Month: October 2017

Late night in the fitness center

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Wednesday:  No time to work out in the morning.  I was finally able to get to the gym very late Wednesday night, actually just into Thursday morning.

  • 20 minutes treadmill (15% grade, 3.3 mph)
  • 20 minutes elliptical (level 17, hill profile)
  • 20 minutes stationary bike (level 16, random profile)

All were slightly harder than  the day before, my HR response was correspondingly a bit higher too.

10-12a

10-12b

Thursday: I finished around 1:15am, then made a couple of calls.  I got to be at about 2:30am and needed to get up at 4:30am.  I had a 7:25am departure from Munich to Lyon.  So, walk to the ostbanhof train station, catch the 5:24am train to the airport, arrive at around 6:00.  Plenty of time.

I slept a bit on the flight from Munich to Lyon, and a bit more in the 90 minute cab ride from Lyon to Grenoble.  Then I had an internal meeting, business lunch, two customer meetings, and a business dinner.  I got back  to my room around 10:15pm and immediately crashed.

Friday: My alarm was set for 5:30.  We were out on the road to Milan by 6:00.  We got to Milan around 10:30, and straight to a customer meeting at 11.  This wrapped up after 12.  Then a lunch with my colleagues, and straight to the airport.  My flight was at 3:50pm to London, and then 6:50 departure to Boston.  I landed around 8:30 local time, was home by 9:30 and in bed by 10:30.  I slept for nearly 11 hours.

Not the way I wanted to spend the last real prep week before the HOCR, but needs must.

Fitness Center Triathlon

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Last night I flew from Boston to Stuttgart via Amsterdam, arriving at 9:15AM.  I got maybe 3 hours of fitful sleep on the plane.

I had a meeting from 11-12 and the lunch with the customer.  Then we drove back to Munich, well I rode and Martin drove.  I fell asleep in the car for about an hour of the trip.  Honestly, it was better sleep than what I got on the plane.

Back in Munich, I hung out at our office for an hour or so and caught up on emails.  Then I walked to my hotel, which has a small but serviceable fitness center.  I put on my workout clothes and headed down.

The plan was to do 60 to 80 minutes of low intensity aerobic work.  And that’s what I did.

  • 20′ treadmill death march: 15% grade, 3.2 mph
  • 30′ elliptical trainer, random profile avg level 16/25
  • 30′ stationary bike, hill profile, avg level 15
  • HR limit: 150

I was happy with the nice low HR, and especially that my HR was dropping fast with lower loads.  Not exactly what I want to be doing 12 days before the HOCR, but you do what you need to do.

Tomorrow:  Morning workout, then meetings all day.  Probably something a bit more challenging and shorter than this.   Maybe treadmill intervals.

Hard 6K – indoors

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This morning was a real disaster.  I planned  to get up at 4:45 and head out to Quisigamond for a head race piece.  That was blown up by not getting to bed on time.  It was midnight by the time I was finished packing for my trip and in bed.  I decided that a very early start was not the smartest idea (actually, my wife decided that and told me I was an idiot).  It turns out this was a little clairvoyant.  I got up after 6, and I was on my way to work at 6:30 when my phone rang.  It turns out that I was supposed to be in a teleconference at 6:30.  I saw it on my calendar, but I assumed it had to be some kind of an error.  Oops, I guess not.  Anyway, I did the call from my car, most of it pulled over so I could concentrate on the meeting.  By the time I got to work, I had to rush straight in to my first meeting at 8:30 in my workout clothes.

After that meeting, I had a 1 hour hole in my schedule, so I made my way to the fitness center.  I didn’t have a lot of time, but I had time for a quick warmup and a hard 6K piece.

20171009-1416240o20171009-193530

Then on to the 6K.  I was feeling a bit confident after the good 5×1500 workout and the strong steady state session.  My prior hard distance sessions were

  • 30′ at 1:56.2 on 9/23
  • 10K at 1:56.0 on 9/29

So, based on my rough math, if I was able to do 10K at 1:56, I thought I should be able to easily do 6K at 1:54.  It turned out that that was a bit too much of an ask.

I didn’t exactly hit the wall, but I needed to ease off the gas pedal around the 4000m mark.  There was no way I was going to put the handle down, but I couldn’t hold the pace at 1:54.  I held on and played all the tricks I could with visualization and stroke counting, but in the end it was just enduring it.  With 1000m left I tried to pop up the rate, but I went too far too soon and needed to back off.

