The weather was less than perfect today, but fine for rowing. Light drizzle, low 50s, basically no wind. I hate how dark it is in the mornings now when I start.
Plan:
4K warmup with some SBR, and slow roll ups, plus a few bursts of 20 strokes at race pace.
3 x 500m at faster than race pace. Aiming for 2:00 or better and 29-31 SPM.
All intervals through the bridge to practice steering under pressure. Objective is to find a good line, maintain speed and practice looking over my shoulder during the drive.
cool down with SBR and slow roll ups working on finishes and balance
This is the bridge. Each arch is wide enough for a single boat to go through.
Dist__|_Time__|_Pace___|_Strks_|_SPM__|_DPS__|_AvgHR_|_Remarks
04240_|_22:52_|_2:41.9_|_439___|_19.2_|_09.7_|_132___|_warmup
02000_|_08:08_|_2:02.1_|_236___|_29.0_|_08.5_|_170___|_Main set
01380_|_08:50_|_3:12.0_|_170___|_19.2_|_08.1_|_138___|_rest meters
02140_|_12:17_|_2:52.3_|_243___|_19.8_|_08.8_|_146___|_cool down
09760_|_52:08_|_2:40.3_|_1088___|_20.9_|_09.0_|_142___|_Total
The three intervals went fine. It was tough to hold the pace, but the steering went well. I found the right line each time and got more comfortable with the looking every 5 strokes and keeping a picture in my head. After I finished the 3rd interval I started to paddle home and then I decided to take the S-Turn at head race pace, since I struggled with that yesterday. Today, my steering was much better. I did not swing wide in the initial turn, allowed my rate to climb in the turn and powered out of the turn well. In the race, I think turns will be more like 2:10 than 2:08, but it was a good thing to do. Probably do it again tomorrow.
Tomorrow: 2 x 500 at 2:00 through the bridge, plus 1 at 2:10 around the s-turn.
Glorious morning. Fall foliage, temps in the low 50s, very light wind from the SW. Sparkling clear sky. So pretty I took a picture.
Plan:
4 K warmup include a few 20s at race pace or faster.
4 x 500m / 500m rest at faster than race pace and higher than race rate
Try to set up these intervals so that steering is required to get more comfortable with really lining up bridges and turns at full pressure.
Today I discovered that the Wahoo tickr is not compatible with the Speedcoach XL2 HR sensor pickup. The Tickr is ANT+ and the XL2 is Polar compatible. Ugh. Now I need to pick up a new H7. Anyway, the first plot is HR and stroke rate from RIM on the iphone and the second is pace and rate from the speedcoach.
Dist__|_Time__|_Pace___|_Strks_|_SPM__|_DPS__|_AvgHR_|_Remarks
03980_|_20:52_|_2:37.3_|_406___|_19.5_|_09.8_|_000___|_warmup
02000_|_08:08_|_2:01.9_|_236___|_29.0_|_08.5_|_000___|_Main set
01500_|_08:51_|_2:57.0_|_169___|_19.1_|_08.9_|_000___|_rest meters
04340_|_23:04_|_2:39.4_|_472___|_20.5_|_09.2_|_000___|_cool down
11820_|_00:55_|_2:34.6_|_1283___|_21.1_|_09.2_|_000___|_Total
The pace was pretty good, but the steering was less than perfect. On my first interval, I cut through the bridge at a bit too much of an angle and banged my oar blade against the abutment, This happened on my second to last stroke and clearly showed that I was careful enough with my line. On the second interval, I set up to go through the s-turn. I thought I had taken a good line, but at the pace I was rowing, it took a lot more pressure to try to stay on the desired line. This was good practice, because I rated up, really reached out with my port oar and hauled the bow around. The good news was that I was able to keep the pace while I made the adjustment. The third interval was a straight shot. The fourth finished right at the bridge, and I did a good job lining up for the right arch and I didn’t hit anything this time. 😉
This finished it off for me, but I decided to take one more power 20 back through the bridge along the exact path where I had my brush with the abutment. This one went just fine.
In both the warmup and the cool down, I did a lot of square blade rowing and slow roll ups, working on balance and finishes. By the end of the session, I was getting a lot more clearance on the recovery. I’ll keep doing that too.
Tomorrow: 3 x 500. I think I will do all of them under the bridge.
Almost identical to last Sunday when I did 3 x 20′ HR was a little lower and the pace was a little faster, but the lactate readings were a bit higher at 20 and 40 minutes, but much lower at 60′.
Last week: 1.1, 1.2, 3.2
This week: 1.7, 2.1, 2.2, 2.5
I think I should stick with 2:04 or 2:05 for now for an endurance pace.
I am now into my taper week for the HOCR. Here’s the plan for that.
