4 x 20′ / 1′

November 6, 20176 Comments

Same plan as the past couple of days.

4 x 20′ / 1′ rest
rate: 19-21
power: 182W target
HR limit:
- 0-20′: 145
- 20′-40′: 150
- 40′-80′: 155

Last two days were in the afternoon in a nice cool basement down on the cape. Today was in the fitness center at work. I was a bit concerned since Monday morning workouts tend to be a bit worse than others.

Started with my PT exercises (you can follow the link to the full list)

I started with the most important corrective exercise, Isometric correction for SIJ. In this exercise you basically push you leg out while you hold it back with your arms. It pushes the head of the femur back in it’s socket to get things aligned. This addresses my big issue which is weak left glute. Because of this weakness, other muscles are firing when I bend over for the catch and this is pulling the joint out of alignment. After I do that, then I foam roller my quads and IT bands, do a diabolical thing called a hip flexor release which is bascially rolling around on a lacrosse ball looking for places that hurt. Then I do a glute exercise which is like a bridge on a exercise ball, and then an exercise to strength my obliques.

It takes about 5 minutes and I think it is helping a lot. I am noticing that it is way easier to keep my knees together at the catch, and my hips are rocking over in a much smoother way than before. I suspect that it might have something to do with the increase in steady power that I am getting, but there isn’t a lot of evidence supporting that, other than the fact that I started doing PT and my steady state power got better.

At any rate, it isn’t hurting anything, so I’m all for it.

The session went better than I hoped. I aimed at 182W, but 185W felt fine and my HR stayed nice and low, so I went with it. I kept going at that through 3 20′ pieces and then pushed a bit more in the fourth. holding 190 was a bit too much and I needed to back off to 185W to stay under the 155bpm cap. It was great that my HR came down nicely when I reduced the power from 190 to 185.

I thought it would interesting to look back over the summer to see if this feeling of getting better was actually accurate. It is. You can see power going up and down, and then recently getting much better and more consistent (narrower range). On the right, you can see avgHR around the same and the upper HR a bit lower, but a nice downward trend over the past few days.

Tomorrow: I it is time for a bit more intensity and a bit more testing. I think I will do a lactate step test using the AIS protocol.

The power levels for this test are supposed to be based on the prior years best 2k test. I will estimate 2k power based on the 1K and 20 minute tests from last week. Using the Free Spirits Pace Predictor, I get an estimated 2K time of 6:59.0. Using the CP Curve from Rowsandall, I get a range of 280W to 326W (1:47.7 to 1:42.4), right in the middle of that would be 1:45.

So, here are my targets…

The protocol is row for 4 minutes, take a minute to do a lactate, then do it a 6 more times.

4 x 20′ / 1′ + 2 x 1’/1′

November 6, 20173 Comments

Same session as yesterday. Same rules.

4 x 20′ / 1′ rests
rate: 19-20
power target: 180W
HR limit: 145 after 20′, 150 after 40′, 155 after 60′

I felt great in this session. My stroke felt stronger everything just felt easier. Not sure why, but I sure liked it.

       Workout Summary - media/20171105-1840300o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|19814|84:00.0|02:07.2|180.9|19.8|142.6|154.0|11.9
W-|19383|80:00.0|02:03.8|184.5|19.8|142.7|154.0|12.3
R-|00434|04:00.0|04:36.4|070.7|20.6|137.7|154.0|06.3
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|04826|20:00.0|02:04.3|181.6|19.1|136.8|145.0|12.7
01|04825|20:00.0|02:04.3|182.0|19.6|142.9|147.0|12.3
02|04837|20:00.0|02:04.0|183.8|20.0|144.8|148.0|12.1
03|04894|20:00.0|02:02.6|190.5|20.4|146.2|154.0|12.0

I was under my HR limit after 40′, so I nudged the power up just a couple of watts. My HR stayed nice and low through the third piece. So, in the last piece, nudged it up more for the first 10 minutes of so, and my HR was still ice and low, so I decided to push even harder to see what it would take to get up to the 155 HR limit. I needed to hold about 195 watts to slowly get up to the limit by the end.

