Tuesday: 75′ steady state OTW

September 20, 20164 Comments

Weather: warm, humid. A bit misty. A light, shifty wind always seemed to be a headwind.

Plan:

4 x ~3K + 1K wu and 1k cd
1′ rest
first 2 segments at r18
last 2 segments at r20
HR cap at 155

Another session where things just didn’t seem to go very well. I tried to ignore pace and focus on my posture and technique, but the pace that I was ignoring just seemed to get slower and slower.

Tomorrow: Threshold session in a 2x with Joe out at Lake Quinsigamond. The goal will be to practice turns under pressure and get our technique more together at r26.

My idea is a few sets of figure eights. If we start at the beach and finish at the beach, they will be 2.5km long. If we start at the island, they will be 2k long. I’m thinking a 4x2k might be a good choice.

Monday: 40′ steady state

September 20, 20162 Comments

Only had 40 minutes for a quick erg session this morning before my doctor’s appointment this morning. It was humid as hell and this session was pure misery. Interestingly, a lactate measurement at the end yielded 1.2mmol/l.

Sunday: 4 x 20′ L4

September 18, 20161 Comment

A bit stiff and sore from the race yesterday, but time to get on with life.

Plan:

4 x 20′ / 1′ rest
L4 format
- base: 17 spm and 160W
- 10W increase for each spm increase
HR limit at 155
Lactate test at 60′
Start low and build through first 10 minutes.

I wanted to do an L4 session because there has been a lot of discussion over on the concept forum about that style of workout. But from my experience with L4 workouts, they tend to be too intense, so while this workout was in L4 format, it was not a “by the book” L4 workout. What do I mean by that? By L4 format, I mean that the workout has specific strokes rate and power defined in intervals and blocks. But I did not use the tables from the WP to define the paces, instead I used a constant power per stroke. I also constrained the stroke rates much more than a real L4. I went in steps of 1 stroke from 17 to 21 strokes per minute. The 2 spm jumps make the workout a lot more dynamic and tougher in my opinion.

The stroke sequence I did was

First 20′ block
- 1st 10′: 180 – 4′ @ 17 (160W), 3′ @ 18, 2′ @ 19, 1′ @ 20
- 2nd 10′: 194 – 2′ @ 19, 2′ @ 20, 2′ @ 19, 2′ @ 20, 2′ @ 19 (this should be just below 185W)
Second 20′ block
- 3rd 10′: 196 – 2′ @ 20, 2′ @ 19, 2′ @ 20, 2′ @ 19, 2′ @ 20 (this should be just above 185W)
- 4th 10′: 194 – 2′ @ 19, 2′ @ 20, 2′ @ 19, 2′ @ 20, 2′ @ 19
Third 20′ block
- 5th 10′: 198 – 2′ @ 19, 2′ @ 20, 2′ @ 21, 2′ @ 20, 2′ @ 19 (so, just 2′ at 200W in the middle)
- 6th 10′:196 – 2′ @ 20, 2′ @ 19, 2′ @ 20, 2′ @ 19, 2′ @ 20
- Lactate test here was 2.6 mmol/l
Fourth block
- 7th 10′: 194 – 2′ @ 19, 2′ @ 20, 2′ @ 19, 2′ @ 20, 2′ @ 19
- 8th 10′: 188 – 2′ @ 18, 2′ @ 19, 2′ @20, 2′ @ 19, 2′ @ 18
- Lactate test here was 2.5mmol/l

So, from a HR perspective, this was right on target. But from a lactate perspective, it was just a little bit too intense. I did a lactate test at 60′ and it was 2.6mmol/l. I repeated it at 80′ and it was 2.5mmol/l. From an RPE perspective, everything was feeling great, until I did the sequence at the beginning of the third section. As soon as I did the little chunk at r21 and 200W, I felt like I got behind and never caught up. Essentially, it felt like I flipped the switch that started to shut down the fat metabolism.

This provides an interesting data point to compare to a session where I start the same way, increasing my power during the first 10 minutes, but then settle on exactly 185 for the rest of the way. Then repeat the lactate tests. The theory would be that I would get a lower lactate reading by avoiding the higher powers.

This raises all kinds of interesting questions in my mind.

