Well true to my word I did my 2K time trial. The observant amongst you will notice the absence of large red text on this posting so no PB!

I actually felt a little nervous prior to the row as it's really an unknown for me at the moment with all these longish rows I've been doing. The plan was to try and beat my PB (everyone else has been lately so I thought I'd try and join the party ). So was looking at going out at 1:48 then settle into 1:50 for the middle 1000m and then try for 1:48 for the last 500m.

Anyway the tale of the tape is as follows:

Time - 7:25.5
DF: 122
Splits:
1:47.8 30spm (159bpm) The low rate felt pretty good so stuck with the sub 1:48 rate
1:51.5 29spm (176bpm) Struggled to keep at 1:50. Lack of strength started to tell.
1:54.7 28spm (176bpm) Just kept thinking "heart of a lion" otherwise I'd have stopped
1:51.4 30spm (180bpm) Dug in for all I had.

Heart rate for the last 500m showed I could have put more in but I simply didn't have the strength. Just goes to show I need to work on strength and also speed training.

Negatives:
1) Didn't break my PB
2) Not as good as I thought I might have been
3) Didn't break my PB!

Positives:
1) It's a baseline time to work from
2) Highlights areas for improvement and focus (ie speed and strength training)
3) It could have been a lot worse!

I've updated Nonathlon so I've jumped up to 106th place. Still a long way to go yet. I'm still hopeful of doing the HM this Sunday (domestic commitments allowing!).

Chippy and co don't forget to say hello at Southampton .. I am travelling down by train on the Saturday hope for once that they are on time . Booked into a B N B for the night as well.

Hi Mike, thanks for the intro (any Welsh ?) - good to have you on the Taff "Beat" (how corny was that - couldn't resist !). Another rozzer to help Chippy/Chris to stay on the Straight and Narrow. They will need a'keeping an eye on as they approach the 1 million metres mark, with claims and counter claims of skullduggery, missing metres etc abounding no doubt

Keep up the good work on the erg, looking forward to when you start to test yourself over the recognised distances. You've certainly got enough K's under your belt (and less of those donuts - give them to CI Wiggum in the office next door - love the Simpsons).

Cheers

Martin

Oi Martin you going to have to behave to.... Mike ... well Boss .. you got rank .. we can sort this load of renegades out ...

No way Jose, Carole - I'm too far away - out of juristiction - hohoho

Good hunting at the GP

Martin

Caught you Martin!

Decided to do the HM today that I should have done 2 days ago. The schedule today just was nuts and I ended up missing dinner and coming home at 9:00 starved, and figured, if I eat, I won't be able to row till late, and that's just not acceptable, because at that rate I'll never catch up...So I ate a yogurt and did the HM. I was tired from the start, the last two days of 12K each felt like I had just done them. It turned out to be a PB but I was really tired by the end because I was really running on empty. Had to stop 3 times for water. Anyway I finished in 1:31:53.3, about 9 seconds faster than my 2 year old PB, worth 993 on Nonathlon. I don't know if I'll ever manage to get under 1:30 to join Carole...I really lousy & should eat something but it's 12:15 am.


Carla

Carla,

That's a great time for a HM especially given your lack of food fuel! It must have been very satisfying:

- beating an old PB
- overtaking Martin

It certainly shows great focus and drive so well done. Didn't do your Nonathlon score too much harm either!

Martin,

I totally agree with your point about my lack of power in the midsection of the 2K being down to technique. I didn't feel I was in control of the strokes and there was a degree of blind panic as I tried in vain to get maintain a 1:50. Not being used to the higher stroke rate, I didn't have good form and that's something I'll look at during training rows. Like you say, I need to be able to do the middle 1200m at a speed and stroke rate that feels comfortable and that will come with practice.

Chris/Chippy/Carole,

Best of luck at Southampton. Let us know how you get on. For the TA members, don't forget to take your Welsh passports to get you through English Immigration and try not to look too suspicious on your return as you travel through the green channel with your contraband hidden under copies of Ultra-Fit magazine!

