And you probably will! You're so gutsy.

How's the leg coming? I know your cast is off, but last I saw you weren't allowed to row until maybe the 28th? YOu must be very impatient to be yourself again! But be careful!

I bought Xeno Muller's rowing DVD and it's got a section of one legged rowing, which is just so much fun, as you know. I discovered the weirdest thing doing it. My left leg mostly does all the work when I row or bike, and it's easy to see that because it's much more muscular. But when I did the one legged rowing as in the DVD I found that my right leg is much better at high stroke rates. The left one, by itself, feels like it doesn't know how to push. I feel like my legs came off of two different people! Which must be how you feel right now.

It's been a year since I broke my left wrist, and it still hurts when I put a lot of weight on it, for instance, if I do pushups. Fortunately, in rowing it's just a nice straight pull and no push, and on my bike I use bull bars now most of the time and only go into the drops if I feel like really hauling.

Hang in there and I'll be watching for you to pass me up.

Outstanding Carla. I love it when PBs come out of no where.

I'm going to wait until the weekend to do this one. It's going to take quite a bit of time, so I'll wait until Sat or Sun when I have it.

Dwayne

Been a crappy week really .. I think I thought once the plaster was off I'd be laughing ... unfortunately I haven't in fact there has been the odd tear ... not like me at all ..I am just so frustrated ...leg is still swollen although it has gone down since Monday. I can't walk with my weight on it back to the crutches..the doc says its normal .. I am not so bliddy sure....

Then there is my boss he is coming to see me tomorrow ...as he can't understand why I cant work (I work 20 miles away and can't drive and my current office is up 6 flights of stairs with the toilet being a floor away)... think I'll let Ted have a chew of him .. (Ted is a nine and half stone german shepherd )....

mind you I was cheered up this am the Grand Prix girls who did the fancy dress charity relay with me sent me a beautiful basket of flowers cos they knew I was down .. bless.. thats what the rowing community is like caring and fun ...and I love you xxx

Carla
Another fantasic row,you must have posted the most PBs for the team thus far.
No more challenges for me as i will start to speed up the training for the big row
down in London at the end of March. Sir Pirate is running the show down there
so have to be on our gaurd as it might be a ambush to steal the 6 Nations cup
from us Taffs.C,mon Wales

Chippy.

PS...Once apon a time Two Tip Top Taffs decided to start a rowing team,Shock hands,Swore on there lives never to stop...BORE DA Where are you

Me too, actually. I am really exhausted. I started last week working 5 hours a day on top of still homeschooling my daughter in geometry, algebra, and Spanish, and playing in both orchestras, and practicing about 3 hours a day, so my rowing is now always starting after midnight and I've got to get up at 6:30 or 7. So this one will have to be on Saturday for me, too. Everything is so new and confusing at this job and I'm trying to learn everything at once , new software, a whole product line that I have to take phone calls about and all kinds of paper work I'm going nuts time for BED.


How shall we keep track of the right time for this #4? Can you set intervals as long as 5K and can you set rest times as long as 5 minutes? That would be the best way, I guess, if it works.

What an idiot.



Yeah, I remember thinking that when I got the arm cast off I'd just take out my violin and have a great time. I played the whole time the cast was on, open strings only (it was my left hand) and learned a lot of great bowing techniques, but open strings get pretty dull. So I thought I'd really be happy to have it off, and expected to play in a concert a few weeks later. Ha ha. It was a whole week before I could turn the wrist enough to even finger a string with my index finger. The next week I could put down 2. A week later I could put all the fingers down on the fingerboard. But I am still working on the flexibility to do vibrato (you vibrate your arm and wrist to get a nice tone) and it was a long time before I could play way up the finger board (the really high high notes, because to do that you have to turn your hand quite a lot). To see what I mean, bend your left elbow so that your hand is about 6 inches from your chin and then turn your hand so that the palm is facing your shoulder.

Anyway, it is frustrating to have the cast come off and discover you can't do much more than you could before they took it off. I totally understand...

