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Over 270 teams in more than a dozen countries took part in the second round of the Winter Team Relay League. In this round, the eights raced over 25,000 metres, while the fours competed over 12,500m. The fastest men's eight was "ASR - Det Onde Hold" from Aarhus in Denmark, who only took an impressive 1:08:40.2 to cover the distance. The fastest women's team was also from Aarhus, this time "Aarhus Roklub - Kvinder", who did 1:21:48.2.

For the fours, the fastest men's team was "The 4 Cox" from Leicester who took 36:31.1, narrowly edging out the Italian Fibra Rowing Team. The fastest women's team came in the 35+ category, where "Gli Angeli Del Fit" from Rome came top by a way with 45:31.5.

If you've not already entered the Winter Team Relay League, it's not too late to do so as teams can join any time and it doesn't matter how many of the five rounds you do. The idea of the tournament is simply to get as many people from all over the globe competing for fun. There is no need for teams to travel to a central location to compete, instead teams simply race in their own clubs or gyms and submit their results via the website.

The third round finishes at 12:00 GMT on January 3rd and sees teams of eight race 8 x 2,000m, while teams of four race over 4 x 1,000m.

For more information on the Winter Team Relay League, or to take part, visit http://www.concept2.co.uk/8gp/

Sporthallen Zuid in Amsterdam on December 18th turned out to be the venue for the best ever away performance by a British indoor rowing team. With 12 gold medals, five silvers and 10 bronzes, plus a number of personal bests, the day was immensely successful, while the night out afterwards didn't seem too shabby either.

At the World IRC in Boston this year, Britain took three out of the four 30-39 race categories; this time, we managed to go one better and perform a clean sweep. In the Men's 30-39 Hwt, Nik Fleming was always in command, winning in 5:59.0, the fourteenth time he's gone sub-six. Behind him, the giant French basketball player Bruno Corcoran finished second while Britain's Grahame Todd dug in to take bronze. There was British gold and bronze in the Men's 30-39 Lwt as well, when Dan Staite, who'd been ill in the week leading up to it, overtook Denmark's Anders Brabaek after 300 metres and increased his lead for the rest of the race to win in 6:21.2. Gary Blackman was just unable to do enough to overtake Brabaek himself, finishing in 6:33.4.

In the Women's 30-39 Hwt, Nottingham's Rachel Scott was involved in an epic battle with the United States' Gina Klean. After taking the lead just after the halfway stage, Scott was forced to dig deep to hold off a final charge from the American, winning by just half a second in the end in a time of 7:15.8. Megan Brown took another bronze for Britain in this race as well with a 7:21.0, good enough to hold off the Netherlands's Petra Schouten. In the Women's Lwt version, Carol Dunbar easily took the top spot with a great time of 7:31.9.

Talking of British clean sweeps, there was another, albeit more concentrated one, in the Men's 50-59 Hwt race. At last year's European Open, Paul Langguth was in silver position before blowing up badly with a couple of hundred to go and finishing out of the medals. All eyes were on him this time to see whether he could make amends in Amsterdam. It was clear from the start, however, that if he was, it wasn't going to be the easy way. After 600 metres, there was a tight leading pack consisting of him, Martyn Lowe, Alex Brown, Johan Bielderman of the Netherlands and the Estonian Lohmus. With just over 500 metres to, Paul started his sprint for home, hitting 1:35s and 1:34s. The question was whether he'd gone too early or would he break the rest of the pack. From those following him, it was only Martyn Lowe who was still in contention, and although he finished at 1:32s, he wasn't able to do enough to overtake a deserving champion. Paul won in 6:26.4, while Martyn fulfilled his target of breaking 6:30, by the merest tenth of a second. Behind them, Alex Brown did really well to hold off the Estonian to take a major championship bronze in a time of 6:35.6.

In the Women's senior events, more golds were taken home, this time by Sarah Payne, Helen Hall and Anna Bailey in the 40-49 Hwt, 40-49 Lwt and 50-59 Hwt events respectively. All three won relatively easily, while Carole McNally was also able to add silver when she held of Italy's Jolanda Virtu in the 40-49 Hwt race.

A British record was set in the Men's 60-69 Lwt race, when Roger Prowse (right) won in 6:52.7, beating Philip Stubley's old mark in the process. As some consolation, Philip took bronze in this race as well. In the 70-79 Lwt race, Geoffrey Knight was just unable to do the same: his time of 7:14.4 was good enough for gold but was half a second outside Bert Leah's British and World record. To cap off a good day for British men's veteran racing, Bill Payne and Denis Melody also won the 70- 79 Hwt and 80-89 Lwt races.

