Day: August 23, 2016

Tuesday: Speedcoach Calibration and 14K of steady state

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Weather:  Crystal clear.  Very Sunny.  Cool and breezy.  Wind NW 2 to 5 mph.

The main objective today was to get the new impeller mounted for my speedcoach.  Once it was mounted, it needed to be calibrated.  So, I popped it in the water and headed out.  I usually row in the early morning, but today, I had some things to do at home in the morning.  So, I launched around 1:00 in the afternoon.  Since it was such a nice day there were a lot of kayaks, pedal boats, canoes and various other water craft out enjoying the day as well.  Even though I was looking around constantly, I still had to back down hard a few times when a boat zigged instead of zagging, or I missed them in my scans.  Despite this, it was a glorious day to be out rowing.

Plan:

  • Do 2x 1000m at r24 in opposite directions to calibrate the speedcoach.
  • 80 minutes of steady state

Leaving the dock, I started RIM and reset the speedcoach.  After I warmed up and got to the start of the straight part of the river, I realized that I really should be using Crewnerd for a autostart 1000m piece for speedcoach cal.  So, I flipped over and started up crewnerd, losing the first 1200m of rowing.

The 1000s went fine.  The first one was with the light wind and was done at an average pace of 2:11.4.  The second was upwind and the pace was 2:13.3.  I was winded but I didn’t push them all that hard.  After that, I did the river twice from the start to the moody street dam.  At first I was feeling like I was really struggling to hit any reasonable split.  But eventually, I started to row a bit better and sped up.  The main difference was focusing on getting way into compression at the catch.

Tomorrow:  Some more steady state.  80′ at r20.

Monday: 40km Bike Ride

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Monday morning the tide was too low to launch.  I would have had to carry my boat across 500 meters of sand to get it in the water.  It was also windy (15-20mph with gusts t0 30 from the SW).  So I needed another plan.  I decided to give biking a try.

I have my old mountain bike down on the Cape.  I decided that navigating the sand and gravel roads on the island on a road bike with skinny tires and clip-in pedals was a bit much.  I might give it a try sometime, but for now, the old mountain bike is the pick.

This bike handled the sand and gravel without any trouble.  It’s 3.6km from my house to the major road.  1.3km is sand road.  The other 2.6 is paved.  The transition from sand to paved is right at the boundary between the island and a long causeway across the salt marsh.  There is a little bridge across a tidal channel, right where between the “e” and the “u” are in the word Lieutenant on the map below.  The approaches to this bridge actually are covered by the highest of high tides and cut off the island for a couple of hours.  When I went out biking it was much closed to low tide.

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Right across Route six is the Cape Cod Rail Trail.  A lovely, straight, flat bike trail along the path of railroad right of way.  It stretches for about 23 miles.  I got on at about mile 22, and I rode south 15 km.  I decided to just ride out 50 minutes and then turn around to go home for a total workout length of 100 minutes.

When I turned around, I realized that I had a work phone call to do at 11am, so I pushed the pace and cut off a few minutes.  It also actually got my heart rate up into some reasonable zone for training.

Very nice.  I think biking is a great alternative if the tides of wind are not favorable.