Many sports (like cycling) have intermittent bursts of high intensity, with stretches of lower power stuff. How long does it take to get fat metabolism going again after you kick in with CHO?
Would it be good to try to train the response by doing just what an L4 does? By dropping in some higher power chunks, will it help you develop the ability to process more lactate, or is it better to just gradually increase the training power?
Does it really matter?

Saturday: CRI Fall Challenge

September 18, 20164 Comments

Weather: Bright sunshine, temperature started in the low sixties, but warmed up. A Southernly breeze kicked up right when we were starting our race. This was mostly a cross headwind.

I was rowing stroke, Joe was in the bow. This is a 5km head race that shares about half of it’s course with the Head of the Charles. It starts upriver from the Weeks Bridge, and finishes at the CRI boathouse.

It’s not a big race. There was one event with 2 boats in it before us, the Men’s Open 2x, then us, the Men’s Masters 2x. There were 5 boats in our event. And we were starting 5th. Behind us were the Men’s Junior 2x and then the Men’s Masters 1x.

The race starts at the right and proceeds to the left. The race plan was broken into 4 parts.

1. Anderson to Eliot: 1.2km

– Straight shot from the bridge to the turn for about 600m, then a broad sweeping turn for another 600m

– The hard part is that the turn gets much tighter right at the end so you have to be ready to lean hard on starboard to make the middle arch.

– The race plan is to hit the first 500 pretty hard at about a r28, and then focus on trying to row clean at r26 through the turn.

2. Eliot to Arsenal: 1.8km

– This is the guts of the race. It’s pretty straight and there not much you need to do but stay reasonably close to the Cambridge side.

– In this section, we should stick around a r26 and work on keeping it together.

– It is probably a good idea to call some 10s in this section to focus on whatever parts of the stroke are getting wobbly.

3. Arsenal to N Beacon: 1.2km

-Digging deep at this point.

– I am hoping that we will have managed our pace well enough over the prior section that I can lift the rate to 28 in this section.

4. N. Beacon to the Finish: 400m (more or less depending on where they set the line.

– I plan to crank the rate up to 30 or higher while we are under the bridge.

– Coming out of the bridge, with the rate still at 30, you need to call for tons of port pressure to hold the line.

It didn’t play exactly to plan, but it was pretty close. We were slower than either of us were hoping we would be. And we finished last in our event.

Screen Shot 2016-09-18 at 12.28.39 PM.png

So, we finished 53 seconds behind the guys who finished fourth. So, over a 5k course, that means that we need to improve our average pace by just over 5 seconds. We did this race at a 2:23 pace. Here are the splits

|06700|00500|02:15|02:15.0| 27.8 | 161 |08.0| tail wind

|07200|00500|02:14|02:14.0| 26.2 | 169 |08.5| tail wind

|07700|00498|02:27|02:27.6| 26.6 | 173 |07.6|head wind

|08198|00500|02:24|02:24.0| 27.6 | 174 |07.6|cross head for the rest of the way

|08698|00500|02:25|02:25.0| 27.0 | 176 |07.7|

|09198|00500|02:26|02:26.0| 27.3 | 176 |07.5|

|09698|00502|02:28|02:27.4| 27.1 | 177 |07.5|

|10200|00497|02:23|02:23.9| 28.3 | 177 |07.4|

|10697|00503|02:28|02:27.1| 27.8 | 179 |07.3|

|11200|00499|02:21|02:21.3| 29.5 | 181 |07.2|

Reviewing it, it is worthwhile to break it down into parts to try to improve.

1. Rate: The overall rate average for the race was a 27.5. This is higher than it should have been, and that’s entirely on me. I was over excited and I didn’t do a good job holding 26 through the guts of the course. The higher rate made it tougher for Joe to stay in sync, especially with all the steering he had to do. This is just a matter of having better discipline.

2. Steering: I am frankly quite impressed with the line that Joe steered. He has never rowed this river before, and in comparison with the two boats behind us, it was clear that he was steering better and putting distance between us and them at a couple crucial spots in the race. There were a few spots in the race where we needed to turn sharply enough to hammer our boat speed. The first of these was right out of the Anderson Bridge, where the river turns toward Cambridge and the buoy line snuck up on us. The second was the turn into the long straight section by Soldier field. The river bends toward Cambridge and we swung out into the buoy line. The final time was coming out of the N. Beacon Street Bridge, right before the finish line. The turn is quite sharp and we needed really hammer the port strokes to stay on the course. As I watched some races after ours, it seems like that last turn is a tough on, no matter how perfect your line is.

