Monday: Easing back into it

November 28, 2016November 29, 2016Leave a comment

I had not exercised since Wednesday of last week. This morning, I am back at work and I decided that I need to get back in the gym and see what I can do that wouldn’t screw up my knee.

I wore a elastic brace on my knee mostly to remind me to not do anything stupid.

First up, 40 minutes on the stationary bike. Rolling hills program. Level 12 for the first 20 minutes, then I got bored and increased it to 13. That was a bit better.

I’m gonna need to work a bit harder than that.

Then onto some strength work.

Chin ups
5 unassisted
4 x 3 (red band)

Good mornings
45 x 10
65 x 10
85 x 10 x 3

Barbell Rows
45 x 10
65 x 10
85 x 10 x 3

Standing Dumbell Press
2×25 x 10
2×30 x 10 x 3

Lat Pull Down (My shoulder hurt when I did these with a wide grip. I’ll do it with a pull up grip next time)

Dumbell bench press
2×25 x 10
2×30 x 10 x 3

This was a pretty good session. My knee was fine with pedaling. And by going reasonably light in the strength exercises, I didn’t do any damage there either.

Tomorrow: I have an appointment with the Orthopedist at 10:30 tomorrow morning. I will probably do 40 minutes on the Stationary bike in the morning, and some core work.

Wednesday: 8 x 750 buried in a half marathon

November 23, 2016November 23, 20166 Comments

First thing in the morning, fasted. It was the only time I had to get any training in today. All my kids are coming home (with a couple of significant others) for Thanksgiving and the rest of the day is a blur of driving, baking and talking. It might be one of my favorite days of the year.

Today’s challenge was to massage a sprint workout into a half marathon. I want to stick to a polarized workout plan, and I also want to keep working on the Crazy Bear Challenge. So here is today’s workout plan:

Fletcher warmup. 20 minutes, usually comes in just over 5000m. This gets me to ~16070m.
paddle until I get to 15750
8 x 750m/750m rest. so, 15×750 is 11250 (leaving off the last rest), which takes me down to 4500m
paddle down to 4000m
happy ending cool down. 1000m at 2:00, then 2:05, then 2:10, then 2:15

It worked out fine. I didn’t lose any intervals or miss any transitions. The cool down was a bit long, but I was entertained by the fact that I could aim for exactly 1:30:00 by a coincidence. This kept me very focused as I tried to keep the projected finish 10 seconds ahead during the 2:10 and right on 1:30:00 during the 2:15 bit.

The intervals themselves were perfectly miserable. I would have expected to be able to do these below 1:45. But my legs were completely trashed from my strength session last night. They felt empty at the beginning and were burning in the second half of each interval. I really felt like I was working with a lot less power today.

But, I’m pretty happy that I stuck it out. I experimented with different stroke rates and ended up feeling most comfortable at 26/27 and I worked to lengthen my stroke after the first three intervals. You can see that in the drive length plot.

Heart rate was not that high, but I was pushing about as hard as I could. The rests were nice and long.

A few metrics. First the drive length. On the left, showing it versus time, on the right versus stroke rate. You can see the change in the fourth interval when I settled into a longer stroke at r26. You can also see that the drive length is definitely getting shorter with higher stroke rates. Interesting because it gets longer from 18 up to about 24spm.

Here is the work per stroke. The notable thing here is the increased stroke power in the fourth interval when I consciously pulled down the rate. It’s also interesting (at least to me) that the work per stroke is pretty constant versus stroke rate through this range of rates.

Finally, here is a view of peak and average force, and the ratio of these values. It seems logical that the higher the ratio, the more efficient the stroke. But I gotta say, there is really no trend in the intervals or relationship with stroke rate across this workout.

And finally, just because I like the way it looks. Here’s the power versus stroke rate.

Here are the splits:

Workout Summary - media/20161123-205340-sled_2016-11-23T08-50-06ZEST.strokes.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|12000|51:20.0|02:08.4|195.5|22.4|149.1|176.0|10.4
W-|06000|21:17.0|01:46.5|289.1|26.9|156.8|176.0|10.5
R-|15097|68:40.0|02:16.5|155.7|20.5|145.8|176.0|11.3
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
02|00750|02:43.8|01:49.2|267.8|25.2|149.8|161.0|10.9
03|00750|02:39.7|01:46.5|288.0|27.0|155.5|166.0|10.5
04|00750|02:38.3|01:45.5|296.7|27.7|156.5|168.0|10.3
05|00750|02:39.3|01:46.2|292.0|26.7|157.6|170.0|10.6
06|00750|02:41.2|01:47.5|281.1|26.3|156.5|169.0|10.6
07|00750|02:40.8|01:47.2|282.6|26.7|157.6|169.0|10.5
08|00750|02:40.9|01:47.3|282.0|26.3|157.7|170.0|10.6
09|00750|02:33.7|01:42.4|325.0|29.7|163.5|176.0|09.9

Tomorrow: Thanksgiving. I’m giving thanks by taking a rest day!

