A PB/SB every time?

[webberg]

I came back to my C2 this season with a couple of key objectives in mind.

One was to lose some weight following a period of too much work followed by trips to the USA on holiday and to see family.

Another was to get to a million metres in a season which I have achieved not very often before.

Complementary aims I feel. Longer fat burning sessions which chip away at the target.

As might be expected, as my fitness improves/weight falls, I'm getting a little quicker. Back at the start of the season I could not finish an hour long piece. Then I could in about 2:22/500. The quickest so far this season is about 2:15/500 set in the last two weeks.

Now I have a problem.

Yesterday was a good example. Sat down to do an hour. Felt good for the first 5k. Thought that 2:14/500 was possible. Kept the pressure on. Blew up at 8k.

My mindset was very much - I'm getting fitter and that means getting quicker and that means I need to go quicker/further every time I row.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks like this.

So how do you cope or impose a discipline on pieces or otherwise prevent what happened to me yesterday? Or perhaps you don't and just put the occasional failure down to experience and go again?

[Iain]

I have stopped rowing far too many times when the "easy" wins are behind me after losing motivation on similar "fails". Firstly not sure whether you are suggesting that you always go for an SB? I have always tried to alternate SS rows with harder sessions. Underlying endurance improves on these for quite some time and so they are worth including even if you are not rowing often enough to need recovery. In that latter situation I make the SS UT1+ but way below potential. I use a variety of interval sessions as well as the many distances and CTCs. this means that I am not redoing a session I have done recently so can usually manage some improvement. THe issue is when fitness drops due to being lazy for several days on the trot or life getting in the way. The brain says I should reduce my target, but ego means I often don't back off enough and struggle. So still trying to solve this even if I have an idea what I should do. The final issue is when fitness reaches a permanent plateau / inevitable decline. NO idea how to deal with this, but only been there a couple of times!

- Iain

[plummy]

Story of my life. I used to think that EVERY time I got on the machine I had to go faster or further than I had before. Clearly that is impossible. The start of a new season was always a blessing because there were a few "freebies" in the form of SBs by basic definition that you'd only done 1 or 2 previously that season. The plethora of different ranking events also helped the regular "feel good" of an SB.
I reset and 50 and adjusted mentally to a "new normal" and apart from the early 50's when a few extreme events created PBs there was nothing on the horizon bar a steady decline and disappointment as the speed and stamina fell away. I reset again at 60 but, as well reported, injury has scuppered everything.
Oddly after failing at 2.8km in my first attempt to complete a 5km in one sitting last night, I reset for a 2km and managed to strip 18 seconds off my previous SB - albeit still a very humbling 8:31.8.

[Ian Bee]

I have experienced this kind of thing on a number of occasions, but invariably because of a holiday break, injury, illness and most recently humid weather (!). These disrupt my “flow” and snail-like progress in terms of pace and I’m forced to take stock.

Invariable this results in one of the following:

• Move the goalposts – this is my most recent adaptation to not hitting targets. I switched from a very variable series of training sessions to the Fletcher Plan and consciously pulled by target pace back. Its mentally troubling for me to do this, but for me it’s the reset/deload which clears the erging air just enough to forget about SB or targets and “relax” into a different training pattern.
  • Take a break – perversely just giving myself a break sometimes does the trick, particularly if it’s a matter of sleep, health or otherwise something that just needs a bit of extra time to subside. Knock back targets (2s per week of break) and I can sometimes pick up from where I left off
  • Supplement with something which isn’t erging – I’ve crafted a realistic weight programme guided by a decent app and have seen a decent bump as a result and circuit training is good for this as well because it seldom covers any erg focused exercises, but I know others will cycle/walk/climb etc. Sometimes I just need a shock of something to disturb a rut.

[webberg]

All good ideas - thanks.

I'd be very happy with a 8:31 for 2k especially after doing 2.8k.

I have a real mental block around 2k. Quickest ever for me was a long - long time ago at around 7:40.

Last serious attempt was five years ago after a period of specific training mainly to overcome the mental blocks (I set the monitor to do 3 x 666m intervals without a break) and that came in at 8:02.

Tried one earlier this season and did not break 8:45 so now am scared of it.

I think generally I need to be more in control and not let my natural tendency to negative split get away with it. Will try today for an hour but try to hold the first half to say 2:17 average and then push a little harder in the next 15 (say 2:15) and see what's left for the last 15 minutes. Wish me luck.

