Long, slow burn in the fitness center

April 26, 2017Leave a comment

Still in Seoul. At the JW Marriott (the fitness center with the mechanical horsey, but no rower)

I had time to kill this morning. I woke up around 5:30AM, and I didn’t need to leave for the airport until 10:30. So, I did some email, did a crossword, surfed the web, and around 7, I decided to head to the gym.

The plan for today

4 x 20′ endurance
20 minutes max incline treadmill
20 minutes flat incline treadmill jog
20 minutes elliptical (intervals, level 15)
20 minutes stationary bike (rolling hills, level 8)

Holy hell it was boring.

Now I’m at the airport waiting to get on my flight. I’m connecting through Hong Kong and getting back to Boston around 10:30PM. Ugh.

I just sync’ed up StravastiX. I’m certainly not putting a challenging load on myself these days. I think I need to ramp up the volume AND the intensity if I want to make much progress. It says that my fitness is improving, but I think it is deceived by the fact that I only started logging after my return from my knee operation. It had my fitness starting from zero, but it was actually pretty good prior to my layoff. I bet that I would be hovering versus slowing improving if that was the case. I think I need to get a good 6 months of activity recorded before I really trust the trends.

It’s almost time to restart the marathon plan. Except this time on the water!

A fitness center sprint Tri…3×15′

April 25, 2017April 25, 20171 Comment

I landed in Korea about 9:30 last night and I was in bed by 11:30pm. I didn’t sleep much on the flight over, maybe 2 hours between Boston and Tokyo and another hour or so between Tokyo and Seoul.

I got bored sitting around Narita, so I went for a walk. I walked the whole terminal, it took about 40 minutes and it was a much better way to waste time than surfing the web.

So, from a training perspective:

Monday: 40 minute walk (with rollerboard suitcase dragging behind)

Tuesday: I woke up at 6am. My legs were sore from Sunday’s run, and I was feel jetlagged and tired. But I suited up and headed down to the gym. I was getting picked up at 8am, so I had a little bit less than an hour.

My plan:

15 minutes, stationary bike, easy, rolling hills
15 minutes, max incline treadmill, 15% grade, speed set to stay in UT1 zone
15 minutes, elliptical, short intervals (1’15” on/1’15” off), around the top of the UT1 zone.
enough time to clean equipment between 15′ pieces.

Well that worked out just fine. The bike was hard. My thighs and legs were complaining loudly, but my HR was not going up. I guess that’s from the run.

Tomorrow morning, I have more time. I will probably do a 3 x 20′ and some strength training.

Then I head out to the airport for a 1:35 departure for home.

My favorite L3 and a morning run

April 23, 2017Leave a comment

Saturday: I briefly debated going rowing on Saturday morning, but between a forecast for rain, and the need for sleep, I decided against it. It was a good decision. I slept 10 hours and woke up feeling good! My wife and I had some errands to do, and we had a late lunch. By the time I had digested lunch and finished some grocery shopping, it was around 7pm before I got around to working out.

I wanted to do a workout with a bit more intensity, so I opted for my favorite wolverine plan L3 workout.

15 x 3′ / 1′ rest
Target pace: 1:55

I have managed to do this workout sub-1:50 when I am in really good shape. I am not in really good shape. I am also not sure how well I do on faster workouts on the dynamic rower. Anyway, it was a target.

It started off OK, but by the time I got deep into the workout, I realized that I had started too fast. The wheels started to come off after the 10th interval and I just did the best I could the rest of the way. No handle downs, or form breaks, just slower and slower splits.

PM version of power

PM version of pace, considerably more generous than the interval summary below.

