LUNA-TICS TEAM ROOM: Year-round "Looney" fun.

[Kona2]

Congratulations to all our Lunie Virtual Challenge Team participants! The results weren't visible for a large part of the day yesterday (and on Sunday as well), and you kind of lose your thunder as time passes. Zach did indeed come in as number one...by a good 200K plus. Several teammates made a palindromic finish to their numeric totals. Gronks, as a new bike erg owner, finished second only to the legendary Darlene Brennan among all women in the Challenge, and in the top 20. The team as a whole produced over 22 million Challenge meters, and truly earned our Luna-Tics name. For all the hours and effort you each devoted, thank you. Here's a listing of all the participants. It does NOTHING to showcase how many first evers and lesser numbers but really BIG deals some of those erging sessions were about. During the Challenge, efforts are made to highlight extraordinary erging all along the way. You did great!

The skierg looks to be a tough tough erg session! The trifecta of rower, bike and ski sessions surely would work a lot of different muscle groups. Cross country skiing (when I manage to stay upright and not end up with a dog sitting on me, "guarding" me) always makes for some SORE muscles...and major humility. Good luck to our ski ergers, and to those who are joining the Military Challenge.

https://log.concept2.com/team/2537/vtc/2021

MILESTONES...Bragging Rights...Celebrations:

7.45 MM Zach
6.25 MM Ron M
3.85 MM Norma
2.8 MM Andrew C
1.9 MM Thor
700 K Carol
350 K Kellee

Thanks, everyone, for erging with us!

Tony 1,111 m ...a palindrome!
David T 2,000 m
GMan 2,056 m
Dan O' 3,220 m
Carol M 3,500 m
Carol 4,009 m
Frank 5,000 m
Jantuut 5,000 m
Rebecca 5,000 m
Rich M 5,000 m
Teresa R 5,819 m
Paul 6,000 m
Brent 6,105 m
Steve W 7,500 m
Rick 7,912 m
JD 9,255 m
Patrick Hsr 10,000 m
Virginia 10,000 m
Angelo 10,009 m
Larry 10,072 m
Adam 10,500 m
Robin 11,111 m ...a palindrome!
Patrick Hmr 11,597 m
Steve L 12,889 m
Colin 12,982 m
Howard 13,011 m
Andrew C 13,178 m
Stuart 14,341 m ..a palindrome!
Michael C 15,000 m
Eric 16,778 m
Norma 17,771 m ...a palindrome...lucky 7's!
David A 17,784 m
Minnie 20,008 m


Mooners = 21,097 m or more!


Kellee 21,097 m ...she moons us!
Ron 23,632 m ...a palindrome and a mooner!
Thor 27,405 m...mooner!
Brett 30,000 m ... mooner!
Zach 3..8...5...3...6...4 m ...incomprehensible!

[BigBrett58]

Nice year-over-year change! I don't have a SkiErg, but I've been idly thinking about getting one. As someone that owns all three, how do you like yours? Which erg do you like the most?

When I first got the skierg, I thought I made a mistake. I thought my heart was going to explode. Took me awhile to get into skierg shape, but now I really like it. Most days, I do all 3 machines. I couldn't say which one I like the best. They're all very different. Being in shape on any machine doesn't really make you in shape on the other 2. They work different muscles. Ski is great for shoulders, chest, abs, and obliques. My guess is you wouldn't regret the skierg after you got used to it.

That is tempting. How did you end up mounting yours - to the wall, or to the stand they sell?

I use the stand. I have no idea how well it would work mounting to the wall. The stand works well for me, but I'm 6'2". I'm not sure at what height it might be better to mount to the wall.

[TallErgs]

Whew. The last few days of the challenge were impossibly long. I couldn't really see individual stats for most of Saturday and basically all of Sunday, so I had no choice but to go all-in on the challenge at that point. Sunk Cost fallacy, etc. I wrote a little tool to scrape the VTC individual page every hour and import the data so that I could easily graph it. Here's the graph from 1/18 to this morning when they updated my final data:



Maybe I'll go all-in on another one in 2025 ...

One year ago, Karen M (Mom, Gronks) was having surprise open heart surgery. She wasn't sure she'd ever be back on a bike. I'm happy to say that this January put that to rest. I always knew she'd be back on a bike, and with 2,340km in three weeks ... I think she'll have to admit it too. It maybe wasn't as fast as she wanted it to be - but that's okay. I can tow her up a hill when RAGBRAI finally happens. Glad to have you back in action, Mom.

[BigBrett58]

Anyone doing the Tour De Skierg? I cut almost 2 minutes off my 5k from last year. Its a start.

I am going to try to do Tour de Skierg. I have not done a 10k on skierg yet. I have had skierg for 5 months.

I got mine early January of last year. I was just getting used to it by February. I think if you can do a 5k, then a 10k is within reach. For me, there was a much bigger jump from 2k to 5k than 5k to 10k.