Tuesday PM: Strength

November 22, 2016Leave a comment

Squat (could potentially go up in weight, but I think I will shift to Deadlifts for a couple weeks)

45 x10

135 x6

185 x6 x6 x7

Chin ups (pleased to squeeze out another rep unassisted, felt stronger)

unassisted x4

Red band x6 x4 x4

Cleans (new exercise, at 145, I couldn’t hold form, so I backed off. Still felt the burn in my quads in the last set. I need to tape myself doing these and make sure my back is right)

Bar x6

95 x6

145 fail

115 x6 x6 x6

Superset

AB rollouts x8 x8 x8 (holy moly these hurt a lot!)

Push-up x10 x10 x10 (my thumb joint has been hurting when I did pushups, so today I tried them on some twisty handle pad things. The pushups felt harder because my hands could rotate, but it didn’t hurt my thumbs)

Tomorrow: I think I will try to pack an sprinty workout into a HM. I’m sick of all this slow stuff. So, it will be a 5097m warmup, then 8 x 750 with 750 rest (12K) and a 4K cool down.

Tuesday AM: Awful L4 HM

November 22, 2016Leave a comment

I suspect that I am still feeling the effects of the HM on Sunday night. This morning was another horrific session.

The plan:

Half Marathon
L4 format
power: 10W x stroke rate
HR Cap: 155
rate plan:
- start slow (16spm), and ramp up over first 10 minutes
- Then 7 x (1000m @ 18, 750m @ 19, 500m @ 20, 250m @ 21)
250m paddle every 5000m

Today the plan lasted only through the first 5000m. Then I needed to retreat to low rates to keep below the HR cap. It was slow and miserable work.

After Sander pointed out the higher drag factor (138) from the hard HM I did at home on Sunday, and the struggles I had yesterday at 118, I thought maybe a little higher drag factor would be better. I moved the level up one to give a drag factor of 128. It made no difference. There are so many variables, it’s hard to figure out what the problem is.

Different erg
warmer at work (68f vs 55f)
shirt at work, no shirt at home
morning for work, afternoon at home
insufficient recovery from hard hm on Sunday

I will just gut through this and then enjoy my day off on Thursday.

Ugh.

This afternoon, I will do a strength session.

Tomorrow morning I’ll do another low and slow HM at home.

Monday: Slow Slog HM

November 21, 2016Leave a comment

I was shattered the rest of the night yesterday evening. I felt absolutely empty. I felt very tired and I was in bed by 10:15, but I slept a bit fitfully. I have a pain in my shoulder blade which must be related to something in my neck because I get shooting pains when I turn my head especially to the right. This is causing me some troubles when I turn over in bed.

I woke up at 5:15 feeling sore and tired. I got to work and I was on the erg by about 6:30.

The plan:

Half Marathon
L4 format
power: 10W x stroke rate
rate plan:
- Start slow at 16spm, get up to working rate over the first 10 minutes
- Then 7 x
  - 1000m @ 18
  - 750m @ 19
  - 500m @ 20
  - 250m @21
HR Cap 155

The plan ended up lasting through the first 7500m minutes. After that, I was approaching the cap, and feeling pretty crappy. I did 2500 minutes at 17 to finish the block, and then rowed the last 10000m at 18. Even with this reduced load, I was still pushing up to the cap at the end. I have had rows where I felt like I was gliding along effortlessly, this was NOT one of those rows. It was slow and nasty work.

