Saturday 28 January 2012

Your HOTTmeister speaks

Time to dig out the old ergs again, I'm afraid. The Head of The Trent provides a suitable excuse, but above that: the winter is the time to lay your base for summer fitness. And as I painfully found last night, running just isn't enough. Which isn't strange: rowing and ergs didn't make me fit to run, either.

For the moment we're adopting the innovation of 6k ergs, as it is (a) about the Trent distance (actually 6k is too long, the Trent is probably about a 5k equivalent or less) and (b) it makes a change from half-hours. We're also going to try doing the weight adjustment based on (bodyweight + share of (boatweight + coxweight)) instead of raw bodyweight; this is fairer for the heavy folk and closer to reality. Though up to now, the list of people in raw-erg-order and weight-adjusted-erg-order hasn't mattered much.

In case it isn't obvious, ergs have multiple benefits, apart from the primary one of causing pain. Done regularly, they help fitness, obviously. But they are also excellent mental training for the long haul of headraces, and allow you to see, objectively, how well you can sustain effort; how well you respond in your own mind when your body is begging you to stop.

I expect to update this post as we do more, and/or as people send in scores done on their own. Don't worry, I trust you.

Still more misc ergs

What with the Oxford bumps and the HoC, I've not had any time to push people for ergs, or to put up the scores people have done - apologies. Here are some more:

Bod            Raw Time     Weight  Weight adjusted
Simon E (30m)  7489         64      7976
Simon E (2k)   7:31.5       64      7:03.9
Dave B         7064         78      7200
Dave B         7041         78      7176 
Paul H         7:25.6       71.5    7:08.1
Luca           7:39.4       75 [*]  7:26.8
Harish         8:39.8       80 [*]  8:32.8
Will W (6k)    23:35        79      23:12
WMC (60m)      15075        71      15690
Chris F (5k)   18:11        95      18:38
[*] Estimate

Yet more misc


And still they pour in...

Bod Raw Time Avg raw split Weight Weight adjusted
Steven (30m) 8260 92 8116
Paul H (30m) 7531 74 7767
James H (5k) 18:38 82 18:29
James H (10k) 39:17
Dave B (30m) 6991 78 7126
Chris W (30m) 7711 80 7816
Lorraine (30m) 6782 64 7223
Dave B (30m) 7010 78 7145
Dave B (30m) 7021 78 7156
Dave B (30m) 6793 78 6924
Dave B (30m) 7010 79 7125
Simon G (6k) 25:00 90 25:19
Will W (2k) 7:07.8 79 7:00.9
Simon G (6k) 24:27 99 25:17

2012/02/11


On Saturday the river was frozen, so we have another fine crop of scores, as well as some misc collected ones.

Here is the 30 min table updates; note that the current "King of the Hill" is still James Howard, with 8144-adjusts-to-8209:

Bod Raw Time Avg raw split Weight Weight adjusted
Dave B 6884 78 7017
WilliamC 7600 [*] 1:58 72 7885
Dave R 7486 68 7848
Simon E 7093 65 7528
WilliamC 7792 72 8085
WilliamD 7534 93.5 7385
WilliamW 7650 80 7754 [nb: guessed weight]
Steven A 8330 1:48 92 8127
Gary D (30m) 7030 80 7125 [nb: guessed weight]
Dave R (30m) 7568 68 7953
Dave B (30m) 6909 77 7062
Gary D (30m) 7250 82.5 7308

[*] On my home erg, which (I am quite convinced) is about 200m harder than the Queens ones over 30 mins. But don't worry, I'm not adding an adjust for that.

More misc collected scores


Bod Raw Time Avg raw split Weight Weight adjusted
Simon E (6k) 25:04 2:05.3 66 23:42
Dave R (6k) 23:40 68 22:31
Steven A 8330 1:48 95 8127
James H (10k) 38:45
James H (1h) 15644 82.5
Steven A 92
Chris F (2k) 7:06.9 ?
Lorraine 6701 64 7137
Chris W (45m) 11049 80.5

2012/02/02


This was our second night of the new year. I need to work out the weight adjustments, and then sort the table.

Bod Raw Time Avg raw split Weight Weight adjusted
Will W 23:28.5 1:57.4 80 23:10
Paul H 23:46 1:58.8 74 23:03
Dave R 24:38 2:03 69 23:31
William C 23:00 1:55 73 22:14
William D 22:59 1:54.9 94 23:30
Chris F 22:24.6 1:52 95 22:58

Misc collected scores


Not yet in table, and/or not entrants, just fitness:

William C 30 mins 7501
Chris W 30 mins 7629
James H 30 mins 8144
James H 6k 21:38.4
Andy S 2k 7:59
James H 2k 6:49.9
Chris W 3k 11:18


2012/01/27


This was our first night of the new year.

Bod Raw Time Avg split Weight adjusted
Steven A 21:12 1:46 21:44
James H 22:11 1:51 [+] 22:00
William C 22:53 1:54.5 [*] 22:07
William D 23:49 1:59 24:14

Avg splits are to the nearest 0.5. These should all be treated as a good hard try, but not necessarily the best that could be done ([+]: marginally worse than the 1:50.5 split for his 30 min 8144 earlier in the week, but he'd been running at lunchtime; [*] worse than my 1:53 split for 30 min last April).

