At lunchtime today I finally got the 4-minute piece done on the Model A on slides.
I’d skipped it last night, so there was no real excuse this time.
The plan was simple enough: small warm-up, hit the 4 minutes properly, recover, then grind through a reasonably tough 30r20 afterwards.
The Model A is still taking a little getting used to on slides. The whole thing feels different to a modern RowErg — older, heavier, more mechanical — and I’m still learning how it behaves when the pace changes.
But the 4-minute piece went better than expected.
I’d been thinking somewhere around 1,160m would be a decent target.
I ended up with:
4:00 — 1,180m
1:41.7/500m average
333W average
30spm average
The pacing built nicely too.
30 sec — 1:47.1
1:00 — 1:45.6
1:30 — 1:44.1
2:00 — 1:44.8
2:30 — 1:43.4
3:00 — 1:41.3
3:30 — 1:39.3
4:00 — 1:29.2
So the last 30 seconds turned into a proper sprint.
One strange thing I noticed as the pace dropped towards 1:30 was that the drag suddenly seemed to increase.
I’m not sure whether that’s simply the Model A flywheel behaving differently at higher speed, but it definitely felt like the machine loaded up more as I accelerated.
The other issue was the seat.
There was a bit of bum-shuffling going on because the rollers didn’t feel quite right underneath me, which is not exactly ideal when you’re trying to sprint.
Still, 1,180m was safely over the target and a decent way to get the session started.
After a short recovery and a quick seat adjustment, I got ready for the second part.
The 30r20.
Or at least that was the intention.
The seat adjustment definitely helped, but this time another little problem showed up.
I kept finding myself hitting the front stop on the slides.
That’s something I’ve done before on slides, but it seemed more noticeable during this session. I think the lower rate exposes my technique more because there’s more time on the recovery and I’m still not completely adapted to keeping the whole machine balanced underneath me.
The annoying part was that every time I hit the front, the monitor seemed to count another stroke.
So although I was counting 20 strokes per minute myself, the PM kept recording a higher rate.
I tried dropping to 19 to compensate, but that didn’t really solve anything, so eventually I just stuck with my own count of 20 and concentrated on trying to stop crashing into the front.
Despite all that, the actual row went better than expected.
30:00 — 7,575m
1:58.8/500m average
209W average
And then I realised something afterwards.
That’s a season best for 30 minutes.
My previous best this season was 7,568m, so this sneaked past it by just 7 metres.
Seven metres isn’t exactly a demolition job, but a season best is a season best.
And this one came after already doing a hard 4-minute piece, on a Model A, on slides, while still trying to iron out the technique.
I’ll definitely take that.
The PM5 recorded 634 strokes, which works out at just over 21spm, but I’m fairly confident that the extra counts were coming from the slide impacts rather than me actually rowing at that rate.
The split progression was solid too.
3:45 — 2:01.6
7:30 — 1:59.0
11:15 — 1:59.1
15:00 — 1:59.3
18:45 — 1:59.4
22:30 — 1:59.0
26:15 — 1:58.6
30:00 — 1:54.2
So after a cautious start, it settled into the 1:59 range for most of the piece and then finished strongly.
Heart rate climbed progressively through the session as well, with the later splits getting into the 160s, which was pretty much what I expected after already doing the hard 4-minute piece beforehand.
The interesting part is that the two efforts showed two very different sides of the Model A on slides.
At higher rate, the 4-minute piece actually felt fairly natural once I got going.
At r20, the technique problems became much more obvious.
The lesson is probably that I need to stop trying to control the slides by rate alone and focus more on the recovery — hands away, body over, then let the knees come up smoothly without rushing myself into the front stop.
Still, as a double session, I’m more than happy with it.
4 minutes — 1,180m at 1:41.7
30 minutes — 7,575m at 1:58.8
And a season best by 7 metres.
On a Model A.
On slides.
After a seat adjustment, a few bumps off the front stops, and a bit more learning about how this old machine wants to be rowed.
Not perfect.
But definitely progress.
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