Nov 25 2016
About Ranking
Hurray, I have made it to the top 10 in our Czech Rowing Masters competition.
The final results table shows quite well how this competition works. You basically get 6 points for winning regattas, 5 for coming second, etc. The National Championship wins earn you double points.
My critique on the ranking has always been that it rewards participation more than the quality of the result. I guess, by doing a few more regattas (Trebon, Brandys) I used the system to my advantage.
In 2015 I was eigth as well with 91 points from 12 qualifying races (7.6 points per start). This year I have 108 points from 15 qualifying races (7.2 points per start). On average I scored 94.5% of maximum available points per start in 2015, compared to 87.5% this year.
A year ago, I also had some thoughts about rankings. Applying the formula that I describe there, to make the reward for starting often a bit less strong, I would have fallen down to 11th place:
It’s funny, because without doing a thorough numerical analysis, I considered my 2016 OTW season to be more successful than the 2015 one. I guess the wins in Slovakia and at Euromasters are not reflected in the Czech Masters ranking.
They the key to being happy in life is having low expectations. I don’t entirely subscribe to that philosophy, but it is true that I am satisfied with the 2016 season because the results exceeded my expectations.
At work, I am going through the annual “goal setting” exercise with my team. So I find this playing with rankings and thinking about what success entails quite relevant. Granted, there are differences between being successful in the business of innovative technology versus Masters rowing, but still. I truly believe that many of the things we learn by doing competitive rowing can be applied in our professions, and this is just one example.
Jan 14 2018
Friday – remaining ranking distances
In the morning, during short breaks from finalizing this year’s performance assessments for my group, I worked down a long checklist to release and publish about the latest and greatest on rowsandall.com.
After that, I took the train home. Before going to the erg basement, I visited the Honda dealer close to my home. We’ve been contemplating getting rid of one of the cars (Romana’s Skoda Fabia), keeping only one as a “family car”. The idea would be to get a scooter for those rides around our town that cannot be done on the bike.
A typical round that I do in the OTW season is
A scooter would save fuel and usually be faster through the traffic. I still have to get used to the idea though. The issue for us Masters rowers is that we still believe we look like this:
Anyway …
The workout for the day wasn’t really a workout. After Thursday’s rest day, Friday was meant to be both a confidence booster (for Saturday’s 2k erg race) and a way to get two of the remaining ranking distances out of the way. So I did:
I managed the 500 in 1:33.4, which is a nice score. As you can see from the chart, power was oscillating between 440 and 460W, and it started to drop when the wheels came off in the final 150m.
Then I did a 2km paddle followed by a 100m at a slightly higher drag factor, which I managed around 600W. This resulted in the following series of ranking pieces rowed this season:
The other interesting thing is that the 500m piece looks like the best of the series. The 100m piece average is below 600W because it takes too many strokes to get up to 600.
By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 0 • Tags: 100m, 500m, concept2, ergometer, ranking, rowing, training