Basingstoke 2011 - Indoor Rowing Sprint Competition

Today was the Basingstoke Indoor Rowing Competition. I went last year and had a great time, rowing next to the World Record holder Rob Smith. He gave me some extra motivation to come back and try and nab a record of my own.

I set off at 7.50am with an empty long wheelbase transit van. The drive up was very pleasant - quiet roads, lovely sunshine, great scenery including Stonehenge. I arrived at the venue at around 10.45, so a little under 3 hours.

I was greeted by Dougie Lawson, the event organiser, an old friend Joe Keating and a few others I know from previous competitions. The nerves were kicking in now - not long until crunch time!

Before my race, there were some 2500m races. This takes competitors between 8 and 11 mins approximately depending on age and standard. They all did really well and I was glad not to be joining them this time round for that distance!

I started warming up just after midday, race was at 12:20. Just did some easy rowing and some power bursts, not max efforts but enough to get the muscles going.

Before I went to my race machine, I asked the biggest bloke in there (Rich Cheeseman) to hold the machine down at the front so it didn't bounce or slide, like it did last year. He did a good job, it didn't move at all.

I was very focused before the start, visualising the first few strokes and the power cruise through the main part of the race. When I set off I hit about 5-6 hard strokes, getting the pace down to 1:09 briefly and then sitting on 1:10 and 1:11's until the gradual fade started. I remember the average pace dropping below 1:13 shortly after 100m and then back out to 1:13 at 200m and then the lactic acid started to take effect and it got really hard to keep the power coming! I faded quite badly in the last 50m but still managed my fastest ever time on race software (there is a 0.5s delay usually) so not too bad a result in the end - 44.8s an average pace of 1:14.7.

Focusing at the start                                               Gurning whilst in full flow!

I was totally out of breath, legs felt like jelly and pretty much whacked! I had about 15 mins to recover before the next race which I was also in - the bleep test. This is similar to the standard bleep test, but on a rower obviously. The pace starts off nice and comfortable and gets quicker each time until you can't go any more - you do 1 minute and then rest for 1 minute before starting the next. I tried to get through them as efficiently as possible but I found I was going too fast on each one, so wasting energy. I stopped midway through rep 8 I think. The winner finished rep 10 I think. If I was fresh, I could have probably made him have to go again but he was still fairly comfortable after everyone else dropped out!

Next was a chance to see an international competitor doing the 300m. Dirk Moeller had come over from Norway (although German national). He's done 1:15 for 500m before, which is in the top 10 times of all time! It was great to meet him. I told him his target was to beat me, which he did by 0.5s - 44.3s for 300m. I still won my race as he is in a different age category to me. He was so strong, it was great to watch, but of course I want to beat his time next time!

For the 100m, Dirk and I went head to head. On my second stroke I came off the seat slightly and so didn't get full power down. He did 14.7 to my 14.9. We were offered another race afterwards so of course I made him. This time I hit it right and got down to 1:08 for a few strokes, ending up on 14.6s, same as Dirk. We stopped there as we were both shattered from racing.

At the end, we had the machines to load into the transit van for me to take back for our competition next week. It took me about 3 hours to get back, I had a quick bite to eat and a coffee before going to unload the machines and store them away - which took ages on my own, and was like a bloomin hard workout! Then, I had to drive half an hour to dro pthe van off and collect our vehicle back.

Finally got home to sit down around 10.30pm...shattered but a great day!

250m indoor rowing PB

4th day of DOMS since the leg workout - never been this bad before but then it was a big old session. The elbow injury is more of a dull ache so I thought I'd test the water out and see if it would hold out for some sprinting.

2k wu 2:01 r25

5 stroke starting drills from still flywheel:

max df
1:39, 1:22, 1:11, 1:09, 1:08 - 1:14.8 finishing ave
1:39, 1:20, 1:10, 1:08, 1:08 - 1:14.6

8/9 damper
1:37, 1:20, 1:11, 1:09, 1:08 - 1:14.6
1:38, 1:20, 1:10, 1:08, 1:08 - 1:14.4

6/7 damper
1:37, 1:19, 1:11, 1:10, 1:09 - 1:14.8

max df
1:38, 1:20, 1:10, 1:08, 1:08 (1124w) - 1:14.2
1:39, 1:21, 1:10, 1:09, 1:07 (1141w) - 1:14.3 equal LP PB
1:38, 1:20, 1:10, 1:08, 1:08 (1106w) - 1:14.2

250m TT - target sub 1:14.0 (37.0s) old PB - 37.4s (soft compared to 300m 1:14.3)

100m - 14.3 - 1:11.5 - r55
200m - 14.5 - 1:12.5 - r50
250m - 7.8s - 1:18.0 - r54

250m PB - 36.5s - 1:13.0 - r53

Passed 200m in 28.8 @ 1:12.0 so another PB

I went 1:38, 1:20, 1:10, 1:08 off the start and came off the seat slightly. Instead of stopping I tried to gradually get back into position whilst pulling 1:08s and 1:09s. Then I settled into a slightly more controlled pwoer cruise of 1:11 r50 until the fade started, but managed to hold it for quite a while. The last 75m was not great, lost a bit of form and was a bit ragged, last stroke a 1:20 as I had got out of position again.

