Free Spirits Rowing

Mmm, very nice time, Bill. That will put you near the top of the leaderboard, I reckon... =D>

Had my second (and final!) go at this - did 1:41.7 so a fair improvement over the first attempt (mind you, I hadn't just done a 1000m TT when I did this 500m this morning!). My average rating was 44 - I had no idea I could rate that high!!
Weight was still 65.4kg this morning

Improved a bit with a 1:32.5. (81kg) Think I still have something left, as I could (probably) have managed to stand up after finishing. Did seem to scare the people in the gym though...

Awesome time, Bill - inspirational! And once again, thanks to Alan for taking the time to run this (and do battle with those pesky spreadsheets!)

Exceptional effort Millie, nice improvement Mike!!

Mike Channin wrote:Did seem to scare the people in the gym though...

Great times Mike and Bill =D> =D> - I certainly didn't see anything with a '3' in it!

Wow! Two fantastic performances from millie and Mike there! =D> =D>

So, we have a new leader - step forward, Mr Bill Wright! =D>

And millie has moved off the bottom of the table, proving females can mix it with males with this challeng! =D>

AlanS wrote:And millie has moved off the bottom of the table, proving females can mix it with males with this challenge!

And congrats Bill on taking the lead =D> =D>

I believe the figure I've seen quoted for the power difference between male and female competitors for indoor rowing is 15% (i.e. for the same weight/age/height, you would expect a male competitor to have 15% more power than a female one, purely because of relative body composition).

Therefore I'd suggest that Millie should really be getting a 15% power adjustment (which takes her down to a 1:37.0 on my calculations). I think this gives a more representative value when adjusted, to show just how good her performance actually was (26th fastest in the world rankings this year for any weight/age).

Not sure how much difference using slides should make though! How do you find them, Millie?

Incidentally, I have a suspicion that using simple linear adjustments by time/distance, rather than underlying (non-linear) power might be causing some oddities in the results. (For example, I'm sure Philip would agree that an adjusted time of 1:13.9, faster than the world record 1:14.4 (and that set by a rower significantly heavier than the 'normalisation' point, and therefore open to downwards adjustment) just isn't realistic. And if you plug Roger Bangay's times in,this gets even more extreme. Roger definitely represents an absolute top-level competitor, but you still wouldn't expect his adjusted time to be under 1:10 (or 270 Watts/~18% more powerful than the un-normalised world record) Oh, and the world Lwt record for 70-79 men is 1:34.2 which adjusts to around 1:00.0, or about double the power of the 1:14.4 record.)

So, in summary, I'd conclude that the weight/age adjustment factor is increasingly unrealistic as the numbers get bigger.
I see that the nonathlon base data is available - maybe that would give a better normalisation mechanism...?

(Aside: Another interesting fact is that the Hwt and Lwt records become much, much closer in the higher age categories, probably because there aren't any 120kg 80+ rowers out there, for whatever reason...)

Mike, thanks for that. If you can point me in the direction of the 15% figure (hopefully backed by data) I will add that in going forward.

Regarding your other points, I tend to agree that the adjustments aren't perfect, but for the sake of simplicity, I went with what C2 provide. But that is why the adjusted times/distances only account for 66% of the available points (the other 33% coming from the actual time), to avoid the oldest entrant winning every time. The WAARC would very quickly get boring if Philip was to be certain to win every month.

As the years go by I'm getting slower!

500 m = 1:58.1
Weight = 100.8
Age = 70

Will try again next week.

John R

Well done John and welcome =D>

Great row Bill and congrats on your lead =D>

Nice second go Millie =D>

Great time Mike- =D> I have to find 3 secs-now where did I leave them ?

Mike Channin wrote:Not sure how much difference using slides should make though! How do you find them, Millie?

I love using the slides - technically it feels better (and of course more like OTW), plus feels easier on my back, and I can get the rating up higher on the slides. I am sure they give me an advantage over fixed, but I know it's horses for courses and for some people it works against them. I'm also not sure I could quantify it. It also depends on whether it's a Model D or a Model E up on the slides - the latter is about 3.5kg heavier so for someone light(ish) like me that makes a difference. I think that makes around 0.5-1s/500m split difference from the experimenting I've done. So for the 500m, I didn't increase the drag factor (105) but I could get the rating up to 45 (!!!). If I had done it on fixed erg I think I would have had to increase the drag factor as sure I couldn't have got the rating anywhere near as high. Maybe this would have let me go as fast, but I know it would feel uncomfortable and my back would not be happy!

