Monday: April CTC – 2/4/6/8

April 18, 20161 Comment

The original plan for today was for another steady state session, but I felt like something with a bit more bite to it. So, I decided to give this month’s Cross Team Challenge a try.

Here is the description…

To say I had low expectations is an understatement. Back in January, when I was in good form, I was able to crank out a 5K with a 1:46.4 pace. From what I had read, this challenge was doable at faster than 5K pace. But there are a number of mitigating factors that would cause me to set my sights considerably lower.

My training has been intermittent and erratic since the end of January. I’m accumulating meters at less than half the December/January rate in February, March and April.
I have had 2 multiple day layoffs due to travel in the past three weeks.
I am now working on slides, which kill me for middle distance pieces for some reason.

With all of that, I decided that I would be happy with a 1:50 pace. It turned out to be a pretty accurate guess and a big ask in the final rep.

I started with a fletcher warmup.

Then into the main event.

Then a 2K cool down

So, 5468m puts me in Free Spirits Boat #1 for the moment. I should really be at least a couple seconds faster than this on pace, but I’m glad to at least have posted a score.

Tomorrow: 3 x 20′ steady state

Sunday: 3 x 20′ / 1′ rest L4

April 17, 2016Leave a comment

At home. Static erg.

Nothing fancy, just trying to maintain some endurance. Trying to keep the session basically in UT2 and UT1.

Tomorrow: More of the same, but on slides.

Saturday: Windy outing in a 2x

April 17, 2016April 17, 20164 Comments

Out on Lake Quinsigamond with Bob in a double. Quite windy. Here’s the weather data from the station nearest the south end of the lake.

So, wind speed 10 to 15 mph from the NNE, which is a head wind heading up lake. The gusts were impressive, basically boat stoppers. Bob was in bow and he tried to hug the easter shore of the lake when we were heading north. This helped a bit and gave us flatter water to work with.

The north end of the lake was off limits because of racing. So we did a loop to the south end of the lake, and then a shorter loop just down through the narrows.

Because the conditions were a bit challenging, we basically just did it as a steady state row. We were out with a two quads. The only time we really pushed it was when we were going south on the first leg and were in a position to pass one of the quads. That was the boost in heart rate in the first section. The blank bit from 6000 to 7000 meters was while we were rowing up lake into the wind and my phone got splashed just right to fool Crewnerd into thinking I wanted to go to the setup screen.

The conditions were not ideal, but I had a good time. I enjoyed rowing with Bob and frankly, anytime I get to get on the water right now is a welcome change.

Friday: 3 x 20′ / 1′ rest L4

April 15, 20163 Comments

It feels good to have a couple of days back in my normal routine. Today I did another low intensity endurance session. I started very tame (18 SPM, 170W). On slides. The next 20 minutes I alternated 18 and 20 SPM. Then for the last 20 minutes I added some 22 and 24 SPM bits. HR was disappointingly high throughout, but at least I’m on the erg.

Tomorrow: OTW on Quinsigamond.

Fluidesign: Battered, but unbowed

April 14, 20165 Comments

I went and removed the tree from my poor boat. Then I gently removed the cover. I tried to massage it back into a boat like shape. With a loud pop, it started to look like a boat again.

A ton of damage, but at least it looks like a boat. Remarkable resilience really.

The before picture

2016-04-08 17.40.10 The after pictures

So, the fine folks from Fluidesign will be picking it up on April 20th and taking a shot at repairing it. If they succeed, I now have a great boat name “Phoenix”, or maybe the french version “Fenix”.

Thursday: 3 x 20′ / 1′ on slides

April 14, 2016Leave a comment

Sunday: Red Eye to munich, arrived in the afternoon. Straight into meetings. No training

Monday: Breakfast with customer, then prep meetings, then big customer meeting. No training

Tuesday: Unable to sleep Monday night due to jet lag. Up at 4:30 to get to airport for flight home. Arrived home at 1:30PM local time, straight to work. Meetings until 6pm. No Training

Wednesday: Appointment for home inspection for place that we are buying on Cape Code first thing in the morning, then straight to work and meetings until 6pm. No Training

Thursday: Finally, a morning when I can train! Up at 5:15, into the gym at 7. Plan was to do an L4 session on slides and maintain a HR cap at the top of my UT1 zone. I expected that my fitness would be negatively impacted by the lack of training. The session fulfilled those expectations. I needed to slow down continually to keep my HR from going way above the top of the UT1 zone.

One interesting feature in the graph is in the last 20 minute piece, I decided to consciously work on increasing my drive length. I really reached at the catch and exaggerated my layback. This was from about 10 minutes to 15 minutes in the piece. No magic speed from it, but it is good to see the change reflected in the data because I was working on a changing the stroke.

Same basic idea tomorrow morning. I might tack on a little bit of power training at the end just to make it a little more interesting. I’m basically just trying to keep plugging away as much as I can when can squeeze in the training. The plan is pretty much out the window without a boat, I don’t really have a good objective to shoot for.

Saturday: 14km in a quad

April 9, 2016Leave a comment

Nice morning at the lake. Slight overcast, very little wind, around 35F. We had 6 rowers today, so we took out a quad and a double. I stroked the quad.