I am more than ever convinced that I need to start low and push up over a session. Some people are able to start hard, and then ease off. That never seems to work for me. I will stick with 182W as a starting power, and stick with that through the first 40 minutes. If I am well under the cap, I will push harder in the second half.

After I finished the main course, I had some dessert.

I went all out in the first one, but with low drag and tired legs. I expect that I could squeeze out a bit more distance if I did it fresh and set myself up for a proper sprint. Considering my best 500m was 1:28.4, I hope I can improve this as I go along.

Tomorrow: Another base builder session.

4×20’/1′

November 4, 2017Leave a comment

Base building now. Waiting until I get a plan from Marlene.

          Workout Summary - media/20171104-1805300o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|19507|84:00.0|02:09.2|176.7|19.4|145.5|154.0|12.0
W-|19192|80:00.0|02:05.1|179.0|19.4|145.4|154.0|12.4
R-|00319|04:00.0|06:16.0|070.0|19.1|141.5|154.0|05.4
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|04787|20:00.0|02:05.3|177.2|19.0|137.4|146.0|12.6
01|04776|20:00.0|02:05.6|176.8|19.0|145.5|151.0|12.6
02|04805|20:00.0|02:04.9|180.2|19.8|148.0|153.0|12.2
03|04825|20:00.0|02:04.4|181.8|20.0|150.9|154.0|12.1

That went very well. Initial power target was 175W, but 177 felt good. I was under the HR limits at the end of 40 minutes so I decided to inch up the power a little. Then a bit more in the last 20 minutes. I felt relaxed and good through the session.

Fall 2017 Fitness Tests

November 3, 2017November 3, 2017Leave a comment

This is in a google sheet: here

A little explanation:

Power: Is the average power for the test (or the peak power in the case of the peak power.
PR Power: Is the best performance over the past 4 years for the closest thing to these tests
- Peak Power: Low Pull Test in 2014
- 75 Minute Test: Half marathon in December, 2015 (79:55 minutes vs 75:00)
- 1K test: 1K test in March of 2014
- 20′ Test: 6K test in December of 2013 (21:32 vs 20:00)
% PR Std: This is how far I am from my best ever performance for this set of tests
500m: Avg or peak split
Meters: Distance rowed, significant for 20′ and 75′ rows
SPM: Avg stroke rate for the piece
Ratios:
- 75′ test: % of 1K test power
- 1K test: % of peak power
- 20′ test: % of 1K test power
Ideal: This is the range define my RoyleRow as idealized target ranges to help focus training planning
PR Ratios: This is the same ratios calculated from PR powers instead of current test results.

The purpose of this exercise is to provide insight about training. So, what insights are there.

It is cool to see how consistent the ratios are from my best performance to my current performance. I think that a big part of this is physiology. My VO2Max to peak power is higher than target range, and my anaerobic and aerobic thresholds are below the ideal ranges by similar amounts. It will be interesting if Marlene will want to focus on trying to raise my threshold results relative to my VO2Max, or if she will want to just push the whole profile to the right
My peak power is closer to my PR levels than my distance stuff. I think that this makes a ton of sense. My total training load, and especially my load of aerobic training was much lower over this past summer than in past seasons due to travel, boat problems and injury.
I was disappointed with the anaerobic threshold results, but it sure explains why I didn’t do as well as I hoped in the HOCR. It appears that this furthers from my best performance and furthest from the ideal ranges. This is also related to problems with training this summer and fall. I essentially had 21 total days from when I restarted “real” training after my back injury before until the HOCR. That was not enough time to move my anaerobic threshold much.

I will find out soon what Marlene wants to do, but my thought is to work on aerobic fitness using lactate guided training power, and complement that with a few short sessions a week at higher intensity. I would also like to devote more training time to fixing some core strength and imbalance issues.