Workout Summary - media/20170423-0010230o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|13682|60:00.0|02:11.6|192.1|25.1|163.4|181.0|09.1
W-|11661|45:00.0|01:55.8|227.4|24.9|163.2|180.0|10.4
R-|02040|15:00.0|03:40.6|068.5|26.1|164.3|180.0|02.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|00795|03:00.0|01:53.2|233.2|23.6|140.4|155.0|11.2
01|00792|03:00.0|01:53.7|236.9|24.1|150.6|160.0|11.0
02|00790|03:00.0|01:53.9|235.3|24.0|154.2|164.0|11.0
03|00792|03:00.0|01:53.7|233.8|24.2|157.5|167.0|10.9
04|00788|03:00.0|01:54.2|237.2|24.5|160.6|170.0|10.7
05|00790|03:00.0|01:53.9|234.5|25.5|162.8|172.0|10.3
06|00788|03:00.0|01:54.2|232.4|24.9|164.5|172.0|10.6
07|00784|03:00.0|01:54.8|233.1|24.7|166.8|176.0|10.6
08|00784|03:00.0|01:54.9|233.6|25.3|168.8|178.0|10.3
09|00772|03:00.0|01:56.6|228.1|25.9|170.8|179.0|09.9
10|00766|03:00.0|01:57.5|221.1|25.5|170.5|180.0|10.0
11|00758|03:00.0|01:58.7|209.4|24.8|169.5|177.0|10.2
12|00749|03:00.0|02:00.2|207.6|24.4|169.3|177.0|10.2
13|00762|03:00.0|01:58.1|224.0|27.0|171.5|179.0|09.4
14|00752|03:00.0|01:59.6|210.2|24.8|170.2|180.0|10.1

That was really hard! Glad I did it though.

Sunday: Up around 8 after a good nights sleep. Felt a bit stiff and sore from the workout the evening before, but I wanted to get a quick workout in before I hopped a plane to go to Seoul. I wasn’t really in the mood for an erg workout, and it was a nice day out, so I decided to go for a run. Nothing fast or fancy.

I did a loop that was about 7km. It took about 37 minutes. It’s been a long time since I’ve run outside. It felt very awkward at first, but I settled in after a few minutes. My knees started to complain a bit after about 4km, and the irresistible lure of home home made me speed up a bit at the end. My legs are nice and sore now.

I don’t think my knees could hold up to running on a regular basis, but I think I should try to do it a couple times a month. I really enjoy it and it’s great cross training.

Now I’m over northern Canada somewhere, with 8 hours or so until I get to Tokyo. I change planes and continue to Seoul.

I get in at 10:30PM local time. I will try to grab a short workout before I leave the hotel at 8am on Tuesday morning.

I’m not complaining, but….

April 21, 2017Leave a comment

…my occupation seems to be be getting in the way of taking a disciplined approach to training.

I was planning to do 80 minutes of endurance work this morning, but getting through email took longer than planned, and I needed to keep it to 60 minutes.

Since I was bored, I decided to change up the workout a little. I decided to do power ladders.

Here’s my revised plan.

3 x 5000m intervals
1 minute rests.
break each 5K into 5 1K pieces
first 5K: 160W, 165W, 170W, 175W, 180W
second 5K: 165W, 170W, 175W, 180W, 185W
third 5K: 170W, 175W, 180W, 185W, 190W

Based on yesterday, i figured that 175W was a good UT1 power, so this workout would start out pretty easy and push a bit beyond aerobic for the last 2K or so.

Of course, since I was in a rush, ergdata decided to hangup within 5 minutes of starting. Now I’m wise to it’s tricks, so I had started the wahoo app to collect HR data as a backup, so I just kept going.

The time passed very quickly and I had fun doing it. And I made it to my first meeting just on time.

Tomorrow: I’m really tired. I’m not sure what I’ll do. Probably an erg session in the afternoon.

Better than nothing! 3 x 20′ / 1′ rest

April 20, 2017Leave a comment

Easy day today. Early meetings, so no time for OTW. I planned 3×20′, and I decided to go very easy at the beginning. I did the first 20′ at 165W, then ramped it up to 175W, and then rowed to a HR cap of 155.

