Thursday:  I felt very tired when the alarm went off at 5:15am.  I hit the snooze button and slept in.  I took it as a rest day.

Weather:  Incredible, again.  Flat water.  nice temperature.  What an amazing fall it’s been.

I was out in Worcester again this morning for another hard session with Joe.  Today, the objective was to work on our technique and synchronization at race rate and pressure.

Plan:

• 4 sets of  5 x 2′ hard / 30″ paddle
• 3 or 4 minutes between sets
• rate: 24/26/28/26/24 in each set
• pace: ~2:15
• technique:  work on blade depth and cleaner finishes

First we did a 2K warmup to the north end of the lake.  In the warmup up we did a couple of power 10s and one power 20 to get a taste of what was to come.

We set up and started from the North end.  The first set of five we enthusiastic, but a bit ragged in terms of technique.  Joe also needed to do a hell of a lot of looking around, so he felt like he could really get in a good groove.  It was still very dark and there were quite a few eights out on the water with pitifully dim lights.  He was rightfully concerned that we might plow right into one.

The first set finished up a bit south of the bridge, so we did a quick loop to make sure we wouldn’t run out of lake in the second set.  The second set was much better in terms of technique, but a bit slower.  The last two pieces in this set were a bit shaky.

Then we paddled the rest of the way to the south end of the lake, and set up for the third set.  From the first two sets, I think we both had a better idea of a sustainable level of pressure and could focus a bit more on technique.  The r28 rep in this set was especially crisp.  The 2nd to last rep of this set was a bit ragged, but the last rep at r24 was much better.

This set finished a bit south of the Rt 9 Bridge.  We took a bit shorter rest here and got into the last set.  The first rep finished under the bridge.  The next two were good, and then the end was in sight.  The 2nd to last at r26 was not memorable, but the last one at r24 started right in front of the QRA docks.  This time of day, there is always a bunch of people there, so I could feel myself sitting up straighter and really concentrating on nailing every single stroke.  It ended up being just about as fast as the very first rep we did at the beginning of the workout.  Amazing what pridefulness can inspire…

On the way back to the dock we worked on a bit of square blade rowing.  We did some alternating square and feathered (I love doing that!), and then some sets of 5 and 10 square blade strokes at a time.  This was a mess at the start, but we improved a lot over about a 1000 meters.  We went straight from rowing on the square into a couple of power 20s, and they felt great!  Some of the best, crispest stroke we took all day.  I think we have to do some rowing on the square in our warmups from now on.

Looking at the splits for the different rates is interesting.

• r24: 2:15.1
• r26: 2:14.2
• r28: 2:11.8

I was expecting to see a bit more speedup from 24 to 26.  I think that might be because we had r24 reps for the very first and very last reps, so they were a bit faster.  Still, since r26 is most likely our go to pace for head races, we have to do some more work on efficiency at that rate.

