This newsletter it's Nottingham's Chris Brett's turn in the spotlight. Chris came to indoor rowing after knee injuries prevented him from running. In a Boy's Own type scenario he was spotted training in the Loughborough University Fitness Suite (where he's studying part-time for a PhD in Medical Image Compression) and told that his ergo times were quite promising. Since that time he's been rowing with Loughborough Students Rowing Club as well as a short spell with Nottingham Boat Club.I have a real love-hate relationship with the ergo as I like to see how hard I can make my sessions although at the same time I can never really say I've enjoyed a flat out piece. My favourite sessions are finishing a 2,000 metres, long (over one hour) steady state pieces, especially if doing them with a lot of other rowers, and last but not least The Loughborough Death Sesh. This was taken and slightly modified from a killer session page on Rachel Quarrel's web-site (http://users.ox.ac.uk/~quarrell/new.html). It basically consists of holding your desired 2,000 metre split for as long as you can until you miss it for three strokes in a row. You then fall off and rest for 5 minutes and then repeat. You are supposed to continue until you can't even get down to the desired split. In practice I find that after 10 repetitions (and over an hour of pain) most people enter a flu-like state and need to totally rest for 24 hours.All this training's obviously paid off, as at the moment Chris is lording it over several of the categories in the on-line world ranking (http://www.e-row.com/ranking/home.asp). He's third overall for the 2,000 metres with 6:07.4, and in first place in his 30-39 age group. In the 5,000 metres he's first overall with 16:27.3, while he's also hogging top spot in the 500 metres with 1:19.8. According to Chris his most satisfying performance was his distance of 17,502 metres for the 60 minutes row, as he put over 1,000m on his Personal Best.