Happy birthday Mikez,as a little birthday surprise check our respective Nonatlon scores Brilliant effort by Dwyane, Mikez,Debra and all at W.I.R.C. especially Carol M.well done champ!!!!
Hot news from the Bat Cave tonight i recorded two new P.B's 7.57/2k,3.46/1k.Must have been inspired having seen The Darkness in Cardiff on Monday,can recommend to all Taffians!!!
Chippy coming over next,so watch this space,
Nos da Sue and Graham

Whoops,should have been posted by Ramboyo, Valley boys and computers,no way Jose!!!

Hi all,

Back from hols just in time to read about Ramby's huge PB - must be stoked to crack the 8 min barrier Graham . I see you asked in a previous post how to hold 2:00 pace - looks like you've solved that one well and truly. Only one small problem - no more 'easy' 2K'ers now you are a sub 2:00'er

Looks like the home ground advantage (Welsh nat anthem at opening ceremony ?) really came to the fore Chris, Chippy and Niall - what a way to finish the comp season ! Chris - mighty effort mate, did you split similiar to the 4 x 500m 'lead up' row ? Just as I start to think I can bridge the gap you widen it to a chasm And now I've got Chippy breathing down my neck and Niall on the verge of a sub 7 (DF of 120 for the 7:08 ?). Great comp guys.

Congrats on all the personal Metres Milestones Taffs and to birthday Mike - soon be up there with Graham and me in the 'life begins at' category where sub 8 min 2K's abound.

Hope you get that logbook back online Carla (not a 'Caps On' problem ?) as I'm lulled into a false sense of security by the current gap ! My elbow yet to right itself so my Kms are still miniscule - adding to the frustration I find my local gym is running a 'best time for 2K' comp to promote their rowers and so far the best in the 50-59's is 7:24 - all I can do is count to 10 as I gingerly row along at 2:30's

Cheers

Martin

Great stuff, Ramboyo!


No erging for me tonight; I was at Anfield. Liverpool vs. Olympiakos in the Cmapions League. We had to win 1-0, or win by at least 2 goals to go through to the next round...

Best, game, ever! Well, it had a bit of everything, at least. First, I was late picking my mate up because I, um, forgot to turn off the M6. When we got to Anfield 25 minutes before the match, our usual car parks were full. In the end, after sitting in traffic, we parked somewhere around Goodison, not knowing if it was residents only or anything. Walking across the park we could hear You'll Never Walk Alone, and cheers. We knew the game had started, finally taking our seats about 5 minutes after kick off.

Then we played poop. Then that cheating Rivaldo took a dive and Olympiakos scored, and their fans started jumping like crazy things and singing. I was gutted! And very pissed off.

At half time, I was thinking "how early shall we leave?" 15 minutes from time? Might as well beat the traffic, because it didn't look likely that we'd turn it around. But I knew it was possible, because I've seen it done before.

Inspired substitutions. Pongolle scoring within 2 minutes of the restart, then Mellor 10 minutes from time. We could actually do it. Come on Liverpool! 5 minutes from time... GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLL!!!! !

Feck me!

What a great game to have been at. I don't think I've been in a Kop with that much life for a long, long time. I'm going to go and make my tea, now. =)

Hiya guys, and gals
Thanks for all the birthday wishes, and great going to all the Taff's and Carol mac for their best efforts on Sunday

As for the Birthday, I had to actually work for the first time in my life due to new position at the JOB. Only managed a mere 14,K tonight prior to drinking to much sake at dinner.

Looking to do 49,000 to celebrate bday on Sunday, more taff meters, well of to bed to sleep this off Cheers all Thanks Mike

blod way to go hun ... way to go ....

Mike hope you had a good birthday anyway ...I am working for mine to on Sunday on death by 11-9's ahggggg I will be thirty twelve

Hey Martin, glad you're back from your trip but sorry your elbows are bugging you. Do you have the D handle, or the C handle? I have heard of people having trouble with tennis elbow with the D handle--PaulS, I think it was, and he ended up switiching back to the C handle. I think you had a big increase in daily meters around when it happened?

I got the log book working again, I think it was just gremlins! It's fine now & I'm on schedule to finish the Challenge just fine. I am really swamped with some extra duties right now on top of one more concert this Sunday--4 page Handel solo, I'm starting to get a tad nervous. Anyway I am now having to do my rowing around midnight and end up staying up till 1:30 or so and up at 7. It's hard to get up in the morning but I have so much energy with all this rowing it is surprising me.

