2000m

Jan 3 2018

A Test 2k

Mind you, “a test 2k” is an entirely different thing than “a 2k Test”. But let me start at the beginning. In the morning, I drove to Modrice to pick up the mystery parcel from the UK. Luckily, the drive to Modrice is only ten minutes from the office. It turns out the mystery parcel was the latest issue of Row 360:

Lots of reading and beautiful photographs, yay!

In worse news, the low water level in our lake has revealed that somebody has dumped more than 200 car tires close to the bridge at Veverska Bytiska. I venture there occasionally, when I take a long steady state row through the gorge. What a crime!

So after the working day, it was time to test what it is to row a 2k. I am racing on the 14th, so I need some estimates. Today, I opted for the conservative approach, knowing that doing such a row after a working day is tough. Also, I have planned 4 minute and 1k trials in the coming week, during which I will get a good feel for the upper limit.

First, a long warming up:

Then on to the main event. The battle plan was to start at 280W and then accelerate and keep accelerating until I run out of steam. Which happened already at 290W.

    Workout Summary - media/20180103-1716190o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|02000|07:06.0|01:46.5|286.8|29.0|172.6|182.0|09.7
W-|02000|07:06.0|01:46.6|286.7|29.0|172.5|182.0|09.7
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|182.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|00250|00:52.5|01:44.9|282.4|28.6|128.0|157.0|10.0
01|00250|00:53.9|01:47.8|279.7|28.0|168.0|174.0|09.9
02|00250|00:53.5|01:46.9|285.4|28.4|177.0|178.0|09.9
03|00250|00:53.1|01:46.1|291.4|28.6|179.2|181.0|09.9
04|00250|00:53.3|01:46.6|290.2|29.0|181.0|181.0|09.7
05|00250|00:53.2|01:46.5|289.2|29.0|182.0|182.0|09.7
06|00250|00:53.5|01:47.0|286.0|29.4|182.0|182.0|09.5
07|00250|00:53.5|01:46.9|289.8|30.7|182.0|182.0|09.1

Below a set of charts comparing this row with a 2k attempt of 11 months ago, where I set out at a sub 7 pace and then crashed. A few weeks later I rowed a solid 7:57.

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I was glad I opted for a conservative approach today. The pain of a 2k is something entirely different than that of a 5k or longer row. Even now, a few hours later, I feel a very distinct tiredness in all major muscles.

Looking forward to the race, actually.

By sanderroosendaal • rowing • 0 • Tags: 2000m, 2k, concept2, ergometer, rowing

Feb 19 2017

Under 7 minutes again – ErgoShow Race Report

What a relief. I prolonged my membership of the sub-7 minutes group yesterday, at the “ErgoShow”.

The ErgoShow was an indoor rowing event. The main part of the event was the Czech Indoor Rowing Championships, but they had fun events around it. For Masters, there was a 1k race in the morning (to which I didn’t participate) and they had University Fours. Four ergs slides connected together, racing over 4 minutes. The sum of the four distance scores is the score of the four. Teams of different universities rowed against each other in this format.

They also had live broadcasting over YouTube and a very good commenter. In the morning, I followed the races from my living room. I ended up cheering to the computer monitor when my daughter Lenka rowed her race.

Just after lunch, one of the other Masters at our club, picked me up in his minivan. A quick round through Brno to pick up the others and we were on our way to Hodonin, a 1 hour drive south of Brno.

The venue was really nice. There was a warming up room with lots of ergs, a separate cooling down room with lots of ergs and bikes, and the main hall with two stages full of ergs. Another nice detail was lots of places where you could refill your water bottle with a sports drink for free.

I made a quick stop at the Concept2/NK booth to pick up some goodies:

Yes – my own Empower Oarlock. Too bad there is still 40cm of ice on our lake.

I also got an iphone connection kit. Unfortunately, I was already too focused on my race, and didn’t check it. At home, I found out that they had given me a connection kit for the iphone 4, which has a different connector than my iphone 5. Well, trainings at the club will remain unconnected for a while.

Concept2 did ask me if I could come around for a chat after the races.

Now it was less than an hour to my scheduled racing time. Time to change clothes and hop on one of the warming up ergs, a model D with a PM3.

After about 6km of Fletcher-like warming up (I can never remember the exact durations and paces, but I think I get it sort of right) it was time to visit the bathroom and some other confused running around. By the time I was done with that, it was 10 minutes to the scheduled time for my race.

