Running and rowing (erging)

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  • PhilPubPhilPub ✭✭✭

    ...eh up. I've just been reminding myself why I need to ease back into these longer sessions.  11,482m done at lunchtime (45 mins, 1:57.6 pace) - my longest ever continuous effort - and the hands have got to that sort-of pre-blister stage.  Eek!  Need to toughen up a bit.  And I still haven't explored sweaty-hand slippage solutions yet, which probably didn't help.

  • Phil, I'm not necessarily recommending this, but apparently* it helps at this stage if you pee on your hands.

    *told to me by a former international gymnast.

  • PhilPubPhilPub ✭✭✭

    *inappropriate images of Suzanne Dando going through my mind...*

  • Or soak them in tea. Pee and tea. image

  • *bump*

    So it turns out that one of my old running buddies who moved to Cardiff - where the British indoor rowing championships are taking place in December - used to do a bit himself (2k pb 6:44), and he's up for it.  So that's a free overnight stay and some friendly competition - so I've entered.  image  Still only been knocking out 45 mins steady sessions 1/2 times a week up to now (best 1:53.9 pace, 11,853m) but I've decided that a 2-month structured 2,000m training plan from 1st October ought to be done.  I'll kick off with a 2k time-trial next Friday.

  • ...well I didn't know back in September that I'd finally pay attention to my niggly foot and stop running for a bit, but it's certainly helped my rowing.  To keep Muttley happy - cheers Muttley image - I've started doing some proper Pete's Plan sessions.  I'm only just over two weeks into my first ever dip into interval training and it seems to be paying off. 

    Best couple of sessions so far have been an "endurance interval" session of 4 x 2k w/ 5 mins recovery (7:15, 7:12, 7:12, 7:09) and today's "speed interval" session of 8 x 500m w/ 3.5 mins recovery: 1:40.2, 1:40.1, 1:40.0, 1:40.0, 1:40.0, 1:40.2, 1:40.2, 1:39.8.

    Did a 2k TT of 6:54.0 just before starting interval training but this was a few hours after a spin class, plus I'm already feeling benefits of race-pace practise not just in fitness but mainly in technique, as I feel a lot less ragged trying to row at 34/35 spm than I did a few weeks ago.  So hopefully I can look at something in the 6:4x range for the competition but we'll see how the next few weeks go.

    I've also got my head round drag factor (125 seems to work for me), and decided that for a mere sub-7 minutes worth of effort, I won't need to piss on my hands.  image

  • Well done Phil ... once you're deep into the PP you'll want to curse me, not thank me image

    It's the endurance intervals that hurt most for me. Last night was 5 x 1500 metres.

    I've had my C2 for six years and am approaching 6 million metres on it. My hands are a mess but I have resisted the temptation to pee on them.

  • Yeah, I've got the 5 x 1500 lined up for either tomorrow or Friday, depending on how recovery from yesterday goes.  (Glutes and back a little stiff at the moment, but not too bad.  Hands are definitely settling down, no actual  blisters now.)  As I've not got long before the race I've decided to just cycle through two of each of the speed and endurance sessions, so 8 x 500 or 4 x 1000 and 5 x 1500 or 4 x 2000, on a fortnightly basis, so that I can check progress often enough, and just leave out the pyramids.  Other than that it's 45 mins efforts at about 24spm and I might try to fit in a 5k TT just because I've not posted a time before.

    Apart from the glute attack, I'm enjoying stimulating the upper body a bit more as well.  image

    ...6 million metres!!  image  That's a hardy machine. If I got bored of spinning I'd probably ditch the gym and buy one.

  • 6 milion metres is reasonable for me but for the machine it's nothing. 100,000 metres a month is 25,000 or so a week which is three sessions or so lasting about an hour all-in. Machines in gyms and especially in rowing clubs can get hammered for hours a day, by some pretty hefty blokes. And are designed and built to take the punishment.

    My machine by contrast is the C2 equivalent of a BMW that your maiden aunt only uses to pootle to the shops every now and then.

  • Had my first proper "dying on my arse" interval session today, i.e. first time I've set out at a pace which proved to be a little ambitious!

    4 x 1k, 5 mins recovery.  Paces: 1:40.6, 1:41.1, 1:42.1, 1:43.5 (ouch!)

    Still, it's all good learning, and the average pace was exactly the same as my first interval session less than three weeks ago, 6 x 500m with same recovery, so I guess that's progress.  I was still shaking getting in the shower.  image

  • Ha!