[Jodi]

Had to take a couple of Cross Training days rather than contribute to either the Military Challenge (Go USAF!) or the Valentines challenge to shovel snow. We got over 18 inches dumped on us yesterday! After shoveling 3 separate times to maintain some sort of path and clear the driveway and steps my biceps are screaming. You would think I use the same muscles to pull when I'm rowing, but my body says differently.

[BigBrett58]

Had to take a couple of Cross Training days rather than contribute to either the Military Challenge (Go USAF!) or the Valentines challenge to shovel snow. We got over 18 inches dumped on us yesterday! After shoveling 3 separate times to maintain some sort of path and clear the driveway and steps my biceps are screaming. You would think I use the same muscles to pull when I'm rowing, but my body says differently.

Wow. That’s a lot of snow!

[Kona2]

Whew. The last few days of the challenge were impossibly long. I couldn't really see individual stats for most of Saturday and basically all of Sunday, so I had no choice but to go all-in on the challenge at that point. Sunk Cost fallacy, etc. I wrote a little tool to scrape the VTC individual page every hour and import the data so that I could easily graph it. Here's the graph from 1/18 to this morning when they updated my final data:



Maybe I'll go all-in on another one in 2025 ...

One year ago, Karen M (Mom, Gronks) was having surprise open heart surgery. She wasn't sure she'd ever be back on a bike. I'm happy to say that this January put that to rest. I always knew she'd be back on a bike, and with 2,340km in three weeks ... I think she'll have to admit it too. It maybe wasn't as fast as she wanted it to be - but that's okay. I can tow her up a hill when RAGBRAI finally happens. Glad to have you back in action, Mom.

Gronks has had a fabulous year of recovery ! RAGBRAI will happen...eventually! Guessing that will be 2022?

[Kona2]

Had to take a couple of Cross Training days rather than contribute to either the Military Challenge (Go USAF!) or the Valentines challenge to shovel snow. We got over 18 inches dumped on us yesterday! After shoveling 3 separate times to maintain some sort of path and clear the driveway and steps my biceps are screaming. You would think I use the same muscles to pull when I'm rowing, but my body says differently.

Wow. That’s a lot of snow!

18 inches of snow is a huge workout! I can relate to those three session snowfalls...thanks for taking a snowfall for the team!

[Kona2]

Add some skis, and you've got some Birkie practice!

MILESTONES...Bragging Rights...Celebrations:

5.15 MM Ed
4.9 MM Minnie
4.4 MM Brett
2.95 MM Gary
2.4 MM Eric
1.95 MM Angelo
1.2 MM Patrick S
550 K Frank

Thanks, everyone, for erging with us!

David T 2,000 m
Carol 2..3...4....5 m
Patrick Hmr 2,580 m
Larry 4,057 m
JD 4,110 m
Trevor 4,261 m
Rebecca 5,000 m
David W 5,301 m
Teresa R 5,418 m
Rick 6,121 m
Titus 6,145 m
Andrew C 6,822 m
Paul 7,000 m
Adam 7,587 m
Sergio 7,982 m
Patrick S 8,004 m
Brickman 9,737 m
Patrick Hsr 10,000 m
Virginia 10,000 m
Frank 11,014 m
Robin 11,111 m ...a singular palindrome! Onesies!
Tombeur 11,137 m
Brent 12,554 m
danwho 12,821 m ...a palindrome of a different kind!
Howard 13,110 m
Eric 14,445 m
Baz 15,000 m
Michael C 15,000 m
Angelo 15,020 m
David A 17,638 m
Norma 17,771 m ...a palindrome with lucky 7's inside!
Minnie 19,113 m
Ed 20,002 m ..a two aught palindrome!


Mooners = 21,097 m or more!


Gary 21,097 m ...mooner!
Brett 26,734 m ... mooner and king of the boat!

[normadelaney]

I often ignore the Word of the Day when it shows up on my phone, but uitwaaien piqued my curiosity too. I had to listen to the pronunciation.

[normadelaney]

Whew. The last few days of the challenge were impossibly long. I couldn't really see individual stats for most of Saturday and basically all of Sunday, so I had no choice but to go all-in on the challenge at that point. Sunk Cost fallacy, etc. I wrote a little tool to scrape the VTC individual page every hour and import the data so that I could easily graph it. Here's the graph from 1/18 to this morning when they updated my final data:



Maybe I'll go all-in on another one in 2025 ...

One year ago, Karen M (Mom, Gronks) was having surprise open heart surgery. She wasn't sure she'd ever be back on a bike. I'm happy to say that this January put that to rest. I always knew she'd be back on a bike, and with 2,340km in three weeks ... I think she'll have to admit it too. It maybe wasn't as fast as she wanted it to be - but that's okay. I can tow her up a hill when RAGBRAI finally happens. Glad to have you back in action, Mom.

