Plan:
Warmup felt a bit tougher than on Tuesday, and the reps seemed to be a bit more taxing. But I managed to hold on to the splits and put in a faster last. Weird HR readings in the last 2 reps.
The last rep was at roughly my target pace for a 2K race. Holding it for the last 1250 meters is the challenge.
Warm up
Main Set
Cool down
Tomorrow: 4×20′ / 1′
Plan:
L4 Format
HR was a bit higher than I would have liked, but I felt good. I didn’t bother with a lactate test. I suspect t would have been right around a 2.0.
Then into peak power. Today, I decided to do only 10 (versus 15 on Monday). I’m still feeling my way along on these. I hit better power today throughout compared to Monday. (~680W vs ~640W). Still lower than what I could hit by rating way up on slides. I saw no significant decline in power across the 10 sprints. I guess I’m not hitting them hard enough yet. I’m getting a bit higher on rate, which is good practice.
After that, I did a quick 1K cool down and called it a day.
Tomorrow: 6 x 750 / 4′ rest. Pace target: 1:42
First short interval session of the mesocycle, and I was pretty excited. I guess the proper term in a fitness related blog post is something along the lines of “ready to get after it!!!”
Plan:
Gotta say, it was nice rating up and taking some strokes around 2K race pace. 1:44 turned out to be a conservative choice. The intervals started to bite, after the halfway point. And as I got further into the intervals, I was digging a bit deeper, but it wasn’t a big struggle. I decided to throw caution to the wind, and try to really nail the last rep. I managed to do this one faster than a 1:40 pace, which was good to see. With 3 reps in my legs, I could hold a split that would deliver a 6:40 2K. I have a lot of work to do on sharpening, but I feel pretty good about this workout.
Then, I put started to injected high energy music into my ears, setup the interval session, and off I went. It looks like the tcx file cut off a bit before the end of the last interval.
The last interval was hard enough that I finally felt that lactic rush. I’d almost forgotten how intensely bad it feels. Put it all together and the session average is 1:42.7. A good target for the next time this rolls around. I will also use it for the 6×750 coming on Thursday.
I just went and looked back at February of 2014, when I was getting ready for the CRASH-Bs. I did the 4×1000 twice. Once on January 28th, and again on February 3rd. Here are the times.
So, these were obviously faster, but less disciplined than today. I was also digging deeper. Look at the HRs in each rep. This was also in the midst of a long term plan that included short sprints weekly, so my performance had begun to plateau. I think it is heartening to be less than 2 seconds off these times, with better CV data in my first sprint session.
After that, I did a 2K cool down, starting at 2:00 splits and slowing down every 500m.
Tomorrow: 3 x 20 / 1′ rest
Very little sleep last night. Felt awful this morning. Let myself start slow in the L4.
After I finished my hour, I transitioned over to start doing a variation of the Peak Power Training from Ed McNeely. The session that Ed describes it to do 10 second sprints all out with 1 minute rests, and when your peak power in a sprint falls more than 10% below your best power, then you take a 5 minute rest and resume the 10 sec sprint and 1 minute rest sets with the same stoppage rule.
It’s been a while since I did my peak power test, and when I did it, it was on slides, so I didn’t have a stable baseline to measure my 10% drop from. As hard as I tried today, I could not break through 700W for my peak power, but on slides in November, I was above 750W on a few strokes.
It was challenge to setup the 10 second sprints, since the shortest interval time you can program on a PM is 20 seconds. I eventually did it as a “just row” with 10 second sprints and 50 second rests. Next time I will set it up as 1:10 intervals.
I was also not seeing much in the way of a declining output power over the intervals, so I guess I was not trying hard enough. I was also getting much better at them as I went along. I got my first stroke power from around 180 to above 250, and felt a lot smoother in the later reps. I’ll push the envelope more next time.
If nothing else, it was fun. Laying down 15 sprints with peak splits faster than 1:25 was a nice change from grinding out long hard intervals.
