbdand...English men are just wonderful, btw) but ended up getting another injury (stress- fracture) after falling while skiing...I still would like to do a running marathon someday! just a note that I am following one of the interactive 2K programs from the UK site and am now just starting my 4 th week. I'm seeing improvemnt already. So, once you get your base down, I would recommend giving one of the plans a go! Cheers, MKC

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