A few minutes to get the footstretcher and drag factor set to my favorite settings and do a few strokes to test the erg, and then it was Ready – Attention – ROW! (Actually we did get to do that twice, because someone – not me – caused a false start.)

Again an unconnected row. I just have the Strava heart rate record from my Garmin watch:

On the monitor next to the erg I could see that my little boat was in the back of the pack. I knew this was going to happen and I actually rowed my own race. After the first few starting strokes I found myself at 1:39, with an average of 1:46. I continued conservatively, pulling 1:45/1:46 1:46 with the occasional 1:44 in the first 800m (I was mentally doing 1:46, but there were enough strokes at 1:45). At 1200m to go I switched to “1:45” (i.e. I banned 1:46 strokes). Rowed down to 900 to go, then to 600 to go, at which point I started pulling 1:44. With 300m to go I went all out. There was a guy who was 8m ahead of me. I nearly got him, but in the end he finished 2 seconds earlier.

No drama, really. Even though I wondered whether there was more in the tank, I was glad I paced conservatively. After my 7:09 debacle I wasn’t sure if I was in sub-7 shape. Actually when my competitors asked what I was aiming for, I jokingly answered that I would go for 6 minutes and 60 seconds.

The “quick chat” at the Concept2 booth started with “Why haven’t you told us about your project?” and it turned into a slightly longer, friendly chat. At one point my team mates threatened to leave without me, so I had to stop chatting and jump in the car back to Brno.

Here are the full results in the Masters category. Our Jiri Pfeifer rowed a nice row for a 51 year old (6:23.9). My race was won by Karel Nevrala. He moved to live with his Mix 2x partner, who now also is his girlfriend, and both of them have taken to train very hard. Romana and I beat them in the Mix 2x a couple of time, but she rowed a 6:57.6 yesterday, so she nearly chicked me.

My end time was 6:57.5 (just 1.9 seconds above my Masters PB of 6:55.6). Here are the splits according to the PM:

1st 500 – 1:45.4 – 31SPM

2nd 500 – 1:45.0 – 31 SPM

3rd 500 – 1:44.0 – 31 SPM

4th 500 – 1:43.2 – 33 SPM

Unfortunately, I cannot look at my race on YouTube any more because the Warner Music Group has blocked it for copyright reasons. Yes, there was background music played at the venue!

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 4 • Tags: 2000m, 2k, concept2, erg, OTE, race, rowing

Jan 10 2016

Neratovice Erg Race: PB and third place

Traveling the 250km from Brno to Neratovice was slightly adventurous for me, the driver. We picked up Albert & Iva at 6AM. The back of the car fell asleep or were listening to their iphones and didn’t notice that it was either raining, or thick fog, and the outside temperature was -2 in Brno and -6 in the highlands.

Not good. So safety first and I reduced the speed to 80-90km/h for the first 100km. Then the sun came up and it got dryer, so we could drive a little faster.

We arrived at the venue just one hour before the start of the girls race.

Neratovice 001.JPG — Happy to have arrived

So no time lost. Starting fee paid and preparing for the race.

As Romana had two girls in one race, I took care of our daughter Lenka. Here she is warming up, already on the race erg.

I took my place on the coach chair behind Lenka and we got ready for the race.

Neratovice 009.JPG — 10AM. Lenka a minute before the start.

Lenka’s personal best is a 2:08 pace, so the plan was to row 2:07. She set off at a blistering 1:51 pace, and I spent the first full minute trying to slow her down. I think she rowed at least 45 seconds at a pace below 2:00. Finally, after about 200m, I got her at 2:06 rating 27. Then we focused on the rate. Incidentally the rate would drop to 26 and the pace to 2:08-2:11. I focused on getting her at 27spm and higher.

Of course she wasn’t leading but there were enough girls rowing around her pace so make it an interesting race. She finished in a PB of 8:30.0 and we were all very happy. She improved her PB by 5 seconds and finished 29th out of 37, with a lot of girls around 8:30. On erg #4, Iva PB’ed by 2 seconds in 8:10.2 and was 22nd. She was disappointed because she wants to be faster than 8:00. Next time.

The race was won by a 14 year old who rowed a very impressive 7:14.1 which was 15 seconds faster than the number 2. About 15 girls rowed under 8 minutes.

So that was the morning session. My race was the very last race of the day, at 4pm, so I had time enough to cheer for my club mates.

