Improve 2km

[Plsu]

Hey everyone,
I am a 16yo female (170cm, 70kg) who has been rowing for 3 years but only seriously for 1.

I did some 2kms last season and wasn’t too happy: my best was 8:15 at rate 29.

Realistically how much can I improve my 2km in one month? 3 months? 1 year? Is it possible to drop a minute in 1 year or is this unfathomable

What do you recommend i do? I’m doing lots of steady state but I feel like none of it is working.

Please help! Thank you

[Elizabeth]

Welcome!

It's so hard to say what's possible, because so much of it is so individual. I generally recommend just working at it, setting intermediate goals, and chipping away over time.

It's great that you're doing lots of steady state. What does a typical training week look like for you - does it include harder intervals, any strength training?

[Plsu]

Hey, thanks for your help!

At the moment I am in the preseason before my on-water season begins. A week training (all self-directed) is around 3 ergs per week, with:
- 2 that are like 2x20 mins or 4x10 mins at rate 20, but I always struggle around the last 10 mins of these workouts. I try and hold around a 2:16-18 pace for these, however something else I noticed is that my HR is very high for these e.g around 180-190 bpm.
- The third one might be like 1 min on/1 min off // much faster paced workouts.
I also try to run once or twice a week or lift weights, but it is mostly running.

My current PBs are:
1000m: 3:48
2000m: 8:15
5000m: 22:00
30 min: 6527m

Do you have any suggestions please? I really want to try and achieve a 7:20km so that I can get recruited for college.
Do you suggest going off of heart rate or stroke rate more?

Please share all your advice and if you have any guesses as to a realistic goal for me as I’m not too sure what to expect at the moment?

Thank you so much in advance!

[Dangerscouse]

I would definitely say your HR is too high if they are steady state sessions for the 4 x 10 mins & 2 x 20 mins. Do you know your max HR? I'd be aiming, roughly for about 140-145 given your age.

If you're continuously going too hard you'll not make any progress, or it will certainly be a lot slower than it should be.

How recovered do you feel, and is every session an effort? At least one session a week should be slow enough to make you wonder if it's doing anything. Aim for a 3 or 4 out of 10 effort. Don't worry about the pace, that is just your ego trying to tell you you're going too slowly.

I'd also suggest that to get better at erging you need to erg more. Running is great for fitness, but you'll probably gain more from another longer rowing session, as it's not a comparable type of stress on the body. Can you increase the time / distance that you row? 40 mins is good, but possibly doing 60 mins + will be more beneficial.

[Elizabeth]

Stu has a lot of great advice. I base my steady state off of heart rate, targeting around 65-75% of max, as well as a stroke rate around 20. For me, this usually results in a pace falling around 2k+(27-28). Don't be afraid to slow it down. It still drives the adaptations you want out of steady state, while letting you do more of it, as well as taking the hard sessions sufficiently hard.

I'm fine with the running, the pre-season seems like a great time for cross-training as well as building strength, with a focus more specifically towards rowing as you enter your season. I would also normally suggest more hard sessions per week (2, maybe 3), but this would really depend on how your coach is structuring the season. If it's really periodized, it may make sense to focus on building a base right now instead of pushing speed, and then the speed will come during the season. Typically, you want to gradually build volume instead of making big jumps to avoid injury - 2x20 this week, 3x15 next week, etc.

Best of luck, and happy to answer more questions!

[iain]

I'm a novice compared to Elizabeth and Stu, so little to add to their input on optimal training. What I would say is that your 1k time is very impressive, but your pace drops off rapidly with the distance. Even fit sprinters only typically drop off around 7S/500m when doubling the distance while most people drop off 3-5S/500m. Between your 2 "best" PBs (1k & 5k), you are dropping off nearly 9S/ doubling. If these were comparably hard then it is your endurance that is letting you down and so where your training should be focussed. There is no short cut here, long rows are required. The good news is that you can probably drop to sub 8 in 6-8 weeks of hard training if you have an average muscle fibre distribution.

the other thing I would say is that a 2k is really tough mentally and needs practice. Setting off too quickly will substantially increase your time, while most people need to do quite a few before they can maintain their effort through the pain to the end and so produce the times they are capable of. A tough balance not going too fast, but maintaining the pace that means that 800m in you think you need to slow and then accelerating in the last 300!

Best of luck.

Iain

[Plsu]

Hi Elizabeth, Stu and Iain,

Thanks so much!

I have taken your advice on board and come up with this plan, does this sound about right?

