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[meerkats]

So it is possible to to do a marathon with next to no training......it is not completely advisable though.

Sat down 6.30am and just rowed, in my mind I had completely miss read my previous time so starting out too slow, i didnt get the PB i thought i had, 1m slower than 18 years ago, which to be fair is not bad and unfortunately means I have not been put off and will have a another go!!

Lessons, feeding was good, just had sports bars broken into pieces, had one every 20mins without fail together with drink, seemed like a treat but felt good energy pretty much through out until 20mins to go when felt the downhill slide.

Hydration, needed more, drank tea and pint before and 2ltrs through out but still lost 3kg, so cant be all right there.

Music - none, seemed strange at the time, but kind of enjoyed the peace and tranquil swish swish swish of the rower.

Butt - Took its toll, used bubble wrap whic maybe helps, probably a symptom of only getting back rowing seriously for the last two weeks or so.

Hands - survived just, used the c2 hand pads, had a towel handy.

Head - Headband to make me look special!, but invaluable. Wrist bands next time to minimise sweat on hands

Form - it is all i thought about, gets boring, helped by Ergdata and the stroke length, figured if that dropped the form was dropping so kept that kin line.

Charity - £500 raised from a stupid act, thanks to all that sponsored me, it is what got me out of bed yesterday to do it. I have friends that have used Clic Sergent so know what a great job they do

Nonathlon, only need 1k and half marathon this week for a clean sweep - no times to shout about, that is next years task.

Target - Sub 3:10 seems initially achievable and I with the use of rerow I now have something to chase. as a guide for the 2nd half I use watts as the main screen and kept my current 5-10watts above running average, means you slowly get faster.

[rtbrouwer]

Very good job meerkats! finishing a marathon is an admirable feat regardsless of the time!

[jackarabit]

Chris, sounds like a prepped approach and no bad blood sugar events en route. Checked some boxes: gut check, nonathlon score, successful charity row. Any possibility of sub 3hrs. next time? For me, the first time was the last time so I appreciate the scale of the effort and what it takes to relish doing it again.

[Slothful1]

Dave,
Is Ewen in one of your SSVIII teams?
Just seen on FB that he did a 30min row this morning - 8069

Thanks for the headsup, Georgie. I need him to add it to the logbook before I can do anything with adding him to a boat. Hopefully he'll do it in the next day or so, before the final boat deadline.

Dave

I've messaged him on FB.

Thanks Georgie. That seemed to have worked!

Dave

[Slothful1]

https://log.concept2.com/profile/1005087/log/43921921

Aborted 30’ for Series VIII. Lost power @ 15’, rated higher out of frustration. Faced with failure closer to 25’ I would have crawled in just to fill a slot for boat 3. Well, we don’t do what we don’t practice and I surely didn’t. Only one more entry needed for Thrashing #3 to get on the board. Be your own hero and put in a score today, the final day. Might even get a couple entries for the Fibrillating #4.

Ouch! I know the feeling well. In this case it's a pity you didn't manage to crawl for another 10 minutes, because we're one short of filling boat 3. I was still hoping to get a few more entries late in the process, but unfortunately not.

No problem, we'll hopefully hit that extra boat on the 4 minute round!

Dave

[Slothful1]

Well done Chris! It's an impressive feat to decide that you're going to pop on and do a marathon with minimal focused training.

I haven't done one in years, and that was after some proper long distance training. I used to use the C2 hand pads back in those days,and even then the hands started taking strain. I've managed to survive the butt pain without any extra padding, but that's probably because I grow my own .

After my 1 hour yesterday (sneaked in a 40+ PB 13447m after another steady under target effort with late desperate spring), the hands weren't feeling great, so that's a sign I need to do my sessions on the rower. Have decided to scrap the half marathon this season, but will do one for the 1 - 15 May Marathon Challenge, and get a ranking on the door early in the season.

Good luck everyone for the final days of the season and any wild attempts at adding some new SBs to the list. Don't forget to put a 4 minute effort down this week for the Spring Series. We'll get that 3rd boat off the dock I'm sure!

Dave

[Slothful1]

And Cynthia - looks like I was wrong about the MAD team choice for the CTC. I expected something long which wasn't based on any research to be fair (I seem to remember them getting rapped over the knuckles for a 12000m choice years ago), but they've gone for a 1 minute blast. A repeat of a choice they also made some time back.

Should be fun, and a good excuse for the team to press any spouses and children into action too!

Dave

[rtbrouwer]

Ohw hell, a 1min sprint. Never done one but I can imagine it's a world of pain. How does it compare to a 500m in your experience? On a 500m I am usually OK op to 300-350m and after that I am in survival mode. on a 1min effort you are done at around 350m.

[Citroen]

Ohw hell, a 1min sprint. Never done one but I can imagine it's a world of pain. How does it compare to a 500m in your experience? On a 500m I am usually OK op to 300-350m and after that I am in survival mode. on a 1min effort you are done at around 350m.

For you it'll be just like your 500m (354m if you row the same pace).

The hardest things with a full-fat 1 minute is not losing the seat and not having the ergo skating all over the floor. For the Basingstoke Short Course (300m & 100m) competition we used to tape the front end to the floor and for the enormous gorrillas like Rob Smith we'd have a rugby player sized fella standing on the front legs (for at least the first couple of strokes). You may need some weights there if you don't have a heavy partner/flat mate/significant other.