I think it will be critical for us to get some runs on the HOCR course so that Joe has a chance to learn the land marks and rehearse the turns.

3. Technique: Here’s the area where we can do the most to improve. All of our practice together has been on Quinsigamond and so, we have just gotten to the point where we can get synchronized and clean on the gloriously long straight sections of the lake. On a twisty turny river, where we are always pulling harder on Port or Starboard, and Joe has to have his head on a swivel to find the line, we were no where near clean. I know that my finishes were sloppy, and I was typically dragging at least one blade on recovery. Joe said essentially the same thing, that trying to steer and maintain the rate really made it hard for him to “get in a groove”. So what do we do? A couple of things. First, I keep the rate at 26, don’t get all fancy with higher rate for now. Focus on getting good at that rate. Second, practice full pressure turns. I took a look at the Eliot turn, and superimposed it on a same scale map of Quinsigamond. If we turn at full pressure around the big island, and then loop around the small island to the east to go back up lake, we get something that is very much like 2 or 3 Eliot turns. I think a couple of reps of that during each workout will give us enough time turning under pressure that we can hold our technique better.

4. Fitness: Joe is still rehabbing from a surgical repair for a torn biceps tendon, and I haven’t had as much time or focus as I did last year. So, I think we have to be realistic. We have 34 days from now to the HOCR. Maintaining as full of a training plan as possible will be helpful, but is unlikely to yield massive improvements. I’m going to stick with my predefined plan.

5. Effort: As near as I can tell, we both put everything we had into the race. Here’s the Pace and Rate plots, with my HR. So, the last 5 minutes of the race was anaerobic. I felt spent at the end, but pretty much OK. But at the dock, I experienced something new. I had a massive coughing jag, and nearly threw up. It didn’t feel exactly like an erg cough, but it was a bit disconcerting. But, I certainly felt like I put everything I had into the race.

|00020|06684|53:33|04:00.4| 18.8 | 127 |06.6|warmup
|06700|04999|23:51|02:23.1| 27.5 | 174 |07.6|race
|11699|00493|07:13|07:19.1| 20.5 | 133 |03.3|back to dock

The race was a massively useful learning experience. The good news is that there is a lot of stuff to work on that will make us significantly faster. The bad news is that we have a lot of ground to make up.

Later today, I will do a normal endurance session. Tomorrow morning, back to the lake for a session with Joe.

Friday: 2 x 500 taper

September 16, 20162 Comments

I got home around 2am. I slept until around 7:30, did some email and other work, and then around 9:30 went to do a quick session, just to keep from feeling stale tomorrow.

Plan

Fletcher warmup
2 x 500
- 2:30 rest
- Pace target: <1:40
- Rate target: >30
Easy cool down

First was the warmup. It felt comfortable and my HR was reasonably low.

Then into the two 500s. The first one was pretty comfortable. The second was a bit more on the edge.

Then a 3000m cool down. I used painsled today and I discovered what causes it to lose a session. While I was cooling down, I got a phone call (that I ignored). After that, painsled seemed to lose itself and did not log the session. I think I’ll stick with ergdata.

Here’s the HR for the whole session from Wahoo Fitness.

Tomorrow is my race, at 10am.

Thursday: 4 x 20′ / 1′ rest

September 15, 2016September 15, 20161 Comment

At Crossfit Anaerobic again this morning. I got there a bit later and there were very few people there. I dragged an erg over in front of a truly enormous boxed fan. Really it had to be at least 6 feet in diameter and it was right in front of an open exterior door. I had the most wonderful breeze for the whole workout.

Plan:

4×20′
1′ rests
target power: 185W
target rate: 19-20
HR cap: 155. (actually, I was hoping to be at lower numbers at the end of each interval because I know that CV drift will tend to push me up through the whole workout. So, if I was above 145 at the end of the first interval, I was planning to drop the power down. Same thing if I was above 150 at the end of the second.

I was dubious about how I would do today because I was out late for a big dinner (beer, wine, grappa, steak, appetizers, dessert). I felt hot and sweaty all night long as my body tried to metabolize all of that, and I woke up feeling less than my best. But just the walk from the hotel over to the crossfit box improved my mood and attitude. It’s a beautiful morning here.

