Day: November 3, 2017

Fall 2017 Fitness Tests

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Screen Shot 2017-11-03 at 12.40.07 PM

This is in a google sheet: here

A little explanation:

  • Power:  Is the average power for the test (or the peak power in the case of the peak power.
  • PR Power:  Is the best performance over the past 4 years for the closest thing to these tests
    • Peak Power:  Low Pull Test in 2014
    • 75 Minute Test: Half marathon in December, 2015 (79:55 minutes vs 75:00)
    • 1K test: 1K test in March of 2014
    • 20′ Test: 6K test in December of 2013 (21:32 vs 20:00)
  • % PR Std:  This is how far I am from my best ever performance for this set of tests
  • 500m: Avg or peak split
  • Meters: Distance rowed, significant for 20′ and 75′ rows
  • SPM:  Avg stroke rate for the piece
  • Ratios:
    • 75′ test: % of 1K test power
    • 1K test: % of peak power
    • 20′ test: % of 1K test power
  • Ideal:  This is the range define my RoyleRow as idealized target ranges to help focus training planning
  • PR Ratios:  This is the same ratios calculated from PR powers instead of current test results.

The purpose of this exercise is to provide insight about training.  So, what insights are there.

  1. It is cool to see how consistent the ratios are from my best performance to my current performance.  I think that a big part of this is physiology.  My VO2Max to peak power is higher than target range, and my anaerobic and aerobic thresholds are below the ideal ranges by similar amounts.  It will be interesting if Marlene will want to focus on trying to raise my threshold results relative to my VO2Max, or if she will want to just push the whole profile to the right
  2. My peak power is closer to my PR levels than my distance stuff.  I think that this makes a ton of sense.  My total training load, and especially my load of aerobic training was much lower over this past summer than in past seasons due to travel, boat problems and injury.
  3. I was disappointed with the anaerobic threshold results, but it sure explains why I didn’t do as well as I hoped in the HOCR.  It appears that this furthers from my best performance and furthest from the ideal ranges.  This is also related to problems with training this summer and fall.  I essentially had 21 total days from when I restarted “real” training after my back injury before until the HOCR.  That was not enough time to move my anaerobic threshold much.

I will find out soon what Marlene wants to do, but my thought is to work on aerobic fitness using lactate guided training power, and complement that with a few short sessions a week at higher intensity.  I would also like to devote more training time to fixing some core strength and imbalance issues.

If at first you don’t succeed…

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After yesterday, I was nervous and frankly full of dread about doing the 20′ time trial today.

I saw yesterday that 1:50 was too aggressive as a target, so today, I backed off to 1:53.

I started with a very short 1k warmup.

Workout Summary - media/20171103-1135460o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|01000|03:56.0|01:58.3|210.9|22.2|129.3|147.0|11.4
W-|01000|03:56.0|01:58.5|207.5|21.9|128.3|147.0|11.7
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|147.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|00150|00:36.6|02:02.0|159.3|16.5|080.1|103.0|14.9
01|00100|00:22.2|01:51.2|236.9|23.9|113.6|121.0|11.3
02|00150|00:37.2|02:04.0|191.0|21.2|130.9|136.0|11.4
03|00100|00:22.5|01:52.7|249.7|25.3|137.9|139.0|10.5
04|00150|00:37.5|02:04.9|187.5|21.1|142.2|144.0|11.4
05|00100|00:22.1|01:50.6|247.7|25.3|141.2|142.0|10.7
06|00150|00:37.2|02:03.9|191.0|21.5|144.8|147.0|11.2
07|00100|00:21.6|01:47.8|265.2|25.3|145.0|146.0|11.0

Then onto the main event.

  • Pace target: 1:53
  • Rate target: 25

I promised myself to not quit on this test.  If I needed to, I would slow down by a split or two, but I would keep going and just get it done.  After all the point was to establish a baseline for the purpose of planning my training.  If the test shows that I am weak here, then that is useful data.  Useful data that really hurts to collect.

         Workout Summary - media/20171103-1135300o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|05318|20:00.0|01:52.8|243.8|25.1|169.2|183.0|10.6
W-|05324|20:00.0|01:52.7|243.7|25.1|169.1|183.0|10.6
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|00537|02:00.0|01:51.6|239.1|23.2|134.8|157.0|11.6
01|00534|02:00.0|01:52.4|249.2|25.0|159.9|164.0|10.7
02|00535|02:00.0|01:52.2|247.5|25.0|165.6|167.0|10.7
03|00534|02:00.0|01:52.5|246.3|25.1|168.2|170.0|10.6
04|00533|02:00.0|01:52.6|245.2|25.1|170.5|171.0|10.6
05|00533|02:00.0|01:52.7|244.8|25.3|172.5|174.0|10.5
06|00531|02:00.0|01:53.0|242.4|25.2|176.3|179.0|10.5
07|00527|02:00.0|01:53.9|237.6|25.2|179.0|181.0|10.5
08|00526|02:00.0|01:54.2|235.0|25.5|181.9|182.0|10.3
09|00536|02:00.0|01:52.0|250.1|26.2|181.8|183.0|10.2

This was pretty hard from beginning to end.  I was very worried about halfway through and I started playing around a little bit with rate and pressure to try to find a comfortable groove.  I was counting blocks of 125 strokes for each 5 minute section.  My HR was above 95% of HRR with 6 minutes to go and I was pretty miserable in the last 5 minutes.  I eased off a bit until I saw that I had 2 minutes to go, actually when I had counted to 75 strokes in the last section.  Then I pushed again to try to finish strong while counting down the last 50 strokes.

So, I ended up a bit below target, but this was a good solid test.  I think it reflects where I am right now.

After I caught my breath, I did a 3K cool down

          Workout Summary - media/20171103-1150290o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|03000|13:09.0|02:11.6|156.5|19.8|151.3|163.0|11.5
W-|03000|13:10.0|02:11.7|154.4|19.7|151.4|163.0|11.6
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|163.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|00500|01:58.0|01:58.0|201.6|21.8|136.7|156.0|11.7
01|00500|02:04.7|02:04.7|182.3|21.0|161.4|162.0|11.4
02|00500|02:09.1|02:09.1|162.7|20.2|159.8|163.0|11.5
03|00500|02:14.4|02:14.4|145.2|19.0|155.3|157.0|11.7
04|00500|02:19.9|02:19.9|129.0|18.5|149.9|152.0|11.6
05|00500|02:24.1|02:24.1|117.5|18.4|144.9|147.0|11.3

Tomorrow:  Recovery session.  If the weather is nice, I’m hoping for a open water row.

I’m compiling the results and I I’ll post the analysis in a little while