Preseason plan:
Strength training 2x per week
Ergs-
2 x per week steady state at HR ~ 145bpm for at least an hour (do you suggest I should do more of these than 2?)
2x per week - fast intervals at 2k pace or lower?
1x per week - medium intervals ~ 5km pace? (E.g 4x10 mins?)

This is very rough but sort of what I am thinking. And then each week I will cut out a different session to leave a full day of rest.

Please let me know what you think !

Also side note- how should I set a goal for where my 2km should be at? If you had an idea with consistent training how much can I drop it in 3 months? 6 months? Or hard to say?

Thank you

[Dangerscouse]

Preseason plan:
Strength training 2x per week
Ergs-
2 x per week steady state at HR ~ 145bpm for at least an hour (do you suggest I should do more of these than 2?)
2x per week - fast intervals at 2k pace or lower?
1x per week - medium intervals ~ 5km pace? (E.g 4x10 mins?)

This is very rough but sort of what I am thinking. And then each week I will cut out a different session to leave a full day of rest.

Please let me know what you think !

Also side note- how should I set a goal for where my 2km should be at? If you had an idea with consistent training how much can I drop it in 3 months? 6 months? Or hard to say?

Thank you

That plan looks great. If you can do more than two long steady sessions AND you can recover from them, then theoretically you should do as many as you can, or you could make the two sessions longer?

Maybe swap the 2x fast for 2x medium, as that will be quite draining to do every week. Or you could do 1 x fast 1 x medium and 1 x semi-fast continual distance eg 5k-10k (this is the basis of The Pete Plan).

It's hard to say where your 2k could be as it's very subjective to your abilities, future training and previous training ie were you really maximising it all previously? When you've done about eight weeks of good training it might be possible to see, but progress does slow down as you improve, so be prepared for that

[Elizabeth]

I'll continue to just echo Stu.

On goals, there is so much emphasis on SMART goals (specific, measurable, etc.), but my preference has been to set plans based on what I am training for (1k will look different than marathon), and keep showing up and putting in the work, and then chip down at it over time. I did have a specific goal around a sub-7 2k and I think it was contributing to the distance being built up in my head into something scary.

What you have looks great. What I might personally do in your shoes-
2 steady state
1 shorter intervals around a 2k pace, such as 8x500
1 medium intervals around a 5k pace, such as 4x2000
1 day of longer medium-hard work. Nothing soul-stealing. My most recent session that I would classify this way was 60min with a HR cap at 85%. 4x10:00 could work well here, 6k could work well here. Hard but not max.
And then two strength sessions, preferably layered on top of some of the harder days.
And a day of full rest.

[Plsu]

Hi everyone,
Thank you for all your help.

I’ve done a few sessions recently, some being;
4 x 20 mins avg split 2:41 which is 2k + 38
3 x 30 mins avg split 2:46 which is 2k + 43
and HR around 70% of my max but rating around 15-16 because if I go any higher my heart rate increases too. I can easily hold lower splits, but again my heart rate just rapidly increases.

Last night I did a 60’ at r20 and averaged 2:21 which is 2k+18 but my heart rate was significantly higher averaging 187bpm which I believe is 90+% of my max.

So I was wondering what do you think I should be focusing more on? Will my heart rate actually stay lower as I do more 65% HR sessions not focusing on split? or should I focus more on strength and power and forget my heart rate?

I know there is room for both in my training plan but what do you see being the factor that will impact my 2k in the best way?

Thank you

[Dangerscouse]

So I was wondering what do you think I should be focusing more on? Will my heart rate actually stay lower as I do more 65% HR sessions not focusing on split? or should I focus more on strength and power and forget my heart rate?

I know there is room for both in my training plan but what do you see being the factor that will impact my 2k in the best way?

Thank you

How tired did you feel after the 60r20? Ideally you need to get used to r20, and higher stroke rates as quickly as possible, so you'll probably need to mix the sessions

[Elizabeth]

It may be helpful to mentally say the goal of each training session before you do it. If the goal is to build a base, then apply the HR cap. If the goal is to get in some hard work and get used to pushing over longer periods of time, then push it.

I don't know where you are, but the heat here has been doing a number on my HR, and I've had to slow down a couple splits on my easy work. Dehydration can also have a big effect.

Also, am I reading correctly you were doing 40 minutes of steady state at a time, and are now doing 80-90? I don't know if there's a rowing best practice, but in the running world the rule of thumb is that you don't increase mileage by more than 10% per week to avoid injury. I've largely carried that over into rowing. (A coach now manages this for me.) So, 40 minutes one week, 44 minutes the next, then 48, etc.