The workout turned out just fine. I tried to hit 185W as close as I could, and I paid attention to my HR. It stayed nice and low through the whole workout, rising slowly to a maximum of about 150 by the end of the last interval. The average power for the session was 186.

This afternoon I am flying back to Boston, arriving after midnight. I’m planning to sleep in a bit on Friday. I’ll do a fletcher warmup and a couple of 500s as a partial taper for the race on Saturday. I’m pretty excited. I’ve never raced in a double before. I think it will be a blast!

Wednesday: 15 x 3′ / 1′ rest at Crossfit Anaerobic

September 14, 20162 Comments

I’m here in lovely Orange County, so I dropped in on my favorite Crossfit box. It’s about half a mile from my hotel, and the walk/jog to and from there makes a good warmup/cooldown. The place is always hopping, and the people are very nice. I just go get an erg from the long line of well maintained model d’s that they have along the wall, set it up so I can watch all the people doing their Crossfit thing and do my session.

Today’s session is the last high intensity session before the race this Saturday, and boy was it a doozy. Here’s the plan:

15 x 3′
1′ rest
pace target: 1:52 (Actually 800m per interval was what I wanted to beat in each interval)
rate target: 26
No HR Cap

This is a classic Wolverine Plan “L3” workout. The rests are not long enough to come close to fully recover, so you dig yourself in deeper and deeper as the workout progresses.

I attacked this session with vigor. Maybe a bit too much vigor. I was able to hold my pace below 1:50 for the first 7 intervals. But I was in deep trouble by then. I backed off a bit, but came close to blowing up in the 11th, about 1 minute into it. I took a few strokes around 2:00, and then slowly brought the pace back down to around 1:54. I rowed the next couple of intervals more conservatively, but I was running on fumes by the time I got to #14. I purposely sandbagged that one so that I would have a chance on the last one, which I very much wanted to be ahead of target. It was. I was shaking all over and it took me a good couple of minutes before I could get off the erg. This was a very good workout.

Add in another 10 minutes of LIT for the warmup. So, 45′ of HIT and 45′ of LIT. And a whopping 9 minutes of anaerobic. Ouch.

Tomorrow: Steady State Session. 4 x 20’/1′ rest at 185W.

Week #9 – Training Review

September 13, 2016Leave a comment

Date	Day	Workout Type	mode	Planned Workout	*Actual*
9/5/16	Mon	Rest			4×20′ erg 80′ LIT
9/6/16	Tue	Long Intervals	otw	5 x 2000 / 5′ rest r28 40′ HIT 30′ LIT	sept CTC 17′ HIT 25′ LIT
9/7/16	Wed	Steady State	otw	4 x 2900 / 1′ rest r20 (HR limit 150) 75′ LIT	as planned 75′ LIT
9/8/16	Thu	Short Rest Intervals	otw	5 x 20@32/10 off / 5 x 20@34/15 off / 5 x 20@36/20 off, 8′ between sets 15′ HIT 45′ LIT	4×20′ on erg 80′ LIT
9/9/16	Fri	Technique UT2/UT1	otw	Bungee Row first half, Steady state r20 second half 75′ LIT	Threshold OTW 5km hard plus power pieces 30′ HIT 30′ LIT
9/10/16	Sat	Hard Distance	otw	5.5K r30 30’HIT 30′ LIT	Rest Day on the Cape, cleaning a deck
9/11/16	Sun	long and easy	erg	4 x 30′ / 1.5′ rest (lactate) 120′ LIT	90′ step test 90’LIT
Summary				85′ HIT 375′ LIT	47′ HIT 360′ LIT

Again, I am low on high intensity minutes, caused by 2 HIT sessions in the week instead of three.

I am surprising on track for LIT minutes, which is a bit surprising. I didn’t do the mammoth Sunday row I had planned, but I did 4 endurance sessions instead of 3.

The plan had me at 18% HIT / 82% LIT. This week was 12% HIT and 88% LIT. A lot of the things that I’ve read seem to point toward a lower percentage of HIT in a polarized plan. Given what’s been happening with my training this fall, I guess we will eventually find out if it works for me.