I started to exceed the cap towards the end, but a couple of big belches kept me in the proper HR zone. Amazing how that works. It’s usually worth about 3 to 5 bpm. 🙂

Weather forecast is lousy for tomorrow morning. 45F and 99% chance of rain. So I guess I’m inside again tomorrow. I have a bit more time, so I think I’ll do 4×20′ with a HR cap at 155.

A little bit of speed

April 19, 2017May 3, 2017Leave a comment

Note: Just realized that I never posed this workout. I had a draft written and never published it.

I had an 8 am meeting today, so not enough time for OTW. I was sick of slow and steady sessions so I decided to dip a toe back into an easy speed session.

8 x 500 / 2 min rest.

Target was to do a couple 500s as warm up and that start at 1:50 and do each one faster than the last.

It was fun, and it helped me calibrate what a reasonable pace would be for this session.

For some reason, nothing was working in terms of electronics.

I set up in erg data and it hung up in the 4th interval. Then I setup in pain sled and that hung up after 2 intervals. At that point, I just kept going without capturing any data. Kind of disappointing.

Here are the first four intervals. The first two were warm ups. Then:

target actual

1:50, 1:49.9
1:49, 1:48.7

Then I reset the workout and continued. I think I cheated myself out of a little rest.

1:48, 1:47.5
1:47, 1:46.5
1:46, 1:45.5
1:45, 1:44.6 (slipped a tenth!)
1:44, 1:43.3 (got it back with interest)
1:43, 1:37.9 (The irresitable lure of the faster last!)
Then a “cool down” rep. It turns out I wasn’t in the mood to cool down.

So, I think aiming at 1:45 for all reps would be totally reasonable.

10K – ticking over

April 18, 2017Leave a comment

I spent the morning working on the house down on the cape and then we drove home in the afternoon, arriving home just after 5pm. I had a work call at 7pm, so I squeezed in a quick 10K workout.

I started at about 180-185W and then bled off speed to keep myself at or below a HR cap of 157.

Workout Summary - media/20170418-2300220o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|10000|41:58.0|02:05.9|174.9|20.1|151.1|160.0|11.8
W-|10000|41:59.0|02:06.0|174.8|20.1|151.1|160.0|11.8
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|160.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|01000|04:05.6|02:02.8|184.2|19.4|131.2|142.0|12.6
01|01000|04:07.7|02:03.8|184.3|20.5|146.9|150.0|11.8
02|01000|04:08.2|02:04.1|183.0|20.4|151.8|154.0|11.9
03|01000|04:11.3|02:05.7|177.0|20.8|150.8|153.0|11.5
04|01000|04:11.8|02:05.9|174.9|20.0|149.7|152.0|11.9
05|01000|04:11.2|02:05.6|176.9|20.1|153.5|156.0|11.9
06|01000|04:13.6|02:06.8|171.7|19.9|155.5|157.0|11.9
07|01000|04:15.7|02:07.9|167.6|19.9|156.7|158.0|11.8
08|01000|04:17.7|02:08.8|163.5|19.9|156.7|158.0|11.7
09|01000|04:16.2|02:08.1|166.4|20.1|157.3|160.0|11.6

Back to the Bay! First Open Water Row of the Season.

April 17, 20172 Comments

I was not expecting to be able to get out on the water this early in the season, but I lucked out to day. It was sunny, and the temp was in the mid sixties. Water temperature was around 45F, but it felt warmer than that. There was a bit more wind than I would have liked, but not nearly as much as we had yesterday.

Here’s the weather data from my house for today.

I launched right before 1pm, so the wind was building during my row. This caused waves between 8″ and 12″. This is big enough to present some steering challenges but not big enough to make it unpleasant. There were a few scattered white caps. Just to give you an idea of what it was like yesterday, here’s the weather data. We had gusts up to 65mph over night on Saturday night and Sunday night.

