What is "free rate" pace?

[john_n]

But I didn't know how hard I should push or if I should try that hard again, since I've known so many guys (at work) who've told about injuring themselves at the gym and I didn't want to become another one of those statistics.
Rowing that hard is for very young people or for people who can hire expert trainers or coaches to help them safely get from wherever they are, to being able to do really well in the 2K or any other competitive distance.
It was a lot of fun and I still relish the memory of doing one sub 7, even though it was just barely a sub 7.

Hi John - I might disagree a little if I may.
One of the advantages of the erg is that there is very little chance of injury (tho other parts of the gym are more possible I guess) as long as your technique is good. Even really pushing it I have never had a significant injury (still well under 7' at 65 and getting faster). Another advantage of the erg is that you can still race even if much older than us and I have met a number of competitive people well over 80! I can assure you we don't need expert trainers/coaches just time, tecchnique and inclination. It is still a lot of fun. Rowing "that hard" is not just for the young I can assure you. There are only very, very few 70+ guys sub 7 but sub 7:20 can still be very satisfying and a really good low risk exercise option as we age.

Hi Lindsay and you are most welcome to disagree to any degree.

Your words of disagreement are the most hopeful words I've heard (read) in quite a while, in fact. Especially since you report that you are sub 7 and getting faster.

I've been doing a 2K only very rarely the recent few years because ... I don't want to see myself slowing down. But I suppose avoiding it and leaning toward more and more slow, sedate rowing only contributes to slowing down. Rowing on the C2, with the "online world rankings," and the online rowing with others via RowPro is the first and only taste of competitive sports I've ever had and I love it but at the same time I realize that I don't know what I'm doing so another part of me is on the other side of the fence about it, arguing with me to "take it easy" and "don't overdo it" etc.

The only 2K I've ventured to do this season for the purpose of serious ranking was a couple weeks or so ago at 7:33.1. I don't like to be negative so I won't attempt to describe how disappointed I was with that time. For the next few days I thought I should either not do any rowing at all or take it very easy, so I opted to row slow. And then I had a birthday, which pushed me into the next age grouping of 70+.

If you'd like to share anything about your approach to training, or be a C2 training partner, or email now and then about the subject, I'd welcome it. If not, I understand that most people have very full lives outside of rowing. I currently have two training partners on C2. The first one was at my request and is my wife. She hardly ever rows because she prefers walking but at least after she and I became training partners I got to see what the training partner view is. The other training partner I have is one who made the request of me, right after he got enthusiastic about rowing online and doing better than he expected in the online races. He did a 100K at the impressive pace of 2:22 and when I said some kind words about it in the online session chat, he asked to be training partners. I think I became his first training partner, but I don't think he knew how old I am until after that and now I don't hear from him much. He's hired a trainer in England (he's in Spain) who has him doing a training program to get him in shape for an indoor rowing competition in Holland a few months from now.

Anyway - I said all that to say that since you are closer in age than that guy in Spain, who's in his 40s I think, if you'd be interested in emailing etc about your rowing training then I would be interested too. A wonderful thing about the internet is that though people are miles, oceans or continents apart, it's only milliseconds by email, forum, etc.

All the above is pretty much off the topic of this thread, which is: "What is "free rate" pace?" so I will add this, to be on-topic: Today I experimented to see if what the British guy said the other day, that he thought my free rate pace at 28 spm would be a lot faster than 2:05 might be true. I wasn't sure how to go about it other than to focus on keeping the rating at about 28 and let the pace be what it would be. It seemed that I had a lot of leeway as to what the pace would be, so I just let the pace settle into what seemed firm but felt natural as though I wasn't either trying with all my might nor leaning toward leisurely and lazy. So the effort was a bit subjective, at 28 spm but it averaged out to just slightly faster than 2:05, at 2:04, instead of "a lot faster" like the British guy thought it would be. So I still don't know what to think about it but at least it was an excuse to get the sweat flowing for 30 minutes.

Thanks, Lindsay and also Greg and hjs - the discussion from all of you has been a lot more enlightening and encouraging than I anticipated when the subject was posted, and your input has been a lot better than what resulted on Facebook.

[john_n]

True, the erg is very age friendly, not that I want to push yourself in any way. Certainly do what feels right to you? But rowing a 2k and training for it, is not overly injury risky. And to me the way you rowed that dub7 was not a real max row and you very likely also did not train specific for it.

But again, don,t feel pushed.

You are exactly right, hjs - I didn't train for it. I just experimented on paper, with a calculator, to see how fast I would have to do each split if I started out by doing the first split at the slowest pace and then gradually increased the pace, split by split. My idea was that if I took that approach it would save all my energy for the last 500 meters, where I thought I should be able to work the hardest without "hitting a wall" for less than 1 3/4 minutes.

