Around the World Row!

Francois · Post by **Francois** » May 28th, 2006, 7:54 pm

Congratulations Trevor!
This is a huge improvement!

Actually the secrets for a good performance, apart from training and tapering, are proper warm-up and pacing!

On that respect, if you still had the energy to maintain a 1:53 pace for several hundred meters at the end, it means that you could start a little faster. So next time, I would suggest starting at 1:57, the average pace you've achieved today.

How did 28 spm feel?

Cheers!

ulu · Post by **ulu** » May 28th, 2006, 8:00 pm

Great job Trevor. That was a super row.

Keep on rowin', eh.

Jim

RR1 Kirk · Post by **RR1 Kirk** » May 28th, 2006, 10:35 pm

Miss a few days and look what happens.

Actually I'm not shocked, I felt it would happen.

Good luck with your recovery John.

Well done Mark, well done Trevor. Good strong performances both!

Cheers eh,

Trevor · Post by **Trevor** » May 29th, 2006, 12:52 pm

Thanks again for all the positive reinforcement, makes me want to try harder next time. I have a problem with pacing (probably pretty common), I never know what speed to start at and when to drop the hammer. I suspect this is a matter of experience and the advice has been excellent in regards to general concepts. I suspect I will stop having to be such a weasel about slight lactic buld up and just push on.

One other question. Am I losing my mind or does it take longer to warm up as you get more fit? Seems to me I need to row for 20 minutes plus now to get into a groove and start pushing myself. For instance my subjective "suffering" is as bad when I start at 22 spm and a split of 2:08 as it is latter at 28 and 1:54. For instance when I started on Sunday I felt like crap about 5 minutes in and was thinking I would put off the attempt. When I finished the warm up of 25 minutes I was sweating and breathing hard but wildly keen to attack my previous time. Does someone like Lance Armstrong have to warm up for two weeks before his body is primed to go? Seems like I always start slow and sluggish now and, after an increasingly long time, start to fire on all cylinders.

Trevor

Francois · Post by **Francois** » May 29th, 2006, 2:27 pm

Trevor wrote:One other question. Am I losing my mind or does it take longer to warm up as you get more fit?

Good observation Trevor! Yes, it takes longer to warm-up as one gets more fit. The reason, I suspect, is the fitter you are, the wider the difference between being at rest and being able to "fire all cylinders". That being said, I would be very surprised if Lance Armstrong can not be fully warmed-up within an hour!
Paradoxically, the shorter the event, the longer and more strenuous the warm-up.
For swim meets, I usually warm-up for at least 30 minutes (about 1500m), and I also swim about 400m between events to get rid of the lactic acid.

RR1 Kirk · Post by **RR1 Kirk** » May 29th, 2006, 8:48 pm

Shannon, well done on the 5K! You were soooo close to getting in boat 1!

Trvor/ Francois, how between your warm up and your set piece?

Cheers,

Yukon John · Post by **Yukon John** » May 29th, 2006, 9:23 pm

Great job Trevor and Shannon, both with huge improvements!!!

Question for coach

Francois

or anyone else. I always do a good warm up for a race, and the shorter the race, the longer the warm up. My question is about the delay after the warm up until starting the race. When I did a lot of running races in the past, I usually would warm up and keep moving until the race started. With erging, I do the warm up and then take a few minutes of inactivity prior to the start. Is that what you do, or do you start right after the warm up, or some kind of combination? Thanks for any tips! John.

Francois · Post by **Francois** » May 29th, 2006, 9:24 pm

Congratulations Shannon!
That is a very nice improvement! You and Brigitte are just 0.8 sec apart!

RR1 Kirk wrote:Trevor/ Francois, how between your warm up and your set piece?

IMO, 10 to 15 minutes are best between the end of warm-up and the set piece. Use those precious minutes to focus on the task (and suffering!) ahead!

Shannon · Post by **Shannon** » May 29th, 2006, 9:48 pm

Thanks for the congratulations guys! It was a bit tough to see that I was only 8 tenths behind Brigitte and the first boat, but I was totally thrilled with my time anyway!!

Just in the month of May I took 44.5 seconds off my 5K PB and I never thought I would get anywhere near Brigitte. I noticed that Daryl has a time of 21:56.1, Brigitte is at 21:57.8 and I am at 21:58.6, all three of us on the same team! Our second boat moved up from 32nd place to 30th, so that was good to see also.

