Month: December 2016

WTF 10K

1 Comment

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.

12-11a.png

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.

bokeh_plot-83

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.

bokeh_plot (85).png

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

bokeh_plot-82

Which led to a higher rise in HR.

bokeh_plot-79

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.

bokeh_plot-80

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

bokeh_plot-77

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.

Friday: Temptation

Leave a comment

So, I don’t really know what to think about how things are going with my knee.  There is no doubt that the MRI showed an damaged area of the meniscus cartilage, but right now, it is hurting a lot less.  I still get clicking and I am treating it very carefully, but I am worrying about whether getting it scoped is the right thing to do.

The thing is that I would not be able to row well the way it is now.  I would be constantly worried that I would over compress and lock it up in the boat.  This would be painful at least and could be potentially dangerous, if it was as bad as when it happened in Vermont (or numerous times the following couple of weeks).

Anyway, this morning, the plan was for a 60 minute endurance session.  I was originally planning to just do another boring ride on the stationary bike.  I started there, and did 30 minutes that way, and I got really bored.  My knee also felt perfectly fine.

Hmmm.  Maybe I could do a little erging.   Either it would go OK, or at least I’d be more certain about the procedure.

So, I toddled over to the erg.  I put down a bandaid on the rail to give myself a reminder to not compress too far.  I dialed up 10km on the PM5 and started rowing.

At first I was very tentative about stroke length, and the time off the erg was definitely having an effect.  But over the first 10 minutes I got more comfortable and confident and lengthened my stroke a bit.  I’m still not squeezing hard into full compression at the catch, but I was going an inch or so past the bandaid.  As this happened I was able to bring the rate down a bit too.

The HR response was pretty poor for such a slow piece, but it was great to get back on the erg and my knee is showing no ill effects afterward.

Workout Summary - media/20161209-181650-sled_2016-12-09T07-29-45ZEST.strokes.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|10000|41:28.0|02:04.4|181.4|19.0|151.2|160.0|12.7
W-|10000|41:28.0|02:04.4|181.2|19.0|151.5|160.0|12.7
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|160.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|01000|04:05.0|02:02.5|185.0|20.0|137.1|146.0|12.2
02|01000|04:05.5|02:02.8|189.1|19.9|148.8|152.0|12.3
03|01000|04:07.3|02:03.6|185.2|19.5|150.5|152.0|12.4
04|01000|04:07.3|02:03.6|185.5|19.2|151.4|153.0|12.6
05|01000|04:10.1|02:05.1|178.8|18.9|152.6|154.0|12.7
06|01000|04:11.0|02:05.5|176.9|18.7|152.7|154.0|12.8
07|01000|04:10.4|02:05.2|178.3|18.9|153.3|155.0|12.7
08|01000|04:10.1|02:05.0|179.1|19.1|154.7|157.0|12.6
09|01000|04:10.5|02:05.3|178.0|18.2|155.5|157.0|13.2
10|01000|04:11.2|02:05.6|176.6|17.2|157.6|160.0|13.9

12-09a.png

Here’s a quick plot showing how I extended my stroke length over the first 10 minutes or so.

bokeh_plot-76

Here are HR stats for the whole workout from Wahoo fitness.

Gotta say, I feel a lot better for having done it, but the worries about doing the wrong thing with the surgery are unabated.

Tomorrow:  Probably another easy erg session and some strength work.  Maybe I’ll try some kettlebell stuff for fun, plus push ups and chin ups.

Thursday: 30′ warmup and Strength

1 Comment

30′ warmup on  the stationary bike.  Manual setting 15.  This felt harder and my HR rose faster than yesterday’s 60′ session.  That’s what I wanted.

Then a quick shirt change and on to strength training.

Deadlifts with our brand new Trap Bar!

trap-bar1

The thing weighs 75 pounds!

Bar only x10
165lbs x10
255lbs x5 x5 x5
(That was really fun.  Never used the trap bar before.  I got more confident in each set.  I think I could go up in weight a bit)

Chin ups
Unassisted x6
Red Band x5 x4
(felt weaker today than on Tuesday, might have been the deadlifts.  They were a bit tough at the end)

Push ups
x12 x12 x7 (fail)
(felt really spent on these, my arms were shaking all over in the last set)

I’m thinking that getting 2 rest days between strength sessions might work better for my purposes right now.

Tomorrow:  60′ Endurance Session

Tuesday: Strength

1 Comment

30 minute warmup on the stationary bike (manual, level 13)

Then into a strength session

Squats
(limited depth to protect my knee, put a Bench behind me and stopped when my butt hit it, it was about 3/4 depth)
45 x 10
95 x 10
145 x 10
165 x 8 x 3 sets

Chin ups
Unassisted x6 (yes! I’m making progress)
assisted x6 x6 x4

Good Mornings
45 x 10
95 x 10
145 x 10 x 3 sets

Push ups
(with rotating handle pads)
10 x 4 sets

Pretty happy with how that went, especially the squats.  I really want to work on leg strength and preserve range of motion.  I felt safe doing the squats this way.

Not by coincidence, I saw a tweet from Yann La Meur reviewing a paper by Rhea.  This was talking about the specificity of squat training.  In the experiment they took 28 collegiate athletes and only varied the type of squat exercise that they did within an otherwise identical strength training program.  They found that quarter squats translated into bigger improvements in vertical leap and sprint speed than either full squats or half squats.

Now, of course the range of knee motion for rowing is a lot larger than running or jumping, so I am not sure that quarter or half squats are good for specific rowing training, but I found the article very interesting nonetheless.  Mainly though, I want to avoid having my knee lock up while I have 200 pounds on my shoulders.