Our Albert was the favorite to win the 17/18 year olds. Here he is preparing for his race:

Erg #14 was just next to the jury, who started off the race and then opened their pizza boxes to have lunch. Good for the jury but very bad for ergs #13 and #14 because of the pizza smell. Still, Albert delivered. Here’s the score board about half way (notice the pizza):

He won in 6:17.2 which is just 0.2 seconds above his PB.

Our LightWeight guy who went out slightly too fast and was struggling with 1000m to go.

My Race

My last erg race must have been in the winter of 1990. After that I have just used the erg as a training tool and never participated in the races. So I was glad I had the entire day to watch the racing and understand what I needed to do in terms of race prep.

While the men’s open were rowing I disappeared to change to racing gear and went to the warming up area. I did a 5k Fletcher style warming up on an old Model C with PM2 screen.

During the warming up I saw the men’s open fastest heat on the screen. The 6 fastest men were below 6min. Our club’s fastest guy was 11th in a PB of 6:08.5.

I stopped the warming up when the first heat of Masters (the older guys) were at the 1000m mark, walked over to the race area and cheered for my friends, and especially for Jaroslav Kadlec (1930) who rowed a 9:28.4.

Then it was time for me to get to my erg #5. Lenka and Albert took the “coach” seat behind me. It was fun to have them there.

I didn’t forget to adjust the foot stretcher height and check the drag factor.

5 – 4 – 3 – 2 – 1 – toot off we went

Ten strong strokes. By the tenth stroke I was pulling 1:40 and the average pace was just below 1:43. One loses quite a bit with these race starts, it seems. I pulled a few 1:43s and then settled for 1:44 – 1:45, about 29spm.

All this is from memory, as we weren’t allowed to put in log cards.

I cruised through the 1500m mark with an average pace of 1:43.8 and was doing fine.

At the 1200m to go mark I was thinking about negative splitting. My original plan was classical: 500m at target -1, 2x500m at target + 1, 500m at target – 1. For a few strokes I considered dropping to 1:44, then dropping more at 600 to go, 300 to go, etc. I was rowing 4 meter behind Milan Viktora and could pull myself towards him. In the end I decided to stick with the original plan.

The guy on the erg to my right was pulling 1:37 pace. A quick glance on the computer monitor told me I was somewhere in the middle of the pack.

My coaches were silent. Their first words of encouragement came when I passed the 1000m mark. I did ten strokes at 1:43 pace there, then settled back to 1:45. I saw the occasional 1:46 and compensated with the occasional 1:45.

The difficult third 500m. I really didn’t want to speed up here. 600m to go. It crossed my mind that it was now just above 2 minutes to the finish line and I took up the pace a little. Average pace was around 1:44.3 now.

With 500m to go the noise level in the hall increased noticeably. Now Albert and Lenka were cheering me on every stroke and also the fans in front of the ergs were cheering.

This was good. It really enabled me to hold on to 1:43s and with 250m to go I tried to speed up even more. The legs didn’t really cooperate so I don’t think I pulled much faster, but at least I didn’t let the pace slip away.

I saw the average pace dropping to 1:44.2.

I saw it drop to 1:44.1 and in the last few strokes it even dropped to 1:44.0

I didn’t realize what that meant until I looked at the computer monitor and saw my end time of 6:56.1. I made a victorious fist pump and then continued to slide back and forth idle, gasping for breath.

I managed to do a quick average pace check on the PM after the organization switched off the race software:

1:43.8

1:44.5

1:43.3

Then I was summoned to the ceremony as I had a third place (out of 5) in my age category. I received a bronze medal and a flower:

After that, I wanted to row a cooling down, but the warming up ergs had been removed during my row, and the organization was now starting to move the race ergs. Also, Albert was a bit in a hurry because of a party in Brno that he wanted to attend.

So we hit the road richer in 3 PBs, one bronze and one gold medal. We only stopped at a gas station to buy some water and a bottle of cooled Bohemia Sekt (bubble wine). The last 30km were again in thick mist but the temperatures were just above the freezing point and the road was fine.

After the “champagne” I fell asleep in front of the TV.

Very happy with the PB of course! I have been rowing around 6:58 for the past 5 years. I have improved over all the larger distances, but I didn’t get the 2k below 6:58. I believe the race environment helped me over this bump.

Oh, and I got chicked. A junior girl (1998/1999) rowed a 6:52.1. I saw her row it. It was very impressive.

