My long / hard workout on Tuesday was my last hard session before the HOCR.  Yesterday and Today, I implements a very short taper.  Not much need to do more because my prior training load was pretty light.

My traditional taper is guided by this paper.  This is a 5 day taper, based on high intensity (115% VO2Max pace) intervals.  They are intense, but short, about 75 seconds in the study and massively long 6 minute rests.   Since I am making up for lost time, I decided to reduce the intensity of the intervals and make them a little longer, so that I would get additional technique practice at head race stroke rates and pressure.  So, if you believe 2K pace is roughly VO2Max pace (and I do), then that would mean that I should do the intervals at about 250-275 watts.  Instead, I planned to do them at closer to a 5K pace, which is maybe 40 watts lower, and extend them out to 120 seconds.

Also, I have been noticing that my rowing is pretty damn sloppy, especially my finishes.  This has been making me unstable during the recovery, and messing up the whole next stroke.  So, I thought the best way to use the rest time was to do some square blade rowing, so I did 2 minutes of square blade rowing and 2 minutes alternating square and feathered stroke by stroke.

So the plan was:

• Wednesday: 4 x 2′
• Thursday: 3 x 2′
• Friday: practice row on the HOCR course.  Keep it gentle. HR limit <150bpm
• Saturday: race day!

Wednesday:

A beautiful morning.  Clear, about 45F when I launched, but it warmed up fast and it was about 55F by the time I finished.  There was a light breeze, but the water was silky flat almost all the time.

I was having such a good time that I did an extra interval at the end.

          Workout Summary - media/20171018-125059-Greg Smith 20171018 0650amo.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|07993|45:25.0|02:50.5|143.6|20.7|146.0|176.0|08.5
W-|02159|09:39.0|02:14.1|230.6|24.7|159.3|175.0|09.1
R-|05840|35:47.0|03:03.8|112.4|19.2|141.0|175.0|06.1
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|00453|02:00.0|02:12.4|238.1|24.6|157.1|166.0|09.2
02|00463|02:00.0|02:09.6|232.3|24.8|163.2|172.0|09.3
03|00450|02:00.0|02:13.5|239.1|25.1|163.1|172.0|09.0
04|00446|02:00.0|02:14.4|228.8|25.0|163.4|175.0|08.9
05|00347|01:39.0|02:22.8|211.3|23.7|147.7|166.0|08.9

230W felt like it was bit too much to be sustainable for the whole race.  Maybe 220W would work though.

Thursday:

Today was a carbon copy of Wednesday.  Clear, 45F, even less wind.

I enjoyed every minute of the session.  I had a little bit of extra river in  the last interval, so I extended it to 3 minutes.

          Workout Summary - media/20171019-164952-Greg Smith 20171019 0634amo.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|06402|36:25.0|02:50.7|142.0|20.5|138.0|172.0|08.6
W-|01583|07:00.0|02:12.7|247.0|24.8|156.9|172.0|09.1
R-|04823|29:25.0|03:03.0|108.7|19.0|131.4|172.0|08.1
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|00448|02:00.0|02:13.9|252.9|23.9|152.8|161.0|09.4
02|00456|02:00.0|02:11.6|240.4|25.0|150.7|165.0|09.1
03|00679|03:00.0|02:12.6|247.4|25.4|163.7|172.0|08.9

247W felt good today.  Definitely too hard to hold for the whole race, but 255W should be workable.

After my workout I had an evaluation with a Physical Therapist.  He found some imbalances in my glute strength that are causing weird stuff to happen with other muscles in an effort to compensate and this is putting strain on my SI joints. He gave me some stretches and exercises that will help me fix the imbalance.  I’m pretty happy with the outcome and delighted that the PT works on a lot of rowers, including the US national team.

Tomorrow:  Afternoon, I will be bringing my boat down to the launch site and doing a practice row on the course.