Article was written by staff writer Melissa Bray from the International Rowing Association.
Tough blood on the indoor rowing circuit
20/12/2006
By Melissa Bray
The last major indoor rowing event of the year, the Euro Open in Amsterdam, had the usual Dutch national team rowers as well as smatterings of some of the best rowers in the world. But the most hyped event was far away from these top rowers.
Instead it was the men of the 50 – 59 year old age group that caught the attention. These men are part of the indoor rowing circuit. Their breed of competitiveness is complete with larger-than-life personalities, trash talking and personal rivalries often expressed through indoor rowing internet message boards complete with a threatened stoning and removal of bowels.
These men are indoor rowers in the purest sense – some have never stepped foot inside a scull – and many have come late to sport embracing indoor rowing in an almost fanatical sense.
Great Britain’s Roy Brook is Rocket Roy. Two weeks ago he set the World Record at the Welsh Ergo Championships in Great Britain and in training he has pulled better. Brian Garner is Micro Monkey, the extra lightweight that has trouble pacing himself. Richard Cureton is Ranger, the English professor who is known for his bobble hat and for evoking the ire of his competitors. David Hislop is the Scotsman aka Road Runner. Dennis Hastings is the consistent American who for years raced against the French erg legend Jean-Paul Tardieu and, until recently, held the World Record for his age group.
The group knows each other’s race methods, both physically and psychologically, intimately. Although they live in different locations spread between Great Britain and the United States, online chatting gives each other insight into their respective thoughts post-racing and in between meeting at race events.
At present Rocket Roy is the top dog following his win at the Euro Open. Rocket is new to the competitive game. He turned up in a gym in 2002 wanting to do “whatever was hard”. He was sent to the indoor rower.
“A chap in the gym challenged me to a 5000m race. I beat him.” Rocket was hooked. He then checked his online ranking (on the Concept2 website) and found his speed placed him six pages down. “I didn’t like that.”
Previously a self-professed couch potato, Rocket started training.
“Before this I did some cycling,” says Rocket but a crash and resulting broken hip and pelvis sent him back to the couch. Now Rocket follows a workout regime not far off that of an elite athlete. One of his toughest is 4km at 1:52 pace, a five minute rest and then 6 x 500m at 1:36 with 60 seconds rest, followed by another 4km at 1:52.
Until recently Rocket was completely self-taught. “No one in the gym knew how to use it {the rowing machine} so I just copied the diagram on the machine.” Rocket now has a coach – United States rowing coach Paul Smith – who trains him via the internet.
Rocket’s training regime includes five mornings a week on the rowing machine at home. Then five days a week he does one and a half hours in the gym which includes a mixture of erging, stationary bike and the stepping machine. Saturday’s are for a hard workout and Rocket takes Sunday off. All of Rocket’s training is geared towards the 2000m ergometer race. His next big event is the CRASH B World Indoor Rowing Championships.
“I want to do 6:28 there.”
At the Euro Open Rocket says the racing was tough. He describes it in his web blog: “The first stroke gone and I was shocked to see at the top of the rankings, non other than Micro Monkey. But how long for, that was the question. I got to 1.40s and sat there for the first 500, upped it to 1.39s for a while and saw Ranger at 0m. We were dead level. I thought, ‘he is playing with me here, how long can I hang on for?’ I got my head down and pulled hard to 1000m at, I think, about 3.20 {minutes}.
I glanced at the screen and couldn't see Ranger, but Hislop was there, 15m down. At this stage I glanced to my left and saw the Prof pulling quite lightly and slowly, he must have been rating about 28. I was at 36 or more, not sure, but it was hurting like hell and it felt really tough. I knew then he {Ranger} was done. Now I decided to ease off and just hold David at 15m or so. The pace slipped to 1.42, then 1.44s and I saw Dave close to 13, 12, 11m so I increased the effort a bit and held it there.”
With 150 to go Dave was 10m down. I knew he would sprint so I upped the effort to all out and held on to the end. I thought Dave had got second, but Dennis rowed through him into second.”
At 55 years old Rocket has no desire to stop. “It keeps the weight under control.” Rocket weighed 95kg earlier this year and weighed in at 73.6kg for the Euro Open for the lightweight category.
The Euro Open attracted 1500 competitors ranging in age from 12 through to 80 years old. Overall results in the open men’s and women’s events were not stellar while the lightweight men’s race presented a battle between some of the best lightweight scullers in the world. Local representative Gerard van der Linden of the Netherlands pulled out the top time finishing in 6:11 ahead of four-time World Champion Filippo Mannucci of Italy who finished less than a second ahead of Denmark’s current lightweight doubles World Champion Rasmus Quist.
Xeno Muller, Olympic gold and silver medalist, indoor rowing, rowing technique.