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 6 • Tags: 2000m, 2km, concept2, erg, OTE, PB, race, rowing

Nov 15 2015

2000m erg test: Classic and Too Conservative

Testing week. Today was the time for the dreaded 2000m.

I rowed the test in the afternoon. Spent the rainy morning, after a heavy breakfast, with the boys in Brno’s science centrum VIDA which was good fun. Having physics qualifications, I tried to fulfill my duties to science and society by patiently explaining the principles behind the experiments to the boys, but I am afraid some of my explanation was lost and they ended up running enthusiastically between the attractions.

Then a light lunch and some work preparing dinner. We’ll have my special “Turkey a la Duck” with red cabbage. Food that needs a lot of time to be prepared.

Lunch digested well enough, a quick espresso and off to my erg cellar. Did a full fletcher warming up without looking up the prescribed paces, just did the stroke rates as prescribed and let the pace come by itself. Some stretching and prepare for the main event.

I wasn’t sure what pace to aim at. My PB being 6:58.something, but not having done a 2k in ages, I thought that a 7:02 – 7:04 (i.e. 1:46 pace) would be a good target.

Standing start, of course. Race start and ten hard strokes with eyes closed. Opened eyes, saw 1:37 on the monitor, and slowed down to 1:46 pace, doing about 30spm.

My check points would be 1200m to go, 600m to go, 300m to go.

Of course I checked average pace after 500m: 1:44.1. That was of course due to the first hard 10 strokes which, as every rower knows “are for free”. I continued to row my 1:46 pace.

With 1200m to go I decided to accelerate. I was doing fine and decided I could risk this. If I would die a few hundred meters later, I would probably still be able to hold a pace that would bring me in on target.

I didn’t feel the usual panic at 1000m, which was strange. Usually I have this panicky feeling:
“Is this half way? You can’t be serious! I will not be able to hold this pace for another 1000m.”

Today? Nothing. Half way. OK.

With 900m to do I started to see the occasional 1:46 and had to work a bit harder to get back to the 1:45 pace. My predicted end time was now between 7:00 and 7:02.

I sat up a bit more straight and focused on technique. That brought me to 600m to go. I kind of accelerated but it wasn’t entirely consciously.

Entering the last 500m I started to count sets of 10 strokes and saw the splits come down. With 300m to go I started my final sprint and saw 1:43 splits.

That’s the point when I started to be aware of my mistake.

This was painful but it should have been much more painful.

Predicted end time was showing 6:58. Shit. That’s my Personal Best (at least as a Masters). I tried to add some power and get the monitor to show a 6:57 predicted end time but unfortunately I was running out of water. Finished the 2km with the feeling that I could have done at least 10 more strokes.

Disappointed? Not really. This was much faster than I expected, and the fact that it was relatively easy is a big confidence booster.

I say relatively easy, because of course I was tired.

But no erg cough. No urge to lie down on the floor. And I definitely didn’t have that half way panic, and that feeling with 300m to go that you have to short slide and pray that you can somehow hold the pace, seeing it slip slowly in the final 100m.

Workout Summary - Nov 15, 2015 --|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Avg --|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|Watts|SPM-|-HR--|-DPS --|02000|06:58.3|01:44.6|306.0|31.6|177.8|09.1 Workout Details #-|EDist|-Etime-|-SPace-|Watts|SPM-|AvgHR|DPS-|Comments 01|00100|00:19.6|01:38.1|370.3|36.7|135.9|08.3| 02|00200|00:40.6|01:44.8|303.9|28.6|166.5|10.0| 03|00300|01:01.7|01:45.7|296.0|31.2|171.8|09.1| 04|00400|01:23.0|01:46.1|293.2|31.1|175.8|09.1| 05|00500|01:44.1|01:45.5|297.9|31.3|178.1|09.1|average 1:44.1 06|00600|02:05.3|01:46.1|292.8|28.3|179.5|10.0| 07|00700|02:26.4|01:45.4|298.6|31.3|179.5|09.1| 08|00800|02:47.5|01:45.8|295.5|31.2|181.0|09.1| 09|00900|03:08.6|01:45.1|301.4|31.4|181.2|09.1| 10|01000|03:29.5|01:44.9|303.1|28.6|182.0|10.0|average 1:45.5 11|01100|03:50.5|01:44.9|303.2|31.5|182.0|09.1| 12|01200|04:11.5|01:44.7|305.0|31.5|182.5|09.1| 13|01300|04:32.6|01:45.9|295.1|28.3|183.0|10.0| 14|01400|04:53.8|01:45.6|296.8|31.2|182.7|09.1| 15|01500|05:14.7|01:44.6|306.2|34.4|182.0|08.3|average 1:45.1 16|01600|05:35.6|01:44.5|306.4|31.6|182.9|09.1| 17|01700|05:56.4|01:44.2|309.3|31.7|182.8|09.1| 18|01800|06:17.1|01:43.4|316.4|31.9|183.0|09.1| 19|01900|06:37.8|01:43.6|315.2|34.8|183.0|08.3| 20|02000|06:58.3|01:42.6|324.4|35.1|183.0|08.3|average 1:43.7

