Key Workouts to Prepare for a 2,000 Meter Race

1. 30-40 minutes steady piece at a moderate to hard intensity, focusing on effective technique.
   
2. Three 10-minute pieces with 2-3 minutes rest. Your total meters rowing should end up being more than the metres you row in a single 30-minute piece.
   
3. Four to six 5-minute pieces with 2-3 minutes rest. Make these pieces more intense than the 10-minute pieces.
   
4. Four 1000-metre pieces with 3-4 minutes rest, at about the pace you might row a 2000 metre race.
   
5. Six 500-metre pieces with 3-4 minutes rest, at a pace 2-3 seconds faster than your pace for the 1000 met pieces.

The Coach's Favourite Five

Your preparation for the 2,000 metre race should fall predominantly into the aerobic area and should continue to be focused on distance, measured both in time and in metres. With this in mind, I would like to offer my five favourite types of workouts as a guide for your race preparation. Good luck and good racing.

1. Endurance: Rows of 30-45 minutes or 7,500-10,000 meters. This workout category includes:
   

   
   

   • Thirty minute time trials for the World Ranking.

   • A continuous 10,000 metre piece with increasing intensity (decreasing splits in terms of pace) each 2,500 metres.

   • "Swing" rows at 20-30 seconds easier than race pace - a swing row is a steady moderately paced row; not so fast that you can't keep up a conversation the whole time.

   • A continuous piece which consists of 5 to 8 repetitions of (3 minutes, 2 minutes, and 1 minute, as follows. Row 3 minutes @ a low stroke rate of 22 spm (strokes per minute); then 2 minutes at a moderate stroke rate of 27 spm; then 1 minute at a high stroke rate of 32 spm. Then repeat. There is no rest between these pieces.

    

2. Overdistance: Rows of longer than the race distance; such as: 2 x 6,000 metres with 5 minutes rest between, keeping the pace steady but trying to improve your overall time for both pieces in the course of your training.

    

3. Repetitions: Moderate intensity work intervals alternated with short rests; such as: 15 x 1:40 work/:20 rest. For the 1:40, work at 4-6 seconds slower than race pace. 

    

4. Long Intervals: 3 to 5 repetitions of 1500 meters at 3-5 seconds slower than race pace, with 3-5 minutes rest between pieces.

    

5. Intervals: high intensity work intervals with rest for 1-3 times the work duration, such as: 2 to 3 sets of 3 x 500 meters at 3-6 seconds faster than race pace, with 3 minutes rest between 500 meter pieces and 6-8 minutes between sets.