Calendar Club Challenge? Row the Calendar Challenge?

[penkethj]

Morning all, I’m thinking of doing a rowing challenge at some point in the next 6 months. It’s basically the same concept as the April Fools challenge that concept2 have in April but doing it for the entire month. Simple concept really where you row the distance of the corresponding date of the month.

1st 1000m
2nd 2000m
3rd 3000m
Etc

All the way through the month up to

28th 28,000m
29th 29,000m
30th 30,000m

In total it ends up being close to 500,000m over the month.

I have a few questions. Firstly is there a name for this type of challenge? I’ve seen the running equivalent called the calendar club challenge or run the calendar. But can’t seem to find any information/videos of anyone doing it as a rowing challenge. I’m sure hundreds have, so was trying to see if anyone had documented their experience.

Secondly how hard do you think the last 10 days will be? Obviously it’s relative to the person so I’ll give you a bit of background of where I’m currently at.

I’m a long distance runner/cyclist. I bought a concept2 rowing machine a couple of years back mainly for keeping cardio going when injured or in recovery periods. So nearly all of my rowing is slower steady state efforts. I’ve done as far as a HM on rower a few times but nothing further yet.
I’m currently doing a challenge where I’m rowing 10,000m+ for 30 days in a row (was challenged by a mate and stupidly took him up on it). 11 days in and have found that doing it at steady state it’s a distance that doesn’t really impact me or require recovery from.

This in mind I feel like a calendar challenge I would be absolutely fine up to the high teens. But no idea how I would feel those last 10 days.

Anyone done this before and have any advice or experience they can share?

Many thanks

[iain]

Not aware of anyone doing the challenge you describe, but there is the "Crazy Bear" challenge set up by Joi Bear I think on Facebook. Originally this was 30 HM in 45 days, but a number of people did an alternative 30 in a month. I think many manage that and even get used t it by the end most seem to set season best HM times in the latter stages! Personally I find an easy 30k much easier than an SB attempt HM, it only starts to get hard on FMs 32-35k in, so 30km shouldn't be too bad if you take it at a sensible pace.

Good luck.

[Dangerscouse]

I remember seeing some ergers do this a while ago, but it's not something I've ever done, or could do due to work and personal commitments.

They ended up breaking it in parts the last ten days IIRC. It seemed 'manageable' as long as they chose a good pace that didn't tax them too much.

FWIW, I decided to do a 12hr solo charity challenge with only a handful of HMs and one 26k session ever done before, and I was struggling to complete a 10k at the time.

Being a long distance cyclist / runner you'll know the magic that happens when you set yourself a challenge. This is half the battle: not knowing anything but forward.

I'd imagine the last ten days will be tough, no matter what pace you go at. The sheer repetition, and lack of variety, will be attritional. Best of luck

[RWAGR]

Morning all, I’m thinking of doing a rowing challenge at some point in the next 6 months.

I'd go for February bro

[Sakly]

Morning all, I’m thinking of doing a rowing challenge at some point in the next 6 months.

I'd go for February bro

[penkethj]

Thanks all for your advice. As much as I’d love to do it in February it looks like January is going to be the month that works for me I’ve got some time off work from 20th-29th and the kids will be at school so a lot of the tougher days I will have time on my side.

Dangerscouse I will also be breaking up the latter days of the month due to other time commitments. Think this concept started as a running challenge and my running friends that have completed it have all broken up the distance over the course of the day. Apparently this is fine so long as you complete the requisite distance on that day.
Like yourself work and family commitments are almost the biggest obstacle to a challenge like this for me, so will have to see how it goes.

Will keep you posted if I go ahead

[chrisl]

I think it's a great idea and I'd be up for it. I've done the Crazy Bear Challenge a few times but it seems to have died and no idea if it will run this year, with the website and Facebook groups being dormant for a long time.

[penkethj]

I think it's a great idea and I'd be up for it. I've done the Crazy Bear Challenge a few times but it seems to have died and no idea if it will run this year, with the website and Facebook groups being dormant for a long time.

That’s cool. I’m going to give it a go in January. Does January work for you? If so maybe I’ll post a thread seeing if any other people would be interested. I don’t use Facebook or have any idea about building websites, but if there were a load of us could at least have a thread tracking progress etc.

[chrisl]

Any time is good – January works but there are a couple of C2 challenges in January too, one of which is a team challenge, so I already plan to be doing a large number of metres every day anyway. February might be better, since your metres will count towards the C2 military challenge, or if not taking part in that then they stand as their own challenge. What are you going to call it? The Penketh Calendar Climb? :)

[penkethj]

Any time is good – January works but there are a couple of C2 challenges in January too, one of which is a team challenge, so I already plan to be doing a large number of metres every day anyway. February might be better, since your metres will count towards the C2 military challenge, or if not taking part in that then they stand as their own challenge. What are you going to call it? The Penketh Calendar Climb?

Annoyingly I can only really do it in January due to other commitments in the following months. February would def have been easier as to not have 29,000m, 30,000m & 31,000m days!! Lol.

I’ve just seen the January challenges and think it could work nicely alongside them. Would work well towards individual challenge of rowing every day, rowing 30 hours or rowing 20,000 calories.
Also would work well towards the team challenge as would mean completing 496,000m just by doing the minimum each day.

Haha, no would def not call it anything like that. It’s a concept I’d be stealing from running not something I could claim to have come up with myself.

If you’re keen as I say I’ll do a post about the challenge and see if we can get anyone else involved. Who knows it could end up being popular and could end up doing it every year (or no one shows any interest at all and it’s just us slogging away in January!!) lol.

[chrisl]

January is fine, looks a good challenge. I've put it in my calendar as Calendar Climb Challenge 01-31 Jan and a note to this thread to check closer to the time. Yes all the metres will count to the Team Challenge as well as whatever New Year Revolutions challenge is selected.

[penkethj]

January is fine, looks a good challenge. I've put it in my calendar as Calendar Climb Challenge 01-31 Jan and a note to this thread to check closer to the time. Yes all the metres will count to the Team Challenge as well as whatever New Year Revolutions challenge is selected.

Cool. ‘Calendar Climb Challenge’ sounds like a good name. Lol. I’ll put a post on the forum a bit later and see if we can get anyone else involved.