Million meters weekend starting?

Sounds good to me Spreedy, Bernard. I will hop on as soon as I get off work tonight. NYC Marathon is Sunday, I will do my own marathon Sunday morning while I watch the real one.
Watch out Bernard and Niall, I have both of you and spot number nine in my sights.
I Expect my new D to arrive Tuesday, Can not wait to try it out. Then it will be time to start really putting on the meters.
Mike

Xeno's 2:30 goes down the tubes!!!! Mine was done without slides.

TAFFS RULE!!!!!

Speedy

Dwayne, you are phenomenal! Well done, very well done! Inside Xeno's time by 7 seconds. When did you realise it was on? Did you have to put in a big effort at the end to beat the time? Or, even, did you ease up so as not to embarrass Xeno?

Incredible stuff.

I've only managed 8km today. Not really going to make a big impact into the million metre weekend, is that, but the family didn't go out until late. I fear it's the only rowing I'll get to do today as there's a big firework display we're going to tonight. Will have to try and put in some decent metres tomorrow.

Well done again on the marathon. Truly brilliant.

Speedy
You are the top bannana.

Chippy.

Hey there Taffs. I'm going to try and get another 50k in tomorrow to try and make up some of the distance that some may not be able to do. Not all at once of course. Anyway, we'll see how it goes.

Speedy

There's only one word for your Speedy's marathon achievement &$@@*^ phenomenal .

Some of us would love to maintain a 1:45 split for the 2K distance and there's him doing it for the marathon . I'm speechless (but at least I can type!).

I've got a busy domestic day today but have decided to get up at 06:00 to do 15,000m. I'm going to try and fit in another session later today and hopefully pull another 10-15,000m.

I can see Bernard has recovered sufficiently from his cold to overtake me into 9th place after I had a light day on Friday (didn't want him thinking I was taking advantage of his absence from the erg). He's fair game now though so it's time to put some metres back on the board.

Just finished my 15000m session made up of a 10K PB (more on that in a minute) and a 5K cool down.

Now back to that PB, this is one of my longest outstanding PBs as it is nearly 2 years old and was (previously) one of the toughest of my PBs.

I figured today might be a good day for a PB as I'd done no rowing yesterday and only did a 5K on Friday so felt fresh. I started off comfortably and settled into a 1:56 rate for pretty much the first 3000m, it then started feeling less comfortable so I slowed it down to a 1:57/1:58 rate. As I had the display on avg pace, I knew the slowing down would not have that much of a detrimental effect so carried on at this pace. I thought I might be able to get under 39 minutes so was happy for the avg pace to creep up to the 1:57 mark and then figured I'd try and settle into a 1:56/1:57 pace . The 1:57 avg pace was reached with 4,096m to go and at this stage I didn't feel I had it in me to speed things up (if anything I was looking for my famour rest period!). As you can see from the splits below, I didn't respond with any faster pace and at this stage I changed my goal to just (?!) getting a new PB (let the sub 39minute row come some other time!). Finished with a final burst in a time of 39:06.4 beating my previous PB by 11 seconds.
Now for the splits:

1:55.7 (27spm)
1:56.7 (27)
1:56.2 (27)
1:56.0 (27)
1:56.4 (27)
1:56.3 (27)
1:56.8 (28)
1:57.1 (28)
1:57.6 (28)
1:58.7 (27)
1:57.8 (27)
1:58.3 (27)
1:58.1 (28)
1:58.8 (27)
1:59.8 (27)
1:59.6 (27)
1:58.3 (28)
1:57.7 (28)
1:59.8 (27)
1:50.6 (30)

I should also add that during this 10K PB, I also managed new PBs for 6K (23:22.4) and 30 minutes (7,666m) so that has added 24 Nonathlon points to get me that much closer to Carla!

Just hope I managed to recover enough to do another 15K tonight as we're just over 1 million metres behind MIT (and I bet they're worried!!).

Attention Taff Attackers!

I'm developing a Taff Attack team web site, and as part of that I'd like to have a "Profiles" section containing information about members. It's obviously voluntary and opt-in in terms of any information placed on the Web, and no personal information will be posted that isn't OK'd by the member in question.

So, if you'd like to have an entry on the Team Profile page, please email me with the following (leave blank any fields that you wouldn't want published):

Real name:
Nickname/forum handle:
Location: (e.g. town/state/country or just county etc.)
Occupation:
DOB or Approx Age:
M/F:
Category: HWT/LWT
Biog/About You: (a few words or as long as you like about you or your rowing history. Whatever you'd like)

All fields optional as I've said. If you also have a photo you'd like to use, please also email me that. An "action shot" would be good if you have one. Size doesn't matter.

