Monday: 4 x 15′ / 4′ rest (6′ @ 5kp, 9′ @ mp)

February 13, 2017February 13, 20172 Comments

It was snowing during the day on Sunday and the forecast was that the storm was going to last all night long and into the morning. So, I figured that I would be stuck in the house. But by 11:30PM, it was pretty clear that the storm was clearing out sooner and the snow totals were going to be smaller than predicted earlier. So, I set my alarm for 6:15 and headed to work.

I did this session in the deserted fitness center at work.

Plan:

4 x 15′ / 4′ rest
6′ @ 5kp (225W to 240W) / 9′ @ mp (180W to 195W)
HR Cap at 92.5% HRMax (172)

This was pretty tough work, but I successfully completed this and even hit the last interval a bit harder.

Stroke metrics. Always fun to look at.

Finally, I compared this workout to the same session done on January 20th. Today I had higher HR’s.

I think the HR difference is mainly due to lack of sleep and time of day.

Sunday: 3 x 20′ / 1′ rest (dynamic)

February 12, 2017February 12, 20172 Comments

Friday: Arrived home off the red eye at around 7:30am. Straight into conference calls. I had a 30 minute window so I decided to try out my new dynamic rowing machine.

I struggled a bit with getting everything set up. My main problem was that the PM5 was trying to connect to a hr monitor that I was not wearing instead of the one that I was. That took some time to get fixed.

I did a 5 minute row, then a 3 minute row, and then I got stuff set for a final 12 minute row. I did the first 9 minutes at 175W, and then the last 3 at 225W.

Saturday: No training. Doing errands and chores all day. No time.

Sunday: Just an easy session to get used to the new machine.

3 x 20′ / 1′ rest
175 W
No rate restriction
HR cap at 155

It was hard work. The break through that I made before I went on the road for a week seems to have disappeared. I’m back to where I was a couple of weeks ago.

I wanted to get an idea of how this compared to rowing on the model D, so I matched it up with one of the 2×30′ sessions that I did a couple of weekends ago on the cape. I was similarly fatigued and jetlagged then.

Here is all the parameters compared on a time scale.

Slightly higher power today.
About 1 spm higher rate is where I settled today. I think 1 to 2 spm higher on the dynamic is probably about right.
HR response nearly identical
Peak and average force about the same, but the force ratio is lower on the dynamic (less efficient?)
Drive length. Started shorter on dynamic, but eventually came close. I was surprised about this, I expected it to be consistently shorter without my bodies momentum carrying me into the catch.
Work per stroke decreasing through the row.
Drive speed, a much more noticeable difference. Significantly higher on the dynamic.

I might do a second session this evening, maybe a first cut at the CTC.

Concept2 Dynamic – Product Review

February 12, 2017February 12, 20177 Comments

A couple of weeks ago, I brought my Model D down to our house on the cape and left it there. I had made up my mind that I wanted to have a rowing machine in both places, since we are spending more time there off season than I had imagined, and even in season, there are a fair number of days where the conditions are not amenable to rowing.

I decided to replace it with a Dynamic. I have always been better on a static erg than I have been on slides, and I hope that if I can spend more time rowing on slides or on a dynamic machine, that I will be faster in the boat as well. My plan is to move my slides from work down to the cape, so I can row on slides there.

The Dynamic is more expensive than a Model D ($1250 vs $900) and Concept2 seems to go out of their way to avoid selling it. The other rowers can be ordered online. To buy the Dynamic, you have to call the up and basically convince them to sell it to you. I chatted with the sales rep for a while and he told me that they had a big problem with people who bought it because it had a smaller footprint than the model D, but then were dissatisfied when it was so different from what they had used at the gym. He said that they only want to sell it to people who have tried out or are on the water rowers.

They shipped it quick. It arrived within a couple days of me ordering it. It comes in two large boxes. Putting it together is non-trivial. It took me the better part of an hour, and would have been easier if I had a second person for a few of the steps.

The mechanism of the dynamic is interesting, and complicated. Start with the side view of the rower.

