BRIC 2015 Reloaded

[Paul Victory]

Thanks Alan

I got an email this morning attaching a link to the race schedule http://britishrowing.us1.list-manage.co ... dc8b77e8b5

Glad to see I'm not the only Free Spirit taking part - Guy Blackburn is also listed. Look forward to seeing you there Guy.

Paul V

[GuidonTheBee]

Yes, barring an attack of the lurgy I'll be there. Going to be a tough one I think following 2 PBs at the Scottish & then another 2 PBs at the Welsh (beating one of the Scottish ones). Not sure I'm feeling particularly recovered and it does look like a very early start.

I'll try & keep my eyes peeled for you

[Paul Victory]

Hope To see you there Guy. I see that you're on at 9:30, which is marginally better than being first off at 9 a.m., but still very early.

The first two races make no sense. There are 52 entrants in the MHWT 40-49 and instead of having them all race at the same time, they have half of them going off at 9:00 and the other half at 9:15. I can't see the logic of this.

Anyway, I'm having my breakfast at the moment and I'm planning to hop on the erg in about 30 minutes. I normally train much later in the day, but I figure I should try to get my body used to rowing early in the morning and will try to train around 9 a.m. each day this week.

[strider77]

Hi Paul from the list of entrants (and no pressure here ! ) I'd say you have a very good shot mate just remember to pick up the handle and ROW

Of course Richard Cureton might pull a 6:16 however I suspect he will struggle to break 7.

All the very best

[Paul Victory]

Thanks Alan. I'll make sure I'm strapped in nice and early on Saturday.

My plan for this is week is to do a taper, with 6 x 500m + 500r today, 5 tomorrow, 4 on Wednesday and 3 on Thursday. Then travel to London on Friday, go for a meal with Jennifer and her sister plus husband and try not to eat anything too spicy or have too much to drink. Then up at 7 to head to the VeloPark.

Today's 6 x 500m was tougher than it should have been, but that's probably partly due to doing it much earlier in the day than usual. I did my usual "modified Fletcher" warm up for 12 minutes, then was interrupted for a while before I could do the 500s. Plan was to average 1:43, but I struggled to keep it under 1:45 and only a fast(ish) last in 1:40.7 brought my average down to 1:43.8. I only did 5 rest periods as I didn't feel like doing another 500m after my 'fast last'.

I'm really, really NOT a morning person!

[strider77]

Paul, just my opinion but you don't need to "train" with te 500s-Richard Steventon takes a good 5 min rest between the 500s on this week, emphasis on quality-you have done the training, its now about feeling comfortable at race pace which for you I would estimate is around 1:42/3 with the longer rests you will manage this easily.

As always please feel free to ignore this

[Paul Victory]

Paul, just my opinion but you don't need to "train" with te 500s-Richard Steventon takes a good 5 min rest between the 500s on this week, emphasis on quality-you have done the training, its now about feeling comfortable at race pace which for you I would estimate is around 1:42/3 with the longer rests you will manage this easily.

As always please feel free to ignore this

Thanks Alan. Your suggestions are always thoughtful and usually helpful.

Actually it was Richard who suggested I do 6 x 500 (r500), reducing by one each day. He also suggested that I do the 500s at either L1 or L2 pace depending on how I feel. I did 5 x 500 + 4 x 500r late this afternoon and I've concluded that rowing later in the day definitely suits me better than rowing in the morning. But it still didn't feel that easy, so I think I will try your suggestion tomorrow and do them with a longish passive rest period and concentrate on good technique and getting comfortable at race pace.

For the record, I averaged 1:43.4 today (2:05.0 for the active rest) and I couldn't see myself sustaining that kind of pace over a continuous 2k, particularly as I have been suffering from a fair bit of lower back pain, which was somewhat exacerbated by yesterday's early morning (for me ) training session.

Paul V

PS: I hope I'm not sitting next to Richard C on Saturday if he decides to HD and walk off like he did in this year's CRASH-Bs.