No email addresses will be put on the site unless you want to have a contact address available. Let me know about that. As I control the server I'm hosting the site on, I can set up email accounts or forwarding easily. For example, my normal email address is dc _at_ kop.org, but I can also set up daren _at_ taffattack.com to forward to that. So only the taffattack.com email address need be published, keeping my private email address, um, private.

Other sections will include stuff like the Taff Attack history (once I've got the founders to write it ), competition entries and results, the member Interviews that have been done (once I've got permission to use them ) and any other stuff members suggest.

So, email me (daren _at_ taffattack.com) with your profile entries and any ideas or suggestions.

Niall, excellent work on that! 3 PBs in one, can't complain. =)

Yesterday I was only able to complete 8k. Not very good on "million metre weekend", so today I wanted to do something a bit more in keeping with the theme. With the New York Marathon on the telly, featuring Paula Radcliffe's return to racing, I thought I'd put out some marathon feelers. It's a PB of sorts, too.

Previous longest session on the machine 1h 43m, when completing my first half marathon which is also the furthest distance I've gone in one sitting (21097m).

Today's feeler was 30,011m in 2h 13m. That works out at about 2:12.7 pace. Not blazingly fast, but a good increase of almost 9km on my previous best distance, and it puts the full marathon within striking distance.

It was a very comfortable row, in terms of percieved effort. My stroke rate was around 29/30, and my heart rate was around 140 for most of it, and didn't go about 144 at any point. Obviously I could have gone faster, but as a marker for a full marathon I think it was a decent pace for me.

The only problems were 1) the normal backside ache, and 2) my knees ached after 90 minutes or so. I didn't feel any pain or other discomfort anywhere (arms, shoulders, calves, thighs, feet) and my breathing was fine.

So, all in all, I'm pleased with that. I think the next feeler may stretch out to 35km, or if I'm feeling good I might just sqeeze out the full 42k.

Well won, Paula.

I'll try to haul out another 12k later if I can, to bring the weekend's total closer to the 50k I was hoping for.

Well done taff's, noticed we were less then a million shy of MIT so far. Speedy 2 1/2 hour marathon you are a god.
I just finished my marathon today. Picked up 14 nonathon spots. thought I give you guys a peek at my prep and race so I can get better
saturday I warmed up with a 16K row, followed by bagging 86 55gallon bags of leaves, I carbo loaded with pizza and Mudslides ( a frozen alcoholic drink to relax the muscles and make ugly women/ men look better

Started the Marathon row an hour prior to NYC Marathon, Rooting for Paula as she comes from Loughborough, and my nice ex inlaws live there
60 Min nice pace no problems,
90 min. what was I thinking, I could be watching this race from the couch not the erg.
2 hours 30 min, speedy was done by now I am a total wimp, can't go on, will never finish.
3 hours, It is amazing that all of my known muscles and even a few unknown muscles can all sing out in pain in a nice harmony
3 hr.27 min.34.1 secs. It took four minutes to get off erg, is it possible to stand for the rest of your life with out ever sitting again?
Next time mudslides instead of water breaks.
Mike

Mikez, great effort. Makes my "feeler" look totally wussy. I blame Paula for finishing the Marathon, because the BBC coverage ended at that point. =) It was a great race to watch, especially the last 5 miles or so. Nip and tuck all the way. I wonder how the men did. =)

Mens Results NYM

1 Hendrik Ramaala 2:09:28 SOUTH AFRICA
2 Meb Keflezighi 2:09:53 CA
3 Timothy Cherigat 2:10:00 KENYA

Well done Mikez on your great effort

Sir Pirate

Hi Taffs,

GREAT marathons Mike and Speedy. You both set out to achieve certain goals and both succeeded Congrats all round. Thanks for bringing yours to life Mike with that poignant description - I felt every agonising stage as the row got tougher and tougher ! You must have an amazing underlying resilience to erg for 3 and a half hours in one hit for the first time and still be able to retain a sense of humour when recounting the epic ! Truly an auspicious weekend for the "Taffs".

Like Daren, I thought this weekend a good time to start some serious Marathon 'preliminaries'. Unlike Daren though, who managed an excellently controlled 30K, making his Marathon 'there for the taking', I started with a conservative 22K just to see how :-

: The body pulled up holding 2:00 Ave Pace - OK but tiring in last 2K.

: The hands fared putting Vasoline on them to stop them sweating (blisters) - worked pretty well, hardly any blisters for the HM distance unlike recent rows. Couple of cloth strips wrapped around handles help here too.

: Stopping to drink every 6K worked - great mentally, lost on Ave Pace alarmingly at first (1 sec), less impact as distance covered increased and guzzle technique improved.

: Gym crowd reacted - mild amusement mainly !

Following Rick Bayko's (Rick, if you are reading this - any connection with the Bayko that created the Bayko Building Sets I played with in the 1950's ??) excellent advice in a previous post, next steps are to do a 27K then a 32K in the same manner.

