Endurance erging - A place to discuss 42, 50, 100k upwards.

[p_b82]

Is there any type of training I should be doing in between these efforts? Or even instead of these?

Appreciate any tips or advice.

I can't say from experience, but if you grab the C2 training guide v2 - there's the 80k and 100k marathon plans - based on volume of weekly effort.

Typically as one gets closer to the race it's one long row at FM pace a week, with a mixture of power (short intervals), Lactate threshold - longer mixed pace intervals EG 12k made from 4,000m @ MP/4,000m @ 10kP/4,000m @ HMP & V02 max sessions something like 3 x Alternate (1,500m @ 5kP/2,000m @ MP).

[ericMX73]

Does anyone have any advice on how I can move my marathon PB from 3 hrs 14 mins to sub 3 hrs??

For some context I did my first marathon a couple of months ago. Finished in 3 hrs 14 mins which was a 2:18 pace. A couple of weeks later I did my first 50k in 3 hrs 49 mins which was 2:17.8 pace.
I have a HM PB of 1 hr 26 mins which was 2:02.4 pace.

Now to go sub 3 hrs in the marathon you have to hit a 2:07.9 pace. So today I thought I’d try doing 25km at that pace. This is the result;

Time Meters Pace Watts Cal/Hr S/M
1:46:10.4 25,000m 2:07.4 169 882 26 152
21:09.0 5,000m 2:06.9 171 889 26 153
21:08.7 10,000m 2:06.8 171 889 26 154
21:14.4 15,000m 2:07.4 169 881 26 153
21:20.1 20,000m 2:08.0 167 874 26 150
21:18.2 25,000m 2:07.8 168 876 27 151

Felt ok for lots of it but was def feeling it a bit at the end.

Now to get from where I currently am to a sub 3 hr marathon I was thinking of having a crack at 30km at this pace in a couple of weeks time, then maybe 35k at that pace in another two weeks after that before maybe having a crack it the marathon another fortnight after that.

Is there any type of training I should be doing in between these efforts? Or even instead of these?

Appreciate any tips or advice.

I'm no expert, but at your height I think you should take the stroke rate down a little bit to minimize the wear and tear on your body. Get more effort into your legs and rest a little with a slower stroke rate. Slower stroke, slower breathing. Any little bit of energy you can save going back and forth on this thing from hour to hour will add up in the long run. Try 24-25 spm or 23-24 spm. Your heart rate looks pretty steady, even drops a bit towards the end in that 25k session as your pace slows down. If it was me I would practice more sessions holding 2:07 pace 24 spm. Push the edge of the bubble each session as you go longer maintaining 2:07. Take two days off and be fully rested and hungry for each 2:07 session. Everyone is different, and that may not work for you, but that is my impression. You are definitely on the right track. Your plan of doing 30k and then 35k sounds good to me. Enjoy the journey.

[penkethj]

Practice is definitely vital. You need to adapt, mentally and physically to the effort. Is r26/27 your sweet spot? I did my first FM at r27ish, but my PB was at r24.

I'd definitely recommend doing a variety of different sessions at different paces / effort. Don't fall into the trap of thinking that it needs to be all about long slow sessions.

To be honest I’m still figuring out where my sweet spot is. My stroke rate can vary so much. My marathon was at 20, my 50k was at 22 which is also the same as my HM PB.

So yesterdays effort was probably quite high for me for that distance. Feel like when my body/muscles are achey/fatigued my stroke rate goes up as I rely on my cardio to compensate for the lack of strength.

I can't say from experience, but if you grab the C2 training guide v2 - there's the 80k and 100k marathon plans - based on volume of weekly effort.

Typically as one gets closer to the race it's one long row at FM pace a week, with a mixture of power (short intervals), Lactate threshold - longer mixed pace intervals EG 12k made from 4,000m @ MP/4,000m @ 10kP/4,000m @ HMP & V02 max sessions something like 3 x Alternate (1,500m @ 5kP/2,000m @ MP).

Thank you that’s really helpful. Will definitely have a look at some of those interval structures as that’s something I rarely do at the moment.

I'm no expert, but at your height I think you should take the stroke rate down a little bit to minimize the wear and tear on your body. Get more effort into your legs and rest a little with a slower stroke rate. Slower stroke, slower breathing. Any little bit of energy you can save going back and forth on this thing from hour to hour will add up in the long run. Try 24-25 spm or 23-24 spm. Your heart rate looks pretty steady, even drops a bit towards the end in that 25k session as your pace slows down. If it was me I would practice more sessions holding 2:07 pace 24 spm. Push the edge of the bubble each session as you go longer maintaining 2:07. Take two days off and be fully rested and hungry for each 2:07 session. Everyone is different, and that may not work for you, but that is my impression. You are definitely on the right track. Your plan of doing 30k and then 35k sounds good to me. Enjoy the journey.