[strider77]

Make sure you are rested, I have a good feeling about this

How much did you pay Richard not to enter

[Paul Victory]

Make sure you are rested, I have a good feeling about this

How much did you pay Richard not to enter

Thanks Alan. I'm feeling cautiously optimistic about Saturday.

There are 11 contestants in total and around half of them have entered 2k times either this season or last season, but nothing under 7:05. I've no idea about the others apart from Richard Cureton, who talks a lot about what he's going to do, but never quite seems to deliver in public. I've actually met the guy (in Dublin, around 4 years ago) and he seems quite normal in person, but some of his postings on FaceBook are, to put it politely, quite bizarre.

Anyway, I took your advice and took longer rest periods for today's 4 x 500m. I decided to stick with active rest, but set the rest intervals to 1000m and forced myself to slow down from around 2:05 pace yesterday to around 2:12 pace today. I definitely felt stronger during the 500m intervals and managed a much better 'fast last' in 1:38.2, having done the other three intervals in low 1:43s. Overall time for the 4 x 500 intervals was 6:47.9 and it would be great if I could get somewhere close to this on Saturday.

Mind you, there's a big difference between a continuous 2k and 4 x 500m and the early start on Saturday will definitely not suit me, but here's hoping. [-o<

Paul V

PS: I'm debating whether I should do any erging on Friday. I've a mid afternoon flight to London and will get to do relatively few meters on Saturday as access to warm up machines is limited to a maximum of 20 minutes and there are no ergs available for cool downs. And I will be arriving home late on Sunday. As I write this, I know that I am being ridiculously obsessive about maintaining my position on the meterboard, so I'm just putting it out there so that everyone can tell me that I've got my priorities totally skewed and that my focus for the next two days should be on getting the best result (and time) I can at BRIC.

[scotch61]

Paul
Each to their own preferred method, though I sense that you feel you may be overdoing it. Personally, my best event was after 3 days of not even looking at an erg,which was not as easy as it sounds!
Looking forward to hearing how you got on

[Paul Victory]

Paul
Each to their own preferred method, though I sense that you feel you may be overdoing it. Personally, my best event was after 3 days of not even looking at an erg,which was not as easy as it sounds!
Looking forward to hearing how you got on

Thanks Ian

I just need to fight off my OCD. Ideally, I should do an easy session tomorrow and take Friday off. In practice, who knows?

[Liefcat]

Me thinks I can´t relate to anything in the posts on Facebook I have read sofar - I think you know what I´m talking about, Paul... So better focus on yourself and your own race - of course it is quite disturbing when one erger suddenly leaves during a race... Best of luck, Paul (Be prepared for the start )

[strider77]

Paul Victory wrote:- PS: I'm debating whether I should do any erging on Friday. I've a mid afternoon flight to London and will get to do relatively few meters on Saturday as access to warm up machines is limited to a maximum of 20 minutes and there are no ergs available for cool downs. And I will be arriving home late on Sunday. As I write this, I know that I am being ridiculously obsessive about maintaining my position on the meterboard, so I'm just putting it out there so that everyone can tell me that I've got my priorities totally skewed and that my focus for the next two days should be on getting the best result (and time) I can at BRIC.

I agree with Scotch.

I had my best BIRC which was my first in 2008 you were alongside me if you remember at the NIA, Birmingham and I managed 6:59.2 my first and only Sub 7 in a comp situation.

That year I had THREE days off before the event and it definitely paid dividends.

If it was me I would take today AND tomorrow off, the build up in reserves will be beneficial-of course I realise even as I write this that you will ignore it

Bottom line whatever you do, as long as you pick up the handle at the right time-YOU ARE READY.

