erg 2k time

Question
Hello
I am a 150 lb, 5'8", 17 year old girl. I recently quit swimming at a highly competitive level. I have been rowing for about a month. My average pace on our last ten minute piece was a 2:06 and i was able to hold around a 1:55 on 4x500 with 4 minutes rest in between. What should my goal time be on my first 2k on the erg?

Answer
A 2:06 split on a 10 minute piece is actually VERY fast for a high school girl who has only been rowing for one month.  It just goes to show that swimming is a great crossover sport for rowing.  To give you an idea of how good a time that is, I have thirty novice girls on the club-level college team that I coach, and your split for ten minutes is faster than all but three of their 2k splits.

As for how fast you will be on your first 2k test, that is very hard to tell.  The main reason for this is because you have only been rowing for one month.  New rowers are notorious for dropping large chunks of time each time that they get on the erg because they are still learning the technique and just how hard they can push themselves.  With that being said, your 2k split is not going to be very far off of your 10 minute piece because they are so close in distance.  I would advise that you start out in the 2:02-2:03 range on the 2k.  At the halfway mark, reevaluate how easy it is feeling.  If the 2:02 is pushing you physically, stay with it.  If it is feeling a little too easy, speed up and see if you can make a run at 8 minutes.

For the future, if you want to drop your 2k time, those 500m pieces are amazing at developing your VO2 max.  We have a workout called the Dirty Dozen.  It is a 12x500m with 3 minutes of rest in between.  Your goal is to row each piece at or below your 2k goal.  It sounds very easy, but it is one of the hardest workouts I have ever done.  With the splits that you are rowing now, I think that you could easily get to the point where you are holding that 1:55 split for an entire 2k by the end of your high school career if you put in the work.  If that is the case, you should start getting some attention from some pretty good schools.