Taping the front legs was two turns of gaffer tape (sticky side in) a half turn (sticky side out) two more turns then stand on the front legs to get the tape to stick to the floor. Don't do this on an expensive floor where you can't use a solvent to remove the gunk afterwards.

[MartinSH4321]

Ohw hell, a 1min sprint. Never done one but I can imagine it's a world of pain. How does it compare to a 500m in your experience? On a 500m I am usually OK op to 300-350m and after that I am in survival mode. on a 1min effort you are done at around 350m.

For me a 1' TT is much easier than a 500m, You can go faster for the whole 1' than 500m, around 45'' you run out of gas but you struggle through the last 15''.
Don't hold too much back at the first half, you can't compensate that at the second half. Your 500m is very good, so you'll do well for 1' too, it hurts much less (shorter time) so it's no problem to have a second try the next day or 2 days later.

[jackarabit]

I may not be able to row a 1’ but I can talk about it. Raise your heel clips. Keep your shoulders relaxed and pull on a line to lats rather than to collarbones.

It’s just another F&D . Short stroke start, max rate of acceleration, nothing held in reserve, power reduction smoothly progressive, the yodel of death after the clock zeros.

Weight plates, bags of birdshot or spent range lead, even a kettlebell jammed in the root of the angle between front struts will help keep the machine earthbound.

[rtbrouwer]

Just did some negative split training.
3x10 minutes with 4 minutes rest. 10 minutes broken up in 5x2 minutes
1st 10 @ 2kpace +16, +14, +12, +10, +8
2nd 10 @ 2kpace +14, +12, +10, +8, +6
3rd 10 @ 2kpace +12, +10, +8, +6, +4

As expected the tough but still doable. Decided to finish the workout with the same idea but only 4 minutes for this one.
1st min @2k +4
2nd min @2k +2
3rd min @2k +0
4th min @2k -2

So at least I have a score set for the 4min spring challenge. Will do it again though and set a better time.

[ivan141]

Nice one Ronald, I haven't spotted you in the rankings so I assume you haven't uploaded your 4m yet?

Did some sprintwork myself today, was high time since I didn't touch any fast stuff last week to avoid it getting in the way of the 30m efforts.
But with a 4m coming up I thought it would be wise to make a few repeat visits to the pain cave to get a feel for whats possible.
Did a 4x1k (r5:30) (which is said to be roughly equivalent to 2k pace). Now my indicators haven't been too great the past months, pointing toward
a 1:46 average 2k (Pauls law), but as Del Boy used to say: 'he who dares wins'. So I set out for 1:45 and dragged that split home kicking and screaming at 1:44.7 (completely blowing up with 2 strokes to go.. tank well emptied).

Extrapolating from my recent 1:30.8 500m and this theoretical 1:44.7 2k I have exactly no clue what to shoot for at 4m.
My best 1k was a 1:39 when I was a tiny bit fitter and younger, so I'd say a 1:41.5-1:42 sounds reasonable, I just expect it to hurt like hell.

[rtbrouwer]

Nice one Ronald, I haven't spotted you in the rankings so I assume you haven't uploaded your 4m yet?

Did some sprintwork myself today, was high time since I didn't touch any fast stuff last week to avoid it getting in the way of the 30m efforts.
But with a 4m coming up I thought it would be wise to make a few repeat visits to the pain cave to get a feel for whats possible.
Did a 4x1k (r5:30) (which is said to be roughly equivalent to 2k pace). Now my indicators haven't been too great the past months, pointing toward
a 1:46 average 2k (Pauls law), but as Del Boy used to say: 'he who dares wins'. So I set out for 1:45 and dragged that split home kicking and screaming at 1:44.7 (completely blowing up with 2 strokes to go.. tank well emptied).

Extrapolating from my recent 1:30.8 500m and this theoretical 1:44.7 2k I have exactly no clue what to shoot for at 4m.
My best 1k was a 1:39 when I was a tiny bit fitter and younger, so I'd say a 1:41.5-1:42 sounds reasonable, I just expect it to hurt like hell.

I uploaded it but I didn't rank it. Just did that now. 1144m. 1:44.7 avg. Exactly equal to your 2k. I am struggling with pacing for the 4 min effort as well. Did this 1:44 effort at the end of my training so I know I can go faster. However I know that the difference between 2:04 and 2:00 is a lot smaller then the gap between 1:44 and 1:40. 4 seconds is a not the same in watts with those splits.

Anyway, I decided I am gonna go out at a 1:40 pace and see where I go from there.

[lindsayh]

I uploaded it but I didn't rank it. Just did that now. 1144m. 1:44.7 avg. Exactly equal to your 2k. I am struggling with pacing for the 4 min effort as well. Did this 1:44 effort at the end of my training so I know I can go faster. However I know that the difference between 2:04 and 2:00 is a lot smaller then the gap between 1:44 and 1:40. 4 seconds is a not the same in watts with those splits. Anyway, I decided I am gonna go out at a 1:40 pace and see where I go from there.

Ronald sub 1:40 (1200m) would be a good goal I suspect. A few years ago when my numbers were very close to yours I did about 1220m a couple of times for the 4'. The other good thing is that 1:40 is a very clear line in the sand and encourages you to stay steady - the best strategy IMO is to stay as flat paced as you can and go hard if there is anything left at the end. Go out too hard can end in tears.