A sub 7 had seemed so unreachable before then, that I was very happy to do a 2K in even a fraction of a second less than 7 minutes.

As far as training goes, I don't really know much about it though from what little I've read on the topic, it involves arranging the training so that a person "peaks" at a certain time before a scheduled race, etc. Which is one obstacle to considering training, since the only races I've done are more or less spur of the moment, with little advance scheduling or advance notice. Many of them have been totally spontaneous, online, when one or more of the others have been rowing at about the same pace as me and we pick up the pace and sprint to the finish.

I learned about the Fitness Matters online 5K races recently, a few days before they were scheduled and signed up for that. It was the first year they'd ever supplemented their annual venue races with online races so it was a sort of experiment. They had two heats - one at 10:00 GMT for people in Europe for whom that would be a good time. The other heat was 22:00 GMT which was a better time for me (3 pm local time). I was the only person, besides the race starter, in that heat and the only person in the US in any of the 5K heats. No training and little advance notice and all alone in the particular heat, but it was huge fun, just to be in an official race.

[hjs]

How do you train John.

For any given event, some specific training will always yield effect. The bases of rowing (beyond 1k) is always endurence, so longer work with a full strong stroke, but with still a calm breathing. Race specific is work at racepace with racerating. This is at least pretty hard work. And volume depends on the distance.

Doing the math is important, it gives us a raceplan, but in itself helps nothing with out fitness, people tend to look at round numbers, like your sub7, but ofcourse to our fitness it has zero importance. Thats why I like to learn to train on feel, not so much numbers. Which is much more natural.

[lindsayh]

Thanks John - happy to talk further - I will send you a PM with my email address
I'm training very specifically at the moment - 6 sessions a week of the Pete Plan and I document every session on the training thread above - sometimes hard to find in all the other stuff. Very specific goal Feb12 '17 CrashBs Boston. I started a very structured plan mid June. Will send you some details.
Henry asked about current training - what are you up to??

[john_n]

How do you train John.

For any given event, some specific training will always yield effect. The bases of rowing (beyond 1k) is always endurence, so longer work with a full strong stroke, but with still a calm breathing. Race specific is work at racepace with racerating. This is at least pretty hard work. And volume depends on the distance.

Doing the math is important, it gives us a raceplan, but in itself helps nothing with out fitness, people tend to look at round numbers, like your sub7, but ofcourse to our fitness it has zero importance. Thats why I like to learn to train on feel, not so much numbers. Which is much more natural.

Bluntly - I don't have a training plan and never have had one. But I do desire to do at least some rowing every day if there's access to a rowing machine.

Since Lindsay, in the next reply, also wants to know my answer to your question here, I'll expand upon the answer to your question when replying to his reply, to avoid excessive redundancy.

[john_n]

Thanks John - happy to talk further - I will send you a PM with my email address
I'm training very specifically at the moment - 6 sessions a week of the Pete Plan and I document every session on the training thread above - sometimes hard to find in all the other stuff. Very specific goal Feb12 '17 CrashBs Boston. I started a very structured plan mid June. Will send you some details.
Henry asked about current training - what are you up to??

Okay I'll check that PM after replying here. So it sounds like you make more detail available here, in the forum, about what you're doing with your indoor rowing, than could be viewed with the "training partner" thing that concept2.com has. Which makes a lot of sense because when I look at the training partner view for either my wife or Frank (the guy in Spain), it only shows the basics of "Date Distance Time Pace Type" plus any comments they might record in their logs. But neither of them put any comments at all in their logs, so the training partner feature isn't very enlightening in the case of each of them. I asked Frank once, about what some of his sessions were, with combinations of odd times and distances and he just said they were various combinations of intervals, rests at whatever targets such as stroke rate that his trainer/advisor in England dictated. (Frank is training very specifically for the next Dutch Open event in Holland).

As for my training... as I posted above in the first part of the answer to Henry, I don't have a training plan except for the goal of rowing daily if possible. In that respect (the daily aspect) it is an extension of what I did from 1976 until late 2003, which was slow running for an hour to three hours more every day of the week when possible.

In 1970 I injured one knee during my 4 years service in the Marine Corps. It got all swollen up and the military doctors said they could operate on it to fix it. I asked for more detail on that and when they explained that there was a 50-50 chance the surgery would improve things, I decided against surgery. The swelling eventually went down and in 1976 I cultivated the daily habit of running long, slow distance, for the simple reason that I thought it would help me to avoid getting fat like some of the guys I knew at work who were seriously so and very out of shape.

So my running training plan was to just do it for as long as I reasonably had time for, every day and that kind of carried over to what I've been doing with rowing.

But I probably would never have discovered indoor rowing if it wasn't for that knee injury experienced while in the Marine Corps.

