============================================================ INDOOR ROWING NEWSLETTER #89 ====================== 22-September-2003 ======================= _________________________________________________ C O N T E N T S 1. AXA PPP healthcare British Indoor Rowing Championship 2. Thruxton Rowathlon 3. Tel's Tales 4. Race Previews 5. Neil Dunkley 6. Me And My Rower: Mitchell Orfuss 7. Split Time Stories 8. Upcoming Races and Events **************************** Feedback Back Issues Subscription Information ________________________________________________________________ ========================================================= AXA PPP healthcare British Indoor Rowing Championship ========================================================= As usual, we're offering a special British IRC discount on the machines used during the day. All machines are the new Model D with PM3, are brand new at the start of the day and come with a one year parts warranty. We're knocking over eighty quid off the price to make it 730 pounds excluding VAT (857.75 including VAT). Obviously this is a strictly limited offer working on a first come first serve basis and is only available to those people who can pick them up on the day of the championship. For more information or to purchase one, phone us on 0115 9455522 or drop us a line at sales@concept2.co.uk. Unfortunately, due to the fact that the new Model D machine is flying off the shelves, it looks like the majority of warm up machines will be the old Model C version but, to make up for that, it's looking at the moment as if the Portsmouth Grand Prix will be taking place on the Model D. ========================================================= Thruxton Rowathlon ========================================================= The second race in this the inaugural Concept 2 British Rowathlon series took place at Thruxton on the 14th of September. The Women's race went off with a few empty spaces, as only Michelle Parsons from the top three series contenders was fit to race. Sally Horrocks and Claire Cordory were quickest off the Rowers in 11:37, with Michelle not far behind (although in a later heat) with 11:43. Michelle went on to set the fastest bike time of the females by over a minute, which left her uncatchable on the run, posting a finish time of 1:05:23, minutes ahead of the nearest rivals. This result leaves the series wide open with a victory at Marlow securing the title for either Michelle or Colette O'Neil, while Sarah Coope needs to win by 30 seconds or more to wrap things up for her. In the Men's event, the first away from the Rowers were Charlie Palmer and, once again, Richard Wilder in a sweat producing 9:54, three seconds quicker than his Castle Combe effort. Glen Cooke looked set to challenge the series lead of Hywel Davies, coming off the Rower next in 10:10. It was a further 17 seconds before Davies emerged to start the bike leg. Resembling a bullet, the perfectly streamlined Davies seemed to glide around the circuit setting blistering lap times to finish the bike with a split of 33:55 over the distance. Cook was second off the bike, albeit almost two minutes behind the unstoppable Davies. The swift duo went on to record the fastest runs of the day with former International Triathlete Cook's skills showing through with a run split three seconds short of Davies to clinch first place in the M40 Category. Mark Morgan was third home. Richard Wilder proved his all round worth finishing in eighth place overall. With the maximum 20,000 series points, Davies wins a Model D Indoor Rower, which he will be presented with when is crowned British Rowathlon Series Champion, regardless of his performance at Marlow on October 4th. Each race in the Rowathlon series features 3,000 metres on the Indoor Rower, and to make this, 220 Magazine are holding a special 3,000m Ranking. Everybody who enters the Ranking will be automatically entered into a prize draw for the chance to win a brand new Model D Indoor Rower. The next issue of 220 Magazine hits the stands on September 30th. ========================================================= Tel's Tales ========================================================= The 2003 World Championships confirmed that Great Britain is failing to meet the challenge of lightweight men's rowing in the Olympic events. Despite having excellent resources, professional coaches and substantial funding we have failed to produce a serious medal prospect. 1974 saw the introduction of lightweight categories in the FISA World Championships. Although lightweight rowing had long been established in the USA, prior to this there were no lightweight categories in Britain. The G.B. lightweight team was made up from athletes who, despite being small, had made it to the very top in this country. Over the next 10 years, this group formed the backbone of a very successful era. Gradually they were being replaced with genuine lightweights - by this I mean athletes who had only competed at lightweight level - and the success continued. In 1991, FISA announced that lightweights would appear in the Olympic programme. The men's heavyweight coxed four and coxed pair would be replaced by the lightweight coxless four and double scull. This was good news for Britain because since 1983 we had been one of the most successful nations in the coxless four. Also in the double scull we had won the title in '86 and finished third in '87. Furthermore we were to go onto win the coxless four in '91and '92. In '93 things started to turn when our coxless four that had been so dominant over the previous two years finished fifth. Several explanations were given for the failure of the four but one explanation was not considered. Because there were now six Olympic slots open