I know you don't have much trouble keeping up with most anyone on the erg, but are you able to keep up with him?

David

I do most of the time. The kid wears me out!!!

Finished up challenge #4.

Total time was 63:47:05. I went just a tad faster than my 10k pace.

Dwayne

Good going, Dwayne. So your actual rowing time was 49:47.05? Sounds like it wasn't very hard for you?

I am about to do it, and a little nervous about it for some reason. I have not done any "official" intervals yet (just the sort where you keep rowing but do bursts) and hope I am setting the PM2 correctly. I set it for 5000 meters and rest time of 5 min, and wonder if there is a way I am supposed to tell it how many intervals I'm doing, or if I have to, after each 5 min rest, reset it for the 5K and 5 min...

My goal is 83:20 plus the 15 min rest time, so 98:20 all together. I plan to start on 10K pace for probably the first 2 5Ks and then speed up on the last two if I can.

Challenge #4 is a good workout!

I succeeded. Goal was 98:20, including the 15 min rest, and I ended up with 98:18.7.
The 5Ks were to be at 2:05 (20:50) and I hit 20:48.2, 20:50.0, 20:50.0, and 20:50.5.

The last 2K was murder. I stopped for a few seconds and my pace plummeted and I just barely fought it back to 2:05.1 in the last 200 meters.

Any other takers? Tomorrow starts Challenge #5. Row one hour, start with 10 min at 5K and alternate with 10 min at HM pace. You end up with 1/2 hour at 5K and 1/2 hour at HM. I wonder if that's hard. I have no idea.

Niall



I've moved house, work is a bit less hectic and I have just joined the gym next door.

I notice you have moved ahead of me in the rankings. Not for long. Game on!


Bernard

Carla,
Way to go on challenge #4.

Bernie,
Welcome back. We've missed you and your meters.

Dwayne

Hello Taffs

Long time no see, just seeing if you lot are doing OK. Is speedy still dragging his heels?

Sir Pirate

Now that's the Bernard I've been missing. Back to normal, good-spirited competition, love it!!

I managed 24K yesterday (10K in the morning and 14K in the afternoon) which is by far the most I've done in a day this year. Got a charity rowing event this Saturday for the Tsunami appeal (Tsunami Disaster Appeal Rowing Challenge). I'm doing three sessions of 1 hour, 30mins and 30mins with 1-hour rests in between.

That should mean lots more metres in the bank for Taff Attack and hopefully mean pulling further ahead of Bernard in the Team Standings (unless he's got other ideas ).

Damn right Niall, you'd better believe I have other ideas. I've put on a stone over February and that's not going to disappear by itself.

I did a 6500 warm up row this morning (18spm). It felt very very good. I seemed to be pulling better now than I did before my move. Maybe that's just my imagination as I haven't rowed for so long.

Tonight I'll be doing a 10500 UT2(18 spm) row, to get used to rowing again. It'll be purely for technique and mental strength.

I can't see I'll be doing any of Carla's wonderful challenges this month. I need to get my wind and stamina back before I try anything really strenuous. I'll be doing some weights and body strength exercises(at home) as well.

regards to all
Bernard

Glad to hear it Bernard. Sounds like too many Northern pies have been consumed of late so you need to get back to low stroke rates to get the fat burning off. Carefull you don't do too much too soon now !

Northern pies?????

Well news from the Bat Cave, skiing trip was very tiring,the high alltitude and being a complete novice made for a new experience!!!
I played squash for 1st team in Cardiff on Wed. both of us back on erg allbeit quite low key at the moment.
We both hope to be flying the Taff Attack flag at the S.London Arena I.R.C.later in the month,our first competition!!
Nos da Sue and Graham.

Hi Taffs,

Good to hear you are back on the erg Bernie and ready to show Niall you are back in town (Northern pies - expat Collingwood footballers Warnie?). Makes the race to 2 Million quite exciting, with a number of Taffs in the running for that 3rd spot. Especially as Daren's erg appears to be still frozen over in that icy Northern winter

Good luck with the lead-up training for your first comp Graham, I guess you have the likes of Chippy and Chris to help map out a winning strategy. Any other Taffs going ?