Tomorrow: A classic, the 4 x 1000 / 5′ rest. I will start this conservatively at 1:45 pace and see how things go.
No PB for me today. I tried, but by 10 minutes into it, I pretty much knew I couldn’t hang on to the required pace. I slowed down a bit and just hung on. It was a season best, but no where near what I think I should be able to do. It was my 7th straight training day, versus doing the 5K after a rest day. I’m not too bummed out about it and I’m looking forward to getting into my sprint and power mesocycle on Monday.
2K warmup
Workout Summary – Jan 16, 2016
–_|_Total_|_-Total-_|_–Avg–_|_-Avg-_|_Avg-_|_-Avg-_|_–Avg–_|_-Avg_|_-Avg
–_|_Dist-_|_-Time–_|_-Pace–_|_Watts_|_SPM-_|_-HR–_|_-%HRR–_|_-DPS_|_-SPI
–_|_02000_|_07:44.6_|_01:56.2_|_223.3_|_21.0_|_135.5_|_ 64.9% _|_12.3_|_10.6
The main event. Target split for a PB was 1:48.8. I fell behind target after 10 minutes and never got back.
Workout Summary – Jan 16, 2016
–_|_Total_|_-Total-_|_–Avg–_|_-Avg-_|_Avg-_|_-Avg-_|_–Avg–_|_-Avg_|_-Avg
–_|_Dist-_|_-Time–_|_-Pace–_|_Watts_|_SPM-_|_-HR–_|_-%HRR–_|_-DPS_|_-SPI
–_|_08133_|_30:00.0_|_01:50.7_|_258.2_|_25.5_|_171.6_|_ 90.5% _|_10.6_|_10.1
Workout Details
#-_|_SDist_|_-Split-_|_-SPace-_|_Watts_|_SPM-_|_AvgHR_|_Avg%HRR_|_DPS-_|_-SPI
01_|_01387_|_05:00.0_|_01:48.2_|_276.6_|_25.4_|_156.7_|_ 79.9% _|_10.9_|_10.9
02_|_01379_|_05:00.0_|_01:48.8_|_272.0_|_25.6_|_170.2_|_ 89.5% _|_10.8_|_10.6
03_|_01356_|_05:00.0_|_01:50.6_|_258.6_|_25.4_|_172.1_|_ 90.8% _|_10.7_|_10.2
04_|_01337_|_05:00.0_|_01:52.2_|_247.8_|_25.0_|_174.0_|_ 92.2% _|_10.7_|_09.9
05_|_01329_|_05:00.0_|_01:52.9_|_243.5_|_25.2_|_177.0_|_ 94.4% _|_10.5_|_09.7
06_|_01345_|_05:00.0_|_01:51.5_|_252.2_|_26.4_|_179.7_|_ 96.2% _|_10.2_|_09.6
Then a 2K cool down.
Workout Summary – Jan 16, 2016
–_|_Total_|_-Total-_|_–Avg–_|_-Avg-_|_Avg-_|_-Avg-_|_–Avg–_|_-Avg_|_-Avg
–_|_Dist-_|_-Time–_|_-Pace–_|_Watts_|_SPM-_|_-HR–_|_-%HRR–_|_-DPS_|_-SPI
–_|_02000_|_08:28.4_|_02:07.1_|_170.4_|_19.9_|_149.3_|_ 74.6% _|_11.8_|_08.5
Probably take a rest day tomorrow.
A little sore form yesterday and I was worried that it could be another miserable session. Decided before I started to make it 3×20 instead of 4×20 because I have strenuous plans for tomorrow and I was a bit pressed for time today.
Tomorrow: Plan calls for a hard 5K. But since I did that last weekend, I think I will substitute a 30 minute piece. I might have a shot at a PB. My current PB is 8266. If I put my recent 5K and 60 minute results with the very handy Free Spirits Pace Predictor it says that I should be able to do 8272m for 30 minutes, a whopping 6 meter improvement. Since these rows are harrowingly hard, it is really good to have something more tangible to shoot for.