Well done on the PBs, Martin (5K) and Carla (HM). =)

I was going to go for my 60 minute distance last night, but in the end I decided I'd gone out too fast, and it was already quite late so I decided to call it off at 4000m and do some intervals instead.

So I did another 4K's worth of 8x500m intervals with 3 minutes rest between them. It's the first time I've done a "full set" of intervals like that, and I didn't really know what pace to aim at, nor how much rest to take. Still, it felt do-able and tiring both at the same time.

Paces for the 8 reps were:

1:46.30
1:45.00
1:44.90
1:45.00
1:45.00
1:44.40
1:44.30
1:41.90

My current 2K PB is 7:11.9, or 1:48 pace, but I don't know if there should be any correlation between the intervals above and what I could hope to sustain for a single 2000m/7 minute stretch.

I guess I'll just have to take the pain and have a go... sometime... but not today. =)

Good set of 500m pieces Daren. I'm no expert (so don't take my word for it) but if I had a set of splits like that I'd definitely be optimistic of getting closer to that sub-7min barrier.

Just thought I'd also add that I've just managed to nose in front of Bernard following this morning's 12K. The gap is less that 1K so it wont last long. I'm only going to have time this afternoon for some 500m intervals (probably only 6 of them) so I dare say I will see myself back down to 11th place in the team.

Carla well done .. a Pb is Pb... if I know I am going to attempt a Hm .. the day before I don't train and I stock up on the old pasta and have plenty of liquids . The day I attempt the Hm I always eat a big brekkie then wait a couple of hours and then go for it . I have a couple of glasses of orange juice with water in by the machine and a towel . The one and only marathon I have done I also had tshirts ready to change into at the side of me and it's amazing how much better you feel when you change your shirt.

Heheh, Carole, you're a lot wiser than I am. I have done about 3 half marathons, and I'm afraid to say I've done no preparation for them at all. In fact, before the last one I'd forgotten to have breakfast or lunch.

I really want to try a full marathon soon, but I do think I'll need to be a bit more conscientious about that one.

Anyway, unrelated session info follows; I tried to join a RowPro online 5k session today, but technical difficulties meant that it didn't happen. I had been hoping to try for a PB at the distance, since I felt the other two rowers in the session would enable me to try harder, phychologically.

I decided to do the 5K solo anyway, and scored a slight improvement over my time from two weeks ago.

Was 18:57.5 @1:53.8, now 18:44.8 @1:52.5. Not a hige difference, but a second per 500m. Stroke rate was down 2%, DPS up 3%, resulting in a 1% pace gain. Hurrah.

I also updated a couple of Nonathlon scores. 5K went from 853 to 862, so a 9 point gain there. 6K went from 798 to 866, so a nice 68 pointer update on that one for a 7598/63rd overall. Catching up on Godfried. If I complete that full marathon I can leap-frog Martin, too. Until he decides to do a full marathon in retaliation, that is.

Nice PB Daren - 13 secs is pretty impressive if you are getting close to max Ave Pace !

Nice PB Carla - 9 secs is pretty impressive if ......... And a 1:31 will give you a 1000+ Nonathlon points ? - that will look good in the stats (Speedy being our only 1000+ pointer).

QUESTION :

If I do, say, a 10K PB and Rank it can I also seperately Rank a 6K and a 30 min if these happen to be PB's on the way to the 10K (deleting a previous 6K and 30 min piece from the logbook to ensure the total K's added is only 10K) ? Or does each category piece need to be done on its own ? Just wondering.

Martin

Great PB Daren! As Martin says, knocking 13 seconds off is a big chunk so well done.

With regard to Martin's question on including PBs within PBs in Nonathlon, it's my understanding (from a similar question a couple of years ago) that this is indeed permitted. I've certainly taken advantage of this as I rarely (if ever!) do a 6K or 30mins row (and don't even get me on the 500m or 1K distances )

Hey Carole!
Have a great time at the races and show'em what you can do!
Yeah, I usually don't just do an HM after 2 hard days, but I really just wanted to get back where I belonged...it wasn't meant to be a PB, just a survival row, make the distance. Next time I do one "for real" I'll take better care, for sure! Woke up several times during the night raging with thirst and unbelievabley starved this morning. Time for some heavy duty chow!