Great 30 min PB Carla, next stop that 10K PB seeing as you are in such fine form ?

Cheers,

Martin

Martin
Ill be goying to London with Graham.Spoke to Eddy over the gym and he wants to have a go to.Dykie is also up for his first comp and we will also be rowing the team
event.Spoke to Chris today and even though work as stopped him rowing of late he will be coming along to.Have to work on Grumpy amd Porky to make up a
big Taffy team for the event. Nail Nial Nial if you want to have a crack you can
meet up with us lot at Caldicot for a lift down.

Martin
What a great day Saturday was,the French were all over us first half,looked like
they were goying to put 50 points on us. BUT second half we showed Taff spirit
to come back and win the game .

Chippy

Yes Chippy, what a game I saw a condensed replay on TV the other day - a real nail biter as I didn't know the result in advance. After that 'get out of jail' win Wales HAVE to win the 6 nations - its their destiny ! Only Ireland (fluky win over England) stand in the way. Who will the gods favour ?

Great to see the Taff hordes are going to take the English capitol by storm ! I saw an episode of Great British Battles (Battlefield Britain series ?) where Owen Glen-whats-his-name roused the Taffs up for a mighty surge towards London in the 15th Century but ran out of puff near Gloucester (I think) - looks like you guys can finish the job !

Niall, how can you NOT go

Martin

Thanks for the offer of a lift Chris, really appreciated. Unfortunately I can't go as I have a family commitment . The event looks like a lot of fun though anf very different to other indoor rowing events. Sorry I can't be there, but I'm sure they'll beother times. Good luck to everyone else though especially those attending their first racing event.

I'm doing the Tsunami Charity row thgis Saturday and the only other event I'm going to right now is the Evesham Golden Mile event on July 9th. Next season, however, I'm up for the GP series, BIRC and as many of the other events as I can fit in. Training's going really well and I'm just starting to meet all the targets of my training sessions so that sub-7:00 shouldn't be far off

Dwayne

Allegedly we eat a lot of pies, like steak and kidney, chicken and mushroom, etc. This is not true. We eat a lot of everything. I heartily recommend the fish and chips up here. Completely unhealthy but delicious.

I'm eating healthier again now. Only 7500 metres last night as I concentrated on strength.

I'll try for a 30 minute lunch time session and another in the evening. I thought I'd be stiff this morning but I feel ok this morning - 8.30am UK time. Slept like the proverbial log last night.

I haven't seen any postings from Darren recently. Has he given up on erging?

Bernard

No one has heard from Darren in a while. Not sure what happened to him.

Dwayne

I've emailed Daren a couple of times but got no response .

Wasn't sure what to do lunchtime today so it was a late decision to do 10,000m and see how long I could last at PB pace (1:56). All started well and the first 500m were completed in 1:52.4 (27spm) followed by the next 1500m averaging 1:55 (27spm). Legs started aching going into the fifth 500m and I slowed to 1:57.1. Legs really aching now so slowed right down to 2:04 (25spm). Paddled the rest of the way keeping HR below 80% and then went for it in the last 500m to sprint home in 1:46.8 (30spm).

My main faults with my rowing (fitness level aside) is my inability to row at a high stroke rate (32spm is really my max) and my leg strength. I really feel the leg strength is coming along (they've never ached so much as today which goes to show I'm actually using them now ).

1201 calories burned today so that should get me further away from 80Kgs and closer to the 79Kgs mark which is my next milestone towards the 75Kgs Lwt target.

Hi Niall,

Just a couple of thoughts on that 10K :

You are still recovering from a cold and a trip to Jersey ?

Upping your sessions to twice a day may result in residual Lactic acid not having time to completely dissipitate between sessions ? I found in the (distant) past when training more frequently than usual that going for a 15-20 min stroll whilst drinking plenty of water after a session seemed to help in flushing away the buildup of acid.
Not easy I know during the winter months when the waterbottle probably is freezing up and sticks to the lips !

