The Two Types of Training

[chgoss]

Cruising sailors spend a lot of time in their cabins, but racing sailors are intense.

took me a minute, then I nearly wet myself

[chgoss]

CROWD: A witch! A witch! A witch! We've got a witch! A witch!
VILLAGER #1: We have found a witch, might we burn her?
<snip>
BEDEMIR: Bedemir, my leige.
ARTHUR: Then I dub you Sir Bedemir, Knight of the Round Table.

A better troupe ye shall ne'r find...

[jliddil]

Ex: "Give me your right hand!" (Correct). "Now give me your left!" (The patient presented the right hand again. The right hand was held.) "Give me your left!" (The patient looked puzzled and did not move.) "Is there anything wrong with your left hand?"

Pt: "No, doctor."
Ex: "Why don't you move it, then?" (The left hand was held before her eyes.)
Pt: "I don't know."
Ex: "Is this your hand?"
Pt: "Not mine, doctor."
Ex: "Whose hand is it, then?"
Pt: "I suppose it's yours, doctor."
Ex: "No, it's not; look at it carefully."
Pt: "It is not mine, doctor."
Ex: "Yes it is, look at that ring; whose is it?"
Pt: "That's my ring; you've got my ring, doctor."
Ex: "Look at it�it is your hand."
Pt: "Oh, no doctor."
Ex: "Where is your left hand then?"
Pt: "Somewhere here, I think." (Making groping movements near her left shoulder).

It can be said that someone has lied when he knowingly possesses the truth and consciously attempts to deceive another individual. Curiously, it sometimes happens that a person half persuades himself that the lie he has told or is telling is true and then behaves accordingly. According to Sartre (1956), when a person attempts to conceal the truth from himself he acts in bad faith. For our purposes, we will call this behavior self-deception (Joseph, 1980). Self-deception implies a knowing and a not knowing, or, simultaneously telling a lie and believing it. Self-deception occurs when an individual would rather not be conscious of knowledge that he possesses and, thus, refuses to organize and attend to it linguistically (Joseph, 1980, 1982). Nevertheless, to resist acknowledging or thinking about a particular impulse, feeling, or idea requires an acknowledgement along with a disavowal; that is, to negate or deny an idea or impulse requires that it first be recognized so that it may be avoided.

[ranger]

If I end up pulling 6:16 for 2K by the end of April, this will mean than I can do 1:39 for 5K, 1:40 for 6K, 1:42 for 10K, and 1:44 for 60min.

True for me too. With an equal chance of it happening.

And on what basis is this judgment made?

For instance, if you are able to do a sub-6:30 AT 2K, that is, without doing distance trials and hard sharpening to prepare for it, as I did in 2006, and will do again over the next couple of weeks, fully trained, you are entirely capable of 6:16.

Then again, if you just hang on the internet, as you do, feel bad about yourself, and badmouth others who are in such a position, you don't know you face from your ass, so who would ever care what you think?

ranger

[ranger]

Cruising sailors spend a lot of time in their cabins, but racing sailors are intense.

So, Bob, are you racing this weekend?

I am.

And next weekend?

Mike VB doesn't seem to be racing, either.

Why not?

I would guess because there is no point.

Mike's times are already falling off for this year.

He is fully trained.

No base to bring out with more sharpening and racing.

Why?

No base to begin with.

I am afraid that you folks are neither racing nor cruising.

You're just land-locked--on leave.

Enjoy your vacation.

ranger

[ranger]

I'll be bringing out my base for the next two months.

When I row sub-6:30 over the next couple of weeks, my 2K will be in the range of five seconds per 500m beyond Mike's.

With another couple of months of sharpening, I will get another three seconds per 500m over 2K.

ranger

[ranger]

we will call this behavior self-deception

I'm not sure where this is coming from.

You are saying that I am self-deceived?

That doesn't seem possible to me.

The erg is a truth machine.

Self-deception in erging is impossible.

I will post times, IND_V for all of the events as I sharpen over the next two months.

At the moment, as I am just trying to get a good AT 2K, my results are the following:

Rich Cureton 59 Ann Arbor MI USA 6:41.3 IND
1 PMichael van Beuren 57 Hartland VT USA 6:47.6 IND_V
2 Jonathan Rich 56 Winter Park FL USA 6:52.3 RACE
3 Eric Winterbottom 58 Bodytalk GBR 7:01.9 RACE
4 Rolf Meek 59 Oslo NOR 7:05.4 IND
5 John Busk 56 Slangerup DEN 7:07.6 IND
6 Ross Logan 55 AUS 7:09.5 RACE
7 Paul Ferguson 56 Melbourne VIC AUS 7:11.8 RACE
8 James Taylor 57 DeLand FL USA 7:12.7 C2Log
9 Email this rower Alan Busche 55 Oklahoma City OK USA 7:13.9 IND
10 Byron Walthall 57 Charlotte NC USA 7:14.3

I'm not unhappy about these results at all.

