I miss my running but feel I’ve added being a rower to my identity of being a runner and a daily yogi!
My rowing times are nothing special, but I did another baseline test yesterday, and have improved significantly in the 2 months I’ve been rowing, whilst being on the running injury couch.
I dropped in 1.5 months from rowing 500 meters at 2.49 to todays’ 2.39!
In rowing this known as a 2k pace, as it’s the average of time it takes to row 500 meters when racing a whole 2000 meters. So it’s kind of the equivalent when running coaches tell you to run at your 5k pace or 10k pace. Rowing has different key distances from running, so here the kind of equivalent most popular distance, as far as I can tell, with public races in all of these distances:
Running Rowing
100m
- 500m
- 2k
5k 6k
10k 10k
HM HM
Marathon Marathon
Ultra 100k 💯
And rowing has also duration based races:
1 min
30 min
But 2000 meters, or 2k, is the quintessential distance in rowing, used to establish your pace relative to your fitness. And in rowing training using the 2k+xx nomenclature allows one training plan to be perfect both for a slow-rower newbie like me, and an Olympian athlete! Thus rowing coaches might refer to, now row at 2k+20, which is relaxed and slow; and then in the next interval they might push you to 2k-1 (row faster than your last baseline 2k race). And that means also one rowing plan can function as your beginners, your intermediate and your advanced plan, as you just renew your baseline 2k pace race, and as your 2k pace improves, you train at a faster and faster pace.
So baseline tests before embarking a training plan, and then doing another one at the end to test and reset the new baseline is important.
And seeing my pace improvement in numbers on my tracker that my past rowing training has improved my 2k(500) pace from 2.49 to yesterdays new baseline of 2.39 (or in 2k times, improvement from 11:17 min to 10:38 min), this is huge for me! So I’m celebrating!
I have to give huge thanks again to John for his RowAlong website, training plans and YouTube channel at rowalong.com
He put up a 2k pace race video which chapters for different speeds, even catering for rowers as slow as I am, and that’s immensely appreciated! From being a slow running joggler, I know the anxiousness that we slow coaches have when doing official races, fearing that we might reach the endpoint of the race with everyone else having already left! 😳
Anyway, off to celebrate!
Keep on workout out, wether rowing, riding, weights or anything else! You athlete, you!