All of these are decent scores, and if SA can get down to a 1:45 split I'll be prepared to call that "heroic". If you're not used to doing erg-arithmetic in your head (alas, a sign of someone who has done too many) then a 2:00 split corresponds to a 24:00 time for 6k, or a 7.5k in 30 minutes.

Did I mention how much we all enjoyed Steven's choice of music? Fortunately his speakers did not match his muscles, so it was inaudible. We need what I believe the youth today refer to as a "boom box" or "ghetto blaster".

The 30 mins table


We're concentrating on the 6k scores now, but Due To Popular Demand [%] here is a 30 min table, too.

Bod Raw Distance Date Avg split Weight adjusted
James H 8144 2012/01/? - 8209
William C 7838 2011/11/11 - 8107
Chris W 7629 [+] 2012/02/02 - 7732 (assuming 80 kg)

[%] Well, James Howard is a very popular chap.
[+] Probably not all-out.

Refs


* Your ErgMeister Speaks

Sunday 22 January 2012

Winter head to head

City have some pix of the H2H up on facebook and here is M1

chesterton-m1-winter-h2h-div1

ripped off and cropped. We're at the bottom of the reach on the first leg. Don't look at the previous pic if you were rowing at 6 or 2 :-).

Results and analysis


Full results are available from City.

1 300 3 Caius M1A student m Mays/Eights Div 1 8+ 6:20 6:37 12:57
2 400 4 Downing College M1 student m Mays/Eights Div 1 8+ 6:30 6:40 13:10
3 301 3 Queens M1 student m Mays/Eights Div 1 8+ 6:37 6:56 13:33
...
8 104 1 Girton student m Mays/Eights Div 2 8+ 6:40 7:21 14:01
9 305 3 Christ's College M2 student m Mays/Eights Div 2 8+ 6:50 7:11 14:01
10 103 1 Christ's College M1 student m Mays/Eights Div 1 8+ 6:37 7:26 14:03
...
14 314 2 Boars Head Cribb cra m Intermediate 3 8+ 7:07 7:22 14:29
...
16 405 4 Bedford School cra m Novice 8+ 7:09 7:28 14:37
...
18 406 2 X-Press Legends cra m Novice 8+ 7:12 7:37 14:49
...
20 105 1 Rob Roy (Mas C) cra m MasB/C 8+ 6:58 7:52 14:50 14:26
...
22 106 1 Champion o' Thames cra m Intermediate 3 8+ 7:06 7:49 14:55
23 200 2 Cantabs cra m JuniorJ18 2x 7:21 7:37 14:58
...
24 107 1 Chesterton RC cra m Intermediate 3 8+ 7:04 7:59 15:03
...
207 2 Champs J18 cra m JuniorJ18 8+ 7:23 7:56 15:19
202 2 Champs Masters cra m Intermediate 3 8+ 7:31 7:55 15:26

(note heroic performance by Cantabs J18 double).

We beat Champs (M1?) on the first leg, but lost by 8 seconds overall. But we beat their M2. Since we're sandwiched by them for bumps, that is a good start.

It was very windy for the first leg: we went down in 7:04 and came back nearly a minute slower in 7:59. Compare that to the differences for boats in divisions 3 and 4, and their times are much closer, which I think gives an advantage to later divisions. Not just easier rowing conditions with a calmer Reach, but also the boost you get from a tailwind is worth less than the corresponding headwind. Note that Christs M2, in div 3, beat their M1, in div 1. Which is a long-winded way of me leading up to wondering if we'd have beaten Xpress Legends if they'd not been in div 4.

We've entered the Head of the Trent which is, and SA said, like the H2H but with the gap for a rest closed up until it doesn't exist, and then with another 2k thrown in. So time to start taking the land training seriously.

Also, anyone remember the Tidy 2k challenge?

Sunday 15 January 2012

Winter league

Sunday was calm and still but cold and mostly cloudy. Those unfortunate enough to be in the first division got up at unearthly hours and arrived at the river far too early. And the results were...

301 Cantabs Men IM1 8 M1 09:10 1
401 Cantabs Men IM1 8 M2 09:19 2
402 Cantabs Men IM2 8 Hills Road 09:23 3
101 City Men IM2 8 M2 09:33 4
...
215 X-Press Men Nov 8 Legends 10:14 12=
...
156 Radegund Men Nov 8 M1 10:20 17=
...
106 Chesterton Men Nov 8 10:27 20
323 Chesterton Women Nov 8 12:41 159
123 Chesterton Women Nov 4+ 12:52 166
244 Chesterton Men Nov 1X Connolley 13:52 195

Full results are available via local copy, and likely one day officially.

The mens VIII had a very good row, going over in fine form at 31 all the way, slightly slowed down by having to go wide around Ditton in order to overtake Tabs Greybeards. Steven had decided to drop us down to a Novice crew - leaving out the Mighty IV - so I got a chance to stroke it, which was fun. That left me a bit shagged, which is my excuse for a relatively uninteresting performance in the scull in div 2.

To be continued in legs 2 and 3...