Tuesday: 74 minutes of Steady State

September 13, 20161 Comment

Weather: Awesome. Clear, cool. A very light breeze from SW, barely noticeable until the last segment when it built enough to slow me down.

Plan:

Recover from yesterday’s intense session
>70′ steady state
rate: 20 spm
pace: ~2:30
HR cap: < 155

I had trouble getting organized this morning. I was late leaving the house. I needed to stop on the way to the boathouse to use the bathroom. There was goose poop all over the dock (luckily I am now carrying a broom in my mobile boathouse). And I managed to forgot my “Bite Guards” in my duffel and didn’t realize it until I was twenty strokes from the dock. I wanted to row with them because I had some raw spots from the double yesterday that I didn’t want to irritate further. Oh well.

I am also still struggling with the speedcoach. I need to recalibrate the pace, and the HR pickup antenna has come loose from the bottom of the seat deck. It’s been a problem finding time to do this kind of routine stuff because I am pressed for time in the mornings during the week and skipping off to the cape on weekends. Oh well, I am more and more happy with the the way that RIM is working. The pace seems much more responsive than CrewNerd in the boat, and the live acceleration graph definitely keeps me focused on form later in each session. You can definitely tell from it when you are shortening the stroke, or rushing the catch and a myriad of other issues.

Today’s workout was almost entirely uneventful. I would like to be faster, but I have to be realistic about making progress when I have other priorities that reduce the time I have to train.

First Interval, for some reason HR data wasn’t working in RIM
|Start|Dist_|Time_|_Pace__|_SPM__|avg HR|DPS_|Remarks
|00010|01090|05:49|02:40.1| 19.6 | 000 |09.6|warmup
|01100|02969|14:24|02:25.5| 20.5 | 000 |10.0|rep #1
|04069|00076|01:12|07:53.7| 16.5 | 000 |03.8|turn

|Start|Dist_|Time_|_Pace__|_SPM__|avg HR|DPS_|Remarks
|00000|01090|05:49|02:40.1| 19.6 | 000 |09.6|warmup
|00000|02969|14:24|02:25.5| 20.5 | 000 |10.0|main set
|00000|00076|01:12|07:53.7| 16.5 | 000 |03.8|rests

So, I restarted RIM and that seemed to fix it. Here’s the data for the reps 2 through 4.
|Start|Dist_|Time_|_Pace__|_SPM__|avg HR|DPS_|Remarks
|00059|02909|14:18|02:27.5| 19.7 | 144 |10.3|rep #2
|02968|00061|01:10|09:33.8| 16.9 | 127 |03.1|turn
|03029|02939|14:12|02:24.9| 19.9 | 149 |10.4|rep #3
|05968|00036|00:52|12:02.2| 16.3 | 144 |02.6|turn
|06004|02956|15:09|02:33.8| 19.9 | 149 |09.8|rep #4
|08960|01130|06:31|02:53.0| 20.6 | 140 |08.4|back to dock

|Start|Dist_|Time_|_Pace__|_SPM__|avg HR|DPS_|Remarks
|00000|08804|43:39|02:28.7| 19.8 | 147 |10.2|main set
|00000|00097|02:02|10:28.9| 16.6 | 134 |02.9|rests
|00000|01130|06:31|02:53.0| 20.6 | 140 |08.4|cool down

Put all the reps together and the pace is 2:27.9. Not bad for the HR I guess.

Now I am on a plane over Oklahoma, on my way to LA. I have customer meetings tomorrow and Thursday morning. My plan is to drop in on Crossfit Anaerobic in Newport Beach and use an erg. My workout plan for the week is a bit disrupted, and I have my first head race this weekend.

The plan was

Monday: rest
Tuesday: Threshold 4×2500
Wednesday: Steady State
Thursday: Short rest intervals 4 x (3′ on / 1′ paddle) 2′ rest
Friday: Warmup Only
Saturday: CRI Fall Classic

The new plan is

Monday: Threshold – 5.5km hard on Quinsig
Tuesday: 75′ steady state
Wednesday: Short Rest Intervals (on the erg)
Thursday: Steady State 4 x 20′ (on the erg)
Friday: Warmup only
Saturday: Race Day!

I’m not tapering for this race, I think it’s more important to keep working on endurance for the races later in the schedule.