Monday: 4K warmup, 4 x 500 with 3:30 minute rests, 4K cool down
Tuesday: 4K warmup, 3 x 500 with 3:30 rests, 4K cool down
Wednesday: 4K warmup, 2 x 500 with 3:30 rests, 2K cool down
Weather: mid 50s, before I launched there was a 5 to 10 mph breeze from the north. This moderated and by the time I finished it was more like 3-5mph with a few stronger gusts. Very Sunny. The water as sparking. A perfect day for a row.
I was really looking forward to this race. My first race on “my lake”. The Snake Regatta is an even that is held every fall as a Collegiate head race. It is run over 4200m from south to north on the lake. This year, our club, Lake Quinsigamond Community Rowing (LQCR), and the other masters club on the lake, Quinsigamond Rowing Club (QRC) got together to sponsor a masters division in the race.
Since it was it’s first year, and we really only started to publicize it late this summer, it was small. There were 22 boats in all and 12 singles, most from our two clubs. But it is a great place to row and beautiful day for the event.
I am not sure how they picked bow numbers, but I was given bow number 179, which was the eighth boat to start. I knew some of the guys who started in front of me, and I decided to consider it a “target rich environment”. With the width of the course, and how straight it is, overtaking boats was straightforward.
Me and Bob launched from the regatta point docks, just north of the route 9 bridge and we joined the parade of boats heading down lake to the start. I worked on getting used to being back in the boat. I had not rowed since Monday, so I just focused on balance and reach and trying to clean up my finishes. Toward the bottom of the lake I did 2 sets of 20 strokes at faster than race pace to get the blood flowing.
Then I took off my overshirt, and revealed, for the very first time, an actual LQCR uniform shirt! The coach of the high school kids gave it to me before I launched so I could war club colors at the Head of Charles next week. I was so delighted, I can’t even describe it. I haven’t worn a sports uniform since I was in high school.
We just hung out in a clump chatting until they called us to get organized into bow number order. With this few boats, it was pretty simple. They started with bow 170, a 32 year old rower from community rowing in Brighton. He looked like a rower. Then 171 and 172 were scratches. 173, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178 (who was missing a bow number but they worked it out), then they called me to full pressure and I was off.
On the video, I am on the course at 2:50. I could feel the head wind making the boat feel a little heavy, but it felt good to row with full pressure and I probably pushed the pace a little too hard off the line. I found my line to hug the shore of the next island and counted strokes. I overtook a boat at 4:15, it looks like he made a mistake steering to the east side of the island and then needed to correct it. You can see him rowing across my bow then falling back.
Then I was past the first island and I had my sights on two things. First, don’t run into the beach, which juts out a bit. Second, the next boat that I was going after. I pass the beach at 5:40. Prior to that, you can see that this boat made the mistake I wanted to avoid. He needed to steer radically around the beach, right while I was closing the gap on him.
After the beach, the next challenge is the narrows. This is a spot that is wide enough to fit four boats with oar tips touching. They have it marked with a buoy so that boats going down lake are separated from the boats racing so there is just enough room for two boats side by side, but it’s tight. I looked over my shoulder and I saw two boats right ahead of me. I closed on one of the quickly and passed him right in the middle of the narrows. The other guy seemed to be rowing at something very close to my pace.
From the Narrows, it is about a kilometer of relatively unprotected water. This is the widest point of the lake. There was a little bit of head wind, but not much chop, and I could really focus in on this next boat. It was the guy with no bow number. His name was Bjorn and he came from Narraganset Rowing Club. A group of women from that club borrowed one of our eights for the race and they told me that he was a good rower. At any rate, here we were. I had made up the start interval on him, and it seemed like he thought I shouldn’t make up any more. From 8 minutes to 9:30, he basically holds me off, and then from 9:30 to 10:00 I manage to crawl up and establish a bit of overlap with him. Then we are stroke for stroke for the next 2 km. Right at the end of the first video, both of us overtake a 3rd boat. We are in our own little race at this point.
The second part of the video picks up right before we go under the bridge. Over the first minute, you can see his bow disappear from view, but he’s still there. I push really hard in this chunk because a couple of my friends from the club are watching from our docks and I hear them yelling. I usually have a significant crisis at the bridge because I know how much the second half hurts and how long the 1.6km from the bridge to the finish feels. I’m still counting strokes and when I get to 400, and I haven’t yet reached the gazebo, I fear that I am going to blow up. But my friend Bjorn is still right on my tail, maybe half a boat length back and showing no sign of slowing down.
I finally pass the gazebo and I know that it’s 60 strokes to the finish. I keep my rate and pressure for another 20 strokes and then I start to push for the finish. The last 40 strokes, I bring up the rate a touch, and the splits obligingly come down, and finally in the last 300m I start putting more distance between us.
I was really hurting at the end and paddled well clear of the course before turning. Bjorn and I congratulated each other and then paddled into the QRA docks. I stopped there for a few minutes and chatted with some friends from the club up there, and then paddled home to regatta point. At this point, I had no idea what the results were.
I packed up and headed home. About an hour later, Bob texted me a picture of the results.
