One year plan to CIRC 2023

[elmaster]

Hi
My name is Gabriel, I'm an old (39yo) Civil engineering Ph.D. student at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario. I have been using the erg for 8 years on and off with long periods of complete inactivity. I have never trained for long periods and I consider myself untrained. My best times in 2015 were 7:21 2k and 19:36 5k.

I'm 6' 5'' (195cm) and weigh 100 kg (220 lb). I think I'm 10 kg overweight.

I decided to train for a year to compete at the Canadian Indoor Rowing Championship (CIRC) to be held in Mississauga, Ontario on February 2023.

My plan is very simple. I will train 5 times a week (Monday to Friday) doing steady state increasing the distance 500m per week until I reach 15k a day. For example, I started two weeks ago doing 3k a day Monday to Friday then the next week I did 3.5k and so on. By September, I'll start doing the full Pete Plan until February.

I train by myself and don't have a support group, therefore, I'm looking for a place where I can share my progress and maintain my motivation through this year with people with similar goals. It would be great if you can point me in the right direction.

When I train I try to pull hard and keep my HR at around 155 bpm average. This means I have to rate low at around 17 spm. If my fitness improves I'll try to rate a little bit higher, say 20 spm.

This is what I did last week.

Meters Time Pace S/M
3,500m 15:11.1 2:10.1 16.9
3,500m 15:30.4 2:12.9 16.4
3,500m 15:36.6 2:13.8 16.9
3,500m 15:29.9 2:12.8 17.4
3,500m 15:16.8 2:10.9 17.3

I'll have to be at least 6:40 by next year to compete with some dignity which I think is doable if I train as planned.

Any advice is welcome.

[Tsnor]

Great objective, very doable. Here's my opinion on next steps, there are other POV.

Research training plans. This video is a good starting point for training (maybe too dumbed down) https://www.ted.com/talks/stephen_seile ... e_athletes If you want more/different references post.

I think you are doing "train 5 times a week (Monday to Friday) doing steady state " and each of the steady state sessions "try to pull hard and keep my HR at around 155 bpm average." You probably don't want to do this.

Instead consider
1. Doing weight training. Free weights or circuit. 1X or 2X per week.
2. Dropping the effort on your steady state sessions sharply. Find your max heart rate, don't use a formula. Do your steady state at 70% of your personal max HR. Be able to breathe easily, carry on a conversation. Do 3 or 4 times/week. Your plan to increase distance is a good one. The more of this you can fit in the better.
3. Add on one hard interval or "almost max" effort session a week. You want to get to 90% max HR on intervals that are long enough to drive your heart rate up or on longer threshold rows.
4. As you get closer to the competition (say in 6 months) re-plan. Example: you can shift to two to three hard sessions/week. You'll know a lot more about what works for you in 6 months.

Or find another training approach you like. The "work hard 5 days/week, the harder the better" approach typically gives poor results. There are a number of approaches that do work. Most successful training approaches are based on significant time spent at low effort levels.

I train by myself and don't have a support group, therefore, I'm looking for a place where I can share my progress and maintain my motivation through this year with people with similar goals. It would be great if you can point me in the right direction.

You are in the right place. Look at the "What training have you done today" forum. Jump to the last 3 pages (skipping a million pages) and read the interaction. viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3 Post your progress there. You'll find others with the same goals, and as you post your progress you will get great support/feedback.

[elmaster]

Thank you for your answer.

Very informative talk.

I understand that I should do 80% of my training at low and 20% at high intensity but sometimes impatience gets in the way and you end up racing each training. I understand what you mean and I will lower my effort in steady state pieces. I wanted to do only steady state to build endurance but maybe is smarter to substitute one SS session a week with intervals like 8x500m.

My max HR should be around 185 bpm and my resting HR is 62 bpm. I tested a few years back and it was 187 bpm. I can do a test.

If I lower the intensity maybe I can do more distance. I feel that doing 4k at 2:20 or 2:25 is too little. What do you think?

Thank you for your suggestion. I will post my training in "What training have you done today" forum.

[Dangerscouse]

If I lower the intensity maybe I can do more distance. I feel that doing 4k at 2:20 or 2:25 is too little. What do you think?

Tsnor has covered all of your questions, but 4k is too little for a steady state session. The pace is right but ideally you need to be up around a minimum of 10k imo.

[jamesg]

3,500m 15:11.1 2:10.1 16.9
My best times in 2015 were 7:21 2k and 19:36 5k.

Your numbers say you need to learn to row. You're doing well to keep to short pieces at low rating for now, but 2:10 (160W) is too slow to get anywhere near 350W (6:40 2k).

A training level around rate 20 / 250W, using both height and strength (= technique), will give you the necessary stroke without being too intense; and using it, the endurance for a 2k.

[ArmandoChavezUNC]

Is there a particular reason you are adding 500m per week starting at 3k?

You can easily move from 3k to distances like 8-10k in a week or two. Doing 500m more every week is unnecessarily slow and inefficient. You're just wasting time making little to no improvement - a 3k row will lead to almost zero aerobic adaptation.

I'd aim to do somewhere around 8-10k (30-40 mins) and increase by ~10% every week until you're comfortably in the 15k range. Take an easier week every month or so if you're feeling gassed. At only 5x practices a week, you'll need to put in quite a bit of volume per session to see truly significant gains. At your size, you should be able to get into the 6:20s in a year with moderate amounts of volume.

[elmaster]

Thank you all for your comments.

Is there a particular reason you are adding 500m per week starting at 3k?

I took that from the Beginners Pete Plan because, as I said before, I'm really undertrained and didn't want to do too much too early. Now that I have 2 weeks of training I'll jump to higher distances lowering my effort as Tsnor suggested.

For the 8x500m intervals, what rest time in between pieces should I use? 1 min, 3 min or 5 min?

My plan now taking your suggestions into consideration would look like this:

Monday to Thursday - SS sessions starting at 8k increasing 1k each week until I reach 15k - HR less than 148 bpm
Friday - 5x500m intervals.

[ArmandoChavezUNC]

The rest doesn't matter all that much. 8x500m with 1' rest is probably the closest to 2k pace, but doing 2' rest will allow you to push a little harder. Ditto for 3' rest. Most people do either 1 or 2 mins. 5 minutes is far too long for this particular workout, though

[MPx]

Just to be different and exposing my relatively poor aerobic capacity I do just 6x 500 on 2 min rests and take 3:30 rest with 8x. I min rest for me is hardly worth taking and I could get nowhere near my 2k pace for 8x500 1r. With the rests stated I'm around 2k-2 or 3 on a good day.

[elmaster]

Thank you all.

Time to stop planning and start working hard now.