Workout Summary - media/20161121-135125-sled_2016-11-21T06-42-50ZEST.strokes.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|21000|90:09.0|02:08.8|177.9|18.4|143.8|158.0|12.7
W-|20000|82:27.0|02:03.7|185.0|18.3|145.3|158.0|13.3
R-|01097|08:05.0|03:41.1|077.0|19.2|122.4|158.0|13.3
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
02|02500|10:28.1|02:05.6|177.0|17.3|128.4|140.0|13.8 - slow start
03|02500|10:07.5|02:01.5|195.6|19.2|144.1|150.0|12.8 - target 190W
04|02500|10:06.4|02:01.3|195.8|19.2|142.7|155.0|12.9 - target 190W
05|02500|10:27.3|02:05.5|177.4|17.3|147.4|155.0|13.8 - target 170W
06|02500|10:17.6|02:03.5|185.3|18.5|144.5|150.0|13.1 - target 180W
07|02500|10:20.2|02:04.0|183.4|18.2|152.4|154.0|13.3 - target 180W
08|02500|10:19.2|02:03.8|183.9|18.4|147.9|154.0|13.1 - target 180W
09|02500|10:21.2|02:04.2|182.6|18.1|154.7|158.0|13.3 - target 180W

Tomorrow: AM: HM L4, PM: strength

Hard Half Marathon

November 21, 2016November 21, 20165 Comments

Continuing with the Crazy Bear Challenge. Today was a bit spicier.

Plan:

Half Marathon
Free Rate
Pace: 1:57.5
No HR Cap

Last weekend, I did a 1:58.5 and I was sure I could do better. I was thinking I’d aim to slice a second off the pace. I didn’t bother to warmup, I just sat on the machine and started going. I settled in at 1:55 and even though I was worried that I’d burn out, I just kept going and let the pace bleed off and the rate creep up over the row. I was never in any serious distress, but I sure felt pretty awful after I finished.

End result: 1:21:38.8 (1:56.1)

That’s good enough to be ranked 14 of 474 on the concept2 rankings of 50-60 hwts. So, I’m pretty happy with that.

It was a hard row, about an hour above AT. The last 4 minutes in AN. I might be able to squeeze a bit more out with a slower start, but I’m not sure. I’m still a ways off of my PB (1:19:55.4), that’s a 1:53.6 pace. Maybe after 25 more HMs?

Workout Summary - media/20161120-222121-sled_2016-11-20T15-12-43ZEST.strokes.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|21097|81:36.0|01:56.0|223.7|23.6|166.7|181.0|11.0
W-|21097|81:37.0|01:56.1|223.7|23.5|166.4|181.0|11.0
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|181.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|01000|03:49.2|01:54.6|227.7|22.2|132.9|143.0|11.8
02|01000|03:51.2|01:55.6|226.5|22.4|147.9|152.0|11.6
03|01000|03:50.8|01:55.4|227.6|22.8|153.5|155.0|11.4
04|01000|03:50.6|01:55.3|228.3|22.9|156.5|158.0|11.3
05|01000|03:50.5|01:55.2|228.6|23.2|160.0|161.0|11.2
06|01000|03:50.8|01:55.4|227.7|23.4|162.3|164.0|11.1
07|01000|03:51.7|01:55.8|225.1|23.2|164.7|165.0|11.2
08|01000|03:51.5|01:55.8|225.6|23.4|165.3|167.0|11.1
09|01000|03:51.9|01:55.9|224.8|23.3|167.6|168.0|11.1
10|01000|03:52.2|01:56.1|223.3|23.4|168.1|170.0|11.0
11|01000|03:52.9|01:56.4|221.7|23.1|170.2|171.0|11.2
12|01000|03:53.1|01:56.5|221.1|23.4|170.9|171.0|11.0
13|01000|03:53.9|01:57.0|218.9|23.5|171.1|172.0|10.9
14|01000|03:54.0|01:57.0|218.1|23.7|171.8|172.0|10.8
15|01000|03:54.2|01:57.1|218.3|23.7|173.6|174.0|10.8
16|01000|03:54.2|01:57.1|217.5|23.6|173.7|174.0|10.8
17|01000|03:53.7|01:56.9|219.3|24.1|175.1|176.0|10.7
18|01000|03:54.7|01:57.3|216.7|24.0|175.8|176.0|10.6
19|01000|03:54.7|01:57.4|216.6|24.2|175.4|176.0|10.6
20|01000|03:52.4|01:56.2|223.2|24.7|177.3|178.0|10.5
21|01000|03:48.9|01:54.5|234.0|25.6|178.9|181.0|10.2
22|00097|00:20.2|01:44.2|304.6|29.5|181.0|181.0|09.8

With the tools on rowsandall.com, I can get a good look at how I traded rate for power as the row went on. You can see my weakest part, from about 7k down to 2k, where my strokes got shorter and the work per stroke went down.