The 500m splits are a OTW rower’s classic. Fast first 100m. Cruise the middle part. Then accelerate.

Did a 4km cooling down. Then looked up my PB time: 6:58.2.

0.1 second faster than today’s effort. Damn.

I wanted to do this again.

Took a shower instead.

Next 2km attempt I need a bit more “contempt of death” and perhaps I will be able to seriously improve my PB. That’s not a bad outlook, isn’t it?

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 2 • Tags: 2000m, 2km, OTE, rowing, test, testing

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Jun 18 2015

Morava Championships Race Photos

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 1 • Tags: 2000m, 2km, OTW, race, race photos, rowing

11406177_898865640171709_2203275453780413218_o

Jun 15 2015

Morava Championship – Rest of Sunday Summary

Lenka

Won the B final in the double and qualified for the Youth Nationals. There were 4 boats in the B final and the first 2 would qualify. Lenka stroked this with the “lead from start to finish” tactics, winning by a few lengths. There was a nice fight for second place, with Hodonin rowing second place for 1000m, only to be overtaken in the final 500m by Otrokovice.

Good for Laura and her to experience rowing in the lead. They enjoyed this race. Qualification secured.

Romana almost got them disqualified for following the race in the coach launch. She was at a long distance from the racing lanes and didn’t shout any instructions. Still, at one point she was in front of the referee launch, so that was a concern. Luckily the referee was a reasonable person.

On to the single B final. Lenka was not looking forward to this one, rowed at noon in a 35 degree heat, with the quad only 2 hours later. Romana agreed that she would row it at a 25spm. In the end of the day Lenka rowed to (non-qualifying) 4th position, going up to 27spm in the heat of the fight.

She had a disappointing race in the quad. Their team had expectations to win, but in the end they were over-classed by 4 girls from LS Brno who are rowing at international level, and also Olomouc overtook them. A spark was missing here. I guess 3 races is quite a lot in these hot conditions.

Dominik

His race being at 4 o’clock, our son Dominik decided to spend most of the day swimming in the lake. Not exactly ideal race preparation but I wasn’t going to prevent him. He had qualified himself for Youth Nationals, and it would be torture to keep a 11 year old indoors for the sake of a rowing race. In hot summer weather like this, when you’re that age, you should be making fun by the water.

His 500m race was good for the first 250m, then he suddenly reduced pace. He also stopped 2 strokes before the finish line and had to be told to cross it. Came in last position.

He commented that he had the oldest boat.

Sander

Read about my adventure in the double in another blog post.

I was really tired after that. Still had to walk around on the club helping various others getting on the water in time. Also, spent some time and energy discussing our line-up for the Masters Nationals and for Hazewinkel.

Being at 72.0 kg on my own scale I had to be careful eating and drinking.

Then, at 1pm, I hopped on the bicycle to ride to the LS Brno club house for the weigh in. My upper legs protested vehemently, so in the heat of the day it was a very hard 2km ride.

I weighed in at 71.6 kg on the official race scale.

I can be brief about this race. My plan was to hold 2:00 to 2:05 pace in the light headwind, but it turned out to be too ambitious. My legs just didn’t cooperate. I was rowing in the back with the referee boat and as I wasn’t out of breath I was able to speak to him but I just couldn’t push any harder for the pain in my legs.

Covered the course in 8:38 measured on CrewNerd. I can do that in a training, a couple of times.