Plan:
8′ warmup up, with 3 – 10 stroke bursts at faster than target pace (strapless)
Then into the main event. Rep 1 was tough, but never in doubt, I finished with 2211 meters (1:48.5), so I kept that as my target for all the reps. Rep 2 was HARD. I was ahead of target through 100 strokes, fell behind through the next 100, and made up the lost ground in the last 20. I wondered if I could do it again for rep #3, but felt OK by the end of the rest. Same story for rep #3, but an even bigger ask to try to make up the lost ground in the last 20 strokes. I was sure that I couldn’t hold the last rep, and through most of the rest, I was thinking I would see if I could hit 1:50 for it instead. But at the end the rest, I decided to try to hit target for the first 100 strokes and see how I did. At the 100 stroke point, I was really struggling, so I dropped back to about a 1:50 and tried to hold on. I was seeing some 1:51s, and feeling the HD-demons peering over my shoulder, but I just kept pushing. With 20 strokes to go, my projected finish was around 2180. A push at the end got me to 2203 (1:48.8). Session average was 1:48.6.
4′ rest was about 2 minutes of gasping and 2 minutes of light paddling, then an 8 minute cool down starting at 2:00 splits and slowing down from there.
I wish I could have laid down a faster time on this workout, but I am proud of my execution. I was really hurting in the last rep and I pulled back from the edge just enough to make it instead of bailing out.
Tomorrow: 4 x 20′ / 1′ rest
I have a lot on my mind right now for work, and I was not very focused on today’s session. I’m not sure if that is all it was, or if there is something else going on, but it was a very difficult row.
I was planning a 4×20′ session, but high HR and very high lactate after 60 minutes (2.9mmol/l), so I aborted at that point.
In the first 20 minute section, I had two interruptions due to technical issues with the podcast I was listening to. There is an intermittent connection to my headphones that is being interpreted by the iphone as a button press which summons up Siri. Very annoying, probably time for a new set of headphones. Amazing how quickly sweat corrodes things!
The workout plan was:
Here’s the view from Strava. You can see the two stops in the first 20 minutes.
And the PM summary.
Tomorrow: 4 x 8′ / 4′ rest
Felt a whole lot better today. Good thing too, because I had a bitch of session on the agenda.
Plan:
Still challenged by the painsled tool flow. So here’s the monitor pic. The first rep was the warmup, and the last 3 were the work intervals. I rowed through the rests with about 15 seconds for a drink in each. I rowed through the last rest as a quick cool down.
Pretty easy to work out that average…1:49.3. Surprisingly, it felt just as hard as the 5K at 1:46.4. Not sure why that is.
Here’s the view from Strava. You can at least see the bursts in the warmup and the cool down profile. Tough to get anything else from the picture though. Not sure what the deal is with the speed. I would have expected the power and speed to look identical, but they don’t.
Tomorrow: 4 x 20′ L4
Still working out the kinks of using Painsled. The capture of information works great, and export to both Trainingpeaks and Strava works at a basic level, but I haven’t had time to make my spreadsheets work with the CSV export from the tool.
On Monday morning, I felt awful. I didn’t sleep well and it was a short turn around time from my Sunday afternoon workout. So, I didn’t have high expectations for the row.
It turned out just as unpleasant as I was expecting.
Here’s the view from Strava after importing the TCX file from Painsled. All the data is there, but I really like the way it’s presented from excel a lot better. Easier to see where I am in HR zones, the pace is in useful units, the cadence scale is right and the rests are displayed correctly. But at least it’s a picture! I have sent feedback into the developer of Painsled about some TCX funniness and requesting a denser CSV format. Once I get past this busy patch at work, I will start to deal with the ugly CSV format myself.
Quantified Rowing 