Tomorrow: HM L4. Interested to see how much oomph I have after this workout.

Friday PM: L4 HM

November 19, 2016Leave a comment

I picked up my boat on my way home from work to bring to the lake out in worcester tomorrow morning, and got home around 7:30. I was on the erg by about 8.

Plan:

Half Marathon
L4 format (but using distance)
power: 10W * stroke rate
HR cap: 155 (again, not even close)
paddle the first 97 meters to get to an even 21000, then do it in 2500m blocks
First 2500m build up from 160W
After that, push it a bit more than yesterday
- 750m at 180W
- 750m at 190W
- 750m at 200W
- 250m at 210W
take a 250 paddle every 5000m with a quick drink.

Again, a terrifically low HR through the whole workout, even though it was 5W higher effort, and on top of that it was my second session today. Wow, I love working out at night.

The HR shows a little bit more ut1 than yesterday and a fair amount more time in power at.

For fun, here is the HR comparison of yesterday and today’s sessions. (Thanks rowsandall.com!)

So, even with higher effort, HR is the same in the first half of the workout. The HR in the third 5000m block was brought lower by a longer than intended rest to deal with my low battery problem on the phone, and I am basically in the same place in the last 5000m block.

By the way, I am back on painsled. The bug I saw yesterday is caused by using the ANT+ and BT at the same time on the PM5. Today, I used the BT connection for the HR and it was a lot happier.

Tomorrow: It looks like there are 5 people signed up including me. Maybe a couple of doubles and a single? Weather forecast is pretty good for this time of year, 40F, clear and 5 mph wind.

Friday AM: Quick Strength session

November 18, 2016Leave a comment

I went to bed late last night. I finished my workout around 10:30 and I was pretty jazzed up. It wasn’t until 12:30 or so that I was settled into bed.

So, I slept in an extra hour to 6:15, and then fought the traffic to get to work. Once I was there, I had a pretty short window to workout.

So the plan was:

20 minute fletcher format warmup
Quick Strength workout
- Squats
- Standing Press
- Chin Ups
- Ab roll outs
- Push ups

As it turned out, I ran out of time before the push ups.

Workout Summary - media/20161118-181034-concept2-result-27823043o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|05115|20:00.0|01:57.3|222.8|21.0|151.4|169.0|12.2
W-|05119|20:00.0|01:57.2|215.9|20.5|150.8|169.0|12.6
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|169.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|00991|04:00.0|02:01.1|185.3|17.9|129.6|139.0|13.9
02|01008|04:00.0|01:59.0|205.3|20.1|144.9|150.0|12.5
03|00777|03:00.0|01:55.8|222.5|21.9|152.7|155.0|11.8
04|00269|01:00.0|01:51.4|249.4|24.0|158.4|160.0|11.2
05|00141|00:30.0|01:46.4|285.2|25.8|161.8|164.0|10.9
06|00493|02:00.0|02:01.6|193.5|18.6|160.5|164.0|13.3
07|00299|01:00.0|01:40.5|336.0|28.0|162.4|167.0|10.7
08|00494|02:00.0|02:01.6|196.9|18.6|163.2|168.0|13.3
09|00157|00:30.0|01:35.7|393.4|31.2|163.5|168.0|10.1
10|00490|02:00.0|02:02.5|191.7|18.9|164.5|169.0|13.0

Then on to strength

Squats
135 x 6
185 x 6 x 3

Standing press
65 x 6
85 x 4 (too heavy)
80 x 5 x 2

Chin ups
3 unassisted (yay)
6 x 2 (red band on knee assisted)

Ab wheel roll out
8 (oh my lord did these hurt! My abs were still smarting from doing 3 sets of 10 on Tuesday)

ran out of time here.

Tonight: Another L4 HM

Tomorrow: Last row on the lake in worcester

As I mentioned yesterday. I had some fun changing a tire while all of my coworkers watched. Turns out they took pictures too!

Tuesday: 10K easy plus strength trainig

November 15, 2016Leave a comment

At work in the fitness center.

First, some erging to warmup and keep the aerobic base. Goal is to run this right at the top of the UT2 band. I want enough training stimulus to maintain blood volume but not enough to take away from the strength work coming next.

