Top RowPro Rower and former Cornell Lightweight Eric Hagberg of New York has posted a new 100,000 meter indoor rowing record for lightweight men, rowing 6:46:26.1 at an average pace of 2:01.9 including six breaks.

In a truly outstanding solo performance, Eric beat the previous 30-39 lightweight record by almost a full hour, and in the process he also broke the 100,000 meter individual lightweight record for every other age group.

Eric had to wait until he was 'home alone' to get the 7-hour time slot he needed for his record attempt. 'I'd been wanting to attempt a 100k world record for a while' said Eric, 'as I figured the long pieces I usually do were building up my CV strength, and what better way to prove it?'

The previous 100,000 meter record for 30-39 lightweight men was 7:45:10 at an average pace of 2:19.6, set June 5, 2005 by John Reich, another former Cornell Lightweight. Eric was confident he could beat that, the question was by how much. 'I didn't really know exactly how fast I was going to be able to complete the piece, but figured that a good starting point was right about 2:00.'

Eric is a regular RowPro user and can usually be found at the very top of the 100+ people in the RowPro Rowers listing on the Concept2 website. Eric used the RowPro Challenge mode for the 100,000 meter record, which replaces the onscreen charts with a large-font 100,000-meter countdown display.

The 100,000 meter row was set up in RowPro as a Custom Row using twenty intervals of 5,000 meters with no rests.

Eric rowed from 10:30am to 5:15pm. 'RowPro worked like a charm' said Eric, 'no hiccups or problems at all. I held to 2:00 or below for more than the first 50k, at which point I took my first water break. Over the remaining 50k I took another 5 breaks, if I recall correctly.