[Liefcat]

If it was me I would take today AND tomorrow off, the build up in reserves will be beneficial-of course I realise even as I write this that you will ignore it

[Paul Victory]

If it was me I would take today AND tomorrow off, the build up in reserves will be beneficial-of course I realise even as I write this that you will ignore it

OK. So I've decided to partly take your advice and I won't row tomorrow. (No, really)

I've been doing a modified Fletcher warm up for recent sprint intervals and time trials. I find 20 minutes too long and, anyway, we just barely get 20 minutes access to the warm up machines at BRIC, if even that. I also don't like doing rate restricted rows, so I reduced the total time to 15 minutes, but 3 thirty second bursts at 1:50:1:45/1:40 pace after 9, 11 and 13 seconds. Then I shortened it again to 12 minutes, with the faster bursts starting after 6 minutes, but upped the pace to 2:00 or thereabouts. Anyway, I decided today that 2:00 is too fast and 12 minutes may not be enough of a warm up for a 9 a.m. start, so I changed back to 15 minutes, with 2:05 or thereabouts as my standard pace.

Seemed to work OK and I did the 3 x 500 in 1:42.8/1:42.8/1:42.5 v having decided not to attempt a 'fast last'. I did the rest of yesterday's session (the 1000m rest intervals and 500m final sprint) at an average of around 2:10 pace. Finished with a 10 minute cool down at around 2:06 pace and that's me done until Saturday morning. Planning to do the revised 15 minute version as my warm up.

Watch this space!

Paul V

[Jill]

Watch this space!

I have been, Paul. However, about 90% of the posts have gone over my head. This gives me a very good excuse to keep things simple and just say," Good Luck to you and Guy on Saturday. "

[strider77]

Good luck to Paul and Guy tomorrow-row Free Spirits

[Liefcat]

Good boy, Paul...

Interesting what that structured warm-up can do for your race, can´t wait to read your race report Good luck

[gregsmith01748]

Best of luck, Paul. Kick some ass.

[Paul Victory]

Thanks folks.

In Dublin Airport now, waiting for my flight. An erg free zone, so I managed to keep my resolution to stay away from the erg today.

Paul V

[Paul Victory]

Quick update - won my race in 6:57.5. I'll post further details later.

[Paul Victory]

image.jpeg

Guy came 4th in his race in 6:46.3 and still has a 500m race to come.

[gregsmith01748]

Quick update - won my race in 6:57.5. I'll post further details later.

Congratulations! Sub- 7 and a big winner! Sounds like it was with the trip.

[Paul Victory]

Thanks Greg. Not particularly happy with the time, but I really wanted to win the race after my experience last February.

The registration process was a lot better organised than last year, but the logistics of moving around the VeloPark were as bad as ever. If you went up to the spectator area, you had to exit the building and walk all around the centre to get back to the race floor. And you got less than 15 minutes access to the warm up machines, with no ergs available for cool down.

Within these constraints, it was well organised and I made sure I was well strapped in at the start. My mouth was feeling very dry and I had a bad case of the butterflies, but I concentrated on trying to stay calm. I had my usual slow start and saw 6:00.x as my first split. After the first 100m, I was in 6th place, about 7m behind the leader, Mike Forder. The gap stayed around 7m at the 400m mark, but I had moved up to 3rd. Then Richard Cureton suddenly appeared like a rocket and was 18m ahead of me at the 500m mark. I knew this was likely to happen, so I didn't allow myself to panic. About 100m later Richard disappeared and I was back to 3rd, still 7m behind Mike.

I was struggling to hold 1:45s at this stage and decided not to push too hard as long as the gap behind Mike didn't start increasing. I moved up into 2nd place and with 500m to go, I was about 4m behind. I managed to pick the pace up slightly and with around 400m to go, Mike and I were level. I pushed on and managed to open a gap of a few meters. With around 250m to go, I started sprinting for home and really pushed it over the last 150m to make sure I maintained my lead.

At the finish, I was 4.7 seconds ahead of Mike in second place, in an overall time of 6:57.5, exactly 0.1 seconds faster than my time in the PIRC three weeks ago. My splits were 1:45.2/1:44.8/1:45.6/1:41.8. That's me done for erg racing season as Jennifer and I will be heading over to New Zealand on January 20th to visit our daughter Elaine and we won't be back home until February 25th.

Paul V

[stumpy]

Good man Paul, well done matey, British champ.( I hope that's ok saying that you being Irish and all that)^O^