Getting ready for my last race of the season

October 20, 2019Leave a comment

A great week of training.

Sunday – Oct 13 – 90′ Coastal row

Long and slow. A really beautiful day! Might have been my last coastal row of the year, if so, it was a great way to finish up.

I launched about 2 hours before high tide and I didn’t have much of a plan beyond rowing at low intensity for about 90 minutes. I started off with the tide, and then turned to head out into the bay. I hugged the shore for a little bit, and then headed out, picking a house on the top of a hill as my point. I decided to row on that heading until I had a straight shot up to Wellfleet harbor, through the buoyed channel. I thought it would be fun to ride the current.

It was. I just paddled along, enjoying the sunshine and watching the boats and birds. I turned in the harbor and paddled through the anchorage, around the jetty, and then up along the boat slips. I had a nice drink of water, turned around and headed for home.

When I reached the buoy at the entrance of the harbor, I turned to the south, picked another house on the shore and kept it as my point the whole row back down to Lt Island. Looking at the map, you can see how straight this section was. It was also getting very close to high tide by this point, so there wasn’t much current pushing me around.

        Workout Summary - media/20191013-1856250o.csv
--|Total|-Total----|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time-----|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|15361|01:29:43.5|02:55.2|000.0|21.0|137.4|156.0|08.1
W-|14880|01:24:52.9|02:51.1|000.0|20.9|137.9|156.0|08.4
R-|00486|00:04:51.0|04:59.2|000.0|22.9|128.5|156.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
08|00922|05:09.0|02:47.6|000.0|19.6|122.4|134.0|09.1
09|07850|43:57.3|02:48.0|000.0|20.1|137.7|152.0|08.9
10|05996|34:04.7|02:50.5|000.0|22.3|142.7|156.0|07.9

Monday – 14 October – Technique work on Quinsig

I needed a nice easy row on Monday. I basically did steady state, square blades, and slow roll ups in 2 minute chunks. I managed to stop my speedcoach with my water bottle after the first 4K of my row (Arghhh!), so I tried to reconstruct the data using the speed and position data from CrewNerd and hear rate from my watch.

The heart rate readings were a bit erratic, but it was a very easy row.

Tuesday – 15 October – 2K/1.5K/2K/1.5K

I was short on time, and I was not really in the mood for a hard workout. But this is a critical prep week for the race coming up on the 26th, so I stuck with the plan, sort of. The plan was for a 4 x 2K. As it turned out, I shortened the 2nd and 4th intervals. The second, I got confused on stroke counts and basically just gave up. On the fourth, I started a bit too close to the boathouse, and I was running out of time to get to the office in time for my first meeting.

The first interval felt great. I felt fast and crisp. After that, it was not much fun.

       Workout Summary - media/20191015-1551110o.csv
--|Total|-Total----|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time-----|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|10612|00:56:45.6|02:40.5|139.0|23.7|154.7|176.0|07.9
W-|07024|00:32:24.4|02:18.4|181.7|26.1|166.6|176.0|08.3
R-|03592|00:24:21.5|03:23.5|082.3|20.5|138.8|176.0|06.1
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|02013|09:04.5|02:15.2|187.5|25.3|163.3|171.0|08.8 - tail
02|01556|07:11.4|02:18.6|186.5|26.6|168.3|175.0|08.1 - head 
03|02009|09:29.6|02:21.8|178.6|26.0|169.7|176.0|08.1 - head
04|01445|06:38.9|02:18.0|172.8|26.8|164.9|172.0|08.1 - tail

Wednesday – 16 October – Steady State – Quinsig

Really foggy and dark. Felt very alone, especially during the first half of the row before sunrise. Pushed a bit too hard because I was trying to keep the split below 2:30. I didn’t succeed. For some reason, my HR sensor dropped connection for a few minutes towards the end of the trip up the lake.

        Workout Summary - media/20191016-1156080o.csv
--|Total|-Total----|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time-----|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|11835|01:07:51.2|02:52.0|128.2|21.8|142.0|167.0|08.0
W-|10727|00:54:04.8|02:31.2|144.9|19.6|147.2|166.0|10.1
R-|01111|00:13:46.6|06:12.1|062.4|30.7|121.9|166.0|04.8
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|02926|14:45.5|02:31.3|147.9|18.6|148.2|158.0|10.7
02|05657|28:34.4|02:31.5|141.9|19.7|143.4|166.0|10.1
03|02145|10:44.9|02:30.3|148.9|20.7|155.8|166.0|09.6

Thursday – 17 October – 15 x 3′ / 1′ Threshold

There was a massive Nor’easter that blew through New England on Thursday. I decided to sleep in and grab a quick workout in the fitness center at work.