I got a second place behind the guy who looked like a rower. Considering the 20 year age gap, I guess I’m OK losing to him by 16 seconds. Truth be told, I’m delighted with the whole race. I feel like the benign conditions let me really push myself as hard as possible, and having someone to race side by side with forced me to keep it together when it started to hurt.
By the way, there is an excellent online tool to watch rowing videos called Rowvid. It let’s you use slow motion or speed things up so you can look at form an fast forward through the dull bits.
Sunday: Recovery / Endurance session…4 x 20 / 1′ rest with lactate
Then off to the airport for the world’s longest trip back from Munich. Delayed about 3 hours on the ground due to weather in Philadelphia for my connection.
Still in Munich. Fitness center is still hot as hell.
Today, I had two objectives. Another hour or so of endurance training, plus a few 1′ intervals. I am not really tapering for the race this weekend, but I felt like doing a few intense sprints would be beneficial to keep some intensity.
I started at a fast walk and a 10% grade for 5′, then I went to a jog for another 5 minutes, and continued to add speed at 15′. At 20′, I slowed down to a walk for a minute, and then cranked to incline to max (15%) and sped up to 6 mph for a “hill sprint”. I did a minute, which was enough to push my HR above 170. Then I did 4 minutes of active rest at 2mph and 15% incline. Then another minute at 6mph. Then 4 more minutes of rest, then a final minute. I felt like puking after that, so I guess I was doing them right. I finished on the treadmill with a 5′ cool down.
Then I hopped on the recumbent stationary bike and did an easy 30′ with a HR cap of 150 (75% HRR).
Tomorrow: basically the same thing, but only two sprints. Then I fly home, arriving at 7pm. Then I race Saturday afternoon.
At the Residence Inn in Munich. Fitness Center contains 2 treadmills, 1 crosstrainer, 1 recumbent stationary bike, a rack of dumbells and a universal cable weight machine.
Very hot in the room, maybe 26 or 27C.
I elected to do.
30′ incline walk on treadmill. Max incline (15%), Started at 3.0mph for 5min, then increased to 3.5. Objective was to slowly bring HR to 65% to 70% of HRR and stay there.
30′ stationary bike. Lazy man’s intervals. Target was average HR in the same 65% to 70% range. Ended up a little bit lower than that because the level adjustment on the machine was not cooperating.
HR sensor linked fine to the equipment via ANT+, but the BT function seems to not be working. The battery cover on it is also pretty much shot, so I bought a Wahoo Tickr on Amazon yesterday. Hopefully it will be waiting for me at home.
My HR during the incline walk rose slowly and finally hit 65% HRR about 15 minutes into it. With about 5 minutes left, it was right up at 70% HRR (144) and briefly went above that for the last couple of minutes.
On the bike, my HR was up in the right range when I was in the intervals and coasted down into the mid 120s during the easy parts. It was still sweaty work in the hot gym, but I wish I could have adjusted the level.
03900_|_19:48_|_2:32.4_|_333___|_16.8_|_11.7_|_132___|_r16
04000_|_19:40_|_2:27.5_|_363___|_18.5_|_11.0_|_140___|_r18
03840_|_18:14_|_2:22.5_|_374___|_20.5_|_10.3_|_147___|_r20
11740_|_57:43_|_2:27.5_|_1070___|_18.5_|_11.0_|_140___|_main set
00220_|_01:30_|_3:23.4_|_022___|_14.7_|_10.0_|_117___|_rest meters
01060_|_05:29_|_2:35.2_|_110___|_20.1_|_09.6_|_136___|_cool down
Happy with the heart rate and level of effort. Really just focused on balance and good rowing today.
After the workout, I went to work for half a day, then flew to Munich, where I am now. I arrived Tuesday morning around 10AM, and straight into a customer meeting. So, Tuesday is basically a very tired “non-restful rest day”.
Wednesday: Fun in the fitness center (HR cap at 150)
My wife and I had plans in the afternoon, so I jumped on the erg as soon as I got up to get some meters in. I was quite sore from the race on Saturday. My ribs, my adductors and my arms were all quite sore. I guess there was a lot of “conventional” movements.
Like Saturday afternoon, I started at lower power and ramped up over 15 minutes. Again, my HR stayed nice and low. A little bit of drift in the last 20 minutes. Lactates were 1.2 at 20′, 1.1 at 40′, and weirdly 3.2 at 60 minutes. It might have been a blown reading, but it might indicate that I had crossed over to building up some lactate in the last few minutes of the last 20′. No matter. I think rowing at a 2:04 (183W) pace for steady state until I see <2.0 at 80′ is the safe bet for now.
Later in the day on Saturday, I was feeling sore and I had a pretty case of “erg cough”. I thought that an easy 30 minute erg session might make me feel better. I was right.
I’m experimenting with starting endurance sessions at lower power and ramping up over the first 15 minutes or so. I did that today and it worked out well.
A very easy session. I measured lactates at the end 1.3mmol/l.
Quantified Rowing 