| Tstart_ | Dist_ | Time_ | _Pace_ | SPM_ | avgHR | _DPS___ | Remarks
| 00:00.0 | 02424 | 16:00 | 3:18.0 | 15.2 | 120.6 | 10.0 | warming up
| 16:00.0 | 00464 | 02:00 | 2:09.3 | 24.4 | 149.7 | 09.5 |
| 18:00.0 | 00095 | 00:30 | 2:37.9 | 22.0 | 159.1 | 08.6 |
| 18:30.0 | 00464 | 02:00 | 2:09.3 | 26.2 | 161.9 | 08.8 |
| 20:30.0 | 00088 | 00:29 | 2:44.8 | 23.1 | 164.8 | 07.9 |
| 20:59.0 | 00467 | 02:01 | 2:09.6 | 28.0 | 164.0 | 08.3 |
| 23:00.0 | 00088 | 00:30 | 2:50.5 | 23.1 | 166.7 | 07.6 |
| 23:30.0 | 00455 | 02:00 | 2:11.9 | 26.4 | 164.5 | 08.6 |
| 25:30.0 | 00090 | 00:30 | 2:46.7 | 23.2 | 167.2 | 07.8 |
| 26:00.0 | 00452 | 02:00 | 2:12.7 | 24.8 | 165.4 | 09.1 |
| 28:00.0 | 00436 | 04:30 | 5:09.6 | 21.8 | 124.6 | 04.5 |
| 32:30.0 | 00452 | 02:00 | 2:12.7 | 24.9 | 147.1 | 09.1 |
| 34:30.0 | 00089 | 00:30 | 2:48.5 | 23.0 | 160.3 | 07.8 |
| 35:00.0 | 00450 | 01:59 | 2:12.2 | 26.3 | 162.9 | 08.6 |
| 36:59.0 | 00092 | 00:31 | 2:48.5 | 23.8 | 166.3 | 07.5 |
| 37:30.0 | 00449 | 02:00 | 2:13.6 | 28.1 | 164.8 | 08.0 |
| 39:30.0 | 00087 | 00:30 | 2:52.4 | 24.0 | 168.4 | 07.3 |
| 40:00.0 | 00438 | 02:00 | 2:17.0 | 26.4 | 166.1 | 08.3 |
| 42:00.0 | 00088 | 00:30 | 2:50.5 | 24.4 | 168.4 | 07.2 |
| 42:30.0 | 00426 | 02:00 | 2:20.8 | 24.6 | 165.7 | 08.6 |
| 44:30.0 | 00563 | 05:00 | 4:26.4 | 20.2 | 128.9 | 05.6 |
| 49:30.0 | 00444 | 01:59 | 2:14.0 | 24.7 | 149.0 | 09.0 |
| 51:29.0 | 00093 | 00:31 | 2:46.7 | 23.7 | 160.8 | 07.6 |
| 52:00.0 | 00447 | 02:00 | 2:14.2 | 26.3 | 160.6 | 08.5 |
| 54:00.0 | 00086 | 00:30 | 2:54.4 | 24.3 | 164.5 | 07.1 |
| 54:30.0 | 00454 | 02:00 | 2:12.2 | 28.7 | 165.3 | 07.9 |
| 56:30.0 | 00083 | 00:30 | 3:00.7 | 24.5 | 169.8 | 06.8 |
| 57:00.0 | 00427 | 02:00 | 2:20.5 | 26.9 | 164.6 | 07.9 |
| 59:00.0 | 00080 | 00:29 | 3:01.2 | 24.7 | 165.7 | 06.7 |
| 59:29.0 | 00438 | 02:01 | 2:18.1 | 25.0 | 163.9 | 08.7 |
| 01:30.0 | 00258 | 03:00 | 5:48.8 | 19.8 | 131.8 | 04.4 |
| 04:30.0 | 00428 | 02:00 | 2:20.2 | 24.6 | 149.0 | 08.7 |
| 06:30.0 | 00096 | 00:30 | 2:36.3 | 24.6 | 161.2 | 07.8 |
| 07:00.0 | 00446 | 02:00 | 2:14.5 | 27.1 | 161.3 | 08.2 |
| 09:00.0 | 00081 | 00:30 | 3:05.2 | 24.4 | 165.2 | 06.6 |
| 09:30.0 | 00455 | 02:00 | 2:11.9 | 29.1 | 166.1 | 07.8 |
| 11:30.0 | 00084 | 00:30 | 2:58.6 | 25.0 | 170.5 | 06.7 |
| 12:00.0 | 00443 | 01:59 | 2:14.3 | 26.8 | 166.8 | 08.3 |
| 13:59.0 | 00086 | 00:31 | 3:00.2 | 24.6 | 170.6 | 06.8 |
| 14:30.0 | 00448 | 02:00 | 2:13.9 | 25.2 | 169.7 | 08.9 |
| 16:30.0 | 02355 | 18:21 | 3:53.8 | 24.2 | 134.4 | 05.3 |

| Tstart_ | Dist_ | Time_ | _Pace_ | SPM_ | avgHR | _DPS___ | Remarks
| 00:00.0 | 02424 | 16:00 | 3:18.0 | 15.2 | 120.6 | 10.0 |warm up
| 00:00.0 | 02663 | 20:31 | 3:51.1 | 21.9 | 142.7 | 05.9 | rests
| 00:00.0 | 02355 | 18:21 | 3:53.8 | 24.2 | 134.4 | 05.3 | cool down
| 00:00.0 | 03552 | 16:00 | 2:15.1 | 24.8 | 157.5 | 09.0 | r24 pieces
| 00:00.0 | 03570 | 15:58 | 2:14.2 | 26.6 | 163.6 | 08.4 | r26 pieces
| 00:00.0 | 01825 | 08:01 | 2:11.8 | 28.5 | 165.0 | 08.0 | r28 pieces