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          Workout Summary - media/20171009-1416080o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|06000|22:54.0|01:54.5|233.0|25.3|170.9|183.0|10.3
W-|06000|22:54.0|01:54.5|232.9|25.3|171.0|183.0|10.3
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|183.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|00500|01:51.3|01:51.3|239.3|24.3|135.5|157.0|11.1
01|00500|01:52.8|01:52.8|244.4|25.4|160.4|163.0|10.5
02|00500|01:52.9|01:52.9|242.8|25.4|165.9|168.0|10.5
03|00500|01:53.1|01:53.1|241.3|25.9|169.3|171.0|10.2
04|00500|01:53.5|01:53.5|239.8|25.8|172.0|173.0|10.2
05|00500|01:53.9|01:53.9|236.8|25.6|173.6|174.0|10.3
06|00500|01:54.9|01:54.9|231.2|25.0|176.7|178.0|10.4
07|00500|01:55.1|01:55.1|230.0|25.3|177.0|179.0|10.3
08|00500|01:56.7|01:56.7|220.3|24.9|178.2|179.0|10.3
09|00500|01:58.9|01:58.9|218.2|25.0|178.9|180.0|10.1
10|00500|01:56.3|01:56.3|222.3|25.4|180.9|182.0|10.2
11|00500|01:55.0|01:55.0|230.6|25.8|181.6|183.0|10.1

So, it hurt.  That’s kind of the point.

Now I am at the airport heading off to Europe for a 4 day trip.  The schedule is jam packed.  Stuttgart, Munich, Grenoble, Milan.  I am going to do my best to do some maintenance sessions to avoid losing any aerobic fitness, but I think I won’t be doing any rowing until next Saturday.  I also need to focus on trying to avoid coming back from this trip with a big sleep deficit.

 

 

12km in Wellfleet. Fantastic!

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What a beautiful day for October.  It was nearly 70 degrees and sunny.  There was a bit of wind blowing from the southwest, maybe 10mph.  This was kicking up some very lumpy chop.

I went to row at nearly high tide and it’s a full moon, so all of the roads to the beaches where I launch from were underwater.  I ended up launching off the bottom of our stairs to the water, which took some maneuvering, but worked out fine.

The plan was for 60-80 minutes of steady state.  Heart rate limit at 157.

Since the water was so high, I decided to row up into Wellfleet inner harbor and explore a bit.

The ride up north to the harbor was a blast.  I was surfing down the waves and filling the footwell all the time.  The bailer worked great, but it does slow me down a bit.  When I turned behind the Wellfleet breakwater, the water got nice and flat.  I enjoyed poking around there and I was a bit worried about how much slamming it would be to row back into the wind and waves to get home.

After a planned stop for a drink, and an unplanned stop to clear some reeds off my skeg, I headed back out past the breakwater.  It was bouncy, but very rowable.  I was a lot slower, but in control and moving nicely.  I decided to extend a little bit by rowing out to my favorite buoy before turning to go back to the house.

Getting out of the boat was as much of an adventure as launching, but nobody died and nothing got broken.  So, I’d call it a success.

        Workout Summary - media/20171007-214327-Greg Smith 20171007 1257pmo.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|12563|78:13.0|03:06.8|000.0|20.9|152.2|162.0|07.7
W-|12095|73:50.0|03:03.1|000.0|20.9|152.5|162.0|07.9
R-|00472|04:24.0|04:39.7|000.0|19.5|140.0|162.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|05052|29:30.0|02:55.2|000.0|20.0|149.1|159.0|08.6 -
01|00332|02:00.0|03:00.6|000.0|20.6|142.7|151.0|08.0
02|01447|08:34.2|02:57.6|000.0|20.3|151.9|156.0|08.3
03|00879|05:22.9|03:03.7|000.0|21.3|152.7|157.0|07.7
04|04385|28:23.0|03:14.2|000.0|22.0|156.8|162.0|07.0

Tomorrow – hopefully another easy aerobic coastal row.  Next hard session will be a head race piece on Quinsig on Monday.

5 x 1500 / 5′ on Quinsig

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An extraordinary morning.  We launched around 5:40am.  The sun wouldn’t be up for another hour, but it was crystal clear and there was a beautiful full moon out so it was way easier to see where we were going.  There was a very light breeze from the west, which is basically a cross wind. It was light enough that the water was just barely rippled.  It was an extraordinary feeling rowing in the dark on perfectly flat water.  I felt like I was flying.

