A couple of newsletters ago, we asked people who significantly improved their time at the PPP Healthcare British Indoor Rowing Championship in November what they thought the most significant factor was in their performance. Jonathan Gornall, who's competed in the 45-49 category at the last couple of championships, has got the bit between his teeth this week… I improved my time from 7:02 (when I fell off on the last stroke - an old story) to 6:52 in 2000 with, frankly, very little specific training. As a competitor in the 2001 Ward Evans Atlantic Rowing Race I have been building my general endurance in a number of disciplines, including running, swimming (handy if the homemade boat sinks mid-Atlantic) and, naturally, rowing, both in an Alden Ocean Shell and on the Indoor Rower. I was heartened to read Tel's piece a few weeks back comparing the training required for a fast 2,000m time to the construction of a tall building: the higher you want to go, the broader your foundations have to be.In other words, your aerobic base must grow in relation to your faster, race-specific work. In my case, however, I have been building a pyramid, with very little of that nasty, painful top-end eyeballs-out stuff. With two months to go before the British Championship I sighed and settled down to a slightly harsher regime. While maintaining my hour and two-hour rows (averaging 2.05 for two hours) I threw in the following two simple but distressing workouts three or four times a week, alternating between the two. Damper setting 7 throughout (I race at 5):1: 1,000 metres steady warm-up (2.10/500m). Next 1,000m broken into: 200m flat-out (aiming for a 500m time as sub-target time for the 2,000m as one can get it; in my case, around 1.38, stroking up to 35-37spm), 200m rest, 200m flat-out, 200m rest, 200m flat-out.You should be gasping like a fish at this point but now you have 1,000m to compose yourself, grab a mouthful of water. At the end of the rest 1,000m you repeat the cycle, and so on until you have AT LEAST covered 2,400m flat-out - which is to say, the display should have you at 9,000m by the end of your last 1000m at rest pace. I like round numbers so I tend to plug on in recovery mode until I clock up 10,000m I have even been known to throw in another one or more 1000m flat-out, but if my per/500m time shows signs of flagging I usually call it a day. I have noticed, however, that one seems capable of pulling more towards the end of one of these sessions than at the beginning.The 500m version of this speaks for itself: it is more gruelling, demanding 500m flat-out followed by only 500m recovery pace. Get to 2,000m worth of flat-out, and then award yourself 1,000m at recovery pace. If you can get through four cycles of this, still maintaining your target per/500m time, then you are definitely going to do well at the next race. I'm at Boston so if I go under 6.52 there then you'll know the above works (although if anybody is logging early excuses I have had a bit of a bad back...)If you've got tips you'd like share, send them to webmaster@vermonthouse.co.uk. It'd guarantee you one extra Valentine's Day card at least.