June CTC - Le Mont Blanc (4810m)

[Rodger]

FIRT has given a nice early announcement of next month's challenge:

It will be "Le Mont Blanc", a single unrestricted distance of 4810m with a standing start!

Not too bad. And I suppose disciples of the pro-rata school can combine this with a 5k.

[hewitt]

5:00AM training session this morning so decided to give this a go at restricted rate.

4,810m...17:55.5...1:51.7...r21

[Caratacus]

Had a go at this today:

17:50.5 @ 1:51.2 28SPM

[Rodger]

Me too. I think you can see by my ending HR that I gave it all I had.

[Paul Victory]

Well done folks. =D> =D> =D>

Jason, very strong row at R21 and at stupid o'clock to boot!

Felton, very strong time and faster pace than your 5k PB.

Roger, that is some HR and a very nicely paced row. You're also ahead of 5k PB pace.

I had my first go today and decided to do it as part of a 5k. I set the splits to 962m so that I would get an accurate time for the first 4810m. I was unable to sustain my target pace right from the start, so decided to just settle in for a 90% effort and reached 4810m in 18:18.6. I did the last 190m in 37.5 seconds at 1:38.6 pace, so I would have been about 6 seconds faster if I used a prorated time, but I think that's probably bending the rules a bit, so I recorded my actual time to 4810m.

[hewitt]

Thanks Paul.

Decided I needed another go this morning at 5:00AM. So decided on a hard r22 attempt.

17:32.9...4810m...1:49.4...r22

1k...1:49.9...r23
2k...1:49.9...r22
3k...1:49.7...r22
4k...1:49.0...r22
4810m...1:48.3...r22

[strider77]

All very good quality rows everyone well done =D> =D> =D> =D>

I'll have to gird my loins and do this soon aftyer your inspiration

[Recess]

Well done to everyone so far!

Today's training plan was 5k worth of 100m hard / 100m easy - so just set it to 4810 and managed 17:44.4

Interested to see what happens when I try it as a full piece.

John

[Recess]

200m hard, 200m easy today, knocked 2sec off. 17:42.2

I'll try a full blast on Sunday I think.

Good to see David Holmberg is back this month too!

John

[Rob C]

I have a suspicion that your easy is somewhat harder than many of us would consider achievable.

[Recess]

Haha, it's all relative Rob!

I had another go today, but this time I went full on for the entire thing. Still rather hesitant as I've been easing myself back into things for almost 3 months now after all my injuries. I'm still not quite back to where I was, but it felt GOOD for the first time in a long time. Will try again on Sunday to go faster, but I've jumped from 17:44 to 17:27.4

It seems if you train slow, you train to go slow. Train fast, you go fast...

John

[Recess]

The amazing Julie just had a turn. 19:41.0

That's 'ma girl! First time she's sat on the machine since April's CTC attempt.

John

[Paul Victory]

Had another go today as part of a 5k and reached 4810m in 17:50.3. My prorated time from the 5k was 17:48.3.

Gets me back into FSII for the time being. I think I'll try a standalone 4810m next time out.

Paul V

[Paul Victory]

Had another go today as part of a 5k and reached 4810m in 17:50.3. My prorated time from the 5k was 17:48.3.

Gets me back into FSII for the time being. I think I'll try a standalone 4810m next time out.

Paul V

I made the mistake of asking on Facebook whether it was OK to use a prorated time for the challenge and this has led to a 'frank and open discussion' about whether or not this is acceptable. I've changed my entry to reflect my split after 4810m.

It doesn't make any difference to the position of FSII or to my position in that boat, but it moves me down 4 places in the overall rankings. I'm definitely going to set the overall distance to 4810m the next time I do this challenge. It will be interesting to see what difference it makes to my time.

Paul V

[Recess]

Always best to beg for forgiveness than ask for permission!!

Good time anyway Paul - hope the 4810 goes well.

John

[Rob C]

I think when rowing many of us do try and speed up a bit for the end, a sort of sprint finish. Certainly from many of my splits on lengthier rows I see my /500 dipping as I get to the last quarter but then when the end is in sight I might just put in a last push. If you are pro-rating the 4810 from the 5000 the pro-rated time might, just, benefit from the last push to the 5000 line when in fact your average for the 4810 was slightly slower. I doubt it matters that much, certainly for slowcoaches like me. But certainly there is an influence if Paul has dropped a few slots on the overall board.

I don't think the rules are that well defined for the CTC to say whether pro-rata from a longer distance is acceptable or not. We know it's allowed in the nonathlon, and in theory a longer distance should be slower.

For myself I simply calculated my 4810 time based on a 5000m row, using the actual splits that I'd set at 481.