Because I am not in the kind of shape I want to be right now, I took the easy way out in the workout and started slow (2:00 splits), and took a second in each interval, until I was around a 1:52 pace.

Then I slowed a bit in the last 3 as well.

Friday – 18 October – Steady State

On Quinsig. The forecast said that there would still be a bit of wind left over from the storm, but it would be coming from the west, so it would be a cross wind and the lake is pretty narrow. I saw that some other folks had signed up, so I decided to give it a try. When I got to the lake, I discovered that they had all cancelled on me, but the conditions were actually really nice. Light cross wind, and nice flat water.

I really just wanted to row, and it was a great morning to do that. Again, I pushed a bit too hard chasing splits.

        Workout Summary - media/20191018-1101070o.csv
--|Total|-Total----|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time-----|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|11841|01:03:42.5|02:41.4|135.5|20.9|150.9|167.0|08.9
W-|10982|00:55:04.8|02:30.5|149.7|20.5|155.0|167.0|09.8
R-|00864|00:08:38.0|04:59.8|045.3|23.5|124.6|167.0|04.7
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|03246|16:02.7|02:28.3|150.6|19.4|151.1|163.0|10.4
02|05678|28:44.5|02:31.9|150.2|20.8|157.7|166.0|09.5
03|02058|10:17.6|02:30.0|146.8|21.3|153.6|167.0|09.4

A little faster than Wednesday, but not very impressive.

Saturday – 19 October – Bad 10K

I needed some sleep, so I did not attempt to get out on the water on Saturday. Around noon, I set myself up to do my weekly long threshold piece. It did not go well.

I did a 2K warmup, and my HR was sky high. It also felt like very hard work.

I started the 10K once, but decided that I needed better music and quit after about 500m. I started again and tried to hold 1:59 splits.

For some reason, Painsled stopped recording after about 20 minutes. But that was enough time to see the point where I knew I was not going to be able to hold my split.

But this close to a race, there is no way that I am going to quit on a training piece, so I just slowed down and watched my HR go up and up. Here’s the HR data from my watch. My MaxHR is about 185. Even though I was rowing at a sedate 2:02 pace, my HR was with 5% of my max for the last 5 minutes.

Not sure what was wrong with me. It might be training load, This was my 12th workout day in a row. Anyway, I’m coming into a taper week, so I’m not gonna worry about it.

Sunday – 20 October – Drills on the fives on Quinsig

Really cold this morning, only about 34F when I launched and the dew droplets had frozen into ice on docks. There was a little bit of wind from the North, but it was barely enough to kick up a ripple. There was a power boat out, and they managed to wake me about 4 times. None too severely, but enough to make balance drills a lot tougher.

There was also a ton of debris in the water. Clumps of leaves, sticks, a soccer ball, multiple floating fenders, and a few mostly submerged thick branches. Generally not too much of a problem, but it slowed me down at times.

I was doing 4 minutes of hardish steady state, then a minute of drills

Square blades
Delayed feather
Pause at body over
Open hands on recovery

A lovely morning.