If at first you don’t succeed…

November 3, 2017November 3, 20176 Comments

After yesterday, I was nervous and frankly full of dread about doing the 20′ time trial today.

I saw yesterday that 1:50 was too aggressive as a target, so today, I backed off to 1:53.

I started with a very short 1k warmup.

Workout Summary - media/20171103-1135460o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|01000|03:56.0|01:58.3|210.9|22.2|129.3|147.0|11.4
W-|01000|03:56.0|01:58.5|207.5|21.9|128.3|147.0|11.7
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|147.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|00150|00:36.6|02:02.0|159.3|16.5|080.1|103.0|14.9
01|00100|00:22.2|01:51.2|236.9|23.9|113.6|121.0|11.3
02|00150|00:37.2|02:04.0|191.0|21.2|130.9|136.0|11.4
03|00100|00:22.5|01:52.7|249.7|25.3|137.9|139.0|10.5
04|00150|00:37.5|02:04.9|187.5|21.1|142.2|144.0|11.4
05|00100|00:22.1|01:50.6|247.7|25.3|141.2|142.0|10.7
06|00150|00:37.2|02:03.9|191.0|21.5|144.8|147.0|11.2
07|00100|00:21.6|01:47.8|265.2|25.3|145.0|146.0|11.0

Then onto the main event.

Pace target: 1:53
Rate target: 25

I promised myself to not quit on this test. If I needed to, I would slow down by a split or two, but I would keep going and just get it done. After all the point was to establish a baseline for the purpose of planning my training. If the test shows that I am weak here, then that is useful data. Useful data that really hurts to collect.

         Workout Summary - media/20171103-1135300o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|05318|20:00.0|01:52.8|243.8|25.1|169.2|183.0|10.6
W-|05324|20:00.0|01:52.7|243.7|25.1|169.1|183.0|10.6
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|183.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|00537|02:00.0|01:51.6|239.1|23.2|134.8|157.0|11.6
01|00534|02:00.0|01:52.4|249.2|25.0|159.9|164.0|10.7
02|00535|02:00.0|01:52.2|247.5|25.0|165.6|167.0|10.7
03|00534|02:00.0|01:52.5|246.3|25.1|168.2|170.0|10.6
04|00533|02:00.0|01:52.6|245.2|25.1|170.5|171.0|10.6
05|00533|02:00.0|01:52.7|244.8|25.3|172.5|174.0|10.5
06|00531|02:00.0|01:53.0|242.4|25.2|176.3|179.0|10.5
07|00527|02:00.0|01:53.9|237.6|25.2|179.0|181.0|10.5
08|00526|02:00.0|01:54.2|235.0|25.5|181.9|182.0|10.3
09|00536|02:00.0|01:52.0|250.1|26.2|181.8|183.0|10.2

This was pretty hard from beginning to end. I was very worried about halfway through and I started playing around a little bit with rate and pressure to try to find a comfortable groove. I was counting blocks of 125 strokes for each 5 minute section. My HR was above 95% of HRR with 6 minutes to go and I was pretty miserable in the last 5 minutes. I eased off a bit until I saw that I had 2 minutes to go, actually when I had counted to 75 strokes in the last section. Then I pushed again to try to finish strong while counting down the last 50 strokes.

So, I ended up a bit below target, but this was a good solid test. I think it reflects where I am right now.

After I caught my breath, I did a 3K cool down

          Workout Summary - media/20171103-1150290o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|03000|13:09.0|02:11.6|156.5|19.8|151.3|163.0|11.5
W-|03000|13:10.0|02:11.7|154.4|19.7|151.4|163.0|11.6
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|163.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|00500|01:58.0|01:58.0|201.6|21.8|136.7|156.0|11.7
01|00500|02:04.7|02:04.7|182.3|21.0|161.4|162.0|11.4
02|00500|02:09.1|02:09.1|162.7|20.2|159.8|163.0|11.5
03|00500|02:14.4|02:14.4|145.2|19.0|155.3|157.0|11.7
04|00500|02:19.9|02:19.9|129.0|18.5|149.9|152.0|11.6
05|00500|02:24.1|02:24.1|117.5|18.4|144.9|147.0|11.3

Tomorrow: Recovery session. If the weather is nice, I’m hoping for a open water row.