The seat runs on a short rail and is constrained by a short piece of shock cord. The foot stretcher rolls on the same rail and can move quite far, from the vertical bar at the front of the rower all the way back to the position shown. The footstretcher is weighted, basically to provide a similar mass as a single rowing shell. There is a hook on the bottom of the footstretcher that extends into the shuttle rail below. The shuttle rail is where the magic starts. Here is a diagram that I put together from the online documentation about the dynamic

The handle cord comes into the shuttle rail, goes back through a pulley and terminates at the footstretcher hook. When you pull the handle and the footstretcher in the drive phase of the rowing stroke, the pulley is pulled forward in the shuttle channel.

The drive chain runs through another pulley that is connected to the handle cord pulley. The chain is terminated on one side and the other side goes around the flywheel drive gear and then down into the handle return mechanism.

Now things get byzantine. The drive chain goes back and forth through two pulleys before terminating in a pulley assembly that is connected to the end of the handle return shock cord. The shock cord runs around two fixed pulleys and is terminated on the side of the mechanism. The whole point of all of this is to provide a consistent return force over the whole span of the recovery. You need a lot of shock cord so that it is not pulling hard at full extension and not pulling at all at the catch.

The good part about all this is that the connection to the flywheel is just about exactly the same as on the static so it is remarkably consistent feeling to the static erg.

Like any design, it has pluses and minuses. The pluses are a small footprint, dynamic operation, and a very solid feel. It’s also nice to be higher off the floor, like on a Model E. The biggest minus is noise. The chain is going over a lot of different gears and traveling in metal channels. All of that is a new source of noise in addition to the whooshing of the fanwheel. It’s kind of a clattery, grindy kind of noise. The kind of noise that you would get if you are running chains around gears through metal channels. I assume I will get used to it, but I have to play the music a bit louder to hear over the noise. I’m also trying to add a bit of oil to the chains to try to smooth it out a bit.

I find it quite easy to row on the dynamic. On slides, I would have trouble with bouncing around a bit, but on the dynamic, I have no trouble. One good thing about the dynamic is that the load at the catch is much faster and crisper than on the model D. There isn’t that 6 inch section of the drive where you don’t have much resistance.

So far I have done an easy hour, and it was a bit more taxing than rowing on the model D.

Trapped in San Diego – 60 minutes in the Fitness Center

February 9, 20171 Comment

So, my flight to Boston last night was cancelled because of winter storm “Niko”. A huge Nor’easter that is pummeling the northeastern United States.

(side note: One of the main online weather services in the US, weather.com has taken to naming major storms, not just hurricanes. I like it. It solves a referencing problem and it’s fun to talk about storms by name…back to the narrative)

So, I am stuck in San Diego until my rescheduled depart, tonight around 9pm. I had a conference call at 6am, so I was unable to go to Crossfit Del Mar today. I was relegated to using the hotel fitness center.

I decided to just do 60 minutes of aerobic maintenance.

30 minutes treadmill (15% grade, 3.1mph…slowed to 3.0 at about 20′, and then 2.9 at 26′ to keep HR below 145)
30 minutes on the elliptical (rolling hills, level 14 of 25), HR cap < 155.

The treadmill felt like hard work, the elliptical felt easier, but my HR was a bit higher.

Tomorrow: I arrive (hopefully) around 8 am. I plan to work from home and get in a marathon plan workout.

4 x 15′ / 4′

6′ @ 5KP, 9′ @ MP

92.5%

(172)

2 x 30′ / 2′ rest at Crossfit Del Mar

February 8, 20172 Comments

I’m in San Diego. I went over to Crossfit Del Mar, paid my drop in fee and grabbed an erg.

Plan: 2 x 30′ @ MP HR cap at 155

I ended up busting the cap in the last third of the 2nd piece.

I’m on the red eye tonight back to Boston. Hopefully, I will get in. There is snow in the forecast. Lot’s of snow.

StravistiX…This is pretty cool.

February 7, 20179 Comments

I’m just getting going on this, but I think I am going to make it a part of my data routine. I’ve plugged in all the workouts that I’ve done over the past couple of weeks and I’m starting to see the utility of doing this.

Here’s my “form graph”.

So, this says that I am in overload, which I guess is about right. I need to make sure that all my training gets into Strava.

This should be interesting to watch with the Marathon training plan.

Tuesday: 3 x 20′ / 2′ rest (MP,10KP,HMP)

February 7, 20172 Comments

Still in Korea. I’m writing this in the KAL Lounge prior to my flight to Tokyo, and then on to LA.