Monday: Head Race Piece on Quinsig in a 2x

September 12, 20162 Comments

Weather: A bit chilly, around 50F. Clear skies, but a low mist was rising from the lake. This effected Joe a lot more than me because he had to make sure we didn’t hit anything or any body. There was a very light breeze which seemed to mostly come out of the north, which was a slight tail wind. Looking at weather stations near the lake, they show no wind at all.

Plan:

Warmup to the north end of the lake
Hard 5.5km from the north end of the lake to the south end.
- rate: 26
- pace: better than 2:15
Cool down and a few power pieces back to the dock.

We launched around 5:40 and the sky was just starting to lighten up in the east. We headed north at an easy 18 spm and got warmed up. We were in the club’s Vespoli 2x, which I think is a better boat for us. My foot position was also a bit better. I had more room at the finish and I like my catch position. I was still coming down hard on the track ends, so I need to remember by bite guards.

We spun up at the north end and then started the piece. The intent was to simulate a head race at our target rate and race pressure. I wanted to make sure that we had some time trying to row hard while carrying a lot of fatigue before we raced next weekend.

I liked this boat a lot more. I felt like I was getting good strokes in, and there were sections where the boat really felt like it was moving very well. Probably the best section was during the last third of the piece. When we passed the first island past the narrows, the boat just seemed to get a lot lighter and we were in very good synchronization.

Here is a comparison of our strokes in the first 1000, when we were fresh, but the boat felt a bit heavier and the “magic” section.

I specifically tried to pick out single strokes to avoid any averaging. The thing that jumps out at me is that we had better finishes in the magic section. The hump between 0.8 and 1.0 sec is lower. The acceleration is still sloping up to a peak right before the finish, and I’ve changed my mind to say that it’s probably OK. In the boat, when we are running well, I can feel the surge late in the leg drive and through the body swing. It makes sense that it takes more of the stroke to accelerate a heavier boat and two rowers than a single. The thing that we have to work on is consistency. Hopefully a couple of rows per week between now and the HOCR, we can lock it in.

This was a much better piece that the one we did on Friday. The avg pace was 2:14.4, and a fair amount of the time, we were hovering around 2:10. We would have done even better, if we hadn’t been waked about 500m from the end. That slowed us down a bit and we struggled to get back up to speed for the last bit of the piece.

On the way back up lake, we took it easy all the way up through the narrows and then did 4 sets of 20 on/10 off. Then to cap it off we did a 30 stroke piece after we got past the rt9 bridge.

|Start|Dist_|Time_|_Pace__|_SPM__|avg HR|DPS_|Remarks
|00020|02330|13:16|02:50.8| 18.2 | 129 |09.6|warmup
|02350|05502|24:39|02:14.4| 26.2 | 164 |08.5|hard 5.5k
|07852|02046|12:52|03:08.7| 24.1 | 136 |06.6|rowing light
|09898|01349|06:27|02:23.4| 25.7 | 154 |08.1|20 on 10 off
|11247|00239|00:57|01:59.2| 28.9 | 160 |08.7|last 30
|11486|00251|03:08|06:14.5| 24.4 | 122 |03.3|back to dock

|Start|Dist_|Time_|_Pace__|_SPM__|avg HR|DPS_|Remarks
|00000|02330|13:16|02:50.8| 18.2 | 129 |09.6|warmup
|00000|06851|31:06|02:16.2| 26.1 | 162 |08.4|main set
|00000|02046|12:52|03:08.7| 24.1 | 136 |06.6|rests
|00000|00490|04:05|04:10.0| 25.5 | 131 |04.7|cool down

It was so pretty this morning when we landed I could resist taking a few pictures.

Tomorrow: Back in my single on the Charles for a long and slow endurance session. r20 and HR cap at 155.

Quantified Rowing

Measure – Adjust – Improve

Month: September 2016

Tuesday: 75′ steady state OTW

Monday: 40′ steady state

Sunday: 4 x 20′ L4

Saturday: CRI Fall Challenge

Friday: 2 x 500 taper

Thursday: 4 x 20′ / 1′ rest

Wednesday: 15 x 3′ / 1′ rest at Crossfit Anaerobic

Week #9 – Training Review

Tuesday: 74 minutes of Steady State

Monday: Head Race Piece on Quinsig in a 2x