Another couple of weeks have gone by and I’ve done some good training. I’m back in the groove, with no business travel and limited crises at work.  It’s been good.

Monday – 12/30 – 4×2000/5′

I had spent the christmas vacation just rebuilding my aerobic base with lots of base work.  I wanted to ease into doing the hard stuff.  So, even though this was a hard session, I rate limited it to try to make it a bit more doable.  It didn’t work, I still blew up in the last rep.

I started with a 2k warmup at 2:00 pace, then the main session.

Note:  this session is on slides.  I think you’ll see a trend develop.

Tueaday – 12/31 – 3 x 20’/2′ L4

On the cape, on slides.  Nothing to report.

Wednesday – 1/1/2020 – 3 x 20’/2′ L4

A little hungover, but not a bad session.  Session done at home after we returned from the cape.

Thursday – 1/2 – 10K push – L3

Back at work!  Again, trying to ease into the harder stuff.  Change 10K hard into a 10K push, starting at 2:05 and ending at 1:56.

First a 2k warmup.

Then…

       Workout Summary - media/20200102-1336170o.csv
--|Total|-Total----|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time-----|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|10000|00:39:44.3|01:59.2|206.8|22.8|151.4|177.0|11.1
W-|10000|00:39:44.9|01:59.2|206.8|22.8|151.4|177.0|11.1
R-|00000|00:00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|177.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|01000|04:07.8|02:03.9|181.8|20.5|122.3|134.0|11.8 - 5
01|01000|04:06.6|02:03.3|187.0|21.4|138.5|142.0|11.4 - 4
02|01000|04:04.9|02:02.5|190.4|21.7|144.3|146.0|11.3 - 3
03|01000|04:02.7|02:01.3|195.8|22.1|147.5|149.0|11.2 - 2
04|01000|04:00.8|02:00.4|200.5|22.4|150.5|152.0|11.1 - 1
05|01000|03:58.2|01:59.1|207.0|23.0|154.2|156.0|10.9 - 0
06|01000|03:56.6|01:58.3|211.4|23.2|157.5|160.0|11.0 - 9
07|01000|03:54.2|01:57.1|218.0|23.8|162.5|166.0|10.8 - 8
08|01000|03:51.0|01:55.5|226.8|24.3|167.2|171.0|10.7 - 7
09|01000|03:42.2|01:51.1|255.6|25.9|173.5|177.0|10.4 - 6

That went well.  Next push starts at 2:04.

Friday – 1/3 – 3×20’/2′ L4

Tired, high HR for this one.

Saturday – 1/4 – Rest day

first rest day in 14 days, although I stopped one workout after 30 minutes.

Sunday – 1/5 – 3 x 30/2′ steady state

And I had a problem with painsled so the data did not get captured.  Steady state at 18 spm and ~170W.

Monday – 1/6 – 8 x 500 / 3’30” L1

At work, static erg.

2k warmup with lots of little bursts

Then…  Target of 1:44.  Actual 1:42.  <– pretty happy about that

Tuesday – 1/7 – 2 x 30’/2′ steady state

Not in the mood for L4s right now.  On a static erg, I can just about hold 180W at 18 spm.

       Workout Summary - media/20200107-1351170o.csv
--|Total|-Total----|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time-----|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|15018|01:04:00.0|02:07.8|172.0|18.1|141.0|156.0|12.9
W-|14389|00:60:00.0|02:05.1|178.7|18.4|141.3|156.0|13.1
R-|00631|00:04:00.0|03:10.3|071.3|14.7|135.8|156.0|10.8
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|07179|30:00.0|02:05.4|177.4|18.3|135.1|146.0|13.1
01|07210|30:00.0|02:04.8|180.1|18.4|147.6|156.0|13.0

Wednesday – 1/8 – 3×30’/2′ steady state

I’m into a good audio book right now, so the steady state rows are fun and easy.  I had extra time on Wed morning so I tacked on an extra 30 minutes.  Right about 176W.

       Workout Summary - media/20200108-1406210o.csv
--|Total|-Total----|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time-----|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|22239|01:36:00.0|02:09.5|168.5|17.7|140.8|153.0|13.1
W-|21473|01:30:00.0|02:05.7|176.2|18.0|141.2|153.0|13.3
R-|00770|00:06:00.0|03:53.9|052.2|12.7|136.2|153.0|12.6
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|07164|30:00.0|02:05.6|176.2|17.9|133.5|142.0|13.4
01|07156|30:00.0|02:05.8|176.2|18.0|142.9|151.0|13.3
02|07153|30:00.0|02:05.8|176.2|18.1|147.0|153.0|13.1

Thursday – 1/9 – Waterfall L2

Warmup

Then the main session.  I was really worried about this session because the 4×2000 was so bad.  But I decided to just go for it.  I set a aggressive target of 1:51, which was about what I had done back a few weeks ago.  I smashed it!

Incredibly gratifying.  So, this one was on a static erg.

Friday – 1/10 – 2 x 30′ / 2′ steady state

Saturday – 1/11 – Hard 5K

Start with a 20′ fletcher warmup.

The warmup was unexpectedly hard.  It didn’t bode well for the 5K.  Since I had gotten the 1:49.4 for the waterfall, I thought that a 1:51 would be in reach for the 5K.  That dream lasted 1K.  I reset my sights on 1:52.  That lasted to about 2500m, when I reset for 1:54.  I kind of lost it around 3750m, but brought myself back in focus to just try to finish the piece out.  I suspect if I had set out at 1:53, I would have been able to accelerate in the second half and done better.

So the interesting thing to me is the big difference in performance between the waterfall workout and this one.  Here are the differences.

waterfall	5K
Static	Slides
Morning	Afternoon
2k warmup	5k warmup
3 days after rest	5 days after rest day
room 20C	room 18C

Looking at it, it seems like the biggest differences are static versus slides and length of warmup.

So, I looked at the previous time when I did the waterfall workout, and discovered it was on slides.  Here’s the plot.   (ignore the HR in the second rep, the sensor went screwy)

And here’s a direct comparison.  The first one on 11/25, was done when I was in better shape as measured by the Strava fitness and freshness metric.

So, I think that I am about 11W more efficient on a static erg than I am on slides.  In pace terms.  1:51.0 on slides vs 1:49.4 on static.  If I can figure out why this is, and how to fix it, I might be able to go faster in a boat.