============================================================ INDOOR ROWING NEWSLETTER # 30 ======================== 09-February-2001 ====================== _________________________________________________ C O N T E N T S 1. Red Nose Row 2. World Indoor Rowing Championship 3. Tel's Tales #1 4. North of England IRC 5. Regional Races 6. Charidee Ocean Row 7. Forthcoming Events 8. Top Tips 9. Tel's Tales #2 _________________________________________________________________ ========================================================= Red Nose Row: 100,000 Metre Head To Head ========================================================= Royce's Gym Storms To Victory Over Leander Club! Paupers beat Princes! Well according to you lot anyway. With only a couple of days to go until the day of the event itself, the current standing of the poll on the Head to Head section of the Red Nose Row web site (http://www.concept2.co.uk/rnr/index.html) sez that about 55% of you reckon Royce's lot are going to win, 27% Leander with about 17% going for the cowardly (but, to be fair, pretty good) option of "It's too close to call". If you've come in late: not only is February 14th the time when tatty nightclubs do special offers and stick posters featuring cartoon hearts all over the shop but this year it also sees what promises to be one of the most exciting indoor rowing races ever. Current 100,000 metre team record holders Royce's Gym from Wigan will be taking on the former world record holders Leander Club. Royce's team are a big old bunch of boys who have been training like ninjas for the event, whereas Leander's team will be composed of professional rowers, several of whom (Matthew Pinsent, James Cracknell, Luka Grubor, Ben Hunt-Davies) have Olympic gold medals. Oh, and they've got a secret weapon... At the official Comic Relief launch this week, Steve Redgrave took to the stage to announce that he was coming out of retirement for one last race. Pretty cool eh? That makes it eleven Olympic gold medals in total on the Leander team, so they've definitely got the experience and technical ability, but have they got the bottle? Whatever happens, it's double definitely gonna be exciting. Unfortunately due to security and space reasons blah blah, it's pretty much a closed event. We will, however, be running updates in the Head to Head section of the Red Nose Row web site every 5,000 metres (http://www.concept2.co.uk/rnr/rnr_head2head_index.htm) as well as posting up some (hopefully) top notch action pictures. The race will be starting at about 9:45am and finishing at around 2:15/2:30pm, so make sure you skive some time off work that day and check out how the teams are getting along. ========================================================= World Indoor Rowing Championship ========================================================= If indoor rowing was a curry house, the World Indoor Rowing Championship would be a phal with extra Guatemalan insanity peppers. It's the ultimate challenge: the chance to pit yourself against some of the finest athletes in the world. Although four times winner and living god Rob Waddell isn't able to defend his crown on February 25th, there are some pretty darn big names in the Men's Open category. Six-times world champion Matthias "The Man-Mountain" Siejkowski (GER) is probably the favourite, but he'll be up against the likes of Konstantinos Kariotis (GRE), Mario Palmisano (ITA), Pavel Shurmei (BLR), Dave Simon (USA) and Tonu Endrekson (EST), with all being capable of ducking under 5:50. In the women's events, both Amy Fuller (USA) and Lisa Schlenker (USA) will be looking to defend their crowns in the women's heavyweight and lightweight events respectively. The British team ain't exactly composed of slouches either. Helen Mangan (40-49 Lwt), Paddy Rouse (70-79 Hwt), Herbert Leah (70-79 Lwt) and Christina Nugent (30-39 Lwt) are all returning to try and retain their titles, while Sarah Springman will be having a crack at the women's 40-49 Hwt title she won back in 1999. John Hodgson (90-99 Lwt), Pauline Rayner (60-69 Hwt) and Anna Bailey (50-59 Hwt), meanwhile, are all amongst the bookies picks for their events. To mark all this excitement, we've launched a dedicated World Indoor Rowing Championship web site at http://www.concept2.co.uk/wirc/index.html where you can find out the latest news plus mini-biographies of many of the British team. We'll also be running a results service come the day of the race itself. ========================================================= Tel's Tales #1 ========================================================= Phil Perkins: "Could you give me a quick breakdown on some of the jargon. What is VO2; how does 6:40 relate to fitness levels; is there a training guide available and what sort of times do people achieve for 2,000m?" Terry O'Neill: VO2 max is V for volume, O2 for oxygen and max for maximum. What it actually means is the amount of oxygen that you can extract from the air and get into the blood stream in one minute. This figure is very important for endurance athletes and one of the areas we try to improve through training. Top endurance athletes will have a VO2 max of 6-7 litres for men and around 5 litres for women. There is a training guide which you can download free of charge from the web site or you can buy a hard copy for 10 pounds. In the back is a glossary that explains the jargon. 