I had a conference call at 2am local time this morning, I slept from 10pm to about 1:45, so almost 4 hours (plus almost 30 minutes in the car on the way home from the restaurant). After the call, I did some email and called some other folks to get some work going while I am on my flights. I wrapped this stuff up around 5:00 or so, and decided to head down to the gym.

The objective today was to do another marathon training session, this one is 3 – 20 minute intervals at different intensities. I decided to do them on the elliptical to avoid too much stress on my knees. I also didn’t really feel like doing this session on the bike.

Since the power ranges on the erg are not applicable, I did this session to heart rate. The HR cap is 167, so I wanted to stay under 150 for the MP piece, get my HR up in the mid 160s for the 10KP piece, and then choose a level between those two for the HMP.

This turned out to be level 17 (of 25) for the MP section, level 21 for the 10KP and level 19 for the HMP. The 10KP felt very heavy, like I was working in molasses, but it sure was hard work. My HR ended up a little below target, but not too far off.

The last 20 minutes felt like forever. I guess that’s the whole point.

I will now fly east, so I’m going to land at LAX about the same local time that I’m leaving behind in Seoul. I will probably hit the hotel fitness center Wednesday morning, but I might get ambitious and drop in at a local crossfit to use an erg for a 2×30′ MP session.

Monday: 4 x 15′ / 4′ (6’/9′ step down) on Treadmill

February 6, 2017Leave a comment

Well, that was a very difficult workout.

I wanted to mimic the intensity of this workout, but I didn’t have an erg at my disposal, so I decided to do it on the treadmill at max incline. I really want to avoid “real” running for now because I don’t want to cause inflammation in my newly repaired knee.

But even a slow jog at 15% grade is enough to really be really taxing. The question was how much was enough.

I decided that I would work from HR. I wanted the 6′ sections to bring me up into the range of 165-172 bpm, and the 9′ sections to bring me back down into the 150-160 range. I used the first interval to experiment. In the first 6′ interval, I started at 4.5 mph and within a minute, I knew that was way to aggressive. I backed off to 4mph and even that was a genuine struggle. My HR monitor picked the wrong day to act up. You can see in the plots that there were dropouts and lags. It might be time for a new battery. The 9′ sections were fine at about 3.1 mph

By the last interval, I was really tired. I slowed down to about 3.8 on the fast bit and ended up dropping the 9′ pace to around 2.8mph. Pitifully slow, but effective.

I think that was pretty effective. Sure was less fun on a treadmill than on the erg though. I’m rower not a runner, that’s for sure.

Tuesday: I’ll hit the gym to do my regularly scheduled workout. I’ll do it by HR on the elliptical. For MP, I will aim at having my HR around 150 by the end of 20′, for the 10KP, I will aim at 167 by the end, and for the HMP, I will split the difference.

3 x 20′ / 2′

MP, 10KP, HMP

90.0%

(167)

Sunday: Fitness Center 2 x 30′ easy

February 5, 2017February 5, 2017Leave a comment

Saturday was a travel day. No Training.

In Korea. At the Sheraton. A really beautiful hotel.

Plan for today was to just work out the kinks from the flight and get adjusted to my new time zone.

30 minutes inclined march (15% grade, 3mph)

30 minutes stationary bike (rolling hills, level 14 of 25)

Heart rate cap at 150. I ended up up lower than that.

Tomorrow: I will try to do a version of the 5kp,mp step down workout.

4 x 15′ / 4′ rest
6′ at 5KP / 9′ at MP

I think I will try to do this on a treadmill with 15% grade. The 6′ at 4.5mph and the 9′ at 3mph. I will see how my HR responds to that and adjust so that the 6′ blocks are pushing HRs in the high 160s by the end and the 9′ blocks bring it down into the low 150s.

Friday: 10K @ MP

February 3, 2017Leave a comment

I didn’t have much time this morning, so I did what I could.

Plan called for 2 x 45′ at marathon pace. I only had about 40 minutes because I had an early meeting I needed to get to, so I subbed in a 10k at the same pace.

These workouts are supposed to be done with a HR cap, and today was no exception. I decided to row against a cap of 150 (80% of HR max). Since I’ve had such great sessions the past couple of days, I decided to start off at 185W and see how long I could hold it before I needed to back off to stay under the cap. Turns out I made it the whole way. It was another good workout. If I was doing another 45 minutes, I would have had to back off, but still. It was better than the HR response I was seeing at 170W just a week ago.