I ended up skipping training yesterday.  I was just doing other stuff, and I didn’yt really feel like it.  You might be able to tell that my discipline is ebbing, as my surgery date approaches.

Today, I knew I would be getting on a long flight and I always do better if I have exercised before I fly.  So, I decided to do a quick 10K before I got ready to head to the airport.

I also wanted to push my knee some more.  As perverse as it sounds, I wanted it to hurt.  I wanted it to lock up.  I wanted it to misbehave.  It refused to do that.

I dutifully put down my bandaid to limit compression, but as I went along in the piece, I started to ignore it and try to push as far into compression as I possibly could.  I was reaching for the handle guard in front of the fan cage, and nearly touching it.  My knee started to feel a bit sore, but did not misbehave.  Not a click was heard, no locking happened, and it didn’t betray me, as much as I wanted it to.  What the hell is up with that.

Anyway, my intent was just a nice UT1 kind of workout.  A bit spicier than a normal endurance session since I was only going for 10K.  I ended up pushing harder than that.  And the only thing UT1’ish about the session was the rate.

Workout Summary - media/20161211-214912-sled_2016-12-11T13-16-31ZEST.strokes.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|10000|38:28.0|01:55.4|227.3|22.3|163.2|184.0|11.6
W-|10000|38:28.0|01:55.4|227.1|22.3|162.9|184.0|11.7
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|184.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|01000|03:51.8|01:55.9|217.4|21.0|129.6|143.0|12.3
02|01000|03:49.1|01:54.5|232.9|22.4|150.2|156.0|11.7
03|01000|03:50.2|01:55.1|229.7|21.9|157.3|159.0|11.9
04|01000|03:52.4|01:56.2|223.2|21.5|160.4|162.0|12.0
05|01000|03:52.2|01:56.1|223.4|21.9|163.3|166.0|11.8
06|01000|03:53.1|01:56.6|221.2|22.0|166.7|171.0|11.7
07|01000|03:51.6|01:55.8|225.6|22.5|170.1|173.0|11.5
08|01000|03:50.9|01:55.4|227.5|23.0|173.8|176.0|11.3
09|01000|03:50.8|01:55.4|227.5|23.1|176.8|179.0|11.3
10|01000|03:46.4|01:53.2|242.6|23.8|180.8|184.0|11.1

Now, this was no where near as fast as my 10K CTC in October, but I was interested in comparing the two workouts.

First, comparing power.

In October, I started fast and faded a bit.  Today, I started slower and held it.

Stroke rate…Very different.  I rated higher the whole way in October.

This infers that my work per stroke should be higher this time…And it is.

Which led to a higher rise in HR.

Now, what about drive length?  I started today shorter, but as I started to test my knee, I matched my stroke length from that row.

This got me thinking about drive length versus peak force.  Here’s the two plotted together for today’s row.

Goes to show you how much length matters!

So, now I’m at the airport, getting ready to board.  Not sure what the training will be like this week.