May 1, 2017 – Quantified Rowing

Weather: Cool and misty. Around 45F. A little bit of wind, head wind when going upstream generally. After Saturday in Wellfleet, I have a new standard for wind and waves. 😉

Plan:

2′ On /2′ Off
3 sets of 4 intervals
Each set at 22, 24, 26, 28 spm

As I set off from the dock, I noticed how much more cramped I felt at the finish than I did in my Alden. I turned around and headed back to the dock and moved the footstretcher 2 cm toward the bow. I noticed the change immediately and I felt a lot more comfortable at the finish.

I rowed the 1km out to the start point and I set off. The 22 was easy, so I only took 1 minute of rest. After the 24, I was starting to feel it so I took the full 2 minutes. This setup worked pretty well. I was pretty gassed at the end.

Workout Summary - media/Fusion_20170502-211209.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|09687|54:00.0|02:47.2|172.2|22.5|151.1|179.0|08.0
W-|05553|24:00.0|02:09.6|246.8|25.5|158.4|176.0|09.1
R-|05345|37:06.0|03:28.2|108.4|20.2|145.3|176.0|08.2
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|00007|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|08.5|102.0|102.0|00.0
01|00458|02:00.0|02:11.0|198.3|22.5|153.1|160.0|10.2 - tail wind/curr
02|00467|02:00.0|02:08.4|242.9|24.5|158.6|165.0|09.5
03|00491|02:00.0|02:02.1|266.5|26.5|160.5|169.0|09.3
04|00500|02:00.0|02:00.0|279.3|28.0|162.5|173.0|08.9
05|00437|02:00.0|02:17.4|216.7|22.8|150.1|165.0|09.6 - head wind/curr
06|00442|02:00.0|02:15.8|240.3|24.8|160.8|169.0|08.9
07|00459|02:00.0|02:10.7|231.6|26.7|164.3|173.0|08.6
08|00463|02:00.0|02:09.6|274.4|28.1|164.8|176.0|08.2
09|00451|02:00.0|02:12.9|235.3|22.6|146.2|165.0|10.0 - tail wind/curr
10|00469|02:00.0|02:07.9|272.0|25.3|158.0|170.0|09.3
11|00448|02:00.0|02:14.1|228.9|26.3|159.2|171.0|08.5 - head wind/curr
12|00462|02:00.0|02:10.0|275.2|28.4|162.6|175.0|08.1

This shows some of the power of the interval editor on rowsandall. By isolating each interval, you can see how much the wind and current was effecting pace. Compare intervals 1,5, and 9. In # 1, I was in a tail current the whole way. In #5, I was against the wind and current for the whole interval. In #9, I started in a dead end section and finished with a tail current. You can see that in the variations in pace. More interesting was how I was working at higher powers in each one of them. Look at the consistency of power at r28. 275 to 279W. But the pace was 2:00 with the current and 2:10 against!

To look at the effect of moving my feet, I compared this workout with the a rate ladder workout I did back in April. This workout was at r18,20,22 and 24, so I plotted a few parameters versus stroke rate to see what changed.

Effective stroke length: Improved about 2-4 degrees
Slip: roughly the same, strongly correlated with stroke rate.
Catch angle: Maybe a little higher. I was surprised, I would have thought 2cm would have caused a bigger change.
Wash: 2-4 degrees better. This where the longer effective length came from. By giving myself a little more room, I could tap down better.
Finish: I was expecting this to get smaller since I moved my feet, but it didn’t change all that much.