In the first of the Open races, the Women's Lwt, the two favourites were home girl Marit Van Eupen and Denmark's Juliane Elander, who finished second at last year's European Open. At the start, Juliane went off at a high stroke rate of 34/35, something that seems to be traditional for Danish lightweights. It was another Dutch rower, Linde Verbeek, however, who got the best start and had the lead after 200 metres with Elander and a steady-looking Van Eupen lying in second and third place. After 800 metres, Verbeek started to slow and was soon overtaken by the other two, with Van Eupen looking the strongest, consistently hitting 1:48s compared to Elander's 1:50s. By 1,300 metres, Van Eupen had a half-length lead and Elander was forced to push hard to try and close the gap. Van Eupen was able to respond, however, and while with 250 to go and again with 100 left Elander raised her pace, each time Van Eupen was able to hold on. Van Eupen won with 7:12.7, Elander silver in 7:13.4 while Verbeek did just enough to hold on and take bronze in 7:20.8.

The Men's Open Lwt was all about the two members of the Danish Olympic lightweight double, Rasmus Quist and Mads Reinholdt. They both set off like the clappers at 54 strokes per minute with Quist just shading the start by the merest of fractions. They then locked into each other's stroke pattern for the next six minutes. With never more than two metres between them for most of the race, they nailed each stroke in unison, time after time. With 400 metres to go, Mads stuck in a few big strokes to take the lead, finishing the race with 1:32s and a final time of 6:12.9. Behind him, Quist was second with 6:15.3, and the Netherlands's Harm Scholten third with 6:20.0. Jesse Elzinga was the top placed Brit, finishing seventh with 6:27.6.

As expected, Hurnet Dekkers ran away with the Women's Open Hwt race. The tall Dutch girl was far too good for the rest of the field, winning in a time of 6:39.6, well ahead of countrywoman Marjolijn Stenneke and Pavlina Zizkova of the Czech Republic, who finished second and third in 6:56.4 and 7:00.0 respectively.

The Men's Open Hwt was a battle between Hungary's Akos Haller, a world champion in the double in 2001 and 2002, and Holland's Sjoerd Hamburger, the bronze medallist in the single at the U23 World Championship this year. Unfortunately, the one person whose machine glitched on the race system all day was Hamburger so a lot of the crowd were denied the best Open race of the day. After establishing an early lead, Haller was never able to shake off Hamburger, and the Dutchman slowly caught him up until with less than 250 to go, and Haller desperately trying to pour on the power, Hamburger was able to hit the front for the first time, winning in 5:54.0 with Haller exactly a second back.

The fastest time of the day, however, came in the Men's U23 Hwt event, where Latvia's Kristap Bokums romped to victory. Looking the spitting image of indoor rowing legend Matthias Siejkowski, Bokums won in 5:49.8, a phenomenal time for someone that age.

The championship also had a number of team races, including a 4x1000m relay that featured Great Britain's Carole McNally, Kelly Sapsford, Kay Hughes and Carol Dunbar racing. As well as raising some excitement in the hall due to the fact they were racing in lingerie and high heels, they were also raising money for Pendlebury Children's Hospital in Manchester. To donate to the cause, as well as to see them in uniform, go to http://www.justgiving.com/amsterdam2004

Full results can be found at http://www.concept2.co.uk/euro/results.php
Photographs are at http://www.concept2.co.uk/euro/photographs.php

Christmas is a time of excess. Here's a seven week programme to get you back in shape by Valentines Day. There are two options, a tough one and a very tough one.

Option 1. The weekly programme is based on 5 -10 sessions a week over five days

The programme is tough but doable for most people and is based on completing 100,000 metres a week. The best way is to get up early and row for an hour on the machine, which will break the back of the daily quota. You may find that after a while you can complete 15,000m in an hour, which means you can have some evening sessions off. Alternatively you may still want to train in the evening and go for a million metres, which means you have to average 143,000m a week. Day 6 is a rest day. Day seven should be either a day off or an opportunity to catch up on any missed sessions.

The programme starts the day after Boxing Day. New Year's Eve is the last day of excess so enjoy it. By Sunday 2nd of Jan it is time to get back on track.

Option 2

For none but the brave: One million metres in seven weeks

6 weeks of 144,000m and 1 week of 136,000m carried out over 6 days/week

Below are some more favourite workouts from some of the US's leading rowing coaches, liberally ripped off from the pages of American magazine Rowing News.

Craig Milburn's Killer Workout

3x12 minutes, open rate, with 12 minutes rest between sets

"We're attempting to see how many metres they can get for the first one, and what kind of drop they have on the second and third ones. For novices (women), if they can go over 3,000 metres at a 2:00 split, that's pretty good."