Finished last.

|Start|Stop_|Dist_|Time_|Pace__|_SPM__|avg HR|max HR|DPS|Remarks |00000|01556|01556|15:21|04:56.0| 18.5 | 133 | 158 |05.5|warming up |01556|02053|00498|02:01|02:01.5| 30.3 | 172 | 179 |08.2|2km 1st 500 |02053|02553|00500|02:12|02:12.0| 27.7 | 178 | 179 |08.2|2km 2nd 500 |02553|03055|00501|02:15|02:14.6| 27.5 | 179 | 180 |08.1|2km 3rd 500 |03055|03536|00481|02:10|02:15.1| 26.8 | 180 | 181 |08.3|2km 4th 500 |03536|05979|02443|26:35|05:26.4| 18.0 | 121 | 180 |05.1|cooling down

My final race of the day was a fun race. As one of the old guys was afraid of a heart attack, I took his place in the “historical eight”. Here’s how they looked last week in Prague:

We wear 1940s rowing clothes and row in a lapstrake built wooden eight, with wooden oars with long, thin blades.

Of course we rowed way behind the real eights, but it was fun anyway. The referee was taking pictures of us and the speaker made us row a special round in front of the crowd at the finish.

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 3 • Tags: 2000m, eight, OTW, race, rowing, single

Jun 15 2015

Morava Championship – A Tale of Three Doubles

As I have written in the Saturday report, the Morava Championship is important as a qualification for the Youth Nationals, and an opportunity for clubs to get points for the national ranking by putting as many boats in the race as possible.

What’s at stake in the double?

My usual double partner was not available this weekend because of an unexpected issue in his business. As it is key to have many boats racing, our club registered me to row together with Jiri, a 49 year old sweep rower who started rowing the single a few months ago. Jiri has a 6:30 erg score and is a superb sweep rower, having rowed with our Men until a few months ago. Now he is learning the single, with good results. He is able to be very fast in calm weather but in worse conditions he is still too insecure to be fast.

There is another reason why our double race was interesting, and that is the line-up for the Masters Nationals and Masters Worlds quad. We have 5 people who want to be in that boat, potentially six if Jiri starts to be interested. These are myself, and then two doubles, let’s call them double A and double B. Double A is training twice a day and row nothing else than their double. They are Masters B (35-42 year). Then there is double B.Double B train about 3 times per week. They are Masters A (27-35 year). I train at least 5 times a week, about half of the time in the single, and the rest in various crews. I am a Masters C.

How do we select for the quad? The problem is that Double A think that Double B don’t train enough to be qualifying for the quad. So for Double B, this 2km Double race would be an opportunity to show that they are not far behind.

When Jiri and I discussed our race tactics, we thought we would easily beat Double B and had a chance to beat Double A. I had put Jiri on stroke, as he is a bit heavier than I, and I also thought it would be easier for me to copy him than the other way round. Another advantage of me in the bow position is that I would be able to give him some technique instructions during warming up and race.

So here we are at the start of an Open Category 2km Double race.

Lane 1: CVK Brno “Double A” – training base > 1500km

Lane 2: CVK Brno “Sander/Jiri” – training base = 7km exactly (4 on Saturday, 3 on Sunday during warming up)

Lane 3: CVK Brno “Double B” – training base about 300km estimated

Lane 4: Lodni Sporty Brno. Some young guys but not necessarily fast ones

Lane 5: Breclav. Some young guys. One of them has a confirmed erg score of 6:05.

Lane 6: Lodni Sporty Brno. Experienced LightWeight guys.

So Jiri’s predicted outcome would be winner LS Brno lane 6, then Breclav, then LS Brno lane 4 or Lane 1 “Double A”, then my double, and last “Double B”. I disagreed with that, claiming that we should be able to beat Double A as well and come in fourth or third place.

It’s clear that reputations were at stake here.

So far the predictions. Let’s look at the reality.

The Doubles Race

10:38 AM, temperature already above 30 degrees, no wind or slight headwind.

Jiri and I were very well out of the starting blocks. 40spm and sharp. I was monitoring the “double A” to my left and we had about 1 or 2 meters on them. The good think was that when we calmed down our stroke after 20 start strokes, we started to pull away from them.

A quick glance to the right revealed that Lanes 3 (“Double B”) and 4 were falling behind as well, and lanes 5 and 6 didn’t seem to be too far out.

We passed the first 500m in good shape, doing 33spm and rowing in the front of the race. Breclav on lane 5 were next to us and LS Brno on lane 6 were just a bit ahead. Interestingly, “Double A” was rowing in last position, a three boat lengths behind us, and “Double B” together with LS Brno on lane 4 where rowing next to each other, about 2 lengths behind.