     Workout Summary - media/20191020-1246050o.csv
--|Total|-Total----|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time-----|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|11464|01:01:14.3|02:40.3|135.7|20.5|148.1|169.0|09.1
W-|08730|00:43:17.8|02:28.8|154.1|21.2|148.7|169.0|09.6
R-|02752|00:17:57.9|03:15.9|091.4|18.9|146.4|169.0|04.7
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|00008|00:01.3|01:22.3|188.0|09.5|115.0|115.0|38.4
02|00006|00:01.3|01:50.2|161.0|22.0|117.0|117.0|12.4
03|00007|00:02.8|03:32.1|111.0|21.0|117.0|117.0|06.7
04|00008|00:03.0|03:02.9|156.0|20.0|117.0|117.0|08.2
05|00009|00:03.2|02:52.0|124.0|19.5|116.0|116.0|08.9
06|00009|00:02.8|02:37.3|139.0|21.0|116.0|116.0|09.1
07|00954|04:47.7|02:30.8|143.4|19.1|137.3|145.0|10.4
08|00786|03:58.3|02:31.6|146.1|18.8|147.4|151.0|10.5
09|00864|04:13.4|02:26.6|151.2|20.3|151.9|156.0|10.1
10|00286|01:22.1|02:23.5|160.6|21.8|150.7|154.0|09.6
11|00193|00:58.6|02:31.9|153.3|21.5|131.8|140.0|09.2
12|00744|03:48.7|02:33.7|150.1|20.4|149.4|153.0|09.6
13|00764|03:46.5|02:28.3|161.8|22.2|153.2|160.0|09.1
14|00652|03:16.6|02:30.9|157.5|22.2|147.7|159.0|09.0
15|00761|03:51.4|02:32.0|150.9|21.3|152.7|155.0|09.3
16|00387|01:59.6|02:34.6|146.7|21.0|150.3|153.0|09.2
17|00184|00:56.6|02:33.6|148.6|21.3|149.4|152.0|09.2
18|00404|01:55.3|02:22.7|183.0|24.5|156.9|162.0|08.6
19|00217|01:06.0|02:31.9|120.0|21.6|131.6|142.0|09.1
20|00841|04:07.2|02:27.0|148.9|21.1|149.9|154.0|09.7
21|00646|02:55.4|02:15.7|188.1|25.9|159.8|169.0|08.5

Tomorrow: 4 x 2K on Quinsig, then in the afternoon, I head out to California.

Stuff since Sept 22

October 13, 2019October 13, 2019Leave a comment

Last time I checked in, I had just spent a long Saturday cleaning my deck.

Sunday – Sept 22 – Tough 10K

On sunday, I completed the second part of the deck chore: Sealing. This is a lot easier than the cleaning but still involved about three hours of filling, pumping and spraying.

We headed home in the early afternoon, and around 5, I went to go do a 10K threshold workout. On slides.

I didn’t bother to warmup, I just dove right in. I should have aimed at a 2:00 pace, but because I am stupid and proud, I ended up aimed more at 1:57. A pace that I have not earned the right to try for at this distance.

I managed to hold it through 30 minutes, but I didn’t have the guts to keep it up for the full piece. Under different circumstances, I think might have been able to just back off the pace a little and finish it out, but that was not how it ended up on this day.

       Workout Summary - media/20190922-2200590o.csv
--|Total|-Total----|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time-----|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|10000|00:39:15.1|01:57.8|214.6|24.7|163.5|179.0|10.3
W-|10000|00:39:15.5|01:57.8|214.6|24.7|163.5|179.0|10.3
R-|00000|00:00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|179.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|01000|03:54.5|01:57.3|213.8|23.2|128.7|150.0|11.0
01|01000|03:54.1|01:57.0|218.5|23.9|153.8|157.0|10.7
02|01000|03:53.5|01:56.7|220.0|24.3|159.4|161.0|10.6
03|01000|03:53.3|01:56.6|220.7|24.4|162.3|164.0|10.5
04|01000|03:53.7|01:56.8|219.1|24.4|166.1|168.0|10.5
05|01000|03:53.2|01:56.6|220.9|25.2|170.7|172.0|10.2
06|01000|03:53.5|01:56.8|219.7|25.3|173.6|176.0|10.1
07|01000|04:05.3|02:02.6|193.7|25.8|170.1|176.0|09.5 - whoops
08|01000|03:59.4|01:59.7|204.4|24.1|172.5|176.0|10.4
09|01000|03:55.2|01:57.6|216.7|26.3|177.3|179.0|09.7

Still a pretty good time overall, but very disappointed that I can’t seem to stick it out through a tough piece these days.

Monday – 23 Sept – Drills on the 5s in a quad

I had signed up to race with some friends from Worcester in a quad in the Textile River Regatta at the beginning of October. I have done very little rowing with other people lately, and I wanted to avoid humiliating myself. So, it was time to change my morning routine a bit and head out to Worcester. This means I need to get up at 4:45, and I spend a long time in the car getting to work, but I have to say, it was incredibly energizing to row with other people. I was feeling stale, and having people to meet for a workout and being to share the experience seems to be just the thing I needed.

I met Joe, Mike and Rob at 5:30 at the boathouse. I suggested that we do a bit of technique work so I could get reacclimatized to rowing in a big boat. We did drills on the fives. Actually, I kind of varied the steady state time depending on where we were on the lake and what was going on.

