The Equalizer

ranger · Post by **ranger** » October 21st, 2009, 10:29 am

bloomp wrote:you won't come within 15 seconds of Terry Cahill this weekend. From my research, he's a consistent and experienced sculler with a lot of victories.

If Cahill is experienced as a sculler, I wouldn't expect to beat him.

I am just rowing this first OTW race (and perhaps the next couple of _years_ of races) to get some experience with racing OTW.

I haven't even switched my focus entirely to OTW rowing.

My focus is still on the erg.

At the moment, across the span of the year as a whole, I pull four or five times as many meters on the erg as I pull OTW.

I am just getting started with my OTW training and racing.

This is indeed what I would like to do full time in the future, though, when I am retired (in a couple of years).

My wife and I are looking for a southern venue in the winter.

Then we will rotate from Ann Arbor (in the fall) to that southern venue (in the winter) back to Ann Arbor (in the spring) and then to Door County, WI (in the summer).

When I get into that rotation, I will be able to row OTW all year round.

This weekend, I am just going to paddle the course easily, to get my oars wet.

ranger

ranger · Post by **ranger** » October 21st, 2009, 1:16 pm

How you folks talk about learning is a bit astonishing.

Learning is impossible, irrelevant, or if neither, a momentary event that takes no time and effort.

Amazing.

ranger

ranger · Post by **ranger** » October 21st, 2009, 2:54 pm

Yea, Cahill is one of the best veteran scullers around.

He's about as fast as Mike van Beuren, who won both the lightweight and heavyweight sprints in the E division of the National Masters this year.

Cahill won the Midwest Masters sprints in a comparable time.

I suspect that Cahill will pull about 2:05 pace for 4K.

I am only going to shoot for 2:15, and that's if the conditions are good and I am moving freely, rather than passing, avoiding objects, recovering from technical breakdowns, fighting adverse conditions, and other matters which will undoubtedly slow me down.

My goal is just to get down the course rowing easily but keeping a good rate.

27 spm?

ranger

ranger · Post by **ranger** » October 21st, 2009, 3:06 pm

bloomp wrote:You seem to be afraid to admit you might not live up to what you claim to be capable of.

Is that why I raced three or four times as many times as my closest competitors this past winter?

I just raced to participate.

I wasn't training to race yet; I was still doing foundational rowing.

My times weren't all that bad, even so.

My 6:41 this last winter was three seconds off of the 55s lwt WR, a second under the 60s lwt WR, and three seconds better than the next best 55s lwt.

For WIRC 2010, I'll be 59.

ranger

snowleopard · Post by **snowleopard** » October 21st, 2009, 3:50 pm

ranger wrote:
bloomp wrote:You seem to be afraid to admit you might not live up to what you claim to be capable of.
Is that why I raced three or four times as many times as my closest competitors this past winter?

What were the races? What were your times? On each occasion, how many other competitors were there in your age category?

ranger · Post by **ranger** » October 21st, 2009, 5:38 pm

snowleopard wrote:how many other competitors were there in your age category?

As they stand now, up through the 60s at least, the erging age-group WRs are pretty independent of numbers of competitors.

They just map out a certain standard rate of technical, skeletal-muscular, and physiological decline with age.

Besides the basic issue of having a lot of innate talent for rowing, the trick to rowing well in the older age groups is to delay, halt, or reverse this standard rate of decline.

ranger

snowleopard · Post by **snowleopard** » October 21st, 2009, 5:46 pm

ranger wrote:As they stand now, up through the 60s at least, the erging age-group WRs are pretty independent of numbers of competitors.

Eh? You have already said that age-group WRs are of no interest to you. Your only interest, by your own admission, is demonstrating that at age 60 you are as good as someone less than half you age.

Besides, you didn't answer the question. The point being that you loafed your way through a few satellite events with no competition. Hardly racing, is it?

JohnBove · Post by **JohnBove** » October 21st, 2009, 5:51 pm

ranger wrote:I had the best 2K in my age and weight division by three seconds this last year, without even preparing for it, just on the basis of foundational rowing, no hard distance rowing or hard sharpening.

ranger

Is there no depth to which you won't sink? YOu said that you were sharpening. In the note I quoted you referred to doing "more" sharpening, so you can't claim you planned to sharpen, then changed your mind.

What you did last year was duck BIRC and WIRC. The obvious reason is that you can't beat Roy head to head. Nobody but you gives a flying fuck what you did in some no-pressure event in God knows where. And this accomplishment, that you first used to cling to and now brag about is an abysmal failure against what you have spent years crowing about, your 6:16, which you continually refer to as if you have already done it.

Every year for at least the past three you've claimed you would make that time and you were preparing, sharpening, aiming for BIRC and WIRC as your stage. "Weight's perfect," "everything's coming together perfectly" ... whatever lies it took to be the center of attention. And then you failed, crapped out, no-showed, spit the bit, made excuses, and have tried to recreate the past.

And as recently as last month you crapped out and reneged on a promised time trial.

You'd be merely a bad joke if you weren't such a liar and such a mental case. How do you live with yourself?

Nosmo · Post by **Nosmo** » October 21st, 2009, 6:42 pm

snowleopard wrote:Besides, you didn't answer the question. The point being that you loafed your way through a few satellite events with no competition. Hardly racing, is it?