When I finally get a solid AT 2K in a couple of weeks, my 2K time will be sub-6:30.

Then I will be ready for hard sharpening and distance trials.

Even sub-6:30 will be in the range of 10 seconds under the 55s lwt WR.

I am 59.

In the history of the sport, no 59-year-old lwt has rowed sub 6:40, much less sub-6:30, much less without preparing for it.

ranger

[Bob S.]

Cruising sailors spend a lot of time in their cabins, but racing sailors are intense.

So, Bob, are you racing this weekend?

I raced at the 2007 CRASH-B, where I took a last place. I haven't raced since then. I have just done a few time trials at various distances, rowing by myself (at 3 regattas as well as at home). I may be in a race in 2015 - if I am still around - if I can get to one and - if there is another competitor so that it would be an actual race and not just a time trial.

Bob S.

[Carl Watts]

Yes the Erg is a truth machine, that's what is so good about it so I would have thought that there is little point posting anything other than actual validated rows on this forum or your just opening yourself up for a piss take.

Yes your 2K is a great time, I'm still doing a whole lot of base training and will eventually go for a decent sub 7, 2K myself. The problem is I actually never do a 2K except for a warm up and a cool down.

Owing to the fact you must have to do a whole lot of distance training to build up your base fitness you must already have a decent 30min and 60min distance or a 10K, 6K or 5K time you can post ? After all there is no "Sharpening" for these because your already banging them out on a daily basis so you just pick your current best then update it if you get one faster in the future.

[PaulH]

Mike VB doesn't seem to be racing, either.

Why not?

I would guess because there is no point.

Why would you bother to guess - Mike's already told us he's switched to OTW rowing. There are no formal OTW races at this time of year (at least that I know of that would be accessible to Mike), hence he's not racing. No guess needed.

[ranger]

Yes the Erg is a truth machine, that's what is so good about it so I would have thought that there is little point posting anything other than actual validated rows on this forum or your just opening yourself up for a piss take.

Yes your 2K is a great time, I'm still doing a whole lot of base training and will eventually go for a decent sub 7, 2K myself. The problem is I actually never do a 2K except for a warm up and a cool down.

Owing to the fact you must have to do a whole lot of distance training to build up your base fitness you must already have a decent 30min and 60min distance or a 10K, 6K or 5K time you can post ? After all there is no "Sharpening" for these because your already banging them out on a daily basis so you just pick your current best then update it if you get one faster in the future.

Training is everything that happens _before_ you do a trial.

Once you do a trial, your training is pretty much over, or at least, you think it is.

That's why you do the trial, to see how your training has gone.

If this training forum is really here to discuss training, then it doesn't have much to do with trials, racing, etc.

It has to do with what makes a fast trial possible.

It has to do with what comes _before_ you do a trial, sometimes, years before.

I am now racing 2Ks every week, and I will continue to do so until the end of April.

Nothing better, or more objective, than that to assess how your training is coming along.

Sure, over the next two months or so, I will also do trials at all of the other distances, but not as a major focus of interest, and only when they seem natural to do, given my focus on the 2K.

As I mentioned, if I get to the point that my times plateau for several weeks and I can't get any improvement, these other rows are redundant as assessments of my ability, anyway.

You can calculate them mechanically/predictably from the best I can do for 2K.

If I row a 6:16 2K, I can row 1:44 for 60min.

Your 2K is only as good as you 60min pb.

60min is done at 2K + 10.

ranger

[ranger]

As I get ready to race in Chicago and Detroit over the next two weekends, and do the sharpening workouts that will prepare me for these races, it might be significant to mention this:

Only one 60s rower of any weight has ever pulled a 2K under 6:30, Paul Hendershott, and he was, what?, 6'4", 235 lbs/115 kgs.?

Theoretically, if you are lean, not just fat, you get a second over 2K for each kg. of weight.

Of course, it also helps enormously in rowing to be tall.

Length is even more important than strength.

Paul's advantage over me because of his weight is better than a half a minute in a 2K.

At the moment, T.J. Osterling is right at 6:30, but it appears, not below.