I got the replacement rigger for my fluid on Wednesday, and I spent a hour or so getting it installed yesterday.  It took a bit of work to get the rigging right and I was sure that it was right.  I always worry that I might have missed something.

The plan:

  • 5 x 1500 / 5′ rest
    • rate: 25-28
    • pace: 2:15
    • HR limit: none
    • Technique:  knees together at the catch, limit layback, crisp finishes

I started out with about 1.5K of drills.

  • arms only
  • arms abd back
  • quarter slide
  • pause at finish
  • pause at half slide on recovery

From there, I did about 500m of steady pressure at about r20.

Through this, I was annoyed to see that technology was failing me today.

  • My speedcoach battery was down to one bar
  • My HR sensor seemed to be stuck at 96 bpm
  • My EmPower oarlock wasn’t registering any power or angle readings

I didn’t want to take the time and effort to try to figure out what was wrong, I decided to just do the workout using pace and rate.

I started the first interval right after I got through the narrows.  I was pleased to see the pace drop down to about 2:15 and hang there.  The setup of the boat felt good.  I was well set, and it felt like the boat was accelerating nicely.  After about 60 strokes which was about 500m, I started to notice that it was hard work.  But, the level of effort felt very sustainable.  I continued through another 60 strokes, two thirds done, and I felt even more strongly that the effort level was pretty close to right for a head race.  I finished right as I passed into the cove at the south end of the lake.

I paddled the rest of the way into the cove and turned around.  I hung out and waited for the quad that launched behind me to get there.  I noticed that I was right on 4000m, so I took off for the next interval, heading north.  This one was a little faster.  I guess the cross wind was a bit against me in first one and behind me in this one.  This one stung a bit more, but at the end, I was counting down remaining strokes, I could have kept going.

After the second interval, I rowed a quick loop to make sure that I would have enough lake at the end.  As I looped around, I had to dodge a eight coming north.  I think I spooked the cox a bit.  But this was pretty good because it gave me something to chase for the third interval.

I started this interval about 500m south of the narrows.  I could see the white light on the stern of the 8 and it looked like I was gaining on them.  I passed through the narrows and took a line towards the eastern shore so I would give the 8 enough room.    The rest of the interval, I continued to gain on them and I was about even with them when I hit the end of the interval.

I paddled to the north side of the route 9 bridge and started the fourth interval.  My legs were a bit more tired now, and I noticed that I was rating a bit higher.  I also noticed that 28 felt good.  I didn’t feel rushed or sloppy.  That made me happy.  I was feeling some distress by the end of this interval.  I’m not sure how much further I would have liked to go beyond the end of this one.   The last 200m of this interval took me right in front of the docks of the QRA.  I ended up closer to  them that I like to go because I wasn’t paying close enough attention to my line.   But I got to watch about 40 rowers watching me as I did my last 100m.  It was certainly incentive to keep my finishes clean and not look as gassed as I actually was.

I paddled to the north end of the lake and turned around.  I ended up paddling an extra 100m to get lined up right and started the interval heading south.  It was the fifth interval, so my legs were pretty empty, but I was still able to get down to the target pace.  When I got to the last 500m, I started to bring the rate up and counted through the last 60 strokes. I was glad it was over, but it wasn’t a near death experience.

After this, I looped back to go find the quad.  When I found them, I turned again, and we did a quick 500 piece back toward the dock.

This was a really fantastic workout.

10-6a

10-6b

        Workout Summary - media/20171006-131833-96782o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|14147|84:53.0|03:00.0|000.0|22.1|0.0|000.0|07.5
W-|08293|36:57.0|02:13.7|000.0|26.5|000.0|000.0|08.5
R-|05855|47:56.0|04:05.7|000.0|18.2|000.0|000.0|05.5
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|01547|06:58.0|02:15.1|000.0|24.6|000.0|0.0|09.0 - down lake
02|01543|06:54.9|02:14.5|000.0|26.0|000.0|0.0|08.6 - up lake
03|01541|06:50.0|02:13.0|000.0|27.1|000.0|0.0|08.3 - chasing the 8
04|01540|06:52.2|02:13.8|000.0|27.1|000.0|0.0|08.3 - past QRA
05|01547|06:45.9|02:11.2|000.0|27.9|000.0|0.0|08.2 - heading south
06|00575|02:36.0|02:15.7|000.0|25.5|000.0|0.0|08.7 - bonus piece!