[Iain]

Hope it goes well

[Mike Channin]

We're all scared of the 2k. I know I am. The only real solution is to just keep doing them often, so that you know how fast to go. (When I did the Challenge Series in 2004, I was competing at 2k regularly, so I ended up doing them weekly, and this did break the fear fairly well. Also use the mile (1609) as a shorter pace test, and potentially the 2.5k as the longer bracket piece to gain confidence)

In terms of trying to hit maximal pieces (flat out effort) every time (even allowing for recovery cycling), it's just unrealistic. The closer you get to a true max piece, the longer the recovery can be. I remember it took me something like 3 weeks to recover from my PB 5k in 2006. So you need to be more realistic in terms of how hard to push.

You will also drop form far quicker than you gain it (or at least, I do, and aging has not helped), so any break or other negative will probably mean you need to reset expectations.

How I deal with all of this is this:
(1) Have a rough idea of what level of form you currently have
(a) Recent hard/max pieces give an indication of max form, and use Paul's Law to translate to other distances/times if necessary
(b) I also use fixed pace recovery and monitor the HR response to judge how my aerobic base and recovery is looking
(2) When you plan a piece, have a RANGE of targets, and use recent form guides plus any other caveats to determine where to aim
(a) Set a stretch target in case you have a golden day, and then have more realistic targets that you can still aim for if you have to adjust
(b) finally, if all that fails during the piece, convert to intervals or something to get to the end - remember, you've put yourself in the pain zone, so aim to take as much benefit as you can - you may feel like crap, but you will have to do all that again to get to where you already are, so any training will improve. (Obviously this doesn't apply if you injure or suspect you're ill - in that case, back off and cruise or even stop if injured - you will live to try again).
(c) Sometimes (CTC usually), someone else has set you a target, so you aim at that. If it goes wrong, look to take the maximum gain from the session, and see if you might get it next time, or just have to admit you're not at that level (even then, if you have time, you can train towards it).

Your conditioning will be more optimised by having done similar pieces recently, so if you're doing something relatively new, just repeating the same thing (with appropriate rest/recovery between) will bring gains as your conditioning against that particular piece improves. If you have an obvious weakness, work on that.

Right now, I had a great CTC last month (but it was short sprints which suit me, even if my overall form is weak). Since then, my training has been sporadic and inconsistent, and my form indicators are showing I'm well down on Max pace compared to 2-3 months ago, and also my aerobic base is pretty weak, so I've reset my targets accordingly, and am aiming to slowly build iterative improvement, although I'll need to find the time to train more consistently. I can do a thread and give you the full details and insight if you like; it may help you to see the approach.

Even when you're on a roll, and you know your form is improving, you must still be realistic about how much gain to aim for - remember that you can always speed up if you're sure you have more in reserve, but a fly-and-die is a horrible horrible experience (although you should do one every so often, just in case you surprise yourself, and to remind yourself how much worse that is). Remember - it is all about the pacing...

[Iain]

Great guide Mike

[Mike Channin]

One more point to add; the combination of heat and humidity will have a significant effect on performance, especially over longer pieces where the risk of overheating or becoming significantly dehydrated is possible. This can show up in a number of ways, but the long-and-short is that if it is hot and/or humid and especially both, you will need to reset your expectations then too - possibly by as much as 2 to 3% from rough experience (although I'd love a lot more data to refine that).

[Mike Channin]

And here is the delicious irony in writing notes on expectations and how to deal with the dreaded handle-down/failure. I wrote all that, and then managed to actually beat my expectations for once, although it was exceptional circumstances/approach.

I did the CTC, and managed to beat even my stretch goal, and perform well ahead of what I thought form indicators were saying. Some of it was hanging on, having got ahead on pacing, then pacing to make sure I would reach the end, then putting in a massive sprint finish to pull back a lot of split at the death, once the end was in sight.

One thing this highlights is that, for me, I find the sprint finish can be a serious weapon in the armoury. The logic goes that if you're not already on the absolute limit (which I think for me is relatively rare, except maybe on short stuff which is mainly sprint anyway), you can only suffer so much in the last minute or so, and you can live off anaerobic energy to reach the end. Also, if you accelerate enough, even if you blow up, as long as you keep the stroke going around, you'll still always hit the line ahead of where you would have been.

Now, I will have to pop over to the CTC thread to find out what kind of Form/Pace indicators other people have used, and whether I performed ahead of expectations or just estimated badly!