WRONG. He went out too fast and blew up for all but the last two. (well actually the second to las the went out too fast and hung on for a slower but still decent time.)

I just raced to participate.

Maybe, he does, but he claimed he was going to break the WR 7 times in seven races.

He's about as fast as Mike van Beuren, who won both the lightweight and heavyweight sprints in the E division of the National Masters this year. Cahill won the Midwest Masters sprints in a comparable time. I suspect that Cahill will pull about 2:05 pace for 4K.

1st of all MVB has gone under 2:00 pace for several 5K races this year. That is significantly faster then a 2:05.

2nd unless you know the conditions very well, or have a large sampling of rowers to compare, comparing times in two regattas is meaningless. Even at the same venue I've seen times for a head race vary by over 3 minutes from one year to the next.

Cahill may be as good or even better then MVB, but you really have no idea unless they raced together and both did good races.

Ranger wrote on his blog in early summer about going to the nationals and possibly winning them. But now that he may actually show up the tune changes.

Why am I reading this garbage and why is anyone responding?

ranger · Post by **ranger** » October 22nd, 2009, 2:53 am

snowleopard wrote:The point being that you loafed your way through a few satellite events

No, I didn't loaf.

But as I have said, I didn't prepare to race, either.

I didn''t do any hard anaerobic sharpening.

In fact, I didn't even do any hard distance rowing.

I was still doing foundational rowing at low rates (16-26 spm).

So.

Was I racing?

Sure, at about an AT HR, as I said at the time.

So I am happy with the results, as far as they go.

1:40 is a good AT pace for me, although perhaps not quite what I would like it to be (1:38).

A lot of distance rowing helps with that.

To reach my 2K goals, I will need to do 4 x 2K @ 1:38.

32 spm?

ranger

ranger · Post by **ranger** » October 22nd, 2009, 2:59 am

nosmo wrote:Cahill may be as good or even better then MVB

Yes, it seems that Cahill is _very_ good.

He'll be fun to talk to about his rowing, and fun to watch, if I get the chance.

It will give me an idea of where I might be in a couple of years, if I keep ramping up my OTW rowing and start racing regularly.

My goal for next summer is to stretch my daily OTW rows to 20K, rowing at a substantial rate (26 spm?), just to pile up meters and keep working on technical, skeletal-muscular, and physiological efficiency.

Then the season following that, when I am 60, I will start racing my training and racing as much as possible.

Then, in the fall, I will race my 1x at the Head of the Charles.

ranger

ranger · Post by **ranger** » October 22nd, 2009, 3:43 am

What you can achieve in some training cycle, or perhaps at the limits of your ability, is decided long before you do a couple months of hard sharpening to prepare to race.

If it is not determined at the level of your foundational rowing, then it is determined when your distance rowing ("pre-sharpening") is complete and you do your first distance race.

For anyone with balanced training, who is willing to do foundational rowing and distance rowing in addition to sharpening and race preparation, your 2K is only as good as your 60min row.

Both Mike VB and Rocket Roy do 1:51 for 60min.

60min is done at 2K + 10.

So, for Mike and Roy, 1:41 is just about it for 2K.

If Mike and Roy are trying to get better, there is no reason for them to sharpen at all unless they can get find some way to get better in their distance rowing.

And so it goes, back to the beginning:

The best, and perhaps only, way to get better in distance rowing is to get better in your foundational training.

In my beginning is my end.

In my end is my beginning.

Home is where one starts from.

ranger

ranger · Post by **ranger** » October 22nd, 2009, 4:16 am

When I just relax in my distance rowing, working hard, but staying comfortably aerobic, I now gravitate toward 27 spm @ 11.2 SPI (1:45).

10.6 MPS

The goal now is just to do as much of this as I can, both OTW and on the erg, holding my technique firm, keeping each stroke exactly the same, stretching the distance to 60min, 75min, 90min, 105min, 120min, etc.

I am _very_ happy with how this rowing feels.

Top-end UT1

According to the IP, 1:45 is top-end UT1 for a 6:20 2K.

"Threshold rowing"

"Pre-sharpening"

"Distance rowing"

In the Wolverine Plan, Level 3.

When I get to a HM with this distance rowing, I hit one of my targets and win the second half of my bet with hjs.

This 1:45 @ 27 spm (11.2 SPI, 10.6 MPS) means that, when I race distances, I should try to gravitate toward 11 SPI on the 10 MPS ladder: 1:43 @ 29 spm.

ranger

JohnBove · Post by **JohnBove** » October 22nd, 2009, 5:35 pm

ranger wrote:Learning is impossible, irrelevant, or if neither, a momentary event that takes no time and effort.

ranger

Are we supposed to find this fatuous bit of gibberish profound?

And what is it again that you lyingly claim to have been doing for the last six years? Learning to row, isn't that it?

What a roaring asshole you are.

JohnBove · Post by **JohnBove** » October 22nd, 2009, 5:36 pm

ranger wrote:Learning is impossible, irrelevant, or if neither, a momentary event that takes no time and effort.

ranger

Are we supposed to find this fatuous bit of gibberish profound?

And what is it again that you lyingly claim to have been doing for the last six years? Learning to row, isn't that it?

What a roaring asshole you are.