I’m compiling the results and I I’ll post the analysis in a little while

Well that didn’t go well

November 2, 2017November 2, 20173 Comments

Yesterday, was a rest day. I spent the day on appointments and errands

Dentist appointment: Which made me unhappy because I apparently have a cracked tooth and need a crown.
PT appointment: Which hurt like hell. I have two issues.
- My left glute is weak and this is causing a misalignment in my hips. This has caused a chain reaction of sorts resulting in my left quad being all tight and my legs presenting as different lengths.
- The very bottom part of my spine above and below my L5 is a bit out of alignment and the PT believes that I have impingement between vertebrae when I lean back at the finish. I need to work on rocking my pelvis forward in rowing and in real life.
- First he did some deep tissue massage to try to get my lower spine unkotted. That wasn’t so bad. Then he moved onto the left quadricep and tried to work out some adhesions that had formed between the different elements of the quad. He used a combination of deep tissue massage and active release in two different poistions. This hurt so much that I wept. After that, he showed me a couple more exercises to work on strengthing my glutes and obliques to try to support better pelvic posture. I limped out of the appointment.
From there, I headed off to the Apple store. I dropped my phone on a concrete floor on Sunday and cracked the screen. I discovered that the screen can be replaced reasonably easily. They said it would be done in about 90 minutes.
Next stop was a radiology center. In my hip X-Rays, the radiologist saw a “deformity” on one of my ribs on the right side and recommended a follow up x-ray of the area. So, I did that. I wonder what will come of it?
Then back to the Apple store to pick up my repaired phone.

Whew!

Thursday

The plan for today was a 20 minute test. I got a good night’s sleep and I headed into work. I was in the gym by about 6:45. I started with a 2k warmup.

Workout Summary - media/20171102-1125300o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|02000|07:59.0|01:59.8|213.3|21.7|143.5|161.0|11.6
W-|02000|07:59.0|01:59.8|205.9|21.2|142.3|161.0|12.0
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|161.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|00300|01:15.4|02:05.7|159.1|16.1|111.8|127.0|14.8
01|00200|00:46.9|01:57.3|214.0|21.9|133.7|138.0|11.7
02|00300|01:16.8|02:08.1|173.1|19.5|141.8|143.0|12.0
03|00200|00:45.4|01:53.4|235.2|23.2|143.6|147.0|11.4
04|00300|01:16.6|02:07.7|171.3|20.0|149.8|151.0|11.8
05|00200|00:43.4|01:48.4|265.6|24.9|151.2|155.0|11.1
06|00300|01:15.0|02:05.0|188.3|21.3|156.9|158.0|11.3
07|00200|00:39.9|01:39.8|348.6|29.1|157.6|161.0|10.3

Then, I gathered my courage for a 20 minute time trial. Based on the rowsandall OTE CP Analysis, my projected power for a piece this length was between 245W and 285W (1:52.6 to 1:47.1). The wide band is the result of pretty funny looking CP curve.

Why does it look like this? Well, that’s because the data extracted from erg pieces (red dots) is based on 3 strong results (75′, 1km, LP). The plateau from 50 seconds to 200 seconds is the data from the 1K test. The low end was set by the peak power test. The upper end was set by the 75′ test.

Just from recent experience, it seemed that 1:47 was way to big of an ask. I thought that 1:50 might work, but was risky. I decided to start there and slow down if needed.

I got myself setup and got going. I held 1:50 through the first 1250m, but I was in a lot of respiratory distress, and my HR was a bit higher than I was hoping to see. I basically lost hope and stopped.