The situation remained unchanged until about 750m when I heard the “go” from the Breclav boat. I decided to hang on in our current stroke rate and do our push 200m later. Breclav didn’t gain much on us so I tried our 10 stroke push a little before the 1000m mark. Now it was our turn to not gain much.

Between 1000m and 500m to go we were starting to fall apart a bit. The result was that Breclav and LS moved ahead, Breclav leading by one boat length and LS on lane 6 by an undefined distance in front (I couldn’t see that in my peripheral vision and as we were starting to fall apart I wanted to focus on our own rowing rather than on the position of the leader). The situation behind us was interesting as well, with the “Double A” struggling in the back of the field and being passed by the launch, and “Double B” and LS on lane 4 rowing close to each other, 3 lengths behind us.

I said we were starting to fall apart but that is slightly exaggerated. We were starting to become tired, but we were still nicely in sync and able to push hard on our legs. It’s just that the legs started to become really painful. Also, our steering became a little worse. We swayed into lane one and then back.

With 500m to go I ordered a desparate push to try and catch Breclav, but the reality was that they were watching us and could react. So after a lot of pain the end result is:

1 – LS Brno in lane 6

2 – Breclav in lane 5

3 – Jiri and I in lane 2

4 – “Double B” in lane 3

5 – LS Brno in lane 4

6 – “Double A”

Post Race Evaluations

We were already evaluating while we were waiting for “Double A” to finish. We were very happy with our achievement, even though we were completely wasted. We had been able to find a compact and synchronous stroke without much practice and used it to go fast. I don’t have the official results yet, but I estimate our time to be around 7:10 based on the splits. “Double B” had done a really good job and shown that there is no issue whatsoever with their boat speed, despite sporadic training. “Double A” had completely folded in the moment of truth.

edit

The official results are in:

2x m	10:38
LS BRNO	KOLÁŘ Jan, HAVLÍČEK štěpán	1	07:00.61
SVK BŘECLAV	RAMPULA Petr, SUSKÝ Aleš	2	07:06.45
ČVK BRNO	ROOSENDAAL Sander, PFEIFER Jiří	3	07:10.08
ČVK BRNO	NAHODIL Tomáš, HUBÍK Ondřej	4	07:15.20
LS BRNO	HRUBÝ Jakub,LUKOIANOV Petr	5	07:16.70
ČVK BRNO	MIKULEC Luděk, GÖPFERT Eduard	6	07:18.57

We turned our double and rowed back to the club. Slowly, very slowly, because our legs were hurting like hell.

Arriving at the club, the crowd congratulated us. The head coach told us he had expected us to beat the two other doubles from our club and being able to give the young guys a hard time.

“Double B” arrived at the dock and they were very happy as well, even though they claimed that they could have gone even faster if they had been rowing better together.

“Double A” arrived at the dock and cleared up their boat without commenting. When I spoke to one of them later, he commented that they were experimenting with getting more boat speed at a lower stroke rate and that he had been rowing the race at 70%. I call it an excuse.

What’s more significant is that “Double A” also announced that they will be rowing the Masters Nationals in a quad with a double from another club, because they want to win the Masters C category. When that news reached “Double B”, they quickly made a deal with me and one other rower to row the quad together at the Nationals, and perhaps even in Hazewinkel.

So the racing did produce a result and a decision.

Here are the stats and the colorful picture:
|Start|Stop_|Dist_|Time_|Pace__|avg HR|max HR|DPS|Remarks |00000|03472|03472|25:17|03:38.5| 141 | 178 |02.3|warming up |03472|03969|00496|01:41|01:41.7| 172 | 184 |04.7|2km 1st 500 |03969|04466|00497|01:47|01:47.6| 183 | 184 |04.4|2km 2nd 500 |04466|04970|00505|01:53|01:51.9| 182 | 183 |04.2|2km 3rd 500 |04970|05439|00469|01:45|01:52.0| 183 | 183 |04.1|2km 4th 500 |05439|06690|01251|09:30|03:47.9| 142 | 180 |02.4|cooling down

The other Sunday races will be described in a separate post.

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 6 • Tags: 2000m, double, lake, OTW, race, rowing

2000m

A Test 2k

Under 7 minutes again – ErgoShow Race Report

Neratovice Erg Race: PB and third place

2000m erg test: Classic and Too Conservative

Morava Championships Race Photos

Morava Championship – Rest of Sunday Summary

Morava Championship – A Tale of Three Doubles

Calendar

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