So I don't mind if I get a female adjustment or not - it's fun just taking part and seeing how everyone else is going and I've gotten a PB out of it and I can see how I am going against other 40+ women via rankings and Nonathlon - more than happy to be towards the bottom of the table (but of course I won't protest if you do further improve my time for me Alan )

I believe slides emphasise between technique (or punish poor and uneven power delivery more), and are closer to the on the water experience. I think you get higher stroke rates and more efficiency on slides, but more peak power generation on a static erg.

Alan - I've looked around a bit and can only find a reference to 15% VO2 max difference between male and female athletes (after weight adjustment), and this is thought to be down to body composition differences. As rowing performance is very closely linked to VO2 max (especially around the 1-5k distances) this makes a reasonable argument for a 15% adjustment. But it is up to you, as it is your competition. It is definitely true that gender based body composition/biomechanical differences exist, and are more extreme in rowers (because rowing is power based) - it is up to you whether you model this or not.

I would say that Millie's time is pretty special when viewed in the context of the world rankings and the Nonathlon, and personally I feel it deserves a much higher placing than mine for example (as I'm over 5 seconds off PB territory). Anyway, well done Millie!

Mike Channin wrote:- I would say that Millie's time is pretty special when viewed in the context of the world rankings and the Nonathlon, and personally I feel it deserves a much higher placing than mine for example (as I'm over 5 seconds off PB territory). Anyway, well done Millie!

I agree with you Mike and certainly much better than mine which is mediocre

Well done Millie =D>

strider77 wrote:

Mike Channin wrote:- I would say that Millie's time is pretty special when viewed in the context of the world rankings and the Nonathlon, and personally I feel it deserves a much higher placing than mine for example (as I'm over 5 seconds off PB territory). Anyway, well done Millie!

I agree with you Mike and certainly much better than mine which is mediocre

Well done Millie =D>

Thanks guys!!
And thanks Alan for organising this challenge - looking forward to the next one already

hmmmm Alan, what do I need to do to get back in the lead

Thanks for your entry John, and welcome to the world of WAARC!

Here's the latest leaderboard. Note, it's the first based on OpenOffice so some of the adjusted times will be ever so slightly different. But I'm confident all are now accurate.
Mikkel, I reckon you need to take six seconds off your adjusted time, so a huge improvement. Your best chance of winning would be to find someone who is slightly faster than Bill, but not faster than yourself.

AlanS wrote:Mikkel, I reckon you need to take six seconds off your adjusted time, so a huge improvement. Your best chance of winning would be to find someone who is slightly faster than Bill, but not faster than yourself.

The first is obviously out of the question,(rowing faster) unless I grow rockets on my arms and legs So someone who can go around 1:28-29 Anybody [-o<

AlanS wrote:Mikkel, I reckon you need to take six seconds off your adjusted time, so a huge improvement. Your best chance of winning would be to find someone who is slightly faster than Bill, but not faster than yourself.

Mikkel - there is an alternative way to get back in the lead without relying on finding someone else... if you drop down to 64kg and then row the same 1:27.1 your adjusted score will reduce by the 6 seconds you need. Of course, you need to do this before Thursday when the challenge finishes

Slightly improved today to 1:35.5, but still 1.5s away from my SB. Don't think it does anything much to my placing though.

Like everybody, Jeremy, nobody does a PB just like that. I'm 3 sec. off So you're closer, right! =D> =D> =D>

Like everybody, Jeremy, nobody does a PB just like that. I'm 3 sec. off So you're closer, right! =D> =D> =D>

millie wrote:

AlanS wrote:Mikkel, I reckon you need to take six seconds off your adjusted time, so a huge improvement. Your best chance of winning would be to find someone who is slightly faster than Bill, but not faster than yourself.

Mikkel - there is an alternative way to get back in the lead without relying on finding someone else... if you drop down to 64kg and then row the same 1:27.1 your adjusted score will reduce by the 6 seconds you need. Of course, you need to do this before Thursday when the challenge finishes

That would like a miracle, Amanda Loosing 14 kg. has alway been my dream, but then again, I must consider the fact that I also loose power in the process, but wouldn't it be nice if I, like you suggest, could hold on to my present power I would then have to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger in micro-format

Tried very hard to go sub 1:30 but tied up seriously in the last 100m but still 0.6 seconds quicker than last week:

01:30.1 500 43 01:30.1

Age 66 Wt 102kg.

Bill

Well done on improving your time, Bill. But given Mikkel has pretty much accepted defeat, why on earth would you put yourself through another one of these?