[Caratacus]

I think the difference is that the pro rata scores for the nonathlon is just a way of getting some scores on the board - not many people are going to do a FM and nothing else and most people will work their way through the ranking distances and set proper times. The CTC is a one off challenge so probably goes against the spirit of it a little to set a pro rata time.

[Paul Victory]

It's all to do with the honour system, really. Indoor rower only really works if the vast majority of people posting times are totally honest about what they post.

Where something is capable of different interpretations, that's where it becomes complicated. I think we should set an example when setting the August challenge. If it's a single distance piece, we should explicitly state whether or not it's acceptable to use a pro-rata time from a longer distance.

Paul V

[Caratacus]

I guess it's all about participation. I would prefer the rower was set up per the challenge on the CTC and that result posted but if it means more people post times if it's a pro rata time then that's ok with me

[gregsmith01748]

For the CTC, I've always interpreted it as the actual split time or distance from the first portion of a longer piece that matches up with the challenge.

So, I think that you'd row 5K and count the actual split time for the first 4810 meters, because that's what you actually did.

I almost always use rowpro when I intend to do that so that I can get split times after the fact from the stroke data. I gave some thought about whether I could use the last 4810 meters of a 5K to count, but decided it was illegal because I essentially got the benefit of a rolling start.

The same idea applies with CTCs that are intervals. If the challenge is x intervals of y distance with z rest and rolling starts are allowed. I interpret it as OK to take less that z as the rests. So it would be fine to row a piece that is x times y distance as one continuous piece, taking no rests and log that as a valid CTC result. But it wouldn't be cool to do this if the rules mandated standing starts for each piece.

By the way, I use the same rules for myself on the nonathlon. I don't use prorated splits. I use actual split times from rowpro for those too.

[Paul Victory]

Greg, I initially entered my pro-rata time, then I changed it to my slightly slower split time after 4810m, so that's the time that's currently appearing on CTC.

I generally tend to be a bit of a stickler for the rules and I agree with you about the standing start intervals. I also don't see anything wrong with doing the CTC as part of a longer distance, provided it's the start of the distance that you use. I guess I strayed slightly from my principles by entering a pro-rata time. This is why I raised it as an issue on Facebook.

Interestingly, when I did my first attempt on June 1st, I entered my actual time, even though it was 5.7 seconds slower than my pro-rata time. A number of people told me that I should have used the faster pro-rata time!

However, I don't agree with you about nonathlon. The rules are quite explicit that you can use a prorated time. If I'm doing a 6k, I will use 500m splits and the time I will enter for 5k is the best of my average pace after 5000m, 5500m or 6000m. By my reckoning, this is totally within both the explicit rules and the spirit of the nonathlon.

Generally, it will only be a temporary issue in any event as I would expect to be able to do a faster standalone 5k at some stage. I guess where an issue could arise would be if I absolutely nailed a 6k just before the end of the season. But even then, I do not believe that I would have broken any rules or principles.

I'd welcome other people's thoughts on this and I by no means have a closed mind on the subject. I'm quite prepared to be convinced that my reasoning is flawed if there's something I've overlooked. The great thing about Free Spirits is that we can debate/discuss this type of issue in a civilised manner without it degenerating into the type of slanging match that occurred this morning on Facebook.

[gregsmith01748]

Paul: I agree that prorating is totally legal, moral and ethical for the nonathlon. I just do it to keep things simple for me by figuring both out the same way

(Actually, part of me really likes putting in the slowest justifiable time when I fill in the blanks in the nonathlon so I have more motivation to do a stand alone attempt at the distance )

By the way, I agree with you completely about the discussing things on this forum versus what I see on Facebook. There are so many idiots, morons, and a$$holes on Facebook that I don't like to post anything at all for fear of what it could provoke. What I've seen in many threads on this forum is an unwritten "Don't be a jerk" rule that all seem to respect. I really like that.

[Liefcat]

[...] in a civilised manner without it degenerating into the type of slanging match that occurred this morning on Facebook.

I used to experience this "degeneration" on the main UK Forum - and thus kept my posts there very limited in number. Feeling it´s better on FB, it can still degenerate to quite a low level from time to time...

[Paul Victory]

So I did the CTC as a straight 4810m today. Managed to improve my time to 17:40.1, but not totally happy as I should be able to do this under 17:30 based on the times I was doing towards the end of last season.

Hopefully, the extra oomph from racing others at Madchester next week will get me a bit closer to that objective.

Paul V

[danfennell]

Wrapped the CTC inside a 5k TT. Set the split for 4810 and used that time. May try it as a stand alone row as (if I can duplicate this effort and start sprint a bit earlier) it would be a bit quicker.

5K_PB_June_CTC.jpg (12.49 KiB) Viewed 1986 times