Liz O'Leary's Anaerobic Threshold

4x15 minutes or 3x20 minutes at your 6k pace.
Rate changes: 4 minutes on, 1 minute off, x3.
Rates increase each piece: 22-24-26

"I tell all the recruits that you come to Harvard for the academic programme, not for the rowing programme, as your primary reason for choosing the school and I can't take four hours out of their day every day. And they will tell me that the most important thing is that things run efficiently because that's the way their run their lives."

Evans Liolin's Endurance Workouts

1. 3x5k, rates 20-24. Rest five to seven minutes between pieces. Work on length, rhythm and consistent splits.
2. 1x10k, rates 18-22. Same focus and same splits as 3x5k workout.

"It's probably not the exciting stuff, but I think volume works."

Steve Hargis's Quick Legs Test Prep

1. 15 minute warm-up then 2x20 minutes at 85 percent of your 2,000m goal split at 22-24 with five minutes rest between pieces. Drag factor: 110.

2. 15 minute warm-up, then 10x500 metres at 100 percent of your 2,000m goal split at whatever rate it takes to maintain the split with five minutes rest between pieces. Drag factor: 90, but you can assist with a towel over the vent if needed.

3. 15 minute warm-up then 2x5,000 metres at 95 percent of your 2,000 metre split at 24-26 with 15 minutes rest between pieces. Drag factor: 110.

"The workouts provided should establish a solid anaerobic threshold training base that will allow everyone to see real gains, especially for those submitting 4,000 metre test results to USRowing for U.S. junior women's national team consideration."

"We hate these machines."

Barney Williams, stroke of the Canadian four who won the silver medal in the Athens Olympics and now a member of the Oxford boat race squad, made this comment during his interview at the end of his race at the AXA PPP healthcare British Indoor Rowing Championship.

The "We" is a reference to oarsmen in general and the fact that, amongst the competitors at BIRC, oarsmen were in the minority tends to support this view. In an event that was originally designed to provide a focal point for oarsmen during the winter, and has been so successful in attracting non-rowers, why is it that oarsmen tend to avoid indoor rowing competitions?

Rowing itself is considered a minority sport but if you consider all sports and activities that involve water then it takes on a different perspective. Rowing, canoeing, sailing and swimming are just a few of the sports that involve water. When you add the number of people that take their holidays at seaside resorts, visit lake areas or cruise the oceans then water has a very strong attraction to us humans.

There is a great deal of pleasure gained from sailing or rowing over water, swimming in it or just sitting beside it that can be recognised by most people. Competitive rowing over water requires great physical effort and oarsmen are prepared to make this effort within the medium of moving over water. Remove that satisfying feeling of moving a craft across water and just being left with the effort is far less attractive.

This is understandable especially if you view rowing as a summer sport, rowing on warm summer days on calm lakes. But this is the tip of the iceberg; the preparation to support this is hours and hours of training in the freezing cold and dark winter mornings. Snow and rain doesn't stop them boating, the only conditions that you cannot row in is when the water is actually frozen or fog. The rowing machine was developed to ease the suffering of training during conditions like this and you would think it would be viewed as a godsend to oarsmen. Of course they do use them extensively but they would still rather be out on the water. Oarsmen want to row in boats but they will train on the machine when this is not possible. In a perverted logic, some oarsmen equate training on the machine as stopping them doing what they would prefer whereas the reality is it's the weather that is stopping them doing what they want to do while the machine is ensuring there is no associated loss of condition.

Still a number of oarsmen do take part in BIRC. The rowing machine is used extensively as a means of assessing current fitness levels. Through the ranking system it provides a unique opportunity to measure your performance directly against colleagues and competitors alike. But at the end of the day BIRC is about testing yourself against your own limits of physical endurance. Tests like these will always be painful experiences because the machine has no limits and you do. There are no advantages to the athlete, no winning the toss, no lucky goals no playing with the wind behind your back. Your performance is down to you and you alone, no mitigating circumstances, not luck or a dodgy ref. For some people this harsh reality is too hard to face.

The fourth race in this season's Grand Prix series took place at Cardiff on December 5th. A total of 340 individual entries and 15 team entries was a record for the event and the day provided some excellent racing to match. Full results can be found at http://www.concept2.co.uk/gp/results.php while a comprehensive report is also available at http://www.concept2.co.uk/gp/reports.php.

Up-to-date standings for this year's event are at http://www.concept2.co.uk/gp/standings.php. The penultimate race in the series is in Glasgow on the 23rd of January. For more information and an entry form for this, visit http://www.concept2.co.uk/gp/glasgow.php.

Also taking place recently was the Irish IRC, which was on December 12th at University College Dublin. Full results for this can be found on the regional results page at http://www.concept2.co.uk/racing/regional.php .