Day: May 9, 2016

Monday:14K OTW rate ladders

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Partly cloud.  Temps started in the mid-40s but climbed rapidly.  By the time I finished, it was nearly 60F.  Winds were light at first, but built through the session and for most of the time, the wind was out of the west at about 10mph with gusts to 15mph.  It was a nasty headwind going up river.

The plan was steady state rate ladders.  3′ @ 18, 2′ @ 20, 1′ @ 22 over and over again.  Breaks at the ends of the river, but just long enough to turn the boat around.  I am still not happy with my boat speed, but I am setting the boat OK.  The main issue is not being able to really get out over the footstretcher without hitting the stops on the slide.  My finishes are still rough, but improving.

Today, rowing into the headwind was very heavy work. You can see the 20 second difference in pace and higher heart rates.  The good thing about the river was that even with the wind, there was basically no chop.  It just felt like I was dragging a bucket!

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I worked a little bit harder than I should have for an ideal endurance session, but only a little bit.

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Tomorrow:  I have an early meeting, so I plan to do a session around noontime.  I’m thinking that I might take a shot at this month’s CTC.

 

 

Sunday: 3 hours of yard work

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Finishing up the mulching.  Worked from about 9:30 to 12:30.  I was stiff at first, but loosened up with the first 30 minutes or so.  The labor was dominated by a huge flower bed on front of our house that required 24 wheelbarrows of mulch to cover.

I didn’t wear a strap, but by my rule of thumb, this was 3 hours of sub-UT2 exercise and burnt 1800 calories.

 

Saturday: 5 hours of yard work

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I was wondering how to think about yard work as a form of exercise.  What I was doing this weekend was preparing our flower beds for summer.  This entails raking the bed, edging, weeding, and then spreading mulch.  It is pretty demanding work, it works the core mostly, but arms get it pretty good too.

I decided to wear a heart rate monitor to get an idea of how much aerobic benefit there is.  I did two “sessions”.  The first was an hour and forty three minutes.  The I needed to run an errand and grab a drink.  Then I did another 3 hours and 12 minutes.

My average HR for the first session was 104bpm, so well below the threshold for UT work, but a bit more than 2x my resting HR.  And my peak HR was only 125.  Over the first hour and 43 minutes, I burnt 957 calories.  More than I expected.

The second session wiped me out.  About the same average HR at 102bpm.  A slightly higher peak at 131.  Total calories burnt over the 3 hours and 12 minutes was 1905.  By the end, I was having trouble getting up from my knees if I crouched down.

By the evening, I was basically paralyzed with stiffness in my back.

A good days work.  And now I know that yard work is basically 600 calories an hour.