The drills we did were:

delayed feather
pause at body over
half slide
rowing on the square

I forgot to start recording until after the first leg down to the south end of the lake.

You can see the drills in the stroke rates. The ones where the rate went higher was the half slide, the really noise ones were the square blades.

I had a great time and I think we were rowing a lot better at the end of the outing than at the beginning.

Tuesday – Sept 24 – Steady State 1x

Back on the charles. I had a flight out to San Fransisco, but it didn’t leave until about 10am, so I stopped in Newton and went for a row on my way to the airport.

I don’t know what happened with the speedcoach. The data that I have is for the first 20 minutes of the row. Up through the turn around at the Waltham dam. I have to assume that I hit the start stop button with my water bottle when I returned it to its normal place.

It was a very nice way to start a long travel day, even though I was disappointed that the United Club in Boston does not have a shower. I cleaned as well as I could in the men’s room, but I feel badly for my fellow passengers.

Wednesday – Sept 25 – Fitness Center

In the hotel. I had an early meeting meeting down in South San Jose, so I got up and headed to the fitness center. I did 20′ inclined walk and then 30 minute piece on the stationary bike. All pretty sedate.

Thursday – Sept 26 – No Training

I caught an early flight from San Fransisco back home. No chance to train.

Friday – Sept 27 – thrills and drills in the Quad

Back out at Lake Quinsigamond. Today it was me, Joe, Mike and Hayden, a young, tall, strong guy who rowed for Brown in College. This was a fun lineup. Hayden is an extremely strong rower and the boat felt really alive with him pushing it.We did a moderate workout of repeats of 3′ at head race rate and 1 minute of drills.

It was a blast!

Saturday – 28 Sept – No Training

We stayed in Hopkinton, and it looks like I didn’t do much of anything!

Sunday – 29 Sept – 3 x 20′

In the afternoon, I went and did a boring steady state session.

Monday – 30 Sept – 4 x 2k in the quad

With Joe, Mike and Hayden again. Need to get some practice at head race intensity.

        Workout Summary - media/20190930-1136120o.csv
--|Total|-Total----|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time-----|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|15480|01:23:16.0|02:41.4|000.0|20.2|132.0|169.0|09.2
W-|12935|00:52:45.0|02:02.3|000.0|22.9|142.9|169.0|11.0
R-|02552|00:30:31.0|05:58.8|000.0|15.5|113.1|169.0|01.9
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|03558|14:48.0|02:04.8|000.0|17.9|130.4|139.0|13.4 -wu (tail)
02|02153|08:48.0|02:02.6|000.0|24.2|146.5|161.0|10.1 -1 (head)
03|02069|08:24.0|02:01.8|000.0|25.0|152.3|162.0|09.9 -2 (head)
04|02044|07:44.0|01:53.5|000.0|26.4|150.4|166.0|10.0 -3 (tail)
05|02031|08:13.0|02:01.4|000.0|26.7|154.2|169.0|09.3 -4 (head)
06|01080|04:48.0|02:13.3|000.0|19.9|126.8|136.0|11.3 -cd (tail)

I was has happy all day after this workout.

Tuesday – 1 October – Steady State 1x

In Newton.

Wednesday – 2 October – Hard 5K in the quad

With Joe, Mike and Rob. We have a race coming up, it was time to see what happens when we tried to row hard for a race distance piece.

Good news: Nothing bad happened.

Bad news: We were not very fast

        Workout Summary - media/20191002-1051100o.csv
--|Total|-Total----|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time-----|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|11230|00:60:59.0|02:42.9|000.0|21.1|146.6|184.0|08.7
W-|08089|00:34:42.0|02:08.7|000.0|23.3|157.1|184.0|10.1
R-|03146|00:26:17.0|04:10.7|000.0|18.3|132.7|184.0|02.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|00585|02:50.0|02:25.3|000.0|18.0|132.5|136.0|11.5
02|02082|09:41.0|02:19.5|000.0|19.9|148.2|157.0|10.8
03|05194|21:15.0|02:02.7|000.0|25.3|164.6|184.0|09.7
04|00228|00:56.0|02:02.7|000.0|28.6|154.9|163.0|08.5

There was some good rowing in there and some rough patches. I’m still amazed how much more fun rowing is when you do it with other people.

Thursday – 3 October – Steady State in the quad

With Joe, Mike, and Swifty.

Just a nice steady state row. A little bit of hard stuff toward the end. Then a few drills coming back to the boathouse.

