Free Spirits Rowing

February's Weight & Age Adjusted Rowing Challenge will be over the shortest distance yet - 500m.

The rules are simple:

• Row 500m on a C2 rowing machine during the month of February and submit your time, current weight and current age either a) in public on this thread or b) in private to myself by private message.
• Current weight is a weight reading that is no more than one week old at time of the attempt.
• You can submit as many attempts as you like, as long as they are always accompanied by your current weight and age (which may be different from earlier attempts).
• The deadline for submissions is Friday 1st March at 12pm GMT.
• Times will be adjusted according to the details found here: http://concept2.co.uk/rns/adjustment
• Males and females will be scored seperately.
• Points will be awarded based on adjusted times, actual times, and number of entrants. Adjusted times will be worth twice as many points as actual times. As an example, if ten males submit a time, the fastest actual time will score ten points, and the slowest one point. The fastest adjusted time will score twenty points, and the slowest two points.
• Points will be combined to determine the overall (male and female) winner.
• A leaderboard will be posted regularly during the month-long challenge to let you see how you are faring, with a final leaderboard posted shortly after the challenge ends.
• Each Weight & Age Adjusted Rowing Challenge will be a standalone challenge, i.e. there will be no running total of monthly points.

Good call Alan. My 500m is my weakest Nonathlon score so I need to do a real b*lls out one of these soon. (February is getting scarily close to the end of another season!)

Nice one Alan. I want to do one of these before I get too deeply embroiled in marathon training. I am hoping the increased power from all the low rate stuff I have done recently will lead to an improved sb.

Looking forward to giving this one a go, like the idea of weight and age adjustments, but it got me thinking - is there a way of adjusting for sex as well? So could just have the one leaderboard with men and women combined? Practical problem is I suspect it is not a 'standalone' adjustment and it probably depends on weight and age to some extent?? Does anyone know of such an adjustment?

Hi millie. This has been suggested before, and I did do some looking into it. However, I couldn't see anything that was definitely ripe to use. Indeed, some were indicating exactly as you did, that the existing weight adjustment already takes into account gender to some extent, due to females being (on average) smaller/lighter than males. That is of course based on an assumption that a male and female of identical weight would typically be identically fast. It's an assumption that will have to do for now.

We could combine leaderboards, but if you look back through some of the previous WAARC challenges, you'll see that the females would have placed at the bottom. Not sure how motivating that would be?

There might be some way of making an adjustment by reference to the relative nonathlon scores for males and females. I don't know if data showing the target times at different ages and distances is available and I expect the relationship is complex and varies with age, difference and weight category.

The guys who run the nonathlon are quite approachable and might be prepared to share the data or even provide an adjustment formula if we explain what we want it for.

Excellent choice Alan. I really need to get my speed up again, after some time with steady longer rows.
This row can be used in the last Challenge Series row as well. It's perfect timing.
It will also be exiting to see how weight and age will effect our results

Here's an early target for you all.
It's there to be shot at

1:47.9 (An SB )
Weight: 70.9 kg

An early time from me too. I was happy to see that my weight wasn't 88 or 89 as it actually were early in January.

Weight today: 86.5 kg.
Age: 48

Time:
1:27.1 500m 38spm @1:27.1 Cal/hr2122 Watt530
Splits were:[/b
0:18.1 100m 40spm @1:30.5 Cal/hr1925 Watt472 Racestart, so a little slow on the 1. split.
0:17.1 200m 39spm @1:25.5 Cal/hr2227 Watt560 Nice pace
0:17.1 300m 35spm @1:25.5 Cal/hr2227 Watt560 which I hold for the
0.17.1 400m 42spm @1:25.5 Cal/hr2227 Watt560 next 300 meters.
0:17.6 500m 37spm @1:28.0 Cal/hr2067 Watt514 Ouch Can feel the power slipping away. But still a very good start on this months challenge.

Very nice Philip and Mikkel =D> =D>

Thanks Alan. Yes I think it is a pretty good time as I haven't done this distance for months Very odd that I was able to hold 1:25.5 over 300 meters

Very impressive start, gentlemen!

Thanks Paul. Oh right Well done Philip =D> =D> =D>

Time: 1:39.9
Weight: 113.3 kg
Age: 59

Paul V

Nice work Paul. We can only hope for sub 1:40 when we reach 59. =D> =D> =D> =D> =D>

Well done Paul, more to come I reckon

Time: 1:35.3
Weight: 92.0 kg
Age: 61

Rate was 49 so painful

Thanks for the early entries, chaps.

Mikkel takes the lead...

Alan - what is the time in the 'adjusted' column? i understand the weight and age adjustments, so what is the third? i thought it worked that first calculate the weight adjusted time and then adjust this adjusted time for the age handicaps - so not sure what the third adjustment is for? i'm obviously missing something.....!

millie, the weight column is purely a weight adjustment. The age column in purely the age adjustment. The adjusted column is the combination of the two. It is only the adjusted column that is scored. The other two are for info only. Hope that clears it up.

Ahhhhhhh I get it!
Thanks for clearing that up

Well then Philip should be first with adjusted 1:14.9, right =D> =D> =D> Or do I miss the point of the schedules point system

Shang-Chi wrote:Well then Philip should be first with adjusted 1:14.9, right =D> =D> =D> Or do I miss the point of the schedules point system

'
Yes, Philip gets 8 points for having the fastest adjusted time. But points are also scored for unadjusted times (although only 1 point per person competing instead of 2). So you get 4 points for having the fastest unadjusted time plus 6 points for the second fastest adjusted time = 10 points. Philip gets 8 + 1 = 9 points.

Paul V

I see Paul. Thanks! But I'm right when I say that he is way faster than he should be age wise, or compare to the rest of us. He actually gets 33 sec. handed on age. I need to get older quick

Shang-Chi wrote:I see Paul. Thanks! But I'm right when I say that he is way faster than he should be age wise, or compare to the rest of us. He actually gets 33 sec. handed on age. I need to get older quick

It's actually fairly simple, Mikkel. Row 10 seconds faster, add 10 years to your age and subtract 10 kg from your weight and you'll be fine!

Yeah, Mikkel, 58 years old, 76 kg. rowing 1:17.1, that's me