Rowing times for 2K

Question
Hi, I am 18, 5 foot 5 and I weigh about 56KG. I just did a 2K time trail and got 9.03 for it. This is only my second. What kind of time should i be aiming for?
Any tips to get my time down?
I have a time trial to get into the female novices top boat in a little less than two weeks and i am desperate to get on it.

Thankyou

Hannah

Answer
Hi Hannah: An average time for a lightweight women your age is about an 8:20.  You have a little catching up to do.  But you are a novice and these average times are based on rowers who are very experienced.  

Your time is not going to go down too much in just a couple of weeks.  There really are no short cuts to geting your erg time down 40 seconds in a couple of weeks.  However, if you stick with the sport, your time will go down significantly as you gain more conditioning and experience.

The only recommendation I have for the short term is to workout hard with running and weights over the next few days.  Practice doing 500s on the erg with a goal of getting a 2:05 to 2:10 average.  Take a rest day before the erg piece.  On the day of your time trial, go out hard from the start.  You're going to get tired a bit quicker, but just hang on until the end.  You want to get the erg spinning fast while you are fresh.

Good Luck/AP