    Good pacing advice from the author of the PP - on intervals, do all but the last one at a pace you know you can hold, and then do the last one balls-out. Calculate the average, then next time repeat but holding that average pace until the last rep, when you go balls-out again. Within a few sessions you'll be right on the money.

    Patience dear boy, patience image

  • hi all

    i know that most runners take up the erg to avoid injury. i'm the other way round. i seriously got into the erg, got stuck into the pete plan, got very fit  (got my 2k down from 8min almost to the magic 7min) but probably overdid which contributed to slipping a disc in my neck 3months ago, very painful.

    my physio says leave the erg for now but i need to do something to keep my hard-earned fitness and channel my ocd tendencies so have taken up running instead. aiming to do 10k at xmas (probably around 45min), a hm in march and a fm in may. i've done one marathon in 1987 in 3:16 when i was 21, i'm now 46

    will slowly come back to the erg. how useful do you guys think it is for running? it probably most important for training the mind? you spend a lot more time on the edge with an erg. so it is much more brutal if you get the pacing wrong. should help me with the discipline of running. mind you i do think that the PP is a bit mad. trying for a new PB 3 times a week gets very very serious after 3-4 rotations. but what about the physical side, doesn't it use different muscles to running?

    i want to make running my main activity, but maybe supplement with the erg. to run a marathon i will need to go up from current 25-30 miles a week to nearer 50. i understand that. but should i also use the erg

    as an erger who is switching to running i'm very interested inyour experiences

  • OK, who stole Muttley??  image  Seriously, it looks like I'm talking to myself here.  Has he been deleted?!  Sod it, I'll carry on then...

    Had a cold most of last week, so stupidly or not decided to play catch-up this week with a couple of back-to-back quality sessions.   My best speed interval session yesterday, first one with every rep quicker than 1:40 pace.  8 x 500m (3.5 mins recovery), average 1:39.7.  Cold sort of lingering but legs were fresh.  Happy with that.

    Then today, felt like I'd recovered well enough so did a 10k TT, 36:27.3 (pace 1:49.4).  Hard work but maintained very even pace/stroke (29/30). Will aim to get one more longish interval session in this week, possibly a 2k TT at the weekend, then it's taper till the competition on Saturday week.

    I'm definitely gonna keep this caper going after the race.  Cracking bit of exercise it is!  image

  • Stick at it Phil ... someone has cast an invisibility cloak over me. Hopefully the normal helicopter-tail service will be resumed shortly.

  • *testing...*

    We have Muttley!  image

  • Looking good PP.  I assume it is 2K distance for the BIRC event. My stalking see's that you are in a good lane for the race.

    I have a copy of Hwyel Davies "Hurtbox" workouts. I'm still treating myself as a delicate wall flower with my rowing after the last marathon - still paddling. I shall give some of those workouts a go for a bit of variety when I stop messing about.

    So what will be next after an all out 2K? - go long and take on HD's 100K time of 6hr:33 image

     

    Edit: for last marathon read "last road marathon" - Pheidippides says run them, don't row

  • Aw chaps, it's good to be back *sniff*

    Looking forward to some serious erging soon but first I need to shake off this man flu.

  • I might join in on this thread ......I think my 20.53 for 5k is a good starting point considering Ive done bugger all rowing like ever!!

     

  • Mr I - Join in!  There's a lot of improvement to be had from getting technique sorted as well as increasing fitness.

    A-r - 2k indeed. Since posting last week's training I've had a bit of a shocker, with this cold basically not going anywhere except further on to my chest!  So, no further interval sessions and I've not done a recent 2k TT.  The cold seems to have virtually cleared up now but it's knocked my confidence a bit. I'm sure I'll be good for a big PB but I can see me having to come back to do it justice.

    I was congratulating myself on getting within 13 seconds of Hywel's best 10k time this year, then I looked up that his PB is a minute quicker!  I think his 100k record is safe (on account of me not being bat-shit mental) although I am tempted to try and post a HM at some point.

  • Oh dear - that is not great timing PP. Time for the inverse taper image - I'm pretty sure you're a machine, will give it everything, and collapse in a heap at the end. That's all you can ask. And if there is more to come off that time it won't take long.

    Not been tempted to rent or buy yet?

    Muttley - have you upgraded RowPro. I've not really been using it much, and wondered what there is in the update.

    Mr I - how does that compare to a 5k run. My rowing gets progressively worse compared to running the further I go.