One day in 1993, when I was still running daily, that same knee which had been injured in USMC locked up on me during a run and it wouldn't straighten out all the way. So I found an orthopedic surgeon who was also a runner, who operated on it with laproscopic surgery. He said that some cartilage inside that knee had been torn and then had, over time, become folded over inside the knee and that's why all of a sudden one day in 1993 I couldn't straighten that leg. He clipped off the torn and folded part, left everything else in there and told me I could resume running on it right away. So I kept running from then until 2003 when it started giving some pain but only while running.

Then I visited some gyms and health clubs to look for a machine that I could use as a substitute for running, which would avoid the impact which made the knee complain with pain.

And that's how I discovered the Concept 2 machine. A YMCA health club had one, tucked away in the back of a room which was filled with ellipticals and treadmills. It seemed to be the least popular machine in the facility. I sat on it, looked at the diagrams and then rowed gently for a half hour and was surprised that it resulted in sweat because it didn't feel like much work. I was hooked from that moment. I looked up Concept2 on the internet, found their website and called and ordered one.

It has been my no-training-plan substitute for running, ever since early in 2004.

There was a RowPro trial CD in the box with the erg and eventually I tried that software.

When I discovered rowing online with RowPro and some of the "general fitness" sessions I joined turned into races during the last few hundred meters, that is when I discovered the really fun element that I'd never before experienced when doing the long, slow and usually solo distance running.

What I wrote above probably answered your question and told you a lot more than you really wanted to know. But I'm drinking coffee at the moment this morning and coffee tends to make me a bit wordy.

I'd like to explore training plans, but it seems that they need the element of a race on a specific date, to train for or else what is the point of peaking etc?

Maybe those are something I should consider (scheduled venue races) but I haven't given much thought to that except that I know the big annual one is in Boston and there are "satellite" races in advance at various places across the US where some of the best of the participants have a chance to win travel expenses to Boston.

I like the idea of training, though, if for no other reason than to experience what it is.

There are a lot more thoughts on the subject but I'm going to spare you and end this reply here. Duty calls, with morning chores.

[Bob S.]

I'd like to explore training plans, but it seems that they need the element of a race on a specific date, to train for or else what is the point of peaking etc?

At least one, the British Interactive Programme (IP) for the 2k, obviously is designed for just that. But both the Pete Plan and the Wolverine Plan from it was derived are more general than that. The regular PP repeats every 3 weeks and the WP is a year round general rowing training program. The IP has a couple of other programs as well, like one designed for weight loss, but probably nothing that would fit your needs. The PP also has a couple of others, one for beginners and one for 5k prep - again, not useful to you. I would think that either the 3 week PP cycles or the WP general plan would work for you. Even the IP for the 2k can be altered in a way would eliminate the sharpening period during the last 3 or 4 weeks of it.

There is also the C2 workout of the day. I have never looked into that, but apparently it has a lot of variety, so it probably works well to keep things interesting.

Bob S.

[hjs]

Seems you follow the high volume aerobic pace system. Has a build an enourmous base. Often it is possible to build a peak on such a base.

[john_n]

I'd like to explore training plans, but it seems that they need the element of a race on a specific date, to train for or else what is the point of peaking etc?

At least one, the British Interactive Programme (IP) for the 2k, obviously is designed for just that. But both the Pete Plan and the Wolverine Plan from it was derived are more general than that. The regular PP repeats every 3 weeks and the WP is a year round general rowing training program. The IP has a couple of other programs as well, like one designed for weight loss, but probably nothing that would fit your needs. The PP also has a couple of others, one for beginners and one for 5k prep - again, not useful to you. I would think that either the 3 week PP cycles or the WP general plan would work for you. Even the IP for the 2k can be altered in a way would eliminate the sharpening period during the last 3 or 4 weeks of it.

There is also the C2 workout of the day. I have never looked into that, but apparently it has a lot of variety, so it probably works well to keep things interesting.

Bob S.

Thanks Bob. I'm acquainted with the C2 workouts of the day and resort to those sometimes. At my age, I think I do need to get a bit more serious about it and pick one or the other of those approaches/plans. Lindsay H just clued me in to the Pete Plan thread in which he and several others are involved and I'm just beginning to read those messages and try to get a feel for what they are doing.

Do you have a web page address or addresses for the IP or any of plans you mentioned? Or are there forum threads currently active for each of them?

My cup runneth over with new information about indoor rowing training approaches!

[john_n]

Seems you follow the high volume aerobic pace system. Has a build an enourmous base. Often it is possible to build a peak on such a base.

There's an approach called "the high volume aerobic pace system"?

I know that one of the benefits I derived from running long, slow distance was a good feeling and better sleep. I always felt very relaxed after a run.

