I held on to hope for the first 20 minute piece.  Since I did 20 minutes at 190W with a lactate of 1.3mmol/l on Saturday on my erg at home.  I thought I would exactly replicate that and see what happened today.  Answer…Lactate of 2.6!

I’m still trying to figure it all out, but independent of the reasons why, it is is clear that I need to train at a lower power.  So, my new training power is 185W.  And that’s what I did for the next 3 20 minute pieces.

But it is interesting to try to try to fit a theory around this.  So, what I saw last week was  steadily decreasing lactate readings, and increasing HRs after my hard session on Wednesday.  Lactate readings were very low on Saturday.  Then I did a very hard 6K and took Sunday off.  Come back on Monday and HRs are more normal, but lactates are up.

Prior to Sunday, I had rowed at least 10K 24 days in a row to try to complete the Mud Season Madness.  Granted one session a week was pretty easy, but the rest of them were at least 60 minutes of steady state or hard intervals / threshold type workouts.  Over roughly the same period, I managed to lose about 10 pounds.  I think I managed to achieve a cumulative depletion of glycogen over the period so that I was forced to metabolize fats, which does not produce lactate.  When I finally took a day off, and, I must admit do some re-feeding (and beer-dration), my gylcogen stores were fully restored.  So, going into the workouts monday and today, the power level was high enough to demand gycolysis and the glycogen stores were there to satisfy the demand.  the product of that metabolism was higher lactate levels.

The higher power and lower lactate last week was not the result of an improved ability to metabolize lactate, but a lack of glycogen to make lactate in the first place.  That is not what I was trying to induce with training.

So, as I said, the conclusion is the same.  Get the training power down to a better number and increase it very slowly.  Maybe 3W per week as Tom has suggested.

First 20 minutes.  Power: 191.4W, Avg HR over the last 5 minutes: 144.6,  lactate: 2.6

utput
Workout Summary – Mar 31, 2015
–_|_Total_|_-Total-_|_–Avg–_|_-Avg-_|_Avg-_|_-Avg-_|_–Avg–_|_-Avg_|_-Avg
–_|_Dist-_|_-Time–_|_-Pace–_|_Watts_|_SPM-_|_-HR–_|_-%HRR–_|_-DPS_|_-SPI
–_|_04907_|_20:00.0_|_02:02.3_|_191.4_|_19.0_|_136.4_|_ 65.5% _|_12.9_|_10.1
Workout Details
#-_|_SDist_|_-Split-_|_-SPace-_|_Watts_|_SPM-_|_AvgHR_|_Avg%HRR_|_DPS-_|_-SPI

01_|_01229_|_05:00.0_|_02:02.0_|_192.6_|_19.0_|_120.5_|_ 54.3% _|_12.9_|_10.1
02_|_01228_|_05:00.0_|_02:02.1_|_192.1_|_19.2_|_138.7_|_ 67.2% _|_12.8_|_10.0
03_|_01225_|_05:00.0_|_02:02.4_|_190.7_|_18.8_|_142.0_|_ 69.5% _|_13.0_|_10.1
04_|_01224_|_05:00.0_|_02:02.5_|_190.2_|_18.8_|_144.6_|_ 71.4% _|_13.0_|_10.1

Then drop power to 185 for the next 3 pieces.  Decided to drop stroke rate to 18 based on a suggestion from “mightyquinn” over on the Rowing Illustrated boards.

This was a happier power level, and may still be a bit too high.  I got bored with about 2 minutes to go.  I was staring at a projected distance of 14950m and that pissed me off.  So, I cranked up the stroke rate to 27 and power to 300W and finished with a little flair.

Output
Workout Summary – Mar 31, 2015
–_|_Total_|_-Total-_|_–Avg–_|_-Avg-_|_Avg-_|_-Avg-_|_–Avg–_|_-Avg_|_-Avg
–_|_Dist-_|_-Time–_|_-Pace–_|_Watts_|_SPM-_|_-HR–_|_-%HRR–_|_-DPS_|_-SPI
–_|_15017_|_63:00.0_|_02:05.9_|_175.5_|_17.7_|_146.8_|_ 72.9% _|_13.5_|_09.9
Workout Details
#-_|_SDist_|_-Split-_|_-SPace-_|_Watts_|_SPM-_|_AvgHR_|_Avg%HRR_|_DPS-_|_-SPI

01_|_04839_|_20:00.0_|_02:04.0_|_183.6_|_17.8_|_139.1_|_ 67.4% _|_13.6_|_10.3
02_|_00086_|_01:00.0_|_05:48.1_|_008.3_|_08.0_|_133.0_|_ 63.1% _|_10.8_|_01.0
03_|_04855_|_20:00.0_|_02:03.6_|_185.5_|_17.9_|_146.9_|_ 73.0% _|_13.6_|_10.4
04_|_00049_|_01:00.0_|_10:15.2_|_001.5_|_04.0_|_146.5_|_ 72.7% _|_12.2_|_00.4
05_|_04634_|_19:00.0_|_02:03.0_|_188.1_|_18.0_|_152.5_|_ 76.9% _|_13.6_|_10.4
06_|_00553_|_02:00.0_|_01:48.5_|_274.2_|_24.5_|_164.9_|_ 85.8% _|_11.3_|_11.2

Tomorrow:  3K / 2.5K / 2K on 5′ rest.  Target pace: 1:48 (6K pace).  On slides.