A Higher Tech and a Lower Tech Rowing Session

over-a-shourlder-rowpro — An over-the-shoulder view of someone (not me) using higher tech with RowPro to race. He is not actually racing online though. He is using RowPro and racing offline against either computer-generated pace boats or rowfiles supplied by other rowers. That youtube video can be found at THIS LINK. If you watch the video, play it all the way to the end so you can appreciate the guy’s effort when you hear how hard he is breathing after the finish. That is quite normal, if a person gives maximum effort to do a 2K.

Today’s rowing consisted of two pieces. The first was the higher tech session, because it was done online. Doing a rowing session online is actually easy, but I consider it “higher tech,” because it not only involved the Concept 2 rowing machine and its own computer which is called the PM, but also it involves another computer which runs the RowPro software. That computer running RowPro connects to both the PM and to the internet. Via the internet, a connection is made to the Digital Rowing/Oarbits server in Houston. And other people who are rowing with RowPro, all over the world, can also connect to that same server in Houston at the same time as you, so you can row with them via the internet.

The first session was 30 minutes, with one other person who was located in England. It was not a race and we rowed within a few meters of each other’s boats, from start to finish.

A-June-2nd-2017-30-min-online-rpt — What I did different than usual in today’s online 30 minute session was to row at a very low rating. It felt good to be rowing at a very sedate pace. It was enough effort, even at the slow pace, to slowly but surely elevate HR.

A-June-2nd-2017-30-min-online-gph

The screenshot below shows some people who are all racing each other using higher tech of RowPro while their machines are all connected to one server. You can see that video at THIS LINK. That video is less than two minutes (it was a very short race) and everyone in the room who was not rowing applauds, when the race is finished.

So… it is possible for people to race each other using RowPro while they are all in the same room, but it can also be done with each rower and his/her machine in different rooms anywhere in the world.

rowpro-racing-local-network

The second session today was the Lower Tech of the two, because it only involved using the rowing machine and its PM. For the second session, the PM was set for a custom 3-interval session which consisted of 500 meters with 30 seconds rest, 1,000 meters with 30 seconds rest and 500 meters as the last interval. The second session was done for this month’s challenge on the C2CTC website. The goal was to row the first 500m interval at a rating of 22, the second 1K interval at 26 and the last 500m interval at 30.

lower-tech-pm-only — This is somebody (not me) who is rowing the “lower tech” way, using only the Concept 2 rowing machine and its PM.

June-2017-C2CTC-challenge — A photo of the PM screen showing the results of my C2CTC challenge attempt today. I focused exclusively on rating (strokes per minute) because there was a penalty for doing even 1 SPM more or less than the specified rating for each interval. As a result, the ratings were perfect and the speed was kinda slow.

There was also a strength training session today. If you want to see the results, they are going to be posted, along with the strength-training plan, in the page of this blog that can be found via the tab named “Current Plan”.

Happy higher or lower tech rowing to you.