So Daren, maybe we'll do ours on the same weekend in Dec ?

Niall, terrific PBs so soon after a heavy cold, well done indeed mate Sub 39 min is there when you want it. Don't forget though that BIRC is 2K not 10K

Chris/Chippy - when's the big showdown at the Risca Corral ?? Chippy's really come out with all guns blazing with that 1:21 150m Chris - what's the counter ?!

Great Kms everyone, MIT now nicely in sight.

Martin

PS Just back from the gym - total of 41K for the weekend - IOU Taffs 9K Hope the concert went really well Carla, need you back on the erg pushing me, though Bernie Snr is pretty inspirational too - keeps pumping out those 10K'ers. He really is after you Chippy !

I finished my Sunday off with another 12k as dinner cooked. In the end my total for the day was 42,227m, so I did a marathon of sorts yesterday. Total elaspsed time was about 7 hours (roughly 3pm until roughly 10pm) with a 4 hour rest. =) Total actual erg time was about 3hours 5min. As noted before, the 30k was a "PB" for total distance rowed in one session, as was 2h15m. Leading on from that, the 42k was also a "PB" for metres in a single day. Adding the measly 8k from Saturday I did my total of 50k (actually, I think I had 60k in mind on Friday, so I owe 10k). =)

Given that my 30k pace didn't see my heart rate rise about 144, I think I'd be disappointed if I weren't able to hold 2:15 or below for the whole marathon. I'm therefore aiming at 3h 10m, but drink breaks may eat into that a little.

I had three drink breaks in the 30k; once every half hour, but I ran out of drink on the third stop. Not brilliant planning, there. =)

Picking a weekend in December sounds like a plan, Martin. Not the weekend of December 4th though, as that's the office Xmas party, and I'll be knackered. How about Sunday 26th - The Big Boxing Day Binge Burn-off Marathon.

Hi all



Great work all on the pbs and efforts over the weekend. I could only manage 3 sets of 10k intervals over the weekend. I'm at the horrible catarrh stage with the virus so it's nearly all over.


Bernard

Nightmare busy week just gone, hopefully quiter this week. Couple of apologies:

Ricky, Sorry I missed the game,
Taffs, Sorry I missed the marathon w/end (although probably couldn't have contributed anyway)

Speedy - top job mate - i could probably have helped you along for about 3k, but then i would have had to lie down on your floor, really urgently. Great effort.

Martin

Whichever, just make sure you have someone with a camcorder to hand! =) At the very least we want to see digital photos of the two of you collapsed on the floor afterwards.

wow you lot are really packing the metres in .... I don't intend to do another marathon til after Eirc...

Daren i think you will go faster than 3hrs 10 for your marathon I have only done one and I did that in 3hrs 17 and I am pretty sure I could do one now less than 3hrs 10.. bet you will be nearer 3hrs.

Mike you dafty but great for our Paula and how is your butt today .....lol

Where's me mate Carla ??? she needs to knock some of these pretenders off our top spots in the rankings lol

Great job this past weekend Taffs. I'm thinking we do this again in a few weeks, and we'll pass MIT for sure.

Speedy

Great work by all this weekend,
Bernard, after long layoff I am trying to get 89K a week done more if I feel good. regular rows are 70 min for 14.5 K long time to burn the fat off the buff body way way underneath
Carolmac butt fine, but strong desire for mudslides ever time I look at erg
My new D is scheduled to arrive tommorow, I will sent specs asap Godfried.
mike

Okay guys, I need your expert help. Did some 2K "training" today. Did 10x500m alternating 100% effort with 500m active rest at about 70% effort (the 10x500m includes the active rest 500s). I decided to do a pyramid session utilising different DF (139 up to 167 and then back down again). Here are the results:

1) 500m DF 139 - 2:08.2 (blew up after 300m as I went out too fast so we'll call this one the warm up! )

2a) 500m DF 154 - 1:49.3
2b) 500m DF 154 - 2:03.6

3a) 500m DF 167 - 1:48.8
3b) 500m DF 167 - 1:59.1

4a) 500m DF 153 - 1:45.7
4b) 500m DF 153 - 1:59.2 (27spm)

5a) 500m DF 138 - 1:48.5 (29spm)
5b) 500m DF 139 - 1:59.2 (27spm)

6a) 500m DF 154 - 1:46.9 (30spm)

7) 2000m cooldown
8:03.6 DF 139 27spm

As you can see, it's not very structured and sorta played it by ear. I'd like to do something more formal and structured next time.

Anyway, I think I've learnt from this that I need to do the 2K at a higher DF than my normal rowing (DF128-130) and my guess is that it should be 153/154. Am I raeding the results right?

