Last newsletter Simon Barnes threw down the gauntlet to everybody who significantly improved their PB at the PPP Healthcare British Indoor Rowing Championship and asked them how they did it. Well, David Hislop only went and picked that gauntlet up and answered.Having competed for the first time at this year's championship, I achieved a Personal Best of 6:42.8 (previous best 6:50.3). The bulk of my training in the lead up to the race was a blend of aerobic sessions: 5,000 metres in the morning followed by a second daily session either at lunchtime or early evening comprising of alternate sessions of: -4 x 500 metres averaging out at faster than race pace with a two minute recovery between each piece. I was targeting at a 1:37.5 average (6:30 pace) on the basis that when race day came my system would be used to the pace and would deliver the goods. 3 x 1,000 metres with a 3 minute recovery aiming to get each 1,000 metres progressively faster around the 3:20 mark. I also put in sessions of 10 x 100 metre sprints with 1 minute recovery looking to get an average of between 17.0 seconds and 17.5 seconds.Some of these sessions were with a training partner on the machine next to me to simulate a race situation. Generally though most of my training was done on my own using the pace clock on the rower as a guide. At no time did I use my Heart Rate Maximum or the target time on the monitor. My biggest problem was to get my weight down under the 75kg mark to make Lwt. My normal weight is around 77/78kg. This was done in the three weeks prior to the competition by cutting out (gradually) my daily intake of one litre of ice cream and other goodies like biscuits etc. I made the weight and held it while still maintaining the quality training and sharpening up.It took a lot of will power and discipline but I couldn't see the sense in training hard for nearly a year for the Championships and blowing it for the sake of a few gallons of ice cream and a ton of biscuits. For the record I finished 5th in the 40-44 Lwt category and am now building up for next year's BIRC where I will go in the 45-49 Lwt category.One final point. I did regular time trials over a minute (personal best 339 metres); 500 metres (PB 1:29.6); 1,000 metres (PB 3:13.2) and also speed endurance sessions of 2 x 500 metres with 5 minutes recovery and 2 x 1,000 metres with full recovery throughout the year to gauge progress.Other training I do includes running, cycling and weights to ensure a complete programme of cross-training covered all the necessary training components. To beat the boredom on the erg I tune the TV into Sky News at 7am and turn the sound up so that at least I can catch one full news session each day. Other than that I get the odd chance to speak to someone on the next machine or alternatively I just shut everything else out and get on with it.Cheers David. We showed your training programme to Terry O'Neill and got him to say a few words about it:Terry O'Neill: To reduce your PB by over seven seconds is no mean feat and was the result of a tough and balanced training programme. Further improvement will be hard fought for as there is a law of diminishing returns. Knocking a second off a 1:50 split is a lot easier than a second off 1:40, especially bearing in mind the constant battle against anno domini.The one thing you need to consider is the training multiples, which for short intervals should be 2 - 2.5 times race distance during early and pre-competition periods. This means 8 - 10 x 500 metres and 4 - 5 x 1,000 metres. This would reduce to 4 - 6 x 500 metres and 2 - 3 x 1000 metres closer to race day. The extra couple of 500 metres will increase the enzyme activity needed to deal with high lactate production in the muscle fibres, as well as improving the shunt mechanism to move the lactate into the other muscles where it is metabolised.