Rowing WOD 8/31/13:
5k Row for Time
How well does your body process and use oxygen to do work? How long can you sustain work? Today’s assessment will give you an idea of both your aerobic capacity and endurance. Set your monitor for 5,000 meters and get after it. Be sure to record your time, average 500m split, average stroke rating, and average watts. This will give you an idea of your work capacity over about 20 minutes.
For those wondering why we’re doing such a long test and how to attack it, think of this as a Girl Wod like “Mary”. The athlete who can efficiently and effectively move their body weight will be able to consistently do more work aerobically without having to dip into anaerobic energy stores. Also, when tackling “Mary”, good competitors will go in with a game plan based on what they know they can maintain. The first couple of rounds may be used to ease into the work without flying and dying.
Whether you’re a Vet or Novice, the goal should be to maintain a consistent 500m split and stroke rating throughout the whole piece. If this is your first 5k aim to build your confidence by negative splitting. Start the first 1k at a moderately hard pace that you can consistently hold. Then every 1k after that try to pull a little bit faster, perhaps 1 split second every 1k. What you should avoid is going out to hard, say 1:45 /500m, and then dying half way through to limp in at a split of 2:00 /500m.
Novices should try to maintain a stroke rating of 24 to 26. Vets should work on executing a race plan, maintaining their splits, and rowing at a stroke rating of at least 26 to 28.
Let us know how you do! Post your results to Comments.
Renegade Rowing 
18:50.7, PR’d it by 4 sec.
Average split: 1:53.0
Stroke Rate: 30
Average watts: 242.
Solid PR Ryan!
Novice here…21:40 with 2:10 average split. My stroke rate was 26 and average watt 159<how in the world do you measure watt??
Nice work Don! We’re going to start chasing that 20min mark. You can hit change units on the display to see how much power or wattage you create/put out each stroke. Play around with it, it’s kind of fun.
Time : 18:32.7
SPM: 26
500 split: 1:51.2
Avg watts: 244.5
Nice Rusty! Let’s work on bringing the stroke rate up a couple of beats to bring that split down for next time.
Time: 18:45.1
SPM: 27
Split: 1:52.5/500m I was able to drop from 1:54.1 in the 1st 1k to 1:51.2 in the final 1k. Still experimenting.
Avg watts: 246
solid game plan Graham! I like the negative split. You’ll be able to dial it in even more for the next one.
Took the 5k test this morning.
Been rowing for almost 20+ years and still chugging.
Not very fond of long distance rowing/erging 😀
Time: 18:15
Avg: 1:49.5
SPM: 24
Watts: 266
Awesome Paolo! Great work, thanks for posting!
After one year of rowing. Just PR’d this morning 🙂
Time 18:07
Avg: 1:48.7
SPM 25
Watts 272.5
Held a pretty constant 1:49.4 the whole time. Monster sprint in the last 250 like 1:25’s was able to bring it down.
Awesome Mike!!! Love the game plan. Way to crush it at the end. Congrats on the PR!!!
5km 14:49
500m split 1.28.9
Only got phone and photo of 15.22
447W