But also - my VO2max is very good, about 53+ according to the Concept 2 VO2max calculator, so I think the long, slow running for all those years before turning to indoor rowing, probably deserves a lot of credit for that. And it's probably a big factor as to why I don't need medication such as blood pressure pills, too. When I show my bp reading to my wife, who has to take medication for her high blood pressure... she looks at it and sometimes says, "are you sure you're alive?"

Running or rowing for a long while daily both seem to stimulate the body to have lots of good capillary circulation... even if a person isn't training for a race.

[Bob S.]

Do you have a web page address or addresses for the IP or any of plans you mentioned? Or are there forum threads currently active for each of them?

For the IP 2k: https://indoorsportservices.co.uk/training/interactive
Note that there are links for the the other 2 IP programs, weight loss and fast track.
The WP is not as easily available, but there has been a lot discussion about it on this forum recently. Sorry, but I don't remember which thread.

Did you see my comment on your blog?

Bob S.

[john_n]

Do you have a web page address or addresses for the IP or any of plans you mentioned? Or are there forum threads currently active for each of them?

For the IP 2k: https://indoorsportservices.co.uk/training/interactive
Note that there are links for the the other 2 IP programs, weight loss and fast track.
The WP is not as easily available, but there has been a lot discussion about it on this forum recently. Sorry, but I don't remember which thread.

Did you see my comment on your blog?

Bob S.

Hi Bob,
I didn't at first realize that the comment on my blog was from the same Bob as the message here in the forum.

Thank you - I'm honored by your comment and it is posted to that blog post.

I've seen the 2006 interview with you, which also includes your daughter. It's still on youtube and I watched it again today. Did your daughter take up indoor rowing on a regular basis? She had many good things to say about using the erg, in that interview. I'm going to pass along some of what your daughter said about the erg in that interview, to my wife, in hopes that my wife will include rowing again, besides her daily 10,000 steps walking. Coming from a doctor, what your daughter said about using the erg is a recommendation which should have extra value for my wife.

[john_n]

Do you have a web page address or addresses for the IP or any of plans you mentioned? Or are there forum threads currently active for each of them?

For the IP 2k: https://indoorsportservices.co.uk/training/interactive
Bob S.

Another reply to this, Bob - I signed up for one of their 2K interactive programs, and chose "athlete level" of 3 out of 5 because the higher levels than 3 specify that a person has had at least a formal training program or more than that, which I haven't. The "weeks to race" would be a random number, since I'm not enrolled in any races, but I think it would be worth trying their program to see if I could improve my 2K time so I tentatively used 8 weeks.

I'm not sure, though, that I should use the first result of plugging numbers into their program. Or at least if I were to try the program, I wouldn't worry about getting my HR up as high as it indicates, because though my HR has been as high as 189 several times, which I used as the value for maximum heart rate (and once it even reached 191)... it takes quite a while to get up there and I don't think the time for a 2K even at my best effort would be enough time get it that high.

[Bob S.]

Did your daughter take up indoor rowing on a regular basis? She had many good things to say about using the erg, in that interview.

She did for awhile. When I got my model D, I gave my old model B, with a PM3, to her and my son-in-law. She used it some at first, but she is busy with both work and other activities, so I don't think that she has used it for quite some time. I believe that her husband got more use out of it. They live halfway across the country from us, so I don't hear too much about their daily activities.

She was much wiser than I in her response. I blurted out that it was boring. And, for me, it was - but what I had in mind was comparison to OTW rowing. Especially on my old model B before I replaced the original unnumbered PM with the PM3. In the interview, I stumbled around a bit trying to make up for that blunder by mentioning that the PM3 (which C2 had given me) did make it a lot more interesting. Actually, I find any exercise machine boring, but the C2 less so than others I tried and that is the comparison that I should have made.

Did my comments to you about rate and pace make sense?

Bob S.

[john_n]

Actually, I find any exercise machine boring, but the C2 less so than others I tried and that is the comparison that I should have made.

Did my comments to you about rate and pace make sense?

Bob S.

I completely understand about exercise machines including the C2 being boring and that's the main reason I use RowPro software - rowing online, when other people are also rowing in the session makes it a lot more interesting, even if their pace is greatly different from mine. And this forum, where everyone relates in one way or another to using the C2, adds even more. Running outdoors was wonderful, but there was nothing in running, like the experience of being able to row online with other people. Its something that takes a while, but it "grows on you". And... of the different versions of RowPro now available, I prefer RowPro 5 for the Mac.

If I understood correctly what you said about rate and pace and watt-minutes per stroke, I think it means that at a person's "free rate pace," the watts per minute of each stroke will be the same at any stroke rate and therefore the distance per minute will increase as the frequency of strokes per minute increases?