But thankfully, by the time Monday rolled around, it was much calmer. I launched from the little beach a couple minutes away from my house, and rowed north up to wellfleet harbor. This was splashy and slow into the wind and waves, but it was quite nice to be out on the water again. On the expanse of the bay, my boat feels very small, especially when the waves build. I finally made it to the breakwater of the onner harbor and turned. Although the wind was from the north, it hooked around a bit and when I rowed to the east into the inner harbor, I was going with the wind and the waves. This was some of the fastest splits I saw of the day. I rowed up past the end of the town jetty and turned around into the wind and the tide to slog out of the harbor. Once I passed the breakwater, I turned south and had the wind on my starboard stern quarter. This was a tough angle to maintain. The waves tried hard to push me to starboard and I had to maintain much heavier pressure on that side to stay straight.

Ultimately, I got the hang of getting my point and timing my strokes to surf the waves. I would end up off course, but could swing back and repeat the cycle. It was pretty fun and the time flew by on the way back to the island. I rowed in front of my house back to the beach and landed there.

One bad thing, there must have been about a gallon of water in the boat. I really have to get it fixed if I’m going to use it in the Blackburn.

Sad but true. I go slowly enough in my Alden star so that the pace doesn’t show up right in the plots. You can see I was pushing hard enough so it was a good aerobic workout. I was also trying to keep my rowing reasonably light by aiming at a stroke rate of 20.

Here’s a better view of the pace. The first 2500 meters were into the wind and 8″ to 12″ waves. The section from 2500 to 4000 was still into the wind, but I was approaching the north shore of the harbor and the waves were smaller. I think I was also getting a bit more help from the incoming tide. Around 4000m was where I turned into the harbor and I was rowing with the wind, tide and waves. It was fast and fun. 5000 to 6200 was right into the teeth of the wind and against the tide. Fortunately not much wave action.

Then from 6200m to the end I was rowing downwind with the waves on my stern quarter. The pace variations were basically dependent upon the size of the waves and whether or not I was getting swamped. That happened a lot. You can see from the HR that I was holding a pretty consistent level of pressure.

All in all an unexpected treat being able to get a row in this time of year.

More catching up.

April 16, 20174 Comments

Last time I posted was April 5th. It’s been a while. Work has been keeping me very busy and I’ve been struggling to find time to workout, just not enough time to keep good records. Which is a shame because I’m trying to remember what the heck I did way back on the 6th.

Thursday, 6 April: Flew out to San Diego on the 7:30AM flight. No training. Flew home on the red-eye.

Friday, 7 April: Worked from home. Felt really beaten up from the flight. No training

Saturday, 8 April: Slept for a very long time, nearly 11 hours. I had to drive all over to try to organize what to do with my late father’s possessions. No training. I think this might be the first time I’ve taken three days off in a row in a long time.

Sunday, 9 April: A glorious morning. I took my boat out to Worcester for a row with my friends at Lake Quinsigamond Community Rowing. It was an exciting day for us. We bought a used WinTech Double from Saugatuck over the winter and today was the inaugural row. I was in my single, Joe was in the new (to us) double with Gretchen, and we also boated a quad.

The northern end of the lake was off limits because it was being used for a collegiate regatta. We snuck a little ways up the lake before things got going, but otherwise stuck to the southern 2/3.

I wanted to try rowing a bit harder with the Empower oarlock, so I decided to do rate ladder workout.

4′ @ 18
3′ @ 20
2′ @ 22
1′ @ 24
Repeat 4 times.

This was much harder work than it should have been.

But it was delightful. I used the speedcoach mainly to look at effective length, which was darn short.

I’m still trying to figure all this stuff out, so here’s a bunch of charts over the distance and versus stroke rate. I blanked out the rest strokes from all of it.

After I got back to the dock, Joe asked me if I wanted to take a short spin in the new double. I sure did! It’s a big improvement from the vespoli we rowed last year.

Monday, 10 April: Back down in Newton on the Charles. Sunny and nearly 50F. Back to steady state work. My hands were a mess. Blisters on blisters. I decided to keep working on technical stuff like maximizing effective length.