10km
10W x stroke rate
HR cap at 145

Workout Summary - media/20161115-140421-sled_2016-11-15T06-49-38ZEST.strokes.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|10000|40:43.0|02:02.2|19.0|141.8|149.0|12.9
W-|10000|40:43.0|02:02.2|18.9|141.9|149.0|13.0
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|00.0|000.0|149.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|01000|04:00.2|02:00.1|19.1|124.0|134.0|13.1
02|01000|03:59.8|01:59.9|20.1|138.3|142.0|12.5
03|01000|04:01.6|02:00.8|19.8|143.1|145.0|12.6
04|01000|04:03.3|02:01.7|19.2|143.3|145.0|12.9
05|01000|04:03.9|02:02.0|19.1|144.5|146.0|12.9
06|01000|04:04.3|02:02.1|19.0|145.1|148.0|12.9
07|01000|04:07.0|02:03.5|18.4|145.1|148.0|13.2
08|01000|04:08.3|02:04.1|18.1|144.2|146.0|13.4
09|01000|04:08.1|02:04.1|17.9|145.1|147.0|13.5
10|01000|04:07.3|02:03.7|18.8|145.5|149.0|12.9

I started at 190w and it felt pretty easy, so I upped it to 200w and rowed until I hit the HR cap. Then I backed off to 190(ish) and played with pace and rate to try to keep my HR between 144 and 146. It was good sweaty, easy fun.

Then I took about 10 minutes, went and grabbed my exercise bands and ab wheel and changed my shirt. Now it was time for some strength work.

(weight in pounds)

Squats

45 x5

135 x6

185 x5 x5 x5

185 was a good weight. I could have probably squeezed out another rep in each set. I think I’ll push this slowly up to 3×8 at 185, and then up the weight.

Chin ups (red band on knee)

3 x 5

Next time I will do the first set unassisted

Standing press

45 x5

65 x6

75 x5 x6 x5

I need to work on form for this exercise. I think I am arching my back too much. Surprisingly hard for such light weights.

AB wheel roll outs (from knees)

3 x8

Oh my. These were hard! My calves were cramping up.

Push-ups

3 x10

I was very disappointed with how weak I felt in the push ups. Might have been from the standing press, but I felt like I had no “pop”

Tomorrow: Early flight to Texas. Probably a rest day.

Monday: 4×20′ L4 (embedded in an HM)

November 14, 2016Leave a comment

So, as usual for a Sunday night, I had trouble sleeping. But I woke up before the alarm at 5:15 and headed off to work.

My standard endurance workout these days is a 4 x 20 minute session which is usually about 20km including some paddling during the rests. So, I thought I could continue my polarized training plan by adapting my normal endurance session by just doing a 1000m or so of cool down at the end. I was thinking that I could fit other more intense sessions into the basic HM format as well, since I have the tools I need to analyze the data afterward too. Perhaps I could call it the Polar Bear Challenge?

So today’s Plan:

4 x 20′ / 1′ paddle
L4 format
Power target: 10W x stroke rate
Slow start at 16spm (160W)
Aim for mid 190s for average power
HR limit at 155

Again, with the magic of rowsandall.com, I can reslice the data into 10 minute blocks to see how accurately I hit my targets.

Targets:

1 – 170 strokes, 170W
2 – 184 strokes, 184W
3-8 – 190 strokes, 190w

Workout Summary - media/20161114-135715-sled_2016-11-14T06-37-25ZEST.strokes.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|21097|88:00.0|02:05.1|18.8|140.4|155.0|12.8
W-|19564|80:00.0|02:02.7|18.8|140.4|155.0|13.0
R-|01538|08:00.0|02:36.0|14.1|116.9|155.0|13.5
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|02390|10:00.0|02:05.5|17.1|123.8|135.0|14.0
02|02437|10:00.0|02:03.1|18.6|135.1|139.0|13.1
03|02459|10:00.0|02:02.0|19.1|135.2|145.0|12.9
04|02457|10:00.0|02:02.1|19.1|142.7|145.0|12.9
05|02459|10:00.0|02:02.0|19.2|141.9|150.0|12.8
06|02454|10:00.0|02:02.3|19.1|148.7|152.0|12.8
07|02452|10:00.0|02:02.4|19.2|145.1|152.0|12.8
08|02457|10:00.0|02:02.1|19.2|150.5|155.0|12.8

So, generally 1 or 2 strokes over and a bit high on watts.

A few stroke metrics. Power versus rate, peak and average force versus rate and drive length versus time.

Tomorrow: 40′ erg and strength training.

Quantified Rowing

Measure – Adjust – Improve

Category: Training Journal