August 28, 2017 – Quantified Rowing

Weather: Stellar! Wonderful! Sunny. Almost chilly. Around 55F at the start, mid 60s when I finished. No wind at the beginning. A little headwind for the last trip up the river.

Plan:

2 laps of the river, roughly 75′
One water break halfway through. Otherwise, just turn and go.
stroke rate: r20 (to reduce the pressure on my lower back)
pace target: I would like to say I didn’t have a target, but I really like seeing the pace be faster than 2:30.
Heart Rate Limit: 155 max. Try to keep it around 150.
Technique: I watch effective length and tried to keep it in the upper 70s

        Workout Summary - media/20170828-145353-Greg Smith 20170828 0641amo.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|13983|74:31.0|02:39.9|141.8|20.0|145.4|156.0|09.4
W-|12631|63:30.0|02:30.8|151.7|20.1|146.0|155.0|09.9
R-|01357|11:01.0|04:03.9|088.6|19.8|142.1|155.0|07.3
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|00913|04:42.0|02:34.4|149.0|21.0|127.4|142.0|09.3 - to start
01|02944|14:33.0|02:28.3|156.3|20.2|146.2|150.0|10.0 - to dam
02|02823|14:15.0|02:31.4|151.6|19.8|147.3|153.0|10.0 - back to cut
03|02751|13:43.8|02:29.7|149.7|19.9|146.4|153.0|10.1 - back to dam
04|03200|16:16.8|02:32.6|150.1|20.1|149.8|155.0|09.8 - back past cut

The challenge of this workout was to balance three things at the same time. Keep my stroke long, keep my stroke rate up at r20 and keep my HR below 155. SInce I have been doing most of my endurance work at r18, or even lower, I am very used to rowing with a lot of stroke pressure. With a higher stroke rate, there are two things that could happen. I could row shorter with the same stroke pressure, or stay the same length and reduce the peak force. I wanted to do the latter.

Mission accomplished….