RANKING RESULTS 2010
Indoor Rower | Individual and Race Results | 2000m | Men's | Heavyweight | Ages 60-69 | Current 2010 Season

1 TJ Oesterling 61 Waikoloa HI USA 6:30.4 IND_V
2 Robert Spousta 60 Fairfax VA USA 6:36.6 RACE
3 James Castellan 64 USA 6:44.4 IND_V
4 Stu Miller 61 Falmouth ME USA 6:45.2 C2Log
5 William Konarzewski 60 Colchester Free Spirits GBR 6:45.7 RACE
6 Robert Lee 65 Lexington MA USA 6:49.4 RACE
7 Peter Summers 60 Pengwern GBR 6:50.3 RACE
8 Marcus Sherwood 60 Chichester GBR 6:50.6 IND
9 Thomas Yule 63 Newbury GBR 6:51.7 RACE
10 John Calder Wilson 64 Invercargill Southland NZL 6:52.8 RACE

Given this, if I can get in a sub-6:30 2K, just on an AT effort, over the next two weeks of racing, I will be in a great position for distance trials and hard sharpening.

I am at weight, but really, it won't matter much anymore.

I will be the fastest 60s erger, regardless of weight.

Then, if I can get my standard dozen seconds over 2K from hard sharpening, I will be in good shape indeed.

6:24 is Hendershott's 60s heavyweight WR (and under the 50s lwt WR by a second).

8 x 500m (3:30 rest) at 1:34 predicts a sub-6:30 2K.

So I will be shooting for that in training over the next couple of weeks.

4 x 1K @ 1:37 would also do the trick, as would 4 x 2K @ 1:41.

ranger

[snowleopard]

Theoretically, if you are lean, not just fat, you get a second over 2K for each kg. of weight.

All other things being equal: height, leg length, slow twitch:fast twitch, sporting background, training regime, bone density, VO2 max, etc etc etc.

[ranger]

Owing to the fact you must have to do a whole lot of distance training to build up your base fitness you must already have a decent 30min and 60min distance or a 10K, 6K or 5K time you can post ? After all there is no "Sharpening" for these because your already banging them out on a daily basis so you just pick your current best then update it if you get one faster in the future.

Well...

This depends on what you have been doing in your training.

In my training, I haven't been trying to improve my fitness.

My fitness has been maximal for a decade.

In 2003, I lowered the 50s lwt WR by 3.5 seconds.

Since 2003, I have been trying to improve my rowing, not my fitness.

Big difference.

In rowing, the two great technical challenges are training yourself to be (1) maximally effective and (2) maximally efficient, with the second of these challenges, perhaps, being the most difficult.

That is, in rowing, perhaps the greatest technical challenge of all is to teach yourself how to row at a high rate, for an extended distance, steady state, at your anaerobic threshold, without sacrificing your technique (e.g., maintaining 10 MPS).

Many aspects of this accomplishment, I think, don't have anything to do with fitness.

They have to do with how well you row.

As it turns out, I have had to work hard on both effectiveness and efficiency.

The natural order for this training is to work on effectiveness ("learn to row") first; then teach yourself how to become efficient with it.

So, no, I am not sure that in my case a lot of quality distance rows, at the limits of my ability, are in the bank, illustrating how efficient I have become.

My work on efficiency, while rowing well, has been very recent, much more recent than my work on effectiveness.

In fact, it is ongoing right now.

I still get more and more efficient with my better technique every day and I am not yet as accomplished and relaxed with it as I was with rowing badly.

When I am really relaxed with a technique, I can row, steady state, for an hour, with my HR right at my anaerobic threshold.

I haven't gotten to that point quite yet in my distance rowing, but I am certainly getting there.

I can now get my HR riding in the middle 160s.

When I am fully trained up with it, I can push that to 172 bpm, my anaerobic threshold.

So there is still a little work to be done before my distance rowing is entirely in place.

BTW, how well do you row?

What do you do for 60min @ 10 MPS?

How effective and efficient are you?

What is the level of your technical accomplishment?

I see that you are a big heavyweight.

Effective rowing for a heavyweight is 16 SPI, e.g., 30'r20 @ 1:43.

Efficient rowing is 18.5K for 60min, 10 MPS @ 32 spm, or 1:34.

ranger

[ranger]

My goal for efficiency is to get back to rowing all of my distance meters from day to day at 30 spm, but now, rowing well (10 MPS).

No more low rate rowing at all.

I am at that point now, but it is a pretty new place for me.

I need to do it for a couple of months to get fully used to it.

Once I get fully used to it, I'll pull 18K for 60min, steady state, with my heart rate flat, right at my anaerobic threshold, 172 bpm.

1:40 @ 30 spm (11.7 SPI, 10 MPS)

For a lightweight of any age, that's perfect rowing.

Exciting stuff!

ranger