Daren you are really racking up the Nonathlon points! Awesome!

So sorry, Mike..."my" Red Sox kind of trounced your Yankees....YESS!!!!! (I'm only a fair weather fan, though--they turn back into "the" Red Sox as soon as they lose.)

Great work, Niall, you have Bernard chasing you now! (maybe that's not very comforting)

Carla

How do you figure out what your 5K time was accurately in order to post it in the rankings if it was part of a 10K? I assume it's not accurate enough just to see the time as you sail by and remember it, there must be some way to do it on the monitor that I haven't figured out yet. I know people do that and get Nonathlon points on events they haven't actually done as seperate events but never knew how. I don't believe my old monitor (PM1) could do it at all.)

I have a PM2, can anyone fill me in?

Another question: if you do timed intervals, it seems like the monitor won't tally up your "rest" meters.

Also: after last night's row, the monitor told me my finishing time but not my overall average. It seems to me it usually does. Is that because an HM has more splits than the monitor can remember?

Carla

Hey there Taffs,
We're about 2.3M meters behind MIT. Anyone besides myself think we can catch 'em? I'm thinkin' we've put so many others to rest, that maybe it's time for MIT to drop to the Taff Attack as well!!!!

Speedy

Well, there are 20 of us. If everyone can do an extra 100,000 metres next week, we'll be sorted. =)

Hi dudes,

The Chipstar and myself have been busy planning the grand finale of the 1 million meter challenge. As he is a quicker sprinter than me, but lacks the mental toughness, and resiliance required to whoop me over longer distances (Martin, this is not a que for you to start spouting off!), we have come to the following conclusion. At some point between 500m and 2k we will be even, and should race over that distance to decide a winner - whats the distance?

Godfried we may need your help on this one!
I plotted a graph using our 500m pace times for 500m, and 2k.
Mine are 92.2secs, and 102.4 secs respectively (thats 500m pace remember)
Chippys are 90.6 secs, and 106.7 secs respectively.
The two lines crossed at 925m, which I was happy with, but on showing it to Chippy he goes nuts - heads off back to the shop, finds the biggest piece of graph paper ive ever seen and goes all out to prove me wrong (this baby is like 4 foot long now).

Chippy graph differs from mine in that he uses overall time
Mine are 92.2 secs, and 406.7 secs respectively (overall time for 500m, and 2k)
Chippys are 90.6 secs, and 427 secs respectively.
His graph now has us crossing at 725 meters, but he cocked up on the scale - I put the scale right smugly expecting it to go back to 925m when lo and behold it comes out at 650meters - me in the poo poo now!!

The test of the system was to be thus - On chippys graph with the scale put right - my line crosses 1000m at 3:16. My previous best was 3:19, so if i can match the 3:16 with nothing left, then my line is spot on right?

Guess what - New 1000m PB for me at 3:15.8.

Chippy was supposed to prove his time of 3:20 was right, but hasn't (he did try but his maths is terrible. He set off at 1:35 pace, and then stops at 750m wondering why his heart doing 200mph!!! )

The big question is whats the distance? Whatever it is we'll stop short by that amount, get together, and blast to the end in a traditional Taff Attack show of Macho Agony!!! All spoils to the winner.

LOL, sounds awesome. You'll have to get a video camera and put the race on the Web. Congratulations on the PB!

Webs stream sounds like a great idea. It would be perfectly appropriate for such a monumental moment in Taff Attack History!

You don't necessarily need a live webcam feed. All you need is a digital camcorder with DV Out which you hook up to a PC via a Firewire connection. Once the digital video is on the PC, it's a simple matter of:

- loading into an editing package like Windows Movie Maker (free with XP) ,
- edit it how you want or just leave as is,
- save it as a WMV (Windows Media Video) file on your PC,
- upload the file to the Internet
- boast on the forum of your Spielbergesque production and advertise the link
- VIOLA!!