to Lightweights, the best six athletes in every country were now concentrated into these two boat classes. The strong competition for these places meant the level in these two events rose while in the non-Olympic boats the level dropped. Also, as a result of its Olympic status, there was funding for lightweight rowing on the same scale as there had been for the heavyweights. Because over the years we had been so successful at lightweight level, we took success for granted but the fact that it was now an Olympic event required an in-depth analysis, and this did not happen. The 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta were to be the first to include lightweights. Our four had qualified in fifth place at the previous World Championships. Jurgen Grobler took direct control of the crew, running it alongside the pair of Redgrave and Pinsent. Although Jurgen is one of the most successful coaches of all time in terms of world and Olympic medals, he had no direct experience with lightweights, and the lightweight four finished 10th. Since its inclusion in the Olympics and the greater funding, lightweights have graduated to full time athletes, and have followed a similar training programme to heavyweights. This involves a significant amount of high volume and low intensity training. With more time available there is no reason why this method of training should not be just as successful with lightweights as it is with heavyweights. If you look at the results of the lightweight four at every world championship since 1995, the race profile is the same: the crews are down between 3-5 seconds at 500m and that's where they stay. During this period the personnel have changed several times but not the result. I believe that the training itself is partly responsible for the slow start and not an inherent problem within the athletes. At BIRC in November 2001, two members of the lightweight squad rowed 6:12 and were invited to Boston the following February. At Boston they rowed 6:15 so three months into the programme they were three seconds slower over 2,000m. Several reasons were given, the main one being that in Boston they had to race twice in one day and so in the heat they did not go flat out. OK; so did everyone else and the winner from Italy rowed the heat in 6:10 and the final in 6:05. Our two boys, who supposedly had saved something for the final, were not able to raise their game and there was no improvement on their heat time. It's my contention that they could not row any faster and this is what we were seeing in the boat races: a good level of basic endurance but lacking power. There is a fundamental difference in the preparation of an athlete competing in a weight category and one in an open event. In order to ensure that there is not a calorific deficit between the energy expended during exercise and the energy intake through diet, then a calorific value of the training programme has to be known. Elite athletes have a good understanding of nutrition and getting the balance between the various nutrients right in their diet. But where I believe there is a problem with our lightweights is that the total calorific value of the balanced lightweight diet does not meet the calorific demands of the high volume programme. If it did then there would be no problem but I believe the shortfall is made up by the breakdown of body protein, (lean muscle) and this accounts for a loss of power. However, this may not be a problem with all of the squad, which after all contains different animals. If they are different though, how can you be sure that a one-size-fits-all programme gets the best results on an individual basis? In an elite squad the physiological differences would be much smaller than the population at large but because the differences are small it does not mean they are insignificant. I would expect to see in any squad, variations in the programme that address these differences. Because of the move to full time athletes, a lot of the training is carried out in the boat, which makes a bespoke training programme more difficult. Rowing skills and crewmanship require many hours of paddling but pure training to bring about physiological responses is far more effective when carried out on land because of controllability and flexibility. The set up of the boats is another area where significant improvements in performance can be achieved by getting the gearing right for the individual athlete, but again we adopt a one-size-fits-all policy. When lightweights first came onto the scene they were the under-funded underdogs of rowing. Their reaction was bullish and pugnacious and they would take on anybody in an almost cavalier manner. They had great self-belief, which I don't see today. The present squad are every bit as good in athletic terms as their predecessors but perhaps the pressure and expectation that go with the Olympic status are taking their toll. To me their body language says they don't believe they can win and if you enter a race in that frame of mind then you won't. ========================================================= Race Previews ========================================================= It's a last call for entries for the Newark Grand Prix, the first in this year's 2003/04 British Indoor Rowing Grand Prix Series, with a deadline of Friday, September 26th. Entry forms are available from http://www.concept2.co.uk/gp/entry_forms.php. Although the Newark race has been running a number of years now, this is the first time that it's been part of the Grand Prix series, and organiser Graham Price will be going above and beyond the call of duty to get the indoor rowing season off to a flying start. Newark will be run over the relatively rare competition distance