Happy Birthday, Mike & Carole! Hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season so far! We're cutting our Christmas tree this Saturday but won't be putting it up till #1 son is home from college the next weekend...

Carla

... 999,998, 999,999, 1,000,000.

Bernard

It only seems appropriate (and I wouldn't have it any other way) that I should be the first one to congratulate my nemesis, Bernard, on reaching the 1 Million Metre mark for this season. Nice One mate. You can now look forward to the next million (doesn't seem so far now eh?).

I'll complete mine this afternoon as yesterday's evening session didn't materialise due to Christmas commitments ( I won't bore you with the details).

Graham,

Great work on the new 2K PB and under 8:00 too !! Now you've overcome that mental barrier, I'm sure you'll see your PB creeping towards 7:50...7:40...

Fantastic stuff guys!!! What a team!!!

Congrats, Bernard!

Graham,
Congrats on the pb's.

Bernie,
Way to go on the 1st million.

Niall,
Can you smell your 1st million? It's right in front of you lad.

All,
Just wanted to say again how great this team is. You never see any of the other indoor squads out there with the same sportsmanship and team spirit that we all have. WE ROCK!!!

Hi Niall


A big up for the million metres. Great erging buddy! I understand how you feel about the proper training bit. Good luck with the rest of the sponsored charity million metre thing.


Bernard

Broke the 10k PB I set yesterday again today. Now 37:36.4 - I think I paced myself better this time.

Hey Jim! That's great progress on your 10K! How many more Nonathlon points did you get for it?

Congratulations Niall and Bernard with your millions! That was a great competition you guys had going there!


I'm still plugging away at 8334 a night. Tonight I did 100m sprints at every 1000 and 500. Some of them I did at 1:45. Now that's a number I've never seen before on my monitor! But they were just 100m sprints, I'm sure I couldn't hold that for a 500. Maybe for 200.

1:00 am-- great time for a shower.

Carla

Jim, great stuff with the 10k!

I'm going after my half marathon PB today. Pace of the last one was 2:04.5 or so (about 87 and a half minutes) and I think I can get well under that now -- my 60 minute best was 1:59.1. I'll see how I feel this afternoon, and either aim to shave a little off or maybe a minute or more. Oh yeah, also depends on the backside ache... =)

Outstanding Jim.

Daren,
All the best on the HM pb.

Speedy

Daren,
Great Xmas cards you have out on the UK site. Very cute.

Speedy

X-mas

Ho Ho Ho Daren! cute cards.

How did your HM PB attempt go?

Carla

Glad you asked, Carla. Here, I'll tell you!

Last HM best was October 16th.

1:27:32.5 @ 2:04.8

Today's plan was to beat that. I set up an online Half Marathon on RowPro, and put in the race notes that I was aiming for 2:03/2:04. I was joined by Paul Flack (canoeist), Chris from Taff Attack and Jeff Sauter. All the other guys rowed at around my target pace, either at constant pace or as intervals.

Result?

1:25:11.2 @ 2:01.1 A new PB by 2 minutes 21.3 seconds.

Old: 2555 strokes, 8.26 DPS, 29.4 SPM, 6.26 SPI
New: 2415 strokes, 8.74 DPS, 28.5 SPM, 6.97 SPI



Oops, I meant to also say a big thank you to Chris for accompanying me! Cheers, mate!

Hehe, Chris, I didn't realise it was a PB pace for you, too!

Yes, I knocked more than 2 minutes off as detailed in my previous post. Thanks again for the accompaniment!

Well done mate, great row. That was a real strong pace you set in the last half. I was aiming to finish in under 1:26, but it bit when you started to get away so I had to pick it up - was going to do the marathon on sunday, but hands and back now ruined - your fault! Cheers Dude.

Outstanding HM Daren. Like seeing the graph too.

Speedy

Heheh, sorry Chris! Well done on the PB though!

Just click to Nonathlon

Come on guys only 500,000 behind them. 5th position is in the bag. Get rowing!!

Graham D
Watch your back mate there an Ebbw Vale boyo on the loose.

Jim,

Well done on your new 30mins PB. I don't care if it's only a single metre, it's still a new PB! Nice one.