Seven days ago I took my 2K PB down 1.6 seconds, from 7:13.5 (1:48.4) to 7:11.9 (1:48.0).

Today, I took it down another 7.3 seconds, from 7:11.9 (1:48.0) to 7:04.6 (1:46.1).

No, I can't quite believe it, either.

Compared to the last row, this one was a lot different. Stroke rate was up 12% and distance per stroke was down 9%. I clearly attacked it differently, but I didn't plan on this. I was concentrating on the pace rather than stroke rate. The pace was up 2% and heart rate up 1%.

As you can see from the following comparison data, the race was completely different. Last time, I went out easy and controlled, and had enough left to "sprint", relatively speaking, at the end. This time, I went out hard and then slowed up, holding on for the end. My heart rate this time is plainly higher than last time. It felt harder, too.

I'm not entirely sure whether I'm happy or not. On the one hand, I sacrificed my stroke for pace, and had to work harder, but on the other hand, the result is plain to see and not to be sniffed it.

you should put that link on the uk site Daren, you will get some rowing technique tips and advertise rowpro at the same time

The reason for the idea of a live webcast was so two rowers doing intervals on e-row/rowpro could also see each other in real time.

Still working on the technology for that one

Daren,

Take it from me, if I managed to drop my 2K PB by over 7 seconds, I'd be ecstatic and not worry about details of form and technique; brute, raw determination is good enough in my book! That's not to say you can't address your minor concerns but don't let it detract from a great performance!

Just finished watching your home move (the rowing one!! ). Nice production. Not sure how you crammed two film crews in to your garage to get the different viewing perspectives . Good to see your dog was there for moral support too!

Oh, well, yeah, I am happy, it's just that... I don't know. I feel a bit like... Oh, Lord knows. =) I guess I just feel like I want everything at once - a stronger stroke and faster pace, rather than dropping the stroke power and increasing the rate to compensate.

Still, it's a big improvement in a week, so I guess that adjusting my technique is the right thing to do if I want maximum speed - in the short term at least.

Hello Taffians,ahead of Sue again,did a 8.09 for 2k this morning,entered my scores on the Nonathlon,ok Aussie Last erg in morning then NYC,we have a date with one of NY's finest,can't wait,precinct station station will echo to Mae hen wlad fy nhadau!!!
We hope hotel has an erg.we'll fly the Welsh dragon on 7th ave.
Nos da, Sue and Graham.

Sue, Graham,
Have great holiday - see you when you get back - no doubt you will be making Taff Attack world famous (like it ain't allready!)
Chris

Hi Taffs,

Graham - Great PB, looks like a sub 8 coming up when you get caught up in the buzz of the "Big Apple". Especially with Mike there to 'erge' you on ! Have a safe trip.

Niall - Thanks for response to "PB within PB" question. I was actually thinking more of the Concept2 Online Rankings Database (although obviously same question applies to Nonathlon) - does anyone have a ruling on this ? Reason for asking - I was thinking of doing a gutbusting 10K whereby I do first 6K at 6K PB pace, next 2K quick enough to give a 30 min PB then finish off with quick enough last 2K to give me a 10K PB. Can I then put the 3 PB's (6K, 30 min and 10K) in the Rankings Database as 3 seperate entries via my logbook (deleting an old 6K and metres matching 30 min PB so I don't double-count metres rowed) ??

Godfried - thanks for offering to keep graphs up to date. With everyone PB'ing all over the place you may be pretty busy !!

Another HM Carla ?

Congrats to Speedy for regaining #1 place on the Metres Honour Board

100K Mike is there anything a NYer can't do ?!

Good luck with that (fair dinkum) 1K "time trial" Chippy - no loafing along to make the crossover point closer to 500m !!!

Cheers all,

Martin