I was hoping to get 36.8 but to hit 36.5 with a couple of errors is great, the feeling of pulling 1:11 r50 was good. I'll need to tidy it up a bit before Basingstoke if I'm going to get anywhere near the World Record (44.1s 1:13.5 pace).

Elbow is aching slightly but it didn't hamper the sprint rowing and as long as I don't stress it with bench or pec I think it'll be ok.

English Championships - Gold and Bronze

Last week I went to Manchester for the 2011 English Indoor Rowing Championships. It's my third time at this Championships, having won Silver medals in the 500m race at the 2009 (1 min 23.5s)  and 2010 (1 min 22.9s).

This time, I was in better shape having trained much harder over winter despite having had a two week bronchitis setback in December. My goal for a couple of years now has been to go below 1 min 20 secs which is considered quite a milestone in this event. Usually only about 20 people or so, worldwide, manage it each year.

My competition was stiff - there were two guys who had already gone sub 1:20 this year in the race - Paul Buchanan and Eugeni Trofimov. Realistically, I was racing for a Bronze medal - but you just never know, anything can happen when you are putting your body through maximum exertion and racing on a knife edge!

My plan was to get a good strong start then gradually settle back into a power cruise that would give me a chance of dipping under 1:20 if I managed to hold it together and work hard in the last stretch. I'd done a 10 x 150m session purely focused on this starting strategy to get used to the feeling earlier in the week, this helped me to get it bang on.

When I eased back into the power cruise, Eugeni started ploughing ahead at a very quick pace - too quick for me to think about chasing so off he went. Paul was pretty much on my heels for the first half and then drew neck and neck with me at around 400m. The last 100m were extremely painful but I still managed to hold the pace whilst Paul had some in reserve and started blasting away towards Eugeni. In the last 40m or so, I knew it was going to be very close to 1:20 so I just gave it everything and managed to stop the clock at 1:19.9! I couldn't have paced it any better, or gone any quicker so I'm chuffed to bits to have achieved my target. Winning a Bronze in sub 1:20 has never happened before in this event so I can't complain about that either.

Here's the race. Paul closest, then Eugeni then me in black on the third machine:

After the 500m, I was entered in the Open relay event. This is a 3000m race where the rowers keep swapping over on the machine. Our strategy was to do 10 hard strokes and then fall off whilst the next guy got on and just keep rotating like that until the end. I was with my friend Jon Goodall and the two Russians, Sergei Suvorov and Eugeni Trofimov. We won in a time of 8 mins 18 seconds.

I had a great time, and met some of my old friends and some new that I'd been chatting to on the Concept2 Forum. It was great to meet Paul Buchanan, who won Silver in the 2km event with 6 mins 16 secs, Tied for Gold in the 500m event ahead of me and Gold in the Mixed Relay event.

Jon Goodal and I above

 Paul Buchanan and I above

Preparing for National Champs

I'm currently training specifically for the 500m race at the English Indoor Rowing Championships in Manchester on 30th January 2011.

I've incorporated a lot more max power work both on the erg and in the weights room. On the erg, it's been about developing absolute strength by using maximum drag factor at low rate, and also explosive speed by using low drag at  low rate and driving as fast as possible.

Since power is a factor of strength and speed, I hope to combine these two elements together in the build up to the competition. This week I've done a few tests that seem to demonstrate I'm in good shape despite having bronchitis over Christmas for a few weeks:

300m - 45.0s - 1:15.0 pace - 49spm (0.1s off PB)
500m 24spm - 1:26.6 - stroking power of 22.46
1000m r20 - 3:12.9 - 1:36.4 (PB)
Deadlift - 230kg off floor with straps (PB), 180kg w/o straps (PB)
Power Clean - 100kg (PB)
Power Clean and Jerk - 92.5kg (PB)

So, PB's on power movements and high power erg tests are positive indicators. I hope to start sharpening towards the specific pace/rate and distance needed for the 500m race, so 20 x 100m reps on 1 min rest at sub 1::20 pace and the more horrid 6 x 200m reps on 3 mins 30s rest and the vomit inducing 8 x 200m on 4 mins rest.