Dom
I've only done it once in a S44+. They filled my compartment with food and
drink (I was the cox) which meant that I couldn't move! There were regular
meal breaks 2on/2off at a time so we never stopped rowing apart from the
lock portage.
Training wise, I did mostly UT2 in the boat with outings in the 1 - 1 1/2
hour range, although I'd try to do a 2 - 2 1/2 hour piece about a week or so
before. On the erg I'd do 20 or 25k UT2s 10k UT1s and every week or so a 1
hour piece aiming to cover as much distance as I could.
During the race I just took liquids, either Hi-5 and Hydroplus (2 hours in I
could tell I needed it, as that was the only time I could stand the taste of
the stuff) or SSI's "Go" - something that contains electrolytes is
essential, as life gets extremely uncomfortable and slow when you run out.
I'd go non-stop to Bardney, swig about 0.7 - 1L at the portage, then have
about 2 stops thereafter.
Obviously if I intended to do well and have a chance at winning I'd have
to put in some serious training. But otherwise is it really that big a deal?
Alistair
My training was a mix of long ergs and water work. My longest erg was
42k and my longest water was 3 hours. (average sesison on land and
water was a 2 hour piece.
) I don't think that there's much point in going further as it isn't
the fitness that becomes limiting after 3 hours it's your behind!
Don't bother with food. I took just sports drinks, but should have
taken more and should have taken water. I drank 8l of water during and
after the race before I needed my first pee.
My stop strategy was 10 seconds every 15 minutes. I passed a lot of
people who were on longer stops; why bother letting your boat stop? And
it's very hard to get going again after a stop.
You should consider the first hour to the lock as a fast piece and then
pace it from there in. I averaged 2:18 to the lock and 2:21 after.
I raised £1700 for special care babies, so consider doing it for
charity.
Hope to see you lot there
Johan Helmer
University of Kent Rowing Club
Cheers,
Alistair
1. Take plenty of liquids, both water and sports drinks. I took food
but couldn't face eating anything. However I did get dehydrated which
caused muscle cramps.
2. Take a seat pad.
3. Wear gloves unless you have really hard hands. Take some
Micropore tape just in case.
Also, it's a really, really boring stretch of water. I wished I'd had
a radio.
Caroline
I've never raced 50k but rowed a 42.3k marathon here in the USA a
number of times. My thoughts:
-- Do enough distance work to find your own pace. Whether you finish
first or last, distance events are personal. The pace may feel
unbelievably slow at first, comfortable in the middle, and hard to
sustain towards the end. For me, I like to be able to finish the last
5k strong.
-- Try to find a stroke rate and speed that emphasizes efficiency, i.e.
least effort per meter.
-- I don't stop. I prefer water bottles to camel back: you have to
pause to place the nipple in your mouth and then suck rather hard. I
can take a hard stroke or two, pause, get 3-4 gulps from a water
bottle, and start up again before my single comes to a standstill.
-- I use a sports drink that includes a small amount of soy protein
(7:1 carbs to protein) to avoid cannibalizing your own muscles. (You
don't want whey until after the race.) I also like a sports drink
that allows you to adjust the amount of electrolytes. Its good to work
out your water/fuel plan well before the race.
-- Somewhere between 70 and 90% done there is a dark place where
you've been rowing for a long time but don't yet feel the finish is
near. Getting through that dark place with grace is one of the
challenges of distance work. You never visit that place if you only do
training up to 30k, so just be prepared to get through it for the 42 or
50k distance.
Steven M-M
Equipment- Seat pad and white cotton gloves (try Boots) taped on at the
wrist to stop them coming off. Elec tape to tape gels etc. to handy
places in the boat. We tried to use a cd player with speakers but it
wasn't loud enough and it got wet!
Food and Hydration: we had lucozade gels and drinks every 30 minutes.
The drinks were the foil squeezy ones, we had half of one each stop,
and a gel sachet each stop. Break the seal on the drinks before you
start, it saves time, plus you need two hands to do it.
Fuelling and stops: The key to fuelling for this is to DEFINATELY take
on fuel and fluid early on in the race. After 30 minutes you feel fine
and don't want to stop to drink, but if you don't you will pay so
heavily later on. The only half-hourly break you have the option of
missing is the very last one. The other thing is they are NOT rest
stops, 30 seconds should be enough to get the stuff down your neck and
carry on. We were in a 4x and we practised taking a turn to drop out
one at a time. This is tricky in a 4x as you have to keep your blades
out of the way especially if you're in the middle of the boat. So you
keep one hand on both blades, pushing the handles right down so that
the spoons are high enough to clear the other scullers. The other hand
is free to drink and get the gel with, drop back in asap then it's the
next turn.