of a mile (1,609 metres), rather than the more usual 2,000m and, with a 500 metre competition taking place afterwards, the day should appeal to those who like their racing fast and furious. There will also be one-minute races for children, with age categories from 3 to 13, so it's also a chance to spot the possible stars of the future. More details about the race can be found at http://www.concept2.co.uk/gp/ and we'll also be adding a full list of competitors and the day's timetable as soon as possible after the close of entry. ========================================================= Neil Dunkley ========================================================= For most of us, the prospect of losing a stone a month is a daunting one and even tougher if we had already done it once before but put the weight back on. For 47-year old joinery works manager Neil Dunkley, however, it's all been in a day's work. Between October 2002 and March 2003, he lost inches off his waistline, and went from 19 and a half stone to just 15 stone - a remarkable achievement. And he puts it all down to his Indoor Rower. Neil's story really started back in 1994 when he gave up smoking. Like so many going down that route, he piled on the pounds. An occasional golfer, he hadn't done any serious sport since he had been at school and was consequently intrigued by a challenge from a work colleague in 1997 to lose some weight. He joined the local gym and used every type of exercise machine in a punishing regime that saw him shed four stone over a period of five months. He was already enjoying his indoor rowing and 'for fun' entered a 2,000 metre race at the gym, surprising himself by winning his event and being listed 210th in the 40-49 age group in Concept 2's 1999 ranking. Job done? Unfortunately not. Redundancy and moving home are stressful on their own, let along together and it took it's toll on Neil, sapping his enthusiasm for training and encouraging him into a regime he thought he'd left behind. The weight came back on and suddenly it was October 2002 and Neil's weight had risen to nineteen and a half stone. "That was the time to do something about it, for me and for my wife," he said. Neil decided that for his second big weight loss drive, he would rent an Indoor Rower from Concept 2 and do the training at home. "I tried the local gym," he explained. "But the equipment was pretty poor and I just couldn't get that enthusiastic about going there, despite being determined to get the weight off. "I'd enjoyed the Indoor Rower the first time around when I lost the weight and decided that if Mohammed didn't want to go to the mountain, then the mountain would just have to come to Mohammed. That's when I decided to hire a machine from Concept 2. That meant I could exercise at home when I wanted and it also meant there was no excuse for not training!" Having the machine at home has been a major factor in his successful weight loss. His workouts started with simple 20 minutes rows but he gradually built those up to half hour pieces. He has also experimented with the 2,000-metre race distance and has recorded a highly impressive 7 minutes 24 seconds, even though he has done no specific race training. Neil has clearly caught 'the bug' this time around with his weight management programme. Once home from work, he'll climb aboard for a work out. He has detailed all of his performances and workouts over the past few months and even produce graphs of his results, allowing him to chart his improvements. Meanwhile, his progress in getting the weight off since he got back into his training regime has been nothing short of stunning. He has dieted carefully alongside the training, but the diet has been one emphasising a sensible approach to eating, rather than anything too radical. "I only allow myself a few beers and have cut out crisps and other savouries," he explained. The combination of a decent workout every day and a sensible approach to eating has helped Neil get his weight off by an average of a stone a month, and unlike virtually any programme which would produce results like that, he feels fantastic. "I feel better in mind as well as in body. And I'm not the only one proud of what I have achieved. My wife is thrilled as well. "The down side has been that I've had to get a whole new wardrobe of clothes as I've lost six inches off my waistline, but it's a nice problem to have!" As for the future, as you'd imagine Neil has no plans to put the weight back on. Instead, he's looking forward a more competitive pay-off for his Herculean efforts. "My ambition now is to compete at the British Championships. That would be fantastic." ========================================================= Me and My Rower ========================================================= Mitchell Orfuss: I bought a Concept 2 Model C for a New York City apartment in July 2001, when my wife and kids were away for a month vacationing in upstate New York, making it a fait accompli upon their return. It straddles two rooms, the living room and the TV room, when not in use so is a bit of an eyesore to everyone but me (I almost never dismantle it). I hop on for a workout every night for a modest 6 to 8,000 metres, usually while watching a terrific sports video or a less-than-terrific TV drama, either of which I'd be doing anyway, so it's the kind of multi-tasking that allows me to feel that rowing doesn't take time out of my day. My 12-year-old son, unprovoked, now uses the Rower about once a week - his most recent conquest was breaking 2-minute pace for a few strokes, which is about as well as his father can do for short bursts. You'll not find me competing, even in my age group, at the World IRC (though I was there as a spectator last year)! After