RowAlong: The Grid - Summer '24

WELCOME TO THE GRID Summer '24 Edition

The Grid opens from 1st to 31st May 2024 - and is a Virtual Indoor Rowing competition designed for anyone, as long as your machine lets you set a precise time or distance. There are three main divisions:

Concept2 (Row, Bike and SKi)
Official Water Rowers with A1/S4 monitor or Smart Row
Other Rowing Machines

These divisions do not compete against each other.

Concept2's Row/Ski/Bike Ergs only go up against the same kind of machine (for RowErg, all models are treated as the same)

All WaterRowers with A1/S4/SmartRow compete together. 

Any other rowing machine (including Water Rowers that don't use the above monitor) enter the "Other Machines" division.

(I am open to creating divisions for specific machines - like RP3 / SkillRow / Aviron etc - just get in touch and request it)

If you have a community that uses the same machine as you - I suggest trying to spread the word of this competition in order to have others to compete against accurately.

Any questions on this, please feel to get in touch at info@rowalong.com

Proof of score. 

You will be asked to upload a photo of your screen or a screengrab of your logbook/Strava to go with your score entry.  If this is causes problems, please get in touch. 

Individual and Team Events

You can register to take part on The Grid as an individual, and/or as part of a team. 

Teams are made up of 3 people.  Each must do 4 workouts each - 1 from each grid (so all 12 will be performed by the whole team).  

If any of the members are heavyweight, then the team is Heavyweight. 

For age category, pick the YOUNGEST in the team on the 1st May 2024.

If you need to swap out a team member, that member must row 4 workouts, 1 from each grid, even if the member they're replacing has already submitted a score.

If you have also entered as an individual, you may re-use your score for the Team entry too.  But why not mix it up and attempt a different set of workouts? 

REGISTRATION
The cost to enter The Grid is £10 (+ processing fee)

There is no prize money - as all profits will be donated to World Cancer Research. 

Winners will receive a digital certificate and a £10 discount for one of "The Grid" technical T shirts or vests. (Current costs mean that you would pay £5 for one)

If you register and can no longer compete, or run out of time to row and enter your scores, I'm afraid no refunds will be given. 

In the unlikely event that The Grid is cancelled, refunds will be given. 

MULTIPLE MACHINES

Once you register the machine you'll be using, "Concept2 RowErg" for example, you can only use THAT kind of machine for your scores. If you want to use another machine, you must re-register for that one. 

THE FORMAT:
There are FOUR SECTIONS on The Grid:

A. Sprints

100m

1 minute

500m

B. Short

1000m

4 minutes

2000m

C. Middle

5000m

6000m

30 minutes

D. Long

10000m

60 minutes

Half Marathon (21097m)

PICK ONLY ONE WORKOUT FROM EACH GRID

For example, GRID A - 100m, GRID B - 4mins, GRID C - 6000m and GRID D - 60mins.

Then enter the scores FOR ONLY YOUR FOUR CHOSEN WORKOUTS. (Time for distance events, and distance for timed events)

To be clear, you don't just pick your four favourite workouts out of the 12 - you chose ONE WORKOUT from EACH GRID

SCORING

You will be ranked in each of your workouts against other competitors in your group who did that workout. Groups are created by combining machine used, sex, age and weight (see below).

Fastest for a workout gets 1 point. Next gets 2 points etc.

Your points across the 4 GRID SECTIONS add up to give you your total score. The lowest score in your group wins.

So in the example above, if you came 2nd / 5th / 3rd and 1st - your total will be 11 points.

But if someone else in your division picked 500m / 2000m / 30mins and HM and came 1st / 3rd / 2nd and 1st - their total will be 7 - and they beat you.

This is what makes The Grid different. You’re not necessarily attempting the same events as people you’re competing against.

ALL WORKOUTS ARE EQUAL ON THE SAME GRID

Say there were 10 people in your 40-49 lightweight male Concept2 division.