Friday – 4 October – No Training

Saturday – 5 October – Just a warm up

Sunday – 6 October – The Textile River Regatta

With Joe, Mike and Mike’s Friend Dave. I had never had the opportunity to row with Dave before this outing, but I was looking forward to it. He is a tall, fit, former college rower. He and Mike had rowed together at Holy Cross.They are both in their forties and have gotten back into rowing relatively recently. I’m 56, and Joe is in his early sixties. Average age in the boat was 52.

We launched early and spent some time doing drills and getting ourselves coordinated. We arrived in the pre-start area on time, but the regatta was running about 20 minutes behind schedule so we sat for a long time.

The race was downriver, with not a lot of flow. It looks like the was a GPS glitch on the way up to the start, but the downstream path looks about right.

The race itself was a blast. Our event started after a ladies 4+ group and so we caught up to them and even though were were not so fast, we got to row in traffic and did some passing.

On raw time, we were second to last. After applying the handicap, though, we dropped to last. We picked up one 10 second penalty because we missed a course buoy. Without that, we would still have been 6th on raw time, but we would have also finished 6th on handicap as well.

Looking at the splits, I think we rowed about as fast as we should have.

       Workout Summary - media/20191006-1811480o.csv
--|Total|-Total----|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time-----|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|14317|01:48:37.0|03:47.6|000.0|15.6|127.6|182.0|08.5
W-|11047|00:44:42.0|02:01.4|000.0|24.5|153.2|182.0|10.2
R-|03275|00:31:48.0|04:51.3|000.0|14.0|120.4|182.0|04.4
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|03850|15:37.0|02:01.7|000.0|21.6|147.5|160.0|11.4
02|01515|06:41.0|02:12.3|000.0|23.6|142.4|149.0|09.6
03|00813|03:30.0|02:09.2|000.0|24.5|145.4|156.0|09.5
04|04869|18:54.0|01:56.4|000.0|27.3|163.2|182.0|09.5

I think this lineup could probably be at least a minute faster over that course if we had been able to get a few good sessions in the boat together before the race.

Despite the results, I was pretty excited to be racing again, and racing a quad was a new experience for me, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I hope I can do it again next season.

Monday – 7 Oct – Technique

Square blade, slow roll up and steady state. Nice easy session after the race.

It was a bit windy, but on my sheltered little river, it wasn’t a problem.

Tuesday- 8 Oct – No Training

I was up late with a work conference call, and I decided to sleep in.

Wednesday – 9 Oct – Quick Erg Session

I had brought my shell home with me on Tuesday night and I intended to go rowing out at Lake Quinsigamond in the morning. But when I arrived at the lake, it was very dark, and very windy. I got back in my car and drove to work. I did a quick erg session in my socks, since I didn’t have sneakers with me.

     Workout Summary - media/20191009-1231370o.csv
--|Total|-Total----|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time-----|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|10342|00:43:56.9|02:07.5|173.8|19.4|144.5|158.0|12.1
W-|09686|00:39:57.0|02:03.7|184.7|19.8|145.2|158.0|12.3
R-|00658|00:23:34.1|17:55.2|084.3|17.1|142.6|158.0|01.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|04836|19:55.5|02:03.6|184.9|19.8|139.4|154.0|12.2
01|04850|20:01.5|02:03.9|184.5|19.7|151.0|158.0|12.3

Thursday – 10 October – 15 x 3’/1′ static

Again, it was cold and windy, but on Thursday we added in a driving rain, More erging. Today a short interval session.

I wasn’t feeling very ambitious, so I started at a nice easy pace and sped up each interval until they really strung. I ran out of oomph with 2 intervals to go.

Good workout.

Friday – 11 October – 3 x 20’/2′ Static

Still stormy, so no OTW. I intended to do an L4, but It got too hard. I decided to back off and just row easy.

Saturday – 12 October – 10K on slides

Down on the cape. Still too windy for rowing. I really wanted to do a 10K without any breaks or bobbles. I decided today would be the day.

First a 2k warmup.Looks like a lot of missing data.

Then the main event. Started nice and slow at 1:59 and stuck there through the whole thing. I only sped up in the last 1K. It was a nice piece of rowing.

I love it when I can finish strongly.

Cool down.

And that brings us up to date!

Quantified Rowing

Measure – Adjust – Improve

Month: October 2019

Getting ready for my last race of the season

Stuff since Sept 22