each workout I swab down the slide with a paper towel sprayed with Windex, which keeps the thing behaving absolutely like new. This takes all of about 40 seconds. And once a week, with my son's help, I lube the chain. (Occasionally, I hesitate to admit, with a toothbrush to clean inside the chain.) Every so often I tighten some of the screws. My Indoor Rower, after 800 workouts, is still for all intents and purposes a brand-new piece of exercise equipment, which is too bad since now I desperately want an excuse to buy the new Model D and can't bring myself to do so. Yet. Even though I gave up my expensive gym membership when I bought the Concept 2, effectively making it free. Can anyone give me a good reason to go ahead and buy a "D" anyway? Here's a tip freely shared that the Concept 2 people may prefer that I'd kept to myself: at the end of each workout I take a plastic see-through dry-cleaning bag and surround the flywheel cage with it. Much less expensive than the official protective cover, and keeps the flywheel interior dust-free. Thank you, Concept 2, for a spectacular machine and workout. ========================================================= Split Time Stories: 1:59.x ========================================================= In response to one of our many requests for reader-written articles in Newsletters past, reader Ted Edwards sent in a couple based on different split times. Below is the first of these articles based on the Split Time 1:59.x. Remember, if you've got any article you'd like to see here, make sure you send it into editor@concept2.co.uk. Take it away Ted… "One minute 59 point something seconds is a very significant 500m split time for most indoor rowers, and it's a very useful time if you want to do anything in under 2 minutes! If you maintain this split time for 500m you, not surprisingly, get a final time under 2 minutes, maintain it for 1000m and your time is under 4 minutes. It was certainly a target for me to maintain for 2,000m when I started indoor rowing since you can then get under 8 minutes. The next big hurdle for me was maintaining it for 5,000m, which took quite a while, but I eventually did it to record a time just under 20 minutes. I've not managed to maintain it for longer than this as yet, but plenty of others have. Most notable is Christina Nugent, who set a new British/Irish half marathon record in 2003 of 1 hour 24 minutes and 17 seconds (average split time of 1:59.85). "In the British section of the Indoor Rowing Ranking tables at the time of writing, 21 men maintained a split of 1:59.x for 10000m, 4 men maintained it for 21,097m (half marathon), and 2 men kept it up for 42,195m (marathon). Lastly (thank goodness I hear you say) based on the latest on-line Concept 2 interactive training programme for 2000m, 1:59.x is the split you're supposed to maintain for the UT2 training band if your current 2,000m time is around 6 minutes 54 seconds; for the UT1 training band if your current 2,000m time is around 7:10; for the AT training band if your current 2,000m time is about 7:34; for the TR training band if your current 2,000m time is about 7:58; and for the AN training band if your current 2,000m time is about 8:10. "That's all for this week, look out for another "Split Time Story" soon. Now which should I choose, 1:49.3, 2:14.7… so many split times, so little actual time!" ========================================================= Upcoming Races and Events ========================================================= If you've got an event you'd like adding to the Event Calendar, the full version of which can be seen at http://www.concept2.co.uk/racing/calendar.php, then e-mail editor@concept2.co.uk. Name: Nuneaton/North Warwickshire IRC Date: 27.09.03 Location: North Warwickshire & Hinckley College, Nuneaton Distance: 2,000m Organiser: Jamie Capes Contact: T: 024 765243162, E: jamiecapes@hotmail.com Name: Nottingham IRC (GP Rd 1) Date: 05.10.03 Location: Newark Rowing Club Distance: 1,609m Organiser: Graham Price Contact: T: 07970 136054, E: gprice@keymax.co.uk, W: www.concept2.co.uk/gp/ Name: Rower's Revenge Triathlon Date: 05.10.03 Location: Marlow Rowing Club Distance: 4k row, 25k cycle, 7.5k run Organiser: Mike Spencer Jones Contact: E: race@rowersrevenge.co.uk, W: www.rowersrevenge.co.uk Name: Kent IRC Date: 12.10.03 Location: King's School, Canterbury Distance: 2,000m Organiser: Rory Semple Contact: T: 01233 624830, E: rorycdo@ukcrc.fsnet.co.uk Name: South of England IRC (GP Rd 2) Date: 25.10.03 Location: Mountbatten Centre, Portsmouth Distance: 2,000m, 500m Organiser: Ben Adcock Contact: T: 07887 770019, E: ben@homesport.freeserve.co.uk Name: BluRed IRC Date: 02.11.03 Location: Edgehill College, Bideford Distance: 2,000m Organiser: Nigel Cann Contact: T: (W) 01237 428667 (H) 01237 473805 E: ncann@tycoelectronics.com ____________________________________________________FEEDBACK You like? You dislike? You want to write something for the newsletter? Want to mock us on making a basic error? Make sure to tell us at editor@concept2.co.uk. Or, of course, you could always say something at our message board: http://www.concept2.co.uk/forum/ _____________________________________________________BACK ISSUES Have a blast from the past by going to http://www.concept2.co.uk/news/newsletter_archive.php and checking out the hidden treasures of the Indoor Rowing News. New issues are posted on the release date of the following newsletter. ==================================================================== Update your profile here: http://indoorrowing.u.tclk.net/survey/?a84G27.bdulrq.cGhpbGlw Unsubscribe here: http://indoorrowing.u.tclk.net/survey/?a84G27.bdulrq.cGhpbGlw.u Delivered by Topica Email Publisher, http://www.email-publisher.com/