Monday:  I felt pretty crappy all day long.  Might have been a hangover 😉

Tuesday:  I got some very specific coaching feedback on my stroke based on the video that I posted.   The biggest issue that I have to get fixed in breaking my knees too early, before my arms are extended and my body angle is right.  Today, I wanted to focus on that as hard as I could in an easy session.

The plan was

• 4×20′ / 3′
• Cat VI: 2:03 – 2:08 (I was planning to go a bit slower to make sure that I focused on the recovery)
• Rate 18

I got started and I was having a lot of trouble getting comfortable with the changed rhythm.  I was a bit jerky on recovery, but I was determined to not break my knees until my arms were straight out.  I had plenty of mental bandwidth to focus on my stroke because I managed to forget to turn on the podcast I wanted to listen to.  This made the first 20 minutes feel like it was about 2 days long.  My heart rate climb fast, but stabilized nicely right around 150.

When I finished the rep, I took a few rest strokes and then picked up my phone and started the podcast.  When I looked back at the display, it was already counting down in the second interval!  I had managed to misprogram the rests to be 1 minute instead of 3 minutes.   I resisted the temptation to push too hard to make up for the missing 15 seconds.  Of course, the podcast I was listening to finished before the end of my next rep, and I got have another 5 minutes of rowing in studious silence.

In the chart you can see how I got used to the new rhythm by the second 20 minutes and the power and rate both locked in much better.

          Workout Summary - media/20180102-1345320o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|19422|84:00.0|02:09.7|173.8|17.8|146.6|153.0|13.0
W-|19051|79:45.0|02:05.6|176.6|17.8|146.6|153.0|13.4
R-|00375|04:15.0|05:39.8|064.1|13.5|142.1|153.0|08.7
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|04790|20:00.0|02:05.3|177.2|17.4|143.2|151.0|13.8
01|04716|19:45.0|02:05.6|176.5|18.0|145.6|152.0|13.2
02|04775|20:00.0|02:05.6|176.4|17.9|149.2|153.0|13.4
03|04769|20:00.0|02:05.8|176.2|18.0|148.4|152.0|13.3

Tomorrow:  Good fun.

Session: 10 x 500m
Rest between: 2’ Rating/Pace: Cat V: SR 22-23

Notes: Medium tempo session. Use the faster end of your Cat V split. Focus on posture, firm core, chin level, breathing.

So, the faster end of my Cat V pace is 1:58.  This will be a good chance to keep focusing on keeping my damn knees down at a slightly higher stroke rate.