6.40 for 2,000 metres is a pretty respectable time and would indicate a good fitness level, although how good would depend on such variables as age, weight and height. To check for yourself you could go to the printed rankings (on-line at http://www.concept2.co.uk/v4/ranking.htm), which are organised by age and weight categories, and compare yourself. Also you can enter your time on the on-line world ranking (http://166.82.35.96/sranking/home.asp) from which all British entries entered by March 2nd will be listed in the printed UK and Ireland rankings. Gareth Callan: "I'm a fairly fit indoor rower, 30 years old, 15 stone, 2000m PB 6:25.5. I am a blood donor and I want to continue to donate blood at the recommended frequency - once every three months or so. "Does this present any risk to my health or to my performance? Does a temporary loss in red cells reduce my capacity to get oxygen to and carbon dioxide/lactate from my muscles? When moving into more intense training phases, should blood donation be avoided?" Terry O'Neill: For a normal healthy person donating blood is not a problem and your normal blood volume would be restored, certainly by the next day; red cell volume, however, could be down for around ten days. So avoid doing any flat out tests until your red cell count is back to normal. The only other thing you need to watch is to make sure that the actual point where they take the blood from has healed as if you start rowing even at a low intensity you could cause the exit point to start bleeding again. ========================================================= Charidee Ocean Row ========================================================= It's long been a fondly held theory of the Indoor Rowing News that schools these days are too soft on the kids. The day they bring back the cane to secondary education is the year we'll see record GCSE passes. Bring back hanging, drawing and quartering as well and Britain will have a man on Mars before the decade's out. It's not surprising then that when we got an e-mail from Royal Grammar School, Worcester saying that pupils there were set to row the Atlantic, we punched the air in jubilation. Our hearts only sank a little, although, when we found the word "equivalent to" in the same sentence. Tom Meredith takes over: "During January and February the boys of the rowing club will be expected to use their rowing machines more often in order to supplement their training. The J14's and J15's are expected to row approximately 50 kilometres each, and the Seniors will be expected to row at least 100 kilometres each. We are also organising marathons, where six or seven machines will be kept running for long periods of time. "Each boy is going to be sponsored, with the money being split between St. Richards Hospice and Pullinger Boat Club. Hopefully we'll be able to raise at least 1,000 pounds." ========================================================= Forthcoming Events ========================================================= Name: Sheffield IRC Date: 18th February Venue: Sheffield Hallam University Atrium, Owen Building, City Campus, Sheffield Event: 2,000m Contact: Danny Porter, fdrdp@nthercules.adc.shu.ac.uk Other: More information, and an entry form can be found on the Sheffield Hallam web site at: http://www.shu.ac.uk/rowing/ergchamp/main.htm Name: Welsh IRC Date: 24th February Venue: David Lloyd Leisure Centre, Cardiff Event: 2,000m Contact: Michael Hnatiw, michael.hnatiw@ntlworld.com Name: Marie Curie IRC Date: 24th and 25th February Venue: Marriot Hollins Hall Hotel and Country Club, Bradford Events: Individual 2,000m, 5,000m, 10,000m. Team 10,000m Contact: Danny Goodyear, dgoodyear@mariecurie.org.uk, 0113 275 8853 ========================================================= Concept 2 Message Board ========================================================= So yeah, now we've got a message board and everything. Topics that have been nattered about so far include the benefits and uses of weight training; how to maintain motivation between competitions; the best way to burn fat plus such trusty favourites as what music to