Tomorrow:  Stationary Bike endurance session, ~ 60 minutes.

 

 

 

Sunday: pedalling 60 minutes

Leave a comment

We went down to the cape this weekend.  We left Friday afternoon and returned Sunday afternoon.  I’m taking it a bit easier while I figure out what to do with my knee.  Basically, a few endurance sessions a week on the bike and maybe three strength sessions.  I took Friday and Saturday off.

We got home around 2:00 and I did some work around  the house.  I hopped on the stationary bicycle around 5 to pedal for an hour.  I queued up Saving Private Ryan on the iPad and watched the movie as I cranked.

Not very exciting, but not unpleasant either.

Tomorrow:  AM:  4 x 20′ endurance, probably stationary bike, PM: Strength

 

Why a week?

1 Comment

A very talented rower, who goes by the handle boston_sculler on twitter posts some interesting stuff. Today he posted a link to an article in Runners world.

Why Masters Runners Should Try Longer Training Cycles

I read through the article and it made a lot of sense to me.  Right now I work on a 7 day cycle.  Generally with 3 hard sessions and 3 endurance sessions.  I often feel like I am inadequately recovered by the time I need to do another hard session.  The article talks about an old marathoner who adopted a 9 day cycle.

There are pros and cons.  The pro is pretty easy to define, you can fine tune the training cycle to match up with what works best for you.  The con side is a bit more subtle.  So much of how we plan our lives and communicate about our training is based on the one week unit.  Breaking out of that paradigm has the potential to be very isolating, unless others will be following a similar pattern.

I’ve spent a couple of seasons creating custom fine tuned training plans and I think that they have the potential to get me in better shape than using an existing plan unmodified.  The problem that I am having is that I am giving up an important source of motivation and support.  It is easier to get motivated to do a specific workout if you are part of a group following the same plan.  Every one gets to congratulate and cajole each other as you go along.

I know that I should be internally and intrinsically motivated by my objectives, but I think friends would help.

So, I think that’s where I am at right now.  Once my leg is fixed, I think I will look for a few training partners and we can come up with a common training plan and agree on things like cycle length, numbers and types of sessions, mesocycle purposes and the lot.  The way I’ve been working this is making me feel lonely.

 

Update on my knee

3 Comments

I saw the Orthopedist on Friday.  We reviewed the MRI together.

He pointed out the areas on the surface cartilage of the knee where there was evidence of arthritis, he also showed me an area on the meniscus cartilage that was damaged.  He said that was likely the cause of my knee clicking and locking (and hurting).

He was somewhat ambivalent about doing surgery to trim the meniscus. I asked him is the knee would get any better without it.  He thought that it would not.  I told him that I wanted his honest opinion.  I really wanted to be able to restore the full range of motion of my knee, or at least not have it lock, so that I could resume rowing.  But I didn’t want to do something that would have negative long term effects on my health just so I could keep doing this specific sport.

He said that the surgery had a low risk of complications (<1%) and that there was a better than 50% chance that it would fix the mechanical issues with the knee.  There was a 5% chance that surgery could make it worse.  I guess the other 40 to 45% chance is that it doesn’t help all that much, but doesn’t make it worse.

Since my knee worked well enough to row 10 days ago, I decided that trying to fix whatever damage is there would be the best course of action.  I will be setting up a surgery date on Monday.

Until then, I think I will stick to very low intensity stationary bike, along with core and upper body strength work.  I think I need to give the joint a rest.

 

Thursday: Short Slide HM

Leave a comment

Well, that was quite unsatisfying.

I spent a fair amount of yesterday regretting doing the CTC.  My knee was stiff and painful.  I took some Ibuprofen before bed, but it was still not all together happy with me this morning.

But, I wanted to find out if I could erg without hurting my knee more.  So, I thought that I would try to do a slow half marathon

Plan:

  • Half Marathon
  • 3/4 slide (using the bandaid to mark max compression
  • Target power 180W
  • HR cap: 155
  • No rate restriction, just try to figure out how to row efficiently with the short slide.

I had a glitch with the PM5/Painsled and only got data for the first 53 minutes, but fortunately, I had my HR backup going. 😉

Screen Shot 2016-12-01 at 2.00.06 PM.png

12-1

Here’s the partial painsled data

Workout Summary - media/20161201-154018-sled_2016-12-01T07-13-18ZEST.strokes.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|12458|53:30.0|02:08.8|170.2|18.0|139.5|148.0|13.0
W-|12225|51:30.0|02:06.4|172.9|18.0|140.0|148.0|13.2
R-|00235|02:00.0|04:14.9|068.4|18.3|124.3|148.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|04803|20:00.0|02:04.9|178.7|18.2|135.6|147.0|13.2
02|04716|20:00.0|02:07.2|169.6|17.6|142.4|148.0|13.4
03|02706|11:30.0|02:07.5|168.8|18.2|143.4|148.0|12.9

myimage12-1

I was curious about how the shorter stroke affected how much force I needed to put into the handle.  These two plots illustrate the difference.  The one on the right is a HM before my injury about 2 weeks ago.  The one on the left is from today.  So, my drive length is about 9 cm shorter (6.3%).  The peak force was 11.9% higher (193.2 vs 172.6).  And this resulted in a average power that was more than 20 watts lower.

For me, this was a very valuable illustration of how important length is to delivering power.  The good news is that my knee held up well and is pretty much pain free right now.  I guess I need to be satisfied with the idea of going slow until my knee is better.

Tomorrow:  Dr’s appt in the morning.  I might have time for a short workout during the day.