It was a good boat. I had some trouble with being in stroke. I was trying to hold the rate, but every once in a while, I could feel the other rowers take the catch while I was still squaring up my oars. I would try to just stick with the rate and let them get realigned, but a couple of times it got so bad that I clashed oars with the guy behind me. I suspect that I was varying the rate more than I perceived and they had trouble following the variation. Things got much better on the second lap of the lake when we did a couple of rate ladders and everyone was focusing on maintaining the rate more intently (including me!)

We did the south half of the lake twice.

We basically just rowed down lake, and then coming back up lake, we did a power pyramid 10-20-30-40-30-20-10, with 10 strokes paddle between power sets. Trying to hold the rate around 22.

Going back down lake, we did a rate pyramid 3’@20, 2’@22, 1’@24. Then another 3’@20, 2’@24, 1’@28. Going back up lake we repeated the same 10-20-30-40-30-20-10 pyramid, but let the rate go up for the last half.

This evening I fly off to Munich for a couple days.

That will leave a mark.

April 9, 20169 Comments

I went to pick up my boat Friday evening to go rowing out in Worcester and I was greeted by this site.

Yup, that’s a really big tree branch that has destroyed the bow of my boat. We had a very windy and rainy day on Thursday, I assume the branch came down then and no one noticed during the day Friday. I won’t be rowing that boat any time soon. With all my talk about grit and resilience…this was a huge blow. I cried when I saw it.

Now I get to have many conversations with insurance agents and see what happens.

Tues: 60′ fitness center, Thurs: 3×20, Fri: 3×20

April 8, 2016April 8, 20162 Comments

Monday morning: My flight was cancelled, and I rebooked on a later flight to San Diego, arriving there right around dinner time. No training.

Tuesday: hit the tiny gym in the Courtyard Marriott. 30 minutes on the elliptical, and then 30 minutes on the treadmill set to max incline and a fast walk.

Wednesday: I was originally going to fly straight from California to Germany, but I changed plans and took the red eye home, then a full day on the phone in meetings. No Training

Thursday: Working from home and shuffling my wife to a doctor’s appt. I finally found some time for a workout in the evening.

I was lacking in creativity, so I just stole Sander’s session from earlier in the week, an L4 with alternating r18 and r20 segments.

Easy.

Friday: Back to routine. Up at 5:15, into the gym at 7. Still getting used to rowing on slides. Started with a alternating 18/20, then let that slide up to 19/21. This was pushing my HR a bit too much, so I backed off in the second 20 minutes to 180W at r20. Even this was a bit to much for me. So I backed off to r18 and about 170W for the last 30 minutes. I guess you could say that this session was just “shoveling it”.

One interesting thing (at least to me) is to look at the drive length. In my session last night on a static erg, my drive length was around 1.46m. Today on slides, it settle in around 1.42m. As far as I can tell, I am getting just about the same amount of compression at the catch, but I row with less layback on slides than I do on a static erg. Not sure what to make of that, it’s just an interesting data point. Another interesting data point, peak force was higher on slides, even though the average was about the same. Some of this might be due to the difference in drag factor (126 yesterday, 117 today). I really like painsled. Having this data to mull over is great.

Tomorrow: On the water in the morning, and flying off to Germany in the evening.

“Grit”

April 8, 20163 Comments

Today while I rowed, I listened to a podcast called “Hidden Brain” on the topic of “Grit”. Here’s a link if you are interested.

There is a fair amount of research that links success in many fields not to innate talent, but rather to the tenacity, passion and drive needed to put in the work. The key appears to be a willingness to engage in the most unpleasant type of practice, the deeply mindful concentrated work on the things you find most difficult. I think another aspect to “grit” is the ability to take setbacks and then just go back to work on improving. To quote a slightly different source, there is a lyric in the musical “Hamilton” that is stuck in my head. There is a character in the play named Hercules Mulligan, a spy in the revolutionary war. I have no idea what he was like actually, but in the play he is a brash talking, tough guy. Here’s the quote…

MULLIGAN:
To my brother’s revolutionary covenant
I’m runnin’ with the Sons of Liberty and I am lovin’ it!
See, that’s what happens when you up against the ruffians
We in the s**t now, somebody gotta shovel it!
Hercules Mulligan, I need no introduction
When you knock me down I get the f**k back up again!

I like the attitude embodied in “somebodies gotta shovel it” and “When you knock me down I get the F back up again”. I think success has a lot more to do with getting back up again, than anything else.

Sorry to get all philosophical, but the past month and half have been difficult for me. My new role at work is demanding a lot more travel, and frankly a much deeper commitment, and I have been dealing a bunch of minor disruptions at home as well. The result is a dramatic reduction in training volume.

Week 41 is the beginning of February, and I went from averaging over 100km per week to around 50km per week. This is just rowing meters, so, there was training volume in week 42 (while on vacation), and other weeks while on travel, but it is inevitable that I will have a decline in rowing fitness with this reduction.

So, the plan is to just keep on plugging. I will train as much as I can, and make maintaining my aerobic base the priority until things are a little more under control. So, as much endurance training as I have time for and then 1 or 2 spicier sessions a week.

Quantified Rowing

Measure – Adjust – Improve

Month: April 2016