Conditions: Cold. 43F, windy, gusty wind 10-15mph from the North. This was a head wind going downriver and a tail wind coming back.
Plan:
- Steady state
- Rate: 18-20
- Pace: ~2:30
- HR limit 150
- Work on minimizing lean back at low rates with crisp finishes
Well, it didn’t work out as planned. I was doing fine until I was about 1600m into it. At that point I had to stop and then swing wide to avoid 4 boats from Brandeis. They called out to me and said they were running drills. As pulled up toward the lead boat, they started rowing in the same direction as me. It didn’t look much like a drill to me. I really wanted to be clear of them so I upped the rate to 22 and tried to open up some clear water. It took about 500m but I was a few lengths ahead of them when they stopped to turn around and I returned to my normally scheduled program.
By that point, I had blown through my HR cap, and I found it very difficult to slow down enough in the conditions to get my HR back down where it belonged. With the headwind, the boat felt very heavy and I needed to concentrate very hard on getting enough blade clearance above the water. As soon as I eased up the stroke to try to let my HR settle, my rowing form went into the toilet. I decided to focus on trying to row as cleanly as I could.
Even after I turned at the dam, I found that rowing with the tail required enough concentration that it was difficult to row gently enough to keep my HR in check.
I finally relaxed enough to row reasonable well on the final leg back to the dock from the dam.
The end result was a black hole workout.
Start_|_Dist_|_Split_|_Pace_|_Strks__|_Rate_|_DPS_|_AvgHR_|_Remarks
00020_|_1640_|_08:18_|_2:31.8_|_167___|_20.1_|_09.8_|_147___|_Stopped for boats
01660_|_0600_|_02:49_|_2:21.1_|_063___|_22.3_|_09.5_|_164___|_get ahead of fleet
02260_|_1680_|_08:32_|_2:32.5_|_173___|_20.3_|_09.7_|_158___|_rest of way to dam
03949_|_3071_|_15:06_|_2:27.4_|_294___|_19.5_|_10.4_|_155___|_Back upriver to cove
07060_|_2820_|_14:49_|_2:37.7_|_286___|_19.3_|_09.9_|_156___|_back down river to dam
09880_|_0760_|_03:45_|_2:27.8_|_074___|_19.8_|_10.3_|_146___|_stopped to fix seat track
10700_|_2220_|_10:58_|_2:28.2_|_215___|_19.6_|_10.3_|_153___|_back to cut
13000_|_1100_|_05:26_|_2:28.1_|_114___|_21.0_|_09.6_|_154___|_through cut to home
Dist__|_Time__|_Pace___|_Strks_|_SPM__|_DPS__|_AvgHR_|_Remarks
01640_|_08:18_|_2:31.8_|_167___|_20.1_|_09.8_|_147___|_warmup
12251_|_01:25_|_2:30.4_|_1219___|_19.8_|_10.1_|_155___|_Main set
13891_|_09:43_|_2:30.6_|_1386___|_19.9_|_10.0_|_154___|_Total
I think I need to limit my rate to 18 or something to keep my HR low enough in these steady state sessions for now.
Tomorrow: 10×500/500r
Quantified Rowing 
Sometimes rows end up like this. I personally think it is better to focus on rowing form and ignore the heart rate (for one training) than to overthink the heart rate cap.
Not sure what to make of Mike’s comment on the ISS blog. Would ignore it.
Sorry I couldn’t comment on your 4x6x1min/R1 blog, but I had to get up early and had a long day …
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