Thank you that all sounds like good advice. To be honest my stroke rate is usually much lower than yesterday on longer efforts. For example this was my 50k in December;

Time Meters Pace Watts Cal/Hr S/M
3:49:42.7 50,000m 2:17.8 134 760 22 135
44:35.6 10,000m 2:13.7 146 803 20 134
45:44.8 20,000m 2:17.2 135 766 21 135
46:15.5 30,000m 2:18.7 131 750 22 132
46:19.8 40,000m 2:18.9 130 748 23 137
46:47.0 50,000m 2:20.3 127 735 24 139

I know I have a tendency to increase my stroke rate as my body gets tired. Which the above effort kinda shows perfectly.

Having a couple days off and being fully rested is definitely advice I will take on board for this reason.

[RWAGR]

Two pieces from the last week and some questions for the brain trust here!

3 hours at 100k pace:

3:00:00.0 40,810m 2:12.3 151 819 17 140
1:00:00.0 13,667m 2:11.7 153 827 17 134
2:00:00.0 13,555m 2:12.7 149 814 17 140
3:00:00.0 13,589m 2:12.4 151 818 19 148

HM hard. Set a PB (hurrah) by 31.9" so my fitness is there. Overall this was at my limit and pretty grim in the last 5k.

1:21:03.4 21,097m 1:55.2 229 1086 24 170
19:11.7 5,000m 1:55.1 229 1088 24 159
19:13.6 10,000m 1:55.3 228 1084 24 169
19:18.2 15,000m 1:55.8 225 1075 24 173
19:16.2 20,000m 1:55.6 226 1079 24 178
4:03.7 21,097m 1:51.0 255 1178 26 182


One interesting observation from the HM is that my heart rate was north of 170 for about 45 min and north of 160 for an hour or more. I don't know how to reconcile this with training zones. My max HR is only just north of 180 (I hit 182 all out at the end of this HM, for instance) so 170+ should be very much in the anaerobic / VO2 max zone, yes? If so, I thought the whole point of that zone is that you're not meant to be able to sustain it for long and certainly not 45 min. Generally, I also find that my HR in rowing is much much higher than running or biking. Even rowing very slowly (see 3 hour session above) my HR is in the 140s which is at least a Zone 3 workout. This means I would have to row with almost no power at all to do a Zone 2 or Zone 1 workout for an hour plus. On the other and, on the bike or treadmill, I can easily keep my heart rate in the low 100s and adjust intensity to keep it steady or within 5 bpm of whatever I choose. Does this mean I'm obliged to use those machines for true UT2 work?

[Dangerscouse]

Does this mean I'm obliged to use those machines for true UT2 work?

You can totally choose to ignore me, but I much prefer to use intuition, RPE and recovery rates to gauge what is possible. If you can recover from it, and genuinely feel it's sustainable, you can use it imo. There's a chance that you're going to leave performance on the table if you strictly adhere to HR zones. OTTH, I am contradicting what some very successful / clever people will advocate, so please don't assume I know what is best.

I found my max HR at the end of my FM PB, but I generally don't come very close to it for anything else, regardless of how hard it feels. It's also worth bearing in mind that your HR will be a lot under max when you're under recovered, and you still feel unable to continue. As an example, I HDed a 100k with 16k to go, and my HR was circa 145.

Congrats on the HM PB too.

[Elizabeth]

One interesting observation from the HM is that my heart rate was north of 170 for about 45 min and north of 160 for an hour or more. I don't know how to reconcile this with training zones. My max HR is only just north of 180 (I hit 182 all out at the end of this HM, for instance) so 170+ should be very much in the anaerobic / VO2 max zone, yes? If so, I thought the whole point of that zone is that you're not meant to be able to sustain it for long and certainly not 45 min.

Rob, I feel like a lot of those HR zone charts break apart for hard work. My programming is based on a 3-zone model (easy/medium/hard), which makes more sense to me based on what I see in training. I can sustain a high heart rate for a while. I will not hit a high heart rate on short, very hard pieces - there simply isn't time for it to build to that point.