1.52's and 1:55's is not 1:56 Pace Maybe start out at 1:57's and negative split the 10K ?

As for SPM, 27 SPM is fine for 10K. As your legs get more used to maintaining a powerful drive I think you will find an automatic increase in your ability to rate higher than 32 SPM for shorter pieces/bursts. Lactic acid fatigue may also be holding you back at the moment ?

Have a great row on Saturday,

Martin

Cheers Viper. Can always rely on you to put me right. You're absolutely right about the pacing and I really shouldn't have got so excited about trying to maintain 1:55 when the target was 1:57 (felt s-o-o good though ).

Good point also about the residual lactic acid and I must admit in the back of my mind I was thinking that it wasn't the best prep for a PB and that normally I would have given myself a day's rest prior to the attempt so I was fresh for it.

Two more sessions today and one light one tomorrow prior to Saturday's charity row. Looking forward to Saturday as they'll be a lot of the C2 UK Forum guys attending.

Thaks again for the guidance and support!

I miss Daren, MikeZ, and Godfried! Where's the gang?


I decided to bring my 5K more in line with reality, before doing this week's Taff challenge, which is based partly on 5K time. It seemed like it wouldn't be much of a challenge if I didn't speed my 5K time up.

New 5K PB today. Goal was to hold 2:02.5 but I ended up with an average of 2:00.? for an end time of 20:04.8, about 29 seconds faster and 60 Nonthlon points better!

Big concert Sunday and lots of practicing to do, so I'm rowing Friday and skipping Saturday and Sunday.

Great job on the 5k PB Carla. Keep this up, and we'll be seeing you in Beijing in '08.

Speedy

P.S. I went out to look at your ranking spot (#19 by the way!!). You're two weakest runs are your 500 (1:57.2) and 1k (4:10.9). Based on what you've been doing lately, you could shatter both of those. That might actually bump you up into the top 15.

Anyone heard from Jasmine at all? Her meters haven't moved in quite a while.

I haven't heard from Jasmine either....or Deb. I will PM them and see how they are doing. I don't think we've heard from Bore Da! lately, either.....

I'll have to see what I can do about my sprint times (as well as my pokey 2K.) Like Niall, I really have a hard time getting the rate up, I think my highest is around 32. Somtheing's wrong with my technique, because any higher than that & I have to use the straps. I've really got to find someone local to coach me for a session or two and get that sorted out.

Nothing wrong with using the straps at the higher SRs. This is a erg, not a boat. So putting 'check' into the erg really won't matter.

Let me know if you make any progress with the high stroke rates Carla. I still struggle to get up and down the rail faster than 32spm .

Many congratulations on the 5K PB, way to go!! As Speedy says, those 500m and 1K PBs must be in danger of being beaten fairly comfortably I'd have though given your current form (i.e. you're on fire!!).

I completed my 4-week training schedule today and must say the last two sessions have been fantastic. It's been great to finally get to the fitness level where I can meet all the targets (see my Blog below for more details). I've got a 1609m (1mile) time trial on Monday so it'll be good to do some speed work (capped at 32spm though so no ventures into unknown stroke level territory for me yet).

Me sick. Back soon.

Sorry to hear that, Godfried! Hope you are well soon.

I am also sorry I have stupidly waited until the last day to tackle challenge #5, because now that I have done the math, I can see that it won't be easy, especially now that my 5K pB pace is a bit quicker. Goal works out to: 1 hour row at 3 x 10 min @ 5K PB pace (2:00.4)=2490 x 3; plus 3 x 10 min @ HM PB pace (2:07.6)=2350 x 3, total should end up to be 14,520m, an improvement of 337 meters for the hour row. The average will come out to 2:03, which was my old 5K PB pace. Even if it was at my old 5K pb pace it would result in an hour row score of 177 more meters than my hour PB. If I can do this, which I doubt, that means my 10K is way out of date, since the avg for that is 2:05.