Pacing: In this type of race you don't want to be laying down the power
at rate 18- way too tiring! The most efficient way of creating speed
for a long period of time is to tap it along at about rate 26 but not
pulling very hard at all. Just be really loose and relaxed, you're
ratio will be bad but your efficiency will be good. Just think of when
you do long steady state ergos and how much easier it would be to pull
the same split if you could rate as high as you like. This is what you
need to exploit. But if you do a firmish 26 you'll die.
Woohoo! We have a replacement for Xeno :) Congrats on your impressive
world cup win. And your cover of "Roeien".
This sounds a lot like Carl's idea of varying the "gearing" of rowing
(although I still don't agree with that terminology for it).
Coincidentally, I tried this on a long-ish erg (30 mins) Sunday...
focused on a very quick recovery and a light drive. My rate was ~4
beats higher than I otherwise would have rated, with the same splits.
I still got really tired though. ;-)
-Kieran
Glad you tried it.
But you can't hope to change the burned-in habits of a lifetime in 30
minutes. I'm sure that part of you was fighting the new rhythm, working
against it & causing a lot of energy wastage. It takes time & practice
to learn new tricks, especially when the reflexes are demanding you do
it the usual way.
When I did the Boston Marathon, many years back, I went over @ ~30spm &
relatively light. My one mistake, which nearly cost me the race, was to
set a realistic schedule & then get too far ahead of it in the first 10
miles. I felt great so I kept at it, assuming wrongly that I'd
underestimated my potential. What with than, & too little water (less
than 2 litres for the whole trip), the result was a nasty last 5 miles &
a massive slippage to well behind schedule. Luckily for me, the others
all went slower.
As regards stopping for breaks, my advice for long-distance events (my
longest was over 22 hours) would be a strong _don't_. You need to keep
your metabolism running undisturbed & to allow it to make its necessary
transitions over time. Stopping & restarting upsets that, & those
upsets impose irrecoverable costs.
Also, beware overdoing the energy drinks. It is easy to dehydrate when
your need is more for liquid than for calories.
A last point: that portage at the lock is a great place to make up time,
& if you can be smooth but fairly ruthless about keeping everything
moving across the island you'll both pass the opposition & keep your
metabolic rate up, so that when you hit the water it won't feel like
re-starting.
Cheers -
Carl
--
Carl Douglas Racing Shells -
Fine Small-Boats/AeRoWing low-drag Riggers/Advanced Accessories
Write: The Boathouse, Timsway, Chertsey Lane, Staines TW18 3JY, UK
Email: ca...@carldouglas.co.uk Tel: +44(0)1784-456344 Fax: -466550
URLs: www.carldouglas.co.uk (boats) & www.aerowing.co.uk (riggers)
It got me thinking though... I would argue that in a standard 2km race,
crews are rowing pretty close to the optimum for ratio and overall/net
power per stroke, especially when they "take it up" later in the race.
As their muscles fatigue, to maintain boat speed with less force of
muscular contraction available, we row at a higher rate, but a lower
ratio (i.e. rush the slide). The "sprint" in the last ~300m of a 2km
race rarely results in an increase in boat speed. Rather, the speed is
maintained despite fatigue and a less powerful drive-phase of the
stroke.
What I was trying to get at before (and I think I was unsuccessful)
when I mentioned the force-velocity relationship for muscle
contractions, had to do with the fact that a standard rowing race (i.e.
2km) is an all-out effort, really a long sprint. For a 50km race (how
long do those take, anyway?) it's much easier to play around with your
force per stroke, and adjust the recovery speed, etc. But when you ask
someone to go all out, they nearly always stay right on the maximum
force-velocity curve, and usually right around 30~40% of their maximum
isometric force (found to be the optimum point for power = FxV).
-Kieran
Sorry, on rereading I thought perhaps that might seem a little creepy.
Just good to know some elite rowers are still around. You know Jasmine
from Canada? She's here too once in a while. It's already quite a
contrast to the cycling group where only slow dumbasses hang out (so
that includes me).
--
E. Dronkert
http://80.83.47.230/fiche_detail.fwx?no_id=21387 maybe?
Rob.
Mine wasn't to bad, had fairly good padded straps and short sleave tech top
on, but imagine the cheaper ones might do some damage.
I duct taped a cheap silver radio infront of my stroke man and tuned it to
radio one. I had to control myself from singing towards the end cause it was
starting to break his spirits!
> I had weed problems a couple of years before in a river single which
> had a damaged fin, sticking slightly proud at the front like a hook,
> causing it to pick up big clods of weed. Had to completely stop and
> back down and waggle the stern about to get the weed off, which every
> couple of minutes had formed a lump around the fin the size of a human
> head, that was even more of a slog!