I was rowing at at a consistent (albeit slow) power, dropping off about 10 watts during the session. The interesting thing to me was how much the current effected things. There was very little wind for the first half. A bit of breeze picked up in the second half which was a tail wind for the downriver and had wind upriver. The current was essentially making me 0:05/500 faster going downriver and 0:05 slower going up river. And even more is certain places.

Power and work per stroke faded a bit over the workout as I stayed under my HR cap.
Length was reasonably consistent, effectively length faded.
Catch and slip was very consistent.
Finish and Wash told a real story. The wash went through the roof as I did my last 4K up river. I was not watching wash on the display and it got really bad toward the end.

Tuesday, 11 April: I had a meeting at 8:30 so I had to be quick. I still wanted to get out on the water. My hands continued to be an issue. More light technical rowing. I managed to forgot to start the speedcoach again.

Wednesday, 12 April: Another day, pressed for time. Today, I decided to stick to technique stuff. I did one of my favorite workouts.

2 minutes square blade
2 minutes alternating square and feathered
2 minutes feathered
keep repeating

Thursday, 13 April: Steady State. Watching wash on the speedcoach.

My technique was better today.

Friday, 14 April: Rest day

Saturday, 15 April: Down on the cape. Busy all day. Just popped down to the basement for a quick 10k.

Sunday, 16 April: Still on the cape. 60 minutes at 180W.

Wednesday: 15km OTW

April 5, 2017April 7, 20172 Comments

Weather: Cold and misty. Around 37F. Wind 3-5 mph from the North. This was a head wind heading down river and a bit of a tail wind going up river.

Plan for the workout was the same as Monday. Focus on technique and learn how to incorporate feedback from the EmPower oarlock into really focused practice.

I also wanted to experiment with the idea of using my phone with RIM to complement the speedcoach display. So, I hooked up my HR monitor to my phone instead of the speedcoach.

I spent the whole workout looking at the work per stroke screen and trying to keep my drive length greater than 100 degrees.

It was another really joyful row. Up and down the river a couple of times focusing on form versus pace. By having my HR on the RIM display, I was able to watch and try to keep the intensity in the aerobic zone. I let it go a bit higher if I was comfortable and working on technique.

So, now I had one set of data on the phone and one set of data on the speedcoach. How do I put them together. Well, it turns out that rowsandall.com has a feature called “Sensor Fusion”. This feature let’s you take specific fields from two different data sources, align the start points manually, and create a workout entry that combines the two. In the plot below, the SPM comes from RIM, and so it goes to the very beginning. The pace and power comes from the speedcoach, and I started that about 6 minutes into the row.

There are some interesting features in the power part of the summary plot. The blue bars showing the higher power levels are when I needed to apply a lot of port pressure to go around a turn in the river.

The pace shows the effect of the current. Today is was a good 10 seconds difference on pace. Notice how consistent the power is, even though the pace is very different.

It’s going to take a while to really know how to use all the data I’m getting. Here’s a sampler. A few thoughts..

Power is lower than I was expecting at 154W avg.
Finish angle was consistent, but Wash got progressively worse
Catch and slip were remarkably consistent
Effectively drive length is a short 80 degrees. This is probably driven mostly by critical body dimensions (like my stubby legs), but it will pay dividends if I can figure out how to get a longer drive angle and less wash at the end.

I finished up and put away my boat. When I looked in the car window at my reflection, I could see that a nice layer of dew had formed on my hat because it was so misty.

Today (Thursday), I didn’t have a chance to workout. I caught the morning flight from Boston to San Diego, had a few customer meetings, and now I’m on the red eye heading home. I’m going to pick up my boat on my way home from the airport and I might be able to go for a row in the afternoon. Otherwise, it’ll be another easy hour on the erg.

Quantified Rowing

Measure – Adjust – Improve

Category: Training Journal