Daren,

Fantastic HM mate! 'Bout time you bettered my HM time!!! Looks like I'll have to have another go at a HM soon (oh joy, more bum ache!) .

I tried that 30 min piece at 20 spm today to see what it would be like. It was a morning row, so really really stiff to start with and did a 6 minute warmup that started at about a 3:00 pace--ouchy!!! morning just NOT the best time for me, but a bad schedule today & concert tomorrow, so no staying up till 1:30 to row.

I loved it, it was very relaxing to me and I'll do it again some time later in the day(not today!) so I can really pull and not be afraid of screwing up my back. I ended up averaging 21 spm, though a lot of the splits were actually at 20, and total meters were 7037. Way low for a regular 1/2 hour piece, but next time will be better, I'm sure. I was pulling every 3 seconds to keep it at 20 and if I stopped paying careful attention to that it would slip right up to 21.

I think if I can try again and not only pull every 3 seconds, but aim for 0, 2, 4, 6, 8 in the units place on the meters, that would be 12 MPS x 20=240 m/minute x 30=7200 m, not too far off my usual 1/2 hour distance. It felt comfortable to do 12 MPS at that rate but I couldn't get quite settled into the rythm of it. Next time....


Carla

Hi Carls,

Can't blame the handle unfortunately - same old battered 'C' ergs at the gym from when I started over a year ago, No, injury is entirely my fault - as you rightly said in an earlier post I upped the metres in readiness for a FM attempt, fully expecting some ramifications. Unfortunately I didn't pick up on the subtle 'early warning' symptoms (stiff near the inner part of elbow for first few strokes only, sore on point of bone of inner extremity of elbow when gently tapped) until too many long rows had happened.

Physio daughter Jenny picked it straight away when I arrived in Queensland to visit them and Mum - 'Golfers Elbow' (i.e. inflamed tendons joining bone on INNER part of elbow, 'Tennis Elbow' is same for OUTER part of elbow I think). More cheesed off I didn't twig earlier than the actual injury (injuries par for the course in this age bracket !!). Recovery time about 4 weeks if sensible, for me ??? Couldn't resist the gym 2K challenge any longer - best time thus far was a 7:14 by a gym instructor (7:54 in the 50 - 59 group) so away I went ! 7:00.8 and I'm top dog with a sore arm

Well done on sticking to the Thanksgiving challenge, you deserve the 200K what with all your family and concert commitments. Once you catch up though it's "Game On" as Chris would say, also too many Taff are starting to catch us up.

12 MPS at 20 SPM - a powerful row indeed

Martin

PS What happened to the '3 Prizes' idea? Sounded good, especially if one category was - 'Oldest Taff to do a sub 7 2K'

Hi James, Chris and Daren,

Great rows for 30 mins and 10K James and the HM guys. I'm looking forward to being spurred on over the longer distances now you taffs are up there too - haven't got the motivation to keep hitting the pain barrier when on my lonesome (and Speedy's times are in a league of their own). So once the arm's OK it's Game On? The way you all are PB'ing I'll soon be eating Welsh coal dust ??

Martin

Mart,

Nice to have you back - but dont encourage the boys. I as nicely sneaking up on you, when I get jumped from behind! Top.

I rowed a PB for 30 mins last week - didnt check your distance, imagine my dismay at missing you by 20 meters! Still could have been worse - Jim missed you by a 1, but I dont think he'll let that lie for long!

Cheers
Chris

Hey fellow Taffs!

I made it to the half-way mark today for the holiday challenge! I am thrilled! I didn't get started on it until day 9 of the 30 so I've been trying to catch up. I feel confident now that I can make the 200k! Carla, start thinking about that surprise you're going to send me! Hee, hee..

Congratulations to everyone for all the kms and all the PBs! Awesome!!

And we're gaining on MIT quickly aren't we! Yippee! Look out!

Only 1 more essay and 1 more week of school and then I get 2 whole weeks off! (except for the assignments to do over the holidays...but I'll try not to dwell on that too much...)


Debra

Great stuff with the holiday challenge, Debra, and good luck with the rest!

Completed the Holiday Challenge today. Hurrah!
However I realised I didn't have my address in my profile. I've added it now but does anyone know if I'll still receive my pin if it wasn't entered when I completed it?

I think there will be no problem - I expect C2 to order the pins after the challenge is over - they need to know how many they need to send out.