I am really beginning to dread trying this, and it seemed so harmless when I first wrote it down! Has anyone else given this one a go yet? Speedy?

well, that was a complete failure, no point for the attempt even, because I quit at 30 min. I guess it was too soon after my last hard row. I was pretty on target for the first 20 minutes but then just couldn't discipline myself to do it, my legs just didn't want to go and every excuse that came along seemed to reasonable to argue with, so I quit! ughghghghghg!

Well the Tsunami Concept 2 Challenge was a fantastic success yesterday. We successfully completed the 1674km target in just under 10 hours. My sessions were as follows:

11:20 - 30mins 7641m (didn't realise until afterwards that this was 50m short of my PB )
12:30 - 60mins 14166m (last 10mins was a killer as the previous 30mins session took its toll)
14:30 - 30mins 7257m
16:30 - 30mins 7325m

Total = 36,389m

If you'd like to read more of our experiences from the day click on this link.

I did try it. No luck finishing. It was harder than it looked on paper.

After Chippy informed me that we were entering in London at end of March I thought I'll check my PB for the 1000. Did'nt have one so had a blast and PB of 3:25.1 Note: I coughed like a Camel all night.

Thanks Chippy

Graham D: The Taffs are going all the way. See you in Cardiff for the Irish match????

The Dykster (Ebbw Vale)

Way to go on the PB Dykie. Heard from Chris (Bore da) lately?

Well, if you couldn't do it, than I guess I shouldn't beat myself up too much for not being able to do it.

This week's looks pretty tough as well. My half hour PB is 7336. Doing the 10 min at that pace, then 10 min at 6K and 10 min at 5K would bring me to 7424. (Actually it would be less, but I can see that my 6K pace is the same as my 30 min one, which is dumb, so I figured the challenge goal out with a 6K pace that's a second faster than the one I have on record.)

This time around I'm tackling it earlier in the week and if I have to try it 3 or 4 times I'm going to at least get my "try it" point!

I just noticed something....if we manage this, and consequently get new 30 min pbs., we will most likely find # 8 virtually impossible. It's the 20 spm thing again and trying to match your 30 min pb! ouch!

Oh where, oh where can our founders be?? Oh where, oh where can they be??

Chippy...Chris...haven't heard from you two in a while. Still out there in Taff land?

Speedy

[quote=dadams,Mar 7 2005, 02:38 PM]
Oh where, oh where can our founders be?? Oh where, oh where can they be??

Chippy...Chris...haven't heard from you two in a while. Still out there in Taff land?

Speedy



Speedy
I have been getting in some hard painful meters of late ready for the London rowdown in the Pirates back yard.Hope to have a few sessions with Dykie in the build up as we are rowing the 1000m and the team event. I have tried every trick in the book to get Chris (Bore da)to start up again but it has not worked.
SO i am going to get my baby brother porky ( 108k) to" make him a offer he cannot refuse"
Called in the Bat Cave tonight to see Graham and Sue and came away with chocolates for my wife,but i ate them on the way home. Sh*t happens.

Chippy.

After a very successful 4-week training schedule which peaked with the Tsunami C2 Challenge on Saturday, I'm now rock bottom with a head cold (it's certainly doing my head in!!). So having recently gone through the 1.5Million metre mark, I'm now off the training/rowing and will be fore the rest of this week at least.

This will be music to Bernard's ears I'm sure as it will give him a chance to catch up with me after my recent spurt made the gap >100,000m

Niall,
Sorry to hear you're feeling to crappy.

A word of caution. If this is the same thing I got a couple of weeks ago, then beware of letting it get into your chest. Baaaaad cough man!!!!

Hope you feel better.

Dwayne

I hope she doesn't read this forum

David

Carla,
Are we on challenge #7 this week?

Nope, #6, 1/2 hour row, 10 min at 30 min PB, 10 min at 6K, 10 min at 5K.

Hope it doesn't turn out to be as bad as #5 was! I'm giving it whack tonight.

I'm going to have to do #7 at the health club at the ski area in VT. It's 4 x 10K at HM with 10 min between. Wonder if it will be a problem with other people wanting the machine.


Carla