  • A-r - I'll make do with gym use for now but might consider buying one in the new year and have been looking at new/used options. Unless my priorities change drastically I'm planning on 3 sessions per week to support the running, and lunchtime gym + evening running works pretty well for me mid-week.

  • Come on in, Mr I ... if you think you're 'ard enough image

    A-r - I haven't upgraded RowPro for the past two versions. I'm using ver 2.3 on an old laptop running Vista. As far as I can see, ver 3 and 4 are technical updates to catch up with developments in the Windows platform. There's also been some improvements to the online rowing function, which I never use. I'm told ver 4 is far smoother and less prone to crash but I was hoping to see some functionality added like, eg, pace boats for intervals etc. As long as this old laptop keeps going, I'll stay with my old RowPro. Apparently the company that develops it is a couple of blokes and a dog so I'm not expecting any major overhauls.

    I now need to shake off the last bits of this man flu. Looking like an easy paddle on maybe Sunday and then onwards again with that pesky Pete Plan.

  • Ok - sounds similar to me. I have a rusty old lap top dedicated to Row Pro. It just about turns on, and would probably break with any new fangled software

  • Morning all. Had a nice day out at the British Indoor Rowing Championships in Cardiff yesterday.  Cold still lingering slightly but felt OK. My general level of activity over the past few weeks caused a bit of weight gain: Wednesday weigh-in 74.6kg, perilously close to the 75kg Lightweight limit, but some careful weight management in the last couple of days saw me weigh in at 72.1kg.  Phew!

    At one stage I thought I might be able to get close to 6:40 but the build-up had been rather scuppered by illness, so I thought I'd work out a pacing plan after the warm-up to see how I felt.  I threw in a few efforts during the 20 mins warm-up, and decided that 1:41 splits (6:44) seemed like a reasonable aim.  They lumped in the LW40-44 and LW30-34 together, which meant that from the information available during the race I wouldn't actually know how I'm doing in my category. (You get to see what position you're in, and how far ahead/behind the other people are in front/behind.)  

    So setting off with some 1:38 - 1:41 splits I was in 6th (15 rowers over the two categories) at halfway, which I reached in 3:21-ish but somewhere around 700-800 to go (a very nasty stage in a 2k; starting to fade, but the finish line is nowhere near in sight!), the power started going a little, splits going out to 1:42-43 so I had to make a concerted effort, and increase stroke rate from 33-34 to 34-35, to keep from slowing any more.  Yet I was up to 5th overall, and I knew there was at least one 30-34 ahead of me from the commentary.  The last 500m was exactly what I was expecting - Hell, and a complete gurn-fest.  Worst pace splits at this stage were 1:45 but with 200 to go it finally felt like I could throw the kitchen sink at it, stroke rate up to 37-38, and finished with a final pull in 6:48.4.

    So a little down on what I thought possible, but I didn't blow up completely.  And it was a 4-second PB.  Even better, it was actually good enough for third place.  Bronze medal!  image  Just five seconds behind silver, so I think I might have to be back for more, perhaps after more than four weeks of interval training and a cold...

  • ...the obligatory blurry pic, standing on a box in a gym hall.  image

    https://scontent-a-lhr.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/1460213_10152119985979595_447855254_n.jpg

     

  • Top rowing PP in a far from ideal buildup - 6:48 really is going some. Congratulations on medalling

  • Not bad for a beginner image

    Well done Phil! That's great going on the back of a man cold. There must be room for a few seconds to come off that time too. Sub 6:45 is surely possible.

    And a medal. A real medal, not one for just turning up  ... nice!

  • Cheers guys.  I don't want to put myself through the trauma of a 2k TT too often but I'd say there's a chunk to come off that at some point, and at least now I have some data points from a small number of interval sessions to get an idea of 2k predictor (e.g. 4 x 1k pace seems pretty close; 8 x 500 a bit quicker).  I'm planning to do one interval session each week from now on (+ 2 x long/steady), so if I see some further improvement I'm sure this won't be my last competition.

    I see the non-Lightweight 40-44 World record was broken yesterday: 5:52.4.  Jesus Christ, that guy was a UNIT!!

  • Well done Phil! An actual proper medal too (ie not one of those things I get in races for just participating! lol)

    Im off at lunch to  do a 5k on the rower. I'll post an image here of the time so I have some sort of record I can refer back to. I'll consider it my starting point in rowing image

     

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