Workout Summary - media/20171102-1125450o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|01580|06:00.0|01:53.9|259.1|25.1|158.3|172.0|10.5
W-|01505|05:30.0|01:49.7|262.0|25.2|157.6|172.0|10.8
R-|00076|00:30.0|03:16.1|200.8|23.1|172.0|172.0|06.6
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|01505|05:30.0|01:49.7|262.0|25.2|157.6|172.0|10.8

Humph. That was disappointing. I sat around for a little while trying to figure out what happened. I had a bit of DOMS in my quads from the PT appointment, but that didn’t bother me much. My HR was definitely a bit high and I was struggling, but slowing down didn’t seem to work. I think part of my problem was just an unwillingness to endure the discomfort today.

After mulling it over for a few minutes, I decided to give it another try, but this time at 1:52. This didn’t go any better. I lasted about the same amount of time, and gave up when it started to hurt.

         Workout Summary - media/20171102-1126000o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|01211|04:33.0|01:52.7|244.6|24.8|155.4|173.0|10.7
W-|01212|04:33.0|01:52.7|244.6|24.8|155.4|173.0|10.8
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|173.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|01212|04:33.0|01:52.7|244.6|24.8|155.4|173.0|10.8

After that, I gave up and just did a cool down.

I wanted to compare these failures to the reasonably successful 6K session that I did on October 9th. The orange trace was the first attempt. You can see I started at about 265W and faded a bit toward 250W through the first 5 minutes. The HR response was much higher today than in the 6K test. It seems pretty clear that that the fatigue from the first attempt was effecting the HR for the second attempt.

So, now I try again tomorrow. target is 250W.

Tuesday: 1K Test

October 31, 20172 Comments

Monday: The test protocol called for a rest day, and that was a good thing. I was in meetings from 7am to 7pm.

Tuesday: Today’s goal was a 1K test.

This test measures your VO2 max. Row 1000 meters at racing pace at your absolute best effort. Record your average watts. Stroke rates may range from 26-28 up to above 34. Also note in your data the average 500-meter split, total time, and stroke rate for future reference. Make sure to warm up properly and do a cool down row for at least 15 minutes easy after the test to help recovery.

So, scary words…absolute best effort. The question is what is my pace or power target. The CP pace predictor said that I should target about 300W. This is about a 1:45 pace. I felt pretty sure that I could do better than that. Looking at the test results so far.

Peak power: 1:18.6 vs 1:16.9 PR in 2015 ( 721W vs 770W – 94% of PR)
75′ test: 1:59.2 vs 1:53.6 HM PR in 2016 ( 206.7W vs 238W – 87% of PR)

So, it I thought it would be reasonable to look at targeting something like 90% of 1K PR watts. That PR dates from 2014 and was 3:10.5, 1:35.2 pace, 406W. 90% of that would be 365W which translates to 1:38.6 pace. That, frankly was a little bit scary for me. So I decided to start off around 1:41 and see if I had the oomph to speed up in the second half.

So, that was my plan. I started off with an aggressive Fletcher warmup.

          Workout Summary - media/20171031-1140300o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|05011|19:59.0|01:59.7|213.7|21.0|157.4|175.0|11.9
W-|05013|19:59.0|01:59.7|212.2|20.9|156.7|175.0|12.0
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|175.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|00940|03:54.0|02:04.5|176.7|17.9|129.7|146.0|13.4
01|00995|04:01.0|02:01.1|196.8|19.9|151.1|156.0|12.4
02|01040|04:01.5|01:56.1|223.9|22.3|161.3|166.0|11.6
03|01036|03:58.5|01:55.1|250.0|23.2|168.9|175.0|11.3
04|01001|04:04.9|02:02.3|212.7|21.2|171.5|175.0|11.6

This was a bit disconcerting. It seemed like my HR was a bit too high, and I was breathing hard. I decided this was nerves. I waited a bit more than 5 minutes after finishing to get set up for my 1K.