Tomorrow:  Steady State coastal row.

 

Steady State on a foggy morning

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Pitch black and foggy when we launched.  It was chilly, in the mid-40s and the wind was light and variable.

The plan:

  • Steady state
    • R20
  • HR limit: 155
  • Maybe work in some SBR

I was using Bob’s Peinert again, and Joe and Kelsey were in the double.  They launched a few minutes before me and disappeared into the mist going south.

I launched and the fog seemed to close in around me.  I suddenly felt a very strong desire to row with someone else.  Part of me wanted to just drop the hammer and catch up with them, but I also wanted to keep the intensity set to low today, so I held the rate at 20 or below.  The visibility improved and declined as I rowed down lake, and as I went I found that I was feeling really good in the boat.  I was set well, and my catches and finishes were nice and clean.  I never caught up with them, but I seemed to close the gap a bit by  the time we hit the south end of the lake.

They were nice enough to wait for me, and we set off going north side by side.  The plan was to turn south at the bridge because the fog looked a lot worse at the north end of the lake.  We next to each other almost all the way up to the narrows, when I pushed the pace a bit to go through ahead of them.  After that, they slowed down a bit and I kept the pace up.  I waited for them at the bridge and we made the decision to continue north because the fog was clearing a bit.

The rest of the way to the north end of the lake was really nice rowing.  There was a bit of headwind, and it was blowing the mist in tendrils past us as we went.  When I looked across to Joe and Kelsey, it was an impressive sight.  The mist blowing past them made it look like they were going extremely fast.  I wish I had a camera and a free hand!

I was rowing along nice and easy, and I noticed that they were starting to pull ahead of me.  So, I upped the pressure to stay next to them.  Then they pushed it further, and I upped the rate by a stroke or two.  I found out later that Joe decided that I needed a bit more work in this workout so they pushed me harder.  That’s the pace and HR bump in the last half of the 3rd piece.

After we got to the north end, we turned to go home and I did alternating chunks of steady state and SBR.  Then when I got to the dock, I did a minute at a little higher than head race pace and rate, to try to apply the technique work I did to full pressure strokes.

10-3a

10-3b

Workout Summary - media/20171003-130528-Greg Smith 20171003 0541amo.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|11883|66:54.0|02:48.9|000.0|19.5|142.8|158.0|09.1
W-|10453|52:39.0|02:31.1|000.0|19.3|145.7|158.0|10.3
R-|01434|14:15.0|04:58.1|000.0|20.0|122.3|158.0|04.2
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|03246|16:00.0|02:27.9|000.0|19.0|146.9|155.0|10.7
02|03042|15:30.0|02:32.9|000.0|18.9|148.3|154.0|10.4
03|02244|11:15.0|02:30.4|000.0|20.2|148.8|158.0|09.9
04|01691|08:54.0|02:37.9|000.0|18.7|135.1|141.0|10.2
05|00231|01:00.0|02:10.1|000.0|26.5|144.6|155.0|08.7

Tomorrow:  I fly out to California first thing in the morning.  I am hoping to do a cross training session Wednesday night at the hotel.  Thursday, I’ll be flying home and I’ll take a rest day.  Friday, I hope to do a 5×1500 on the water.

 

Look back over the last 3 months

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This season has been tough.  Lot’s of work travel, family vacations, high stakes business meetings, and most recently a back injury.  I’ve been doing my best to use Stravasix to examine training load.  Here’s the past 4 months

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I reached my peak fitness close to the end of june, by the Stravastix scale my fitness was a 105.  After that, there was a couple of back to back trips and meetings at work that squeezed my time.  I also spent more than a week on a family vacation where my training opportunities were limited.  By July 29th, my fitness had declined to 79.

As I got into August, I was able to be a lot more consistent and my fitness started to recover, getting back to about 90 by the 22nd of August.  Then I went into another heavy week at work and my training suffered.  I came out of that week and got a few good sessions in, but then my back gave out.

Over then next few weeks, I did some walking, running and cross training, but nothing with the necessary intensity to maintain my sharpness, and nothing with enough duration to maintain my endurance.  My fitness suffered.  By the 17th of September, my fitness was down to 65.8.

The good news was that the rest, core exercise and back hygiene had worked and my back had recovered to the point where I could start rowing again.  Over the past couple of weeks, I have gotten in a lot of very solid sessions and my fitness has recovered to 81.

At this point, I have to start to be careful about over training.  My fatigue level is quite high.  The sort of good news is that I have a trip this week and will need to take at least one rest day because of that.