GRID A results:

3 did 100m

3 did 1 minute

4 did 500m

The end results for GRID A will be that there will be 3 winners with 1 point each. 3 second places with 2, 3 third places with 3 and 1 fourth place with 4 points.

Those 10 rowers go on to get points from the other three GRIDS, awarded by how many people row a workout, and who performed the best.

So although they may not be rowing the same workouts, it’s the points they gain that matters.

AN ELEMENT OF TACTICS

This means that the trick to this competition is to try to pick workouts that you think you will do best in, or that fewer people would do. Will more people pick a 10km rather than a HM for example?

So even if you aren’t the fastest, you may get more points just by virtue that less people will enter…

TIES

What happens if there’s a tie? Firstly, the MOST HIGHEST PLACEMENTS will be used to decide. Then any HEAD TO HEAD events will be used to decide.

If this is still a tie, then either a Tie result will be given, or a new, 10 minute workout can be agreed on, with the longest distance achieved winning.

CHANGES TO SCORES + SCORE VISIBILITY

You can update any workout with a new time simply by updating the score. If you wish to change to a different workout on one of the Grids, it's important you remove / zero the score for the original workout. Email me at info@rowalong.com if this doesn't seem to work!

Rowers will STRICTLY have until 23:55 GMT on 31st May to register and enter a result. I know technology can trip this kind of deadline up sometimes, but this is final.

The Leaderboard will be visible from the very beginning, so you can see how your competitros are doing.  However, the leaderboard MAY go dark for the last week of The Grid.  Keep your eyes peeled on the Socials to see if that will happen! 

HOW GROUPS ARE MADE

Groups will be split by:

Sex / Age / Weight / Adaptive

The registration fields also contain Country and Team (if you have no team, you don't have to enter anything)

Machine choice starts with your Division choice, then if using a Concept2, in registration, pick your actual machine.

Sex options are Male / Female - for the Teams, there is a mixed choice too.  I understand that there are a lot of people who no longer indentify with their assigned sex from birth - but I'm following World Rowing guidelines to keep this fair to all from a competitive point of view.

Weight options are Lightweight or Heavyweight - Males 75Kg and over should enter HEAVYWEIGHT Females over 61.5Kg should enter HEAVYWEIGHT Otherwise, choose Lightweight.

If any of your team is Heavyweight, then your team is heavyweight! 

Age groups are the age you will be before May 1st 2024:

Under 8-11
12-15
16-18
19-29
30-39
40-49
50-59
60-69
70+

Adaptive groups will be split only by gender at first. But if there are lots of entries (or requests) an age filter will be added too.

Depending on entries, if some of the groups are quiet small, you'll be contacted about the option to combine groups in order to make the event more competitive.

PROOF OF RESULT

This is done purely on the "honor system". With no prize money, I'm hoping there's no desire for a tall, 25 year old heavyweight to enter the standard 70+ lightweight group and claim they can row 2000m in 5:37! 

I'll keep an eye out for weird results, and if something sticks out, I'll get in touch to ask for proof.

SKI / BIKEERG

As well as rowing machines, you can compete on the Ski and BikeErg's from Concept2.

The distances and time for SkiErg is the same.  However, you must DOUBLE all times or distances for the BikeErg. 

And please keep to the correct machine division. SkiErg's vs SkiErg's and BikeErg's vs BikeErg's - don't enter a BikeErg score into the RowErg group!!

MERCH

"The Grid" Technical T-shirts and vests will be available to purchase for £17 +postage.
Winners of groups will receive a discount code for a T shirt.
A raffle for anyone who has entered will be drawn for further discount codes (the amount of codes will depend on the total number of entries).

ANY QUESTIONS ON ANY OF THE ABOVE, PLEASE FEEL FREE TO GET IN TOUCH AT
INFO@ROWALONG.COM

RowAlong - The Grid 2024
ONLINE / WORLDWIDE