Had nearly forgot about the weeds last year, our fin wasn't fitted flush to
the boat and kept on snagging a lot of weed, we also had to back it down
several times to get going again, was a night mare!
Hi Dom,
Long UT2 pieces with maybe a couple of 2 hour UT2s a couple of weeks
before and then some shorter stuff. Don't go out too mad at the start.
One problem that you should be aware of is Weed, in some parts of the
course it's everywhere and unfortunately the 2x we did it in last year
had a skeg ideal for catching the stuff. It's a bit like towing a
bucket behind. At one point we spent more time backing down to get rid
of it than rowing so have a good look at the design of fin before you
start.
I also managed to knacker a knee during the race. It was a borrowed
boat and one of the slides moved which meant I hit back stops each
stroke. Now this is bad enough for a short outing but a real B1tch for
the marathin and my right knee was in agony. We had to stop, get out
and beat the slide with a brick we found on the bank. mental note for
this year. Check all the equipment.
I hope to do it again this year in a single though.
Roger
I'm embarrassed now! I managed to spell my name wrong when I made the
account then thought I may as well leave it, as I thought I could write
what I liked if no-one knew who I was! That's a really bad photo.
Please don't link to it. The magazine thing was a lot better!
This group often comes to the rescue at about 5pm, finished training
and boyfriend not back from work for another two hours, have to keep
myself out of mischief somehow :)
Be warned, Ana - talking to Ewoud is no way for a nice girl to keep out
of mischief!
;)
C
PS Well rowed!
1. Say goodbye to blisters, but there's more to this than just the
gloves! Put petroleum jelly on your hands, really a lot, and then put
the gloves on over them! If the top of the gloves is mesh, don't
worry! Your first hour or so will be less pleasant than it would have
been w/o gloves, but from then on you're going to love it. Evidently
this race has no required stops, but if you do stop, reapply the
vaseline.
We have a sport over here called baseball, and the players bat with
leather-palmed gloves for better grip. These are perfect. I don't
know if such gloves are available in the UK (do cricket players use
them too?), but XC ski gloves or golf gloves might do.
2. Consider the possibility that you may find a hard seat better than
a cushioned seat. I think the small areas of nerves just get numb with
a hard seat, whereas with any cushion I'm constantly hurting, leg going
to sleep etc.
3. Although this wasn't common knowledge in 1997 when I left triathlon
and bike racing, you burn protein after two hours. I guess. I've used
hammernutrition.com's Sustained Energy for ultra rows with good
results. The stuff tastes bland and chalky but after a few hours this
is just what you want. It has no fat or electrolytes, however, and I
also crave these. The whole topic of ultra-distance nutrition is a
work in progress. The hammernutrition people are a little precious
about purity and about dietary supplements, but this product and also
their hammergel are great, I think. They advertised in Rowing News!
4. Do a mileage binge for a month before this event, ending two or
three weeks before the race. Do some work at a pace at which you can
easily hold a conversation, and some work at the pace you plan on
racing, if that's harder. (50k? probably not) Aka base conditioning
and muscle memory. Do some harder work once a week or you'll get
detuned, or perhaps go crazy. Do a big taper, take a lot of time off
the week before the race.
5. You may be rating about a 20 to start this event, and you should be
low and controlled at that point. But you will probably progress up to
22-23. This may distress the technique nerds in the boat. Why this
happens is open to conjecture, and I do not mean to dismiss the
possibility of bad rowing, but I think it's a natural way to lighten
the load on the back.
6. A year ago a few of us did a *cooperative* row in two quads over
two days on the Conecticut River, helping each other out with steering
and staying in the lowest training zone. This was awfully pleasant
relative to my two CPR races and my triathlons! The recovery was easy!
You might consider this approach to the event.
Are the gloves really essential or will I be able to toughen my hands up
enough over time? I really don't enjoy wearing gloves when rowing
Rob,
I also use Hammer Nutrition's Sustained Energy for long rows. In
addition, I use their Endurolytes powder to provide the needed
electrolytes. I think their new ultra distance product, Perpetuum
(spelling?), has some fat. I've tried it but prefer SE.
I also agree with a 2 week taper mostly to make sure all your body
stores of energy are full.
Steven M-M
If you do enough miles and don't grip too hard then your hands will be
fine. Change grips often so you get used to sculling with new grips.
Start off with no padding on the seat and add your favourite seat pad
when it gets uncomfortable, and remove it again periodically as
required. A change is as good as a rest!
Take bungees to secure blades when shipping over Bardney Lock - don't
bother undoing the gates to save time.
Phil.
I don't enjoy gloves either, normally, but I prefer having them to
having the blisters. To be fair, I haven't really gone very far on the
blister route, but I've looked at specimens on other rowers' hands and
I don't care to experiment on my own.
--
Phil Metcalfe