Here's a HM where I'm riding similar zones to you (max HR 190). The goal was to keep it kind of on the hard edge of a medium effort for the first 2/3 and then step on the gas. You can see where that happens.
https://log.concept2.com/profile/1558013/log/82822647

I don't have a great answer for you as far as steady state. I can maintain easy HR zones on both the rowerg and bike. I'm not sure what your current training and history looks like, but do you feel confident that your cardio fitness is there, or is it something that you're working on building?

And congrats on the HM PB!!

[Sakly]

My max HR is only just north of 180 (I hit 182 all out at the end of this HM, for instance) so 170+ should be very much in the anaerobic / VO2 max zone, yes? If so, I thought the whole point of that zone is that you're not meant to be able to sustain it for long and certainly not 45 min

First: well done on the HM PB!

My max is 185 and my HR was 167 after the first 2k split and averaged 170 over the whole HM PB I did end of last season. So I was above 90% HR max all time and averaged at 92%.
Obviously this is not my anaerobic threshold, or my lactate clearance is very good. I don't know

[RWAGR]

Thanks all. Re fitness levels and the erg- I think I'm solidly fit but I guess we are always improving. Will be interesting to see how I recover from, say, a 60 minute erg at ~150 bpm vs a 60 min jog at 125/130 BPM.

[Gustel]

Two pieces from the last week and some questions for the brain trust here!

3 hours at 100k pace:

3:00:00.0 40,810m 2:12.3 151 819 17 140
1:00:00.0 13,667m 2:11.7 153 827 17 134
2:00:00.0 13,555m 2:12.7 149 814 17 140
3:00:00.0 13,589m 2:12.4 151 818 19 148

How do you respond to S/M? I find that my heart rate goes up if my S/M drops below 20 while the pace stays constant.

[Dangerscouse]

Two pieces from the last week and some questions for the brain trust here!

3 hours at 100k pace:

3:00:00.0 40,810m 2:12.3 151 819 17 140
1:00:00.0 13,667m 2:11.7 153 827 17 134
2:00:00.0 13,555m 2:12.7 149 814 17 140
3:00:00.0 13,589m 2:12.4 151 818 19 148

How do you respond to S/M? I find that my heart rate goes up if my S/M drops below 20 while the pace stays constant.

I didn't notice the spm, but that's a good point. I have found my sweet spot is r24 as it seems to use both strength and aerobic fitness comparably.

[RWAGR]

Great point guys. My fear with rowing slow at higher SR is that it will weaken my stroke power. I guess you can't train everything at once...

[penkethj]

I’ve got a couple questions around seat pads and hand chalk if anyone has any advice.

Firstly around seatpads. I’ve always used a Hornet Watersports seatpad, it’s only very thin but has always been ok for me. Even on my 50k which was getting on for four hours it was fine. However today on just 25k I started getting quite uncomfortable and it didn’t feel as effective.
Do we think this is just where the foam has lost its sponginess after so much use? Does anyone use anything else they recommend instead?

This is the one I’ve been using currently;

https://amzn.eu/d/6cu3b3S


Secondly on chalk/glove usage. I normally use standard chalk as I had some from rock climbing anyway. I also sometimes wear fingerless gloves that I had from cycling. Combining these two has worked well enough from me. However ideally I’d like to stop using the gloves altogether as it can make the hands quite warm which is probably counter intuitive. However with just basic chalk I find after an hour or so it’s pretty much all gone.

I’ve seen a lot of people on here mention they use liquid chalk. Do you think this is better? How many hours would you normally use this for from one application? Are any brands better than others?

Thanks in advance for any tips

[RWAGR]

Great point guys. My fear with rowing slow at higher SR is that it will weaken my stroke power. I guess you can't train everything at once...

Maybe some of the confusion comes from the Free Spirts heart rate band calculator? That actually gives sample SR for each band and gets higher as the bands go up (eg UT2 is 18-20 SPM etc). In fact it seems that the SPM to effort relationship isn’t that clear.

[btlifter]

Great point guys. My fear with rowing slow at higher SR is that it will weaken my stroke power. I guess you can't train everything at once...

Maybe some of the confusion comes from the Free Spirts heart rate band calculator? That actually gives sample SR for each band and gets higher as the bands go up (eg UT2 is 18-20 SPM etc). In fact it seems that the SPM to effort relationship isn’t that clear.

I - deliberately - spend most of my time using as weak of stroke as I can. I hope that can provide some assurance that doing so won't weaken one's stroke.

[RWAGR]

It certainly does. Would you mind sharing approximate numbers for reference? I know you have an elite 2k - what’s your “weak stroke” steady state, 2k+x?