In my single, down in Newton.  First day of the taper for the HOCR.

Following the same taper plan I always do.  (The paper it’s based on is here)

The idea is to do a decreasing number of high intensity intervals as you approach race day.   By doing this you maintain your VO2max while also lightening the training load to get some supercompensation.  If you compare the approach with pure rest, and a low intensity taper, you get a longer time to fatigue.

So, today was 4 intervals.  Tomorrow is 3, Thursday is 2.  Friday should be a total rest day, but we will be doing a slow scouting run on the race course.

Weather:  Dark!  I boated at 6:30 and it was overcast so the full moon was blocked.  There was very little light at first, but it got better over the first 30 minutes.  There was a bit of wind at first, but it died down during my warmup.  It was unseasonably warm, around 62F.

Plan:

• Full Rojabo style warmup
• 4 x 500m intervals
• As much rest as I wanted, 2 to 5 minutes
• Pace target 2:00 (I was stunned to see that I did these with a 1:55 pace target in July)
• Rate: 28 spm

My warmup was my version of the Rojabo warmup.  I like it because it fits the length of the river really well and is just taxing enough.

• 10 strokes at 20spm / 10 paddle
• 20 strokes at 22 / 20 paddle
• 30 @ 24 / 30 paddle
• 20 @ 26 / 20 paddle
• 20 @ 28 / 20 paddle
• 20 @ 30 / 20 paddle
• 20 @ 32 / 20 paddle

Then I had a drink and did the first interval, which took me to the bridge.  I paddled through the bridge and felt pretty good, so I took off on the second one with only a couple minutes of rest.  That one hurt a bit more, and I had a taste of the lactate rush after I finished it (nausea, feeling like I would pee my pants, stuff like that).  I paddled through the s-curve, and then setup for the third interval.  I took this one a bit easier and felt few ill effects afterwards.  This one took me past the island and left me a bit too close to the end to keep going straight, so I paddled back to the end of the straight 1k chunk and set up.  My legs felt it in the last one.  But it was the last one.

I used both RIM and my speedcoach.  I’m seeing some weird stuff on the speedcoach.

Here’s the RIM data.

Here are the splits.

Workout Summary - media/20161018-175618-77540o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|05474|32:45.0|02:59.5|21.4|139.9|174.0|07.8
W-|02000|09:02.0|02:15.7|25.0|147.7|173.0|07.9
R-|07672|49:50.0|03:14.9|20.4|137.4|173.0|08.3
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
02|00500|01:59.9|01:59.9|27.8|158.7|169.0|09.0
03|00500|02:01.6|02:01.6|28.0|158.1|173.0|08.8
04|00500|02:00.7|02:00.7|28.1|158.1|173.0|08.8
05|00500|01:59.8|01:59.8|28.7|160.4|173.0|08.7

Here’s the plots from the speedcoach.

I am struggling to explain the pace changes that occur in the first and second intervals.  Parsing this data into splits shows that the first rep was a bit slower on the speedcoach.  The other ones line up reasonably well.

Start_|_Dist_|_Split_|_Pace_|_Strks__|_Rate_|_DPS_|_AvgHR_|_Remarks

00020_|_0078_|_00:23_|_2:27.4_|_008___|_20.9_|_09.8_|_124___|_warmup

00100_|_0499_|_02:03_|_2:03.2_|_058___|_28.3_|_08.6_|_162___|_rep #1

00600_|_0274_|_02:00_|_3:38.6_|_037___|_18.5_|_07.4_|_142___|_rest

00860_|_0499_|_02:00_|_2:00.6_|_058___|_28.9_|_08.6_|_165___|_rep #2

01360_|_0449_|_03:07_|_3:27.9_|_059___|_19.0_|_07.6_|_135___|_rest

01820_|_0485_|_01:57_|_2:00.2_|_056___|_28.8_|_08.7_|_164___|_rep #3

02320_|_0803_|_05:12_|_3:14.2_|_095___|_18.3_|_08.5_|_129___|_rest

03100_|_0396_|_01:35_|_1:59.7_|_046___|_29.1_|_08.6_|_166___|_rep #4

03500_|_1727_|_10:04_|_2:54.8_|_188___|_18.7_|_09.2_|_132___|_cool down

The best thing about a taper is that it’s fun to row fast!

Tomorrow:  Back on Quinsig for 3 x 500 plus drills.