Oh my God, it was beautiful this morning!  Sunny, temp around 65F, no wind…at all, water glassy smooth.  A no excuses kind of morning.

Plan:

1. 2 x 1000m
2. Race pace and rate –> 2:00/500 and 30 spm
3. Work on clean start, getting to race pace crisply, managing through the lactate rush, staying long, keeping the rate up, and finishing with a kick
4. As much rest between pieces as necessary.

Start_|_Dist_|_Split_|_Pace_|_Strks__|_Rate_|_DPS_|_AvgHR_|_Remarks
00020_|_3973_|_21:00_|_2:38.5_|_419___|_20.0_|_09.5_|_128___|_warmup
03993_|_1000_|_03:59_|_1:59.4_|_121___|_30.4_|_08.3_|_088___|_1K #1
04993_|_1475_|_09:21_|_3:10.3_|_180___|_19.2_|_08.2_|_124___|_rest
06468_|_1000_|_04:03_|_2:01.6_|_125___|_30.9_|_08.0_|_168___|_1K #2
07468_|_2601_|_14:38_|_2:48.7_|_301___|_20.6_|_08.6_|_138___|_cool down

Dist__|_Time__|_Pace___|_Strks_|_SPM__|_DPS__|_AvgHR_|_Remarks
03973_|_21:00_|_2:38.5_|_419___|_20.0_|_09.5_|_128___|_warmup
02000_|_08:02_|_2:00.5_|_246___|_30.6_|_08.1_|_129___|_Main set
01475_|_09:21_|_3:10.3_|_180___|_19.2_|_08.2_|_124___|_rest meters
02601_|_14:38_|_2:48.7_|_301___|_20.6_|_08.6_|_138___|_cool down
10049_|_53:01_|_2:38.3_|_1146___|_21.6_|_08.8_|_130___|_Total

Tried a small variation on the warmup.  I did 10 on / 10 off for all the stroke rates up to 28.  At 28, 30 and 32, I did 20 on / 20 off.  This brought my HR up a bit more and gave me more strokes to get acclimated with the higher stroke rates.  I think I will keep it that way.

Then I paddled back to the down river end of the 1K straight section.  I set up for the start.  Based on looking at Ben’s excellent starts, I decided to try to take my first stroke from a position a bit less compressed.  Essentially with my heels down vs up.  This seemed to work great.  I was able to pull through that first stroke and be more balaned at the finish.  I settled at 10 strokes and continued to count.  At 20, I felt great.  At 30, the drowning feeling started.  At 50, I was hurting and needed to do a bit of steering, and my splits slowed down.  By 60, I consciously dropped the rate a bit and smoothed out my stroke.  This took me out to 80 and by then, I felt like I had it in the bag.  I gradually brought up  the rate and and pace over the next 40 strokes to the end.  End result 3:59.  I’m happy with that.

During the start, my water bottle started rolling around in the bottom of my boat and knocked off the HR pickup for the speedcoach.  Here’s the data from the RIM app.

My HR was relatively low.

I paddled back to downstream end of the 1K course mostly doing slow roll ups.  I had a drink and psyched myself up for another one of those.  The second one was basically like the first.  The start was better than the first rep.  Again I did the first stroke with feet fully planted.    I settled faster and played it a bit more conservatively than the first and the lactate rush was much less pronounced.  Around the 60th stroke, I must have caught a weed on the impeller because the speed reading shot up to a 3:30 pace for a couple of strokes and then popped back down.  You can see the transient on the Speedcoach data, but not on the RIM plot.  From there it was just grinding out another 60 strokes.  I needed to do a bit of steering right around the 100th stroke and I slowed a bit.  The end was near so I started to force the pace more.  Unfortunately, when I got to stroke number 120, I saw that I had another 100 meters to go!  I counted off another 10 strokes right on the ragged edge.

This rep timed out to 4:03, but this included the weed glitch. Based on the GPS data from RIM, it was closer to 4:00, and this is upstream against the current.

Tomorrow:  4 x 500 / 5min rest, race start, race pace / rate, no sprint.