I was a bit intimidated by this workout.  It wasn’t that I thought I would fail, I was pretty certain that I would complete it successfully.  Rather, I was dreading the 17 minutes at marathon pace.  In previous attempts at these step down workouts, I dug so deep in the 5kp section that the marathon pace sections were very taxing.  My HR stayed high and it was miserably hard work.

I was surprised and delighted today.  This workout didn’t feel easy, but I felt really good throughout.  My HR was way lower than any workout like this that I’ve done over the past few weeks.  I felt so good that I did the last 5 minutes at half marathon pace.

Workout Summary - media/20170202-1405210o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|21146|90:00.0|02:07.7|193.5|22.7|151.1|166.0|10.4
W-|19796|79:00.0|01:59.7|204.8|22.6|152.8|166.0|11.1
R-|01354|11:00.0|04:03.6|069.6|22.7|135.5|166.0|02.9
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|01011|04:00.0|01:58.7|210.9|21.8|129.7|147.0|11.6
01|02096|08:00.0|01:54.5|233.0|24.3|151.1|158.0|10.8 -target 225-240
02|04137|17:00.0|02:03.3|186.9|21.0|147.3|156.0|11.6 -target 180-195
03|02096|08:00.0|01:54.5|233.4|24.4|155.5|164.0|10.7 -target 225-240
04|04135|17:00.0|02:03.3|186.6|21.4|153.1|163.0|11.4 -target 180-195
05|02099|08:00.0|01:54.3|234.6|24.7|156.7|166.0|10.6 -target 225-240
06|04222|17:00.0|02:00.8|198.8|23.0|161.0|166.0|10.8 -target 180-195

I looked through the metrics.

• A little bit of drive length variation in the last interval
• peak force varying with power
• you can see the same thing in the work per stroke.  I was effectively underrating the fast stuff and over rating the slow stuff
• I see more variation in rhythm today.  Not sure why

Comparison to the 4 x 15′ (9′ @5kp, 6′ @ mp) workout form earlier this week.

• Same powers, just different durations so it gets a bit confusing after the first rep.
• Nearly identical stroke rates for the faster bits.  A bit lower for the slow today (because I felt fantastic)
• The difference in HR is astounding.  My HR didn’t go nearly as high in the 5kp sections, and it recovered better in  the mp sections.

So, why was it better?

• time of day: nope…same for both
• nutrition state:  nope…fasted for both
• amount of sleep: nope…~6.5 hours before both
• temp/humity: nope…same for both
• accumulated fatigue:  If anything I should have been worse today.  This is the 7th day in a row that I have rowed.  This session and the prior one were rowed the day after a low intensity 60 minute endurance session.

So, I am left with random variation and improved fitness.  I think there is lot of the former, and a little of the latter.

Tomorrow:  Probably nothing.  I have an early meeting, and then I head off to the airport for a trip to Korea.  I’ll be off the erg for a week.  I’m pretty bummed about that, I was just starting to see progress.