Incidentally, there was approximately 45-60 seconds gap in between each set while I wrote down the data and set the machine up for the next 500m set.

So can I glean anything useful from this session in terms of 2K capability or should a do a more structured session? H-E-L-P!!!

I don't know, but I've been wondering if I should raise my drag for racing 2Ks, as well. Normally I just do everything on 120 DF.

Like the Taff Attack logo Daren, very nice.
Someone's obviously got more artistic flare than me!

Dwayne,

Many thanks for the full response you gave to my posting, it's very much appreciated. I hear what you're saying and will certainly change my training accordingly (like you though I'm initially sceptical - nothing personal - as I don't seem to get the power from the lower DFs, guess it's down to practice and technique).

Of course what you say about my initial training "programme" makes perfect sense and I'll only dig it out when I want that "great 500m"!

Once again, I really appreciate your feedback as I know you've gone through a lot of training and advice to get where you are today. So thank you very much .

And finally, yes, it does help...a lot!!

Many thanks Ozzie-One Kenobi . Yet another posting full of wise words! Your words and Dwayne's have certainly given me a (friendly) kick up the backside and will direct my training in a more productive and structured way.

I think the biggest problem I'm going to find is having to increase my stroke rate . I feel most comfortable at 28-29spm and only manage to get up to anything like 31 in short bursts at the end. Looking at others' splits, I suspect I'm going to have to get used to rowing 36-38spm if I'm at all serious about getting respectable times for the 2K. At the moment, my rowing style just doesn't do fast strokes (yet another challenge to overcome).

I'm planning on buying the Oarsome Foursome Training DVD at BIRC so I'm hoping this will enable me to iron out the issues with my technique that hinder my ability to do a fast stroke rate (fast for me anyway!).

Thanks again!

This is for Chippy, Chris and Debra -

You three are so close to getting that first million for the season. Why not just do it today, or at least by the end of the week? Nail that baby!! Get over the hump!! Send the first million packin'!! (and any other metephor you can think of).

Speedy

Did two sessions today (so far, might go out again later).

11am: 6k RowPro internet session done in 500m slow, 500m fast intervals. Slow were around 2:10-2:15, "fast" around 1:47 with the last one at 1:35. Avg 1:59.8, so quite a lot slower than a straight 6k for me.

5:30pm: 5k RowPro internet session done flat out. 18:40.5 (1:52.1) which is a new PB, shaving 1.7 seconds off my time from 5 days ago. I was feeling tired from the 6k earlier, and maybe my 42k on Sunday, and after setting off at around PB pace I really slacked in the second 1500m. At halfway I kicked back into the right mental state and give it a kick, dragging what would have been a PB+25 seconds row into a sub-PB. Makes me think I should have it to break the PB again when I attack it fresh.

1:54.70 28 8.3
1:52.60 31 7.9
1:56.10 32 7.0 <- "OK, I'll just coast this one"
1:55.70 32 7.1
1:54.80 32 7.2
1:52.60 32 7.7 <- "B*ll*cks to that, lazy git"
1:50.80 32 8.0
1:50.90 32 8.0
1:48.50 32 8.6
1:43.90 34 9.2 <- "Home, James, and don't spare the horses"

5000 m, 596 strokes, 8.39m avg DPS, 32.1 avg SPM, 7.8 avg SPI

Daren,
You a regular machine with the pb's. Congrats.

Speedy

Don't talk to me about two-year-olds! =) My son, Elias, is two, and becoming quite a little monster. No wonder they're called "the terrible twos".

Great PB Daren especially given the timing following some hard days rowing.

Martin,

Many thanks for the info on your pacing over the different distances, it's certainly something to consider. I'm pleased to let you know that I had a go at a 10K this morning and followed the new DF rule. It was a choice between 129 and 116 so I went for 116. I started off at 29spm and I must admit it felt very comfortable and I was very pleased to see the rate at 1:55 (even though it felt more like 1:59 from previous rows/DFs). I thought I'd see how long I could maintain this comfortably and was pleased to still be there after 10 minutes.

Now for the bad news.

I think the new DF and pace really sorted my technique out as I seemed to rely more on my legs (that's good, right?) and unfortunately, I've never had very strong legs and always relied on my upper body strength. So my legs really struggled after 2,500m and the rate slowed down considerably to the point where I couldn't go on after 5000m (I can see Bernard smiling!).

Lesson learnt then is that I need to keep going and work on my leg strength. But I must say, the lower DF and stroke felt very good. The real test will be my next 2K test (probably Friday) to see if I can maintain a high (30/32) stroke rate.

And I absolutely agree with your sentiment that erging should be fun. I know I'm a very focused and enthusiastic individual but I am enjoying it. If I wasn't in it for the fun, I wouldn't be part of Taff Attack