The thing I want to do is maximize the training stimulus during this week and next week and ramp back the following week, right before the HOCR.

After that, it will be time to take stock and figure out where I go from here.

 

14 – 3′ Intervals On Lake Quinsigamond

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Lovely morning.  I got to the lake at 5:35 and it was still pitch black out. There was just a hint of a breeze from no particular direction.  It was a bit chilly, around 40F and the stars were bright in the sky.

The Plan:  In the run up to HOCR, I am trying to make the most of the limited time left.  I am way behind my desired plan due to travel and then my back injury, but the progress I can make is limited by the amount of recovery that I need.  The basic of the plan is 3 hard sessions a week and 3 easy endurance session. The easy sessions are HR capped at 155 and 60 to 80 minutes.  The hard sessions are all targeted at head race paced rowing.  One is hard distance, basically a head race simulation.  Two is long intervals, basically L2 workouts.   Three is short interval/short rest.  The third type was what was on the menu today.

  • The basic workout on the erg is 15 x 3′ / 1′
  • On the water, I need more time than a minute to get the boat turned at the ends of the lake, so I planned to take an extra couple of minutes to turn the boat and get a quick drink.
  • rate target: 24-26
  • pace target:  better than 2:20, hopefully around 2:15
  • HR limit: none

I got up extra early so that I could do my dreaded core routine and go to the bathroom before I went to the lake.  My hope is that the core routine will help get me a little warmed up before I get in the boat and help me avoid aggravating my lower back.

The workout was tough, but awesome.  The water was nice and flat.  There was a bit of a head wind coming into the cove at the south end of the lake.  Then the wind died, but returned as a head wind again as after I got north of the Rt 9 bridge.

In my best intervals, I was starting to feel the boat “snap” when I got into my back swing.  My finishes were a lot cleaner today than on Saturday, mostly because the water was flatter, but I’ll take it.  I felt much calmer in the boat.  It was visually confusing to row with it so dark.  There really wasn’t much light until I was halfway back up the lake going north, about 30 minutes into the row.  I am also having a bit of trouble with this boat wanting to drift around to the port unless I am extremely vigilant about keeping a point to steer from and bear down on my port foot in each stroke.  Tough to tell if it’s the boat or me.

I ended up doing 14 intervals.  4 down lake to the south end.  The first one I started at 22spm and gradually increased to 25.  The rest were between 24 and 25.  Then I turned and did 7 intervals up lake to the north end, then 3 more coming back to the boat house.  I was tired by then and decided that 14 was enough for this morning.

10-2a

        Workout Summary - media/20171002-130422-Greg Smith 20171002 0545amo.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|12272|66:19.0|02:42.1|000.0|23.5|160.4|176.0|07.9
W-|09279|42:00.0|02:15.8|000.0|24.9|163.2|176.0|08.9
R-|03008|21:19.0|03:32.6|000.0|19.5|153.5|176.0|06.7
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|00652|03:00.0|02:18.1|000.0|21.7|151.3|161.0|10.0
02|00678|03:00.0|02:12.7|000.0|24.9|159.9|168.0|09.1
03|00678|03:00.0|02:12.7|000.0|25.3|162.2|170.0|08.9
04|00672|03:00.0|02:14.0|000.0|25.0|164.4|172.0|09.0
05|00682|03:00.0|02:12.0|000.0|25.2|157.5|172.0|09.0
06|00661|03:00.0|02:16.1|000.0|24.8|167.3|174.0|08.9
07|00654|03:00.0|02:17.6|000.0|24.5|166.1|173.0|08.9
08|00655|03:00.0|02:17.4|000.0|25.8|169.0|176.0|08.5
09|00642|03:00.0|02:20.1|000.0|24.7|166.4|175.0|08.7
10|00646|03:00.0|02:19.4|000.0|24.7|166.3|175.0|08.7
11|00658|03:00.0|02:16.8|000.0|24.9|166.8|175.0|08.8
12|00669|03:00.0|02:14.5|000.0|25.4|156.9|170.0|08.8
13|00662|03:00.0|02:16.0|000.0|25.1|165.1|173.0|08.8
14|00670|03:00.0|02:14.3|000.0|25.9|165.9|174.0|08.6

Tomorrow:  Steady State, 80 minutes, on quinsig.  HR limit 155.  I might do the technical SBR/alternating/r20 session.  I need to work on my technique.