Shannon

danwho · Post by **danwho** » May 29th, 2006, 10:21 pm

Wow, congratulations for all these big efforts, Christ, Mark, Trevor, and Shannon. Way to move those boats.
And great warm-up advice. Hope to apply that to next challenge. I tend to skimp on the warm-up. I did when I was running too - but then I tended to run longer distances. So, for the upcoming 1K challenge, I should put some more focus on the warm-up. Francois. is it your experience that the amount of time between the warm-up and the event is dependent on the length of the event? Longer warmup for shorter event but time between warm-up and event remains constant? Obviously, this seems like something each person has to play with and find the right formula for him/her, but I was wondering if your experience suggested different times between warm-up and event based on what you were warming up for.
I finally am mostly recovered from my pink eye. Never had it before and never knew that some people can get it that bad. I have other eye problems (glaucoma - apparently didn't smoke enough marijuana) so perhaps that had something to do with my reaction - certainly increased the fears of other complications.
Finally looking forward to my first row in over a week tomorrow morning.
Good to be almost back. And good to see such fine accomplishments by other team members.

danwho · Post by **danwho** » May 29th, 2006, 10:46 pm

I was wondering if anyone knew where I might find a chart showing predicted times for various events based on other times you have achieved. If I can do a 5K at this time, then I should be able to do a 1K in about this time. I think I saw such a chart once, but I didn't seem to find it again just now. They are common in running literature. It certainly helps when you want to pick a somewhat reasonable goal to shoot for.
I wonder if there is also some table showing approximate ranges of spm for various distances. So, let's say, my spm for a 5K falls exactly in the middle of the range in this table for the 5K - then the spm someone might predict I would use for a 1K would be in the middle of the range in this table for a 1K.
I'm guessing someone must have put together some tables like this.

ulu · Post by **ulu** » May 29th, 2006, 10:52 pm

Great rowin' everyone. Nice to see that Eh!Team boat picking up steam, make sure it doesn't tip.

A hearty Eh!Team welcome to Gillian Brouse from Ottawa, Ontario and Craig Trumbull from Centerville, Virginia. We should change his town name to Centreville to get him on the Eh!Team, eh.

17,000,000 meters down in our around the World Row. We are now passing through the Jharkand http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribes_of_Jharkhand,_India state of India. Be careful when you step out of the boat. These little fellows apparent live there.

It is a mesobuthus tamulus (some kind of scorpion) for any of you who are interested.

Keep on rowin', eh.

Jim

Francois · Post by **Francois** » May 30th, 2006, 10:08 am

danwho wrote:Francois. is it your experience that the amount of time between the warm-up and the event is dependent on the length of the event? Longer warmup for shorter event but time between warm-up and event remains constant?

Good question! I have never seen it mentioned that there should be a difference. But I would guess that the shorter the event, the more important it is not to loose the warming-up effect.
Here are the suggested warm-up procedures for swimmers, taken from Maglischo's Swimming Fastest (p. 750), which should also apply to other sports:

1) Stretch ankles, shoulders, and lower back for 5 to 10 min. Breaststroker should also stretch their groins and knees.
2) Swim long and easy for 10 to 20 min. Use stroke drills to rehearse skills.
3) Practice starts and turns.
4) Swim 25s, 50s or 100s at race pace.
5) Swim a few sprint 25s if you wish.
6) Swim down long and easy for 2 to 5 min. Finish 15 min before race time.
7) Reenter the water 5 to 10 min before race time and swim easy until called to the block

I haven't done 5 and 7 in meets, that is something I should try!

Francois · Post by **Francois** » May 30th, 2006, 10:36 am

danwho wrote:I was wondering if anyone knew where I might find a chart showing predicted times for various events based on other times you have achieved. If I can do a 5K at this time, then I should be able to do a 1K in about this time.

I think rowing is quite unique in its combination of strength and endurance, and the prediction tables or formula don't work that well for me. For instance, there is Paul's Law, which states that "Double the distance, add 5 sec to the pace". It seems to work fine for many rowers.

I seem to fit the rule "Double the distance, add 3 sec to the pace".

Based on my latest 5K (1:46.8), I expect the 1K to be around 1:40.5 pace.
Stroke rates between 30 to 34 spm are quite common for 1K.

BriK · Post by **BriK** » May 30th, 2006, 2:15 pm

Oh well, so I have been happily snoozing in our little boat, and now it's Shannon's breath in my neck waking me up

. Great rowing, Shannon!!!

There have been such a lot of big improvements here these past days: Trevor, Mark, Chris, Rob, Francois ... it's almost impossible to keep up with all the great efforts here! And plenty of new rowers, too! ... oh my, I see one really cannot afford to take a few days off if you don't want to totally fall behind!
I decided to take a few days off to give my knuckles on the right hand some rest, because each time I rowed, things got worse again. This morning was the first day I woke up without pain in the fingers and I could move them too. So I guess I'll give it another day or two and then I'll be back on the erg (or say "Ah'll be back", which sounds cool with my accent). Can't wait to get back rowing ... my sweety C2 is waiting for me

. I got my NewGrips too now, so let's see if they work.

Happy rowing everyone!
Brigitte