Conditions: flukey 5-10mph WSW wind.  cross/head wind going down lake, cross/tail wind going up lake.  Sunny, really beautiful.  The kind of day where the sun glittered on the waves.

I had no plan.  I probably should have gone easy, but I was out with a quad and a straight four, I had to work semi hard just to stay with them, so decided to work a bit harder and keep them behind me.

I was in an OlymSport, which was rigged way too low.  At the finish, if I pushed my hands all the way down  to my legs with the blades square, the bottoms of the blades were not quite clear of the surface of the water.  Needless to say, I ended up dragging my blades way too much today.  Also with the cross wind, I lost my confidence to really reach out to full extension at the catch, so I lost a bit there too.

Nevertheless, it was a nice hard fartlek workout.  Basically, a quick warmup, then r22 at full pressure for about 2700m to the south end of the lake.  I was trying to catch the other boats that took off ahead of me as I was trying to get my foot position right.  I caught the four, but not the quad before I ran out of lake.

Then we turned north.  I had planned to do a hard 5K, but I wasn’t feeling the love, so I just took off at about r24 and enough pressure to start to put a little distance between me and the other boats.  I rowed this way for about 3200m up to the Rt. 9 bridge.  There some bits where I slowed a bit when the cross wind was getting feisty, but mostly I was just plugging along.

When I went under the bridge, the CrewNerd app always loses the GPS signal and the splits get really slow for about 50m, then it re-acquires the signal and the position data “catches up”, so the pace gets really fast for about 50m.  I got kind of happy when I saw the pace dip under 2:10 and I decided to row out the rest of the lake at a reasonable head race pace.  So, the rate went up to r26 and I concentrated on trying to take clean strokes.  I counted tens as I went and had a good look around after each ten since there was a bit of traffic on the lake.  I held on all the way up to the north end of the lake, about another 2300m.  My HR monitor was not working, but I suspect my HR was in the mid-170s by the time I finished.  I was pushing pretty hard.

Then I did a quick spin and rowed back to the quad and four, and turned to row with them back to the top of the lake again.  Then a final turn back to home and a reasonably hard row back to the dock.

Start_|_Dist_|__Time_|_Split Pace_|_Strokes_|_SPM__|_DPS__|_Remarks
00000_|_0440_|_05:32_|_6:17.3_____|_045_____|_08.1_|_09.8_|_warmup
00440_|_2300_|_10:54_|_2:22.2_____|_237_____|_21.7_|_09.7_|_down lake
02740_|_1260_|_09:02_|_3:35.1_____|_136_____|_15.1_|_09.3_|_rest
04000_|_3200_|_15:26_|_2:24.7_____|_352_____|_22.8_|_09.1_|_up to bridge
07200_|_2334_|_10:31_|_2:15.2_____|_270_____|_25.7_|_08.6_|_bridge to north end
09534_|_1076_|_08:24_|_3:54.2_____|_130_____|_15.5_|_08.3_|_rest
10610_|_1627_|_07:49_|_2:24.1_____|_181_____|_23.2_|_09.0_|_back to dock
12237_|_0468_|_08:42_|_9:17.7_____|_054_____|_06.2_|_08.7_|_

Distance__|_Time__|_Pace__|_Strokes_|_SPM_|_DPS_|_Remarks
0440_____|_05:32_|_6:17.3_|_045_____|_08.1_|_09.8_|_warmup
9461_____|_44:40_|_2:21.6_|_1040____|_23.3_|_09.1_|_Main set
0468_____|_08:42_|_9:17.7_|_054_____|_06.2_|_08.7_|_Cool down
2336_____|_17:26_|_3:43.9_|_266_____|_15.3_|_08.8_|_rest meters
12705____|_16:20_|_3:00.2_|_1405____|_18.4_|_09.0_|_Total

So, I would have liked to be faster, but in a crappy boat with a cross wind, I was OK with how things turned out.  And it was really nice to row with other people for a change

Tomorrow:  Back to Quinsig.  There’s a peinert there that I’d like to try out.  I think I might do some 1000m intervals at different rates.  Or I might just do some technique rowing.