row to ("Personally I like to listen to Des O'Connor when trying to achieve a PB. It encourages me to do 2,000m in super fast time so I can stop the tape as soon as possible" according to one poster). So far, in the two weeks it's been up there's been 102 messages posted in 36 topics, which is, y'know, good, but not world beating. The thing with message boards is that the more people use them, the better they are. So pull up a comfy chair, pour yourself a glass of mulled wine and get over to http://www.concept2.co.uk/messageboard.htm and start chatting. ========================================================= North of England IRC ========================================================= The biggest regional race in the country, this year it attracted 563 entries, making it a very significant date in the indoor rowing calendar. The fastest time of the day was recorded by Chris Rushton of Royce's Gym Wigan with 6:04.8 to win the 30-39 Hwt category - an excellent warm-up to the 100,000 Metre Head to Head (see above). The fastest woman, meanwhile, was Nicki Elkin of Grosvenor RC, who won the 19-29 event in 7:16.8. Special kudos must go to Karl Yost, who broke the 40-49 Lwt record with 6:30.0. This is Karl's first year competing in this age category, and he holds this in addition to the record for the 30-39 band. The outstanding performance of the day, however, was by Anna Bailey of One To One Fitness, Worcester. Her performance in winning the 50-59 Hwt event in 7:18.6 not only obliterated the rest of the field, but it took over thirty seconds of the existing British record, and was only two seconds off the World's best. Anna's part of the PPP healthcare British team who will be competing at the World Championships, and she must be one of the red-hot faves for a gold. The winners of each category can be found below, with the full results on our web site at http://www.concept2.co.uk/v4/northern_2000.htm J12 Fiona Steele 09:03.8 J13 Frances Fletcher 08:44.8 J14 Lydia Birch 07:57.6 J15 Gina Percy 08:06.6 J16 Jessica Edde 07:15.5 J18 Victoria Johnston 07:45.5 19-29L Clare Bennett 07:40.9 19-29 Nicki Elkin 07:16.8 30-39L Christina Nugent Lee 07:28.4 30-39 B Snaith 07:20.0 40-49L Ann Edmonson 08:43.8 40-49 Cora Marginson 07:30.9 50-59 Anna Bailey 07:18.6 J12 Daniel Miller 09:20.4 J13 R Lomas 08:14.5 J14 Benjamin Noble 07:33.7 J15 Andrew Bond 07:12.1 J16 Graham Sales 06:56.0 J18 William Gilbertson 06:48.0 19-29L Mathew Vickers 06:35.8 19-29 Nick Lloyd 06:11.7 30-39L E C Clark 06:37.8 30-39 Chris Rushton 06:04.8 40-49L Karl Yost 06:30.0 40-49 Paul Turner 06:22.0 50-59 Mike Shacklock 06:58.7 60-69 George Cheetham 07:09.0 70+ Denis Melody 08:49.9 ========================================================= Top Tips ========================================================= A couple of newsletters ago, we asked people who significantly improved their time at the PPP Healthcare British Indoor Rowing Championship in November what they thought the most significant factor was in their performance. Jonathan Gornall, who's competed in the 45-49 category at the last couple of championships, has got the bit between his teeth this week... "I improved my time from 7:02 (when I fell off on the last stroke - an old story) to 6:52 in 2000 with, frankly, very little specific training. As a competitor in the 2001 Ward Evans Atlantic Rowing Race I have been building my general endurance in a number of disciplines, including running, swimming (handy if the homemade boat sinks mid-Atlantic) and, naturally, rowing, both in an Alden Ocean Shell and on the Indoor Rower. I was heartened to read Tel's piece a few weeks back comparing the training required for a fast 2,000m time to the construction of a tall building: the higher you want to go, the broader your foundations have to be. "In other words, your aerobic base must grow in relation to your faster, race-specific work. In my case, however, I have been building a pyramid, with very little of that nasty, painful top-end eyeballs-out stuff. With two months to go before the British Championship I sighed and settled down to a slightly harsher regime. While maintaining my hour and two-hour rows (averaging 2.05 for two hours) I threw in the following two simple but distressing workouts three or four times a week, alternating between the two. Damper setting 7 throughout (I race at 5): "1: 1,000 metres steady warm-up (2.10/500m). Next 1,000m broken into: 200m flat-out (aiming for a 500m time as sub-target time for the 2,000m as one can get it; in my case, around 1.38, stroking up to 35-37spm), 200m rest, 200m flat-out, 200m rest, 200m flat-out. "You should be gasping like a fish at this point but now you have 1,000m to compose yourself, grab a mouthful of water. At the end of the rest 