Gronks has had a fabulous year of recovery ! RAGBRAI will happen...eventually! Guessing that will be 2022?

Good luck to you both, Zach and Gronks, as you train for RAGBRAI.

[cdykstra01]

In the spirit of "POSTS by OTHERS"... the big winter event in my part of Wisconsin is the American Birkebeiner ("Birkie" for short), a 50K or so cross country ski race: https://www.birkie.com. This event draws elite competition from around the world, but it also draws a lot of folks like me who are basically highly determined recreational athletes who just want to see if they can go the distance.

Assuming everything goes as planned, I'll be skiing my third Birkie on Sunday, February 28th in the fourth wave of the Classic race. My first was 20 or so years ago (before kids!), my second was just last year. For me, last year's race was an absolute blast, sort of a 5 hour motivational experience on the snow. Seriously, the fan support is off the charts. From "Heckler's Hill" to "High Point" to "OO Crossing" to "Bitch Hill", skiers can count on challenging trails, well stocked aid stations, awesome music and free libations handed out by cheering fans all along the course.

If you are a fellow Birkie skier look me up at the start line. It'd be great to meet a fellow LUNA-TIC in real life!

That sounds AMAZING!!! How are you training for the event? What will you do differently from your previous times?

That's a great question... 1) I started my training earlier this year by using a pair of roller skis. I had over 200k in on wheels before we had any snow at all. 2) I've been working hard to improve my form by using several drills I pulled from a training video. I've been working through these drills 3 x weekly on my off-skiiing days. 3) I bought new skis. The ones I used last year were 20 years old and there was a portion of the kick zone that could not reach the snow no matter how hard I kicked. 4) I'm using a new heart rate monitor with longer battery life. In last year's race I saved too much for the end partly because my HR monitor battery died after about 2.5 hours. My new one will last the whole race as long as I remember to charge it fully. Another reason I had too much left at the end is because I started in the last (6th) wave. Within the first half hour I saw numerous crashes and associated detritus along the trail (busted skis, poles, etc). I saw one of the Paramedic/First Responder snowmobiles zip down the trail also. It dawned on me that there were so many skiers ahead of me that if I really pushed I'd wind up jumping in and out of the tracks all day long and probably wipe out myself or others or both. This year I'm starting in the fourth wave so plan to be a little more aggressive in the earlier KM's.

[cdykstra01]

Add some skis, and you've got some Birkie practice!

Thanks for that Kona - all four of my grandparents were Dutch!

[TallErgs]

Add some skis, and you've got some Birkie practice!

Thanks for that Kona - all four of my grandparents were Dutch!

As another Dykstra, all four of mine were as well. Do you happen to have family in Northwest Iowa?

[normadelaney]

In the spirit of "POSTS by OTHERS"... the big winter event in my part of Wisconsin is the American Birkebeiner ("Birkie" for short), a 50K or so cross country ski race: https://www.birkie.com. This event draws elite competition from around the world, but it also draws a lot of folks like me who are basically highly determined recreational athletes who just want to see if they can go the distance.

Assuming everything goes as planned, I'll be skiing my third Birkie on Sunday, February 28th in the fourth wave of the Classic race. My first was 20 or so years ago (before kids!), my second was just last year. For me, last year's race was an absolute blast, sort of a 5 hour motivational experience on the snow. Seriously, the fan support is off the charts. From "Heckler's Hill" to "High Point" to "OO Crossing" to "Bitch Hill", skiers can count on challenging trails, well stocked aid stations, awesome music and free libations handed out by cheering fans all along the course.

If you are a fellow Birkie skier look me up at the start line. It'd be great to meet a fellow LUNA-TIC in real life!

That sounds AMAZING!!! How are you training for the event? What will you do differently from your previous times?

That's a great question... 1) I started my training earlier this year by using a pair of roller skis. I had over 200k in on wheels before we had any snow at all. 2) I've been working hard to improve my form by using several drills I pulled from a training video. I've been working through these drills 3 x weekly on my off-skiiing days. 3) I bought new skis. The ones I used last year were 20 years old and there was a portion of the kick zone that could not reach the snow no matter how hard I kicked. 4) I'm using a new heart rate monitor with longer battery life. In last year's race I saved too much for the end partly because my HR monitor battery died after about 2.5 hours. My new one will last the whole race as long as I remember to charge it fully. Another reason I had too much left at the end is because I started in the last (6th) wave. Within the first half hour I saw numerous crashes and associated detritus along the trail (busted skis, poles, etc). I saw one of the Paramedic/First Responder snowmobiles zip down the trail also. It dawned on me that there were so many skiers ahead of me that if I really pushed I'd wind up jumping in and out of the tracks all day long and probably wipe out myself or others or both. This year I'm starting in the fourth wave so plan to be a little more aggressive in the earlier KM's.

It sounds like you have a well thought out plan. Good luck with your training and please remind us closer to the event.