1,000m you repeat the cycle, and so on until you have AT LEAST covered 2,400m flat-out - which is to say, the display should have you at 9,000m by the end of your last 1000m at rest pace. I like round numbers so I tend to plug on in recovery mode until I clock up 10,000m I have even been known to throw in another one or more 1000m flat-out, but if my per/500m time shows signs of flagging I usually call it a day. I have noticed, however, that one seems capable of pulling more towards the end of one of these sessions than at the beginning. "The 500m version of this speaks for itself: it is more gruelling, demanding 500m flat-out followed by only 500m recovery pace. Get to 2,000m worth of flat-out, and then award yourself 1,000m at recovery pace. If you can get through four cycles of this, still maintaining your target per/500m time, then you are definitely going to do well at the next race. "I'm at Boston so if I go under 6.52 there then you'll know the above works (although if anybody is logging early excuses I have had a bit of a bad back...)" If you've got tips you'd like share, send them to webmaster@vermonthouse.co.uk. It'd guarantee you one extra Valentine's Day card at least. ========================================================= Tel's Tales Special - Feasible Fat Facts ========================================================= The notice board is going great guns and one of the topics that is attracting a lot of traffic is Fat Burning (http://www.concept2.co.uk/cgi-bin/ikonboard/topic.cgi?forum=4&topic=2). The thing is that in the body there are three different types of fat and sods law is the one we want to shift is not the one that we burn during exercise, at least not initially. The most readily available form of fat for energy production is free fatty acids. This is produced from dietary fat, which is the fat content of the food that we eat. The second type of fat is the subcutaneous fat, which lies just under the skin. This layer is normally thicker in women than men. The third type of fat is like the suet that you see in the butcher's clinging to lambs' kidneys, and can be found around the major organs deep inside the body. Free fatty acids and subcutaneous fat are largely broken down in the muscles and burn up through exercise. This leads to a rise in "Good Cholesterol" HDL. The deep-seated suet moves directly to the liver and is broken down there causing high blood fat and the "Bad Cholesterol" LDL. So what type of exercise is best for fat burning and how best can you change your shape through the removal of the subcutaneous fat? Of course the best way is regular exercise from an early age and not to let the fat accumulate in the first place. "I hate it when I read things like this because if I had done the exercise and watched my diet, I wouldn't need to read this bloody article in the first place." Good point but maybe you have kids of your own or young people you are responsible for and in this case the point is well made. The plan: what, when and how. What to eat: cut down on your intake of dietary fat, as the body then has to look at the parked fat stores as a form of energy. When you train also has a bearing. Ideally the last meal of the day should be something light followed by a training session, then again in the morning before breakfast. How: long low intensity or shorter higher intensity? Two things to consider. If you are substantially overweight and have not exercised for sometime you need to start at a low intensity, gradually building up the duration of the sessions. Then, once you are used to exercise, you can vary the programme because if you can only manage to exercise 3-4 times a week then the intensity of the sessions will need to increase. The more times a week you can exercise then the lower the intensity. To make a significant change in shape following a long low intensity programme you would need to exercise 8 or more sessions a week. 5-8 high intensity sessions a week would have a very positive effect. Less than this and you're in for a long haul to get the weight off. You won't take off in weeks what you have put on in years. ____________________________________________F E E D B A C K Like what you read? Dislike what you read? Ideas for future newsletters? Make sure to tell us at webmaster@vermonthouse.co.uk. Or of course, you could always tell us at our message board - http://www.concept2.co.uk/cgi-bin/ikonboard/ikonboard.cgi. Oh go on. _________________________________________________________ _______________________________________SUBSCRIPTION INFO If you think you're on this mailing list accidentally, just return the e-mail with "unsubscribe" in the subject header. If you're getting more than one copy, then reply with "multiple" as the header.