For some reason, the HR monitor lagged significantly. Not sure why. I’ve seen that with the Wahoo, but I hadn’t yet for the Polar OH1.

As for the row, it basically went to plan. I focused on just hitting 30 spm and 1:41 at first and counted strokes. I felt good at 250 and I pushed a bit. At 500, it was stinging, but I started to feel ambitious and I pushed the rate up a bit and managed to work the splits down so 1:38 and 1:39 were dancing on the screen. I did pretty well, because I thought the world was ending around the 750m mark. But I kept counting my strokes and knew that I had about 30 to go. I just closed my eyes and counted down. With 5 to go I opened my eyes and finished it off. 3:18.9. 356W. Not so bad. I guess the stretch target wasn’t far off.

I was pretty well shattered by that. It took a couple of attempts to get going with a cool down and an hour to stop sweating. Now I have a nasty erg cough and a glimmer of pride. This workout ranked in the 93rd percentile (31st of 429 for my age bracket).

Tomorrow: Scheduled rest day.

Thursday: 20′ Test. Gotta figure a pace for that one too!

Sunday: 75′ Aerobic Threshold Test

October 29, 2017October 29, 20174 Comments

Second Royle Row Test.

Day 2: 75-Minute Row:

This test measures your aerobic threshold. Row for 75 minutes, at the end, record your average watts. Also note in your data the average 500-meter split, total distance rowed, and stroke rate for future reference. Suggested stroke rate between 18-24. Aim for a pace that you can maintain for the duration. This is equivalent to your best steady state pace. Do not stop during the test. You may want to set a water bottle close by if you need to drink during the 75 minutes.

I got up around 9 and was on the rower by 9:30. I dutifully set the drag factor for 130. My critical power curves predicted that I should be able to hold around 190W (2:02.5). Pride, and the knowledge that my PB for a half marathon was at 1:53.6 pace caused me to target something a bit better. I decided to start at a 1:58 pace and see how things went.

I held the 1:58 through the first 25 minutes. By then, my HR was edging up close to 160 and I had another 50 minutes of rowing to go. I decided to ease up to 1:59. I held that basically to the halfway point. At halfway, I eased further to a 2:00 target and just kept counting strokes. I was hovering between 22 and 23 SPM, so I would count strokes in 5 minute chunks. It was between 111 and 113 strokes in each one.

At 55 minutes, I was getting really ragged. My stroke rate was bouncing around a bit more and I was having trouble staying focused. I started seeing a lot of 2:01s and 2:02s on the screen, but I was getting close enough to the end to know that I wasn’t going to give up. I just kept counting strokes. Once I got to 10 minutes to go, I felt confident enough to start pushing back to my target, and with five minutes to go, I knew I was going to be able to finish with a bit of a kick.

40 minutes in TR and AN. I was totally destroyed when I finished. I am bummed out about how far I am from my best at these long distances, but I’m happy to have made with a sub-2:00 pace at least.

          Workout Summary - media/20171029-161526-sled_2017-10-29T09-40-16ZEDT.strokes.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|18873|75:00.0|01:59.2|206.7|22.5|162.6|181.0|11.2
W-|18878|75:00.0|01:59.2|206.7|22.5|162.4|181.0|11.2
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-
00|01905|07:30.0|01:58.1|210.9|22.1|130.0|145.0|11.5
01|01911|07:30.0|01:57.8|214.2|22.4|148.1|151.0|11.4
02|01904|07:30.0|01:58.2|212.2|22.3|153.8|159.0|11.4
03|01893|07:30.0|01:58.8|208.6|22.1|159.9|162.0|11.4
04|01889|07:30.0|01:59.1|207.1|22.1|164.5|167.0|11.4
05|01883|07:30.0|01:59.5|205.3|22.1|168.9|170.0|11.3
06|01878|07:30.0|01:59.8|203.3|22.3|171.6|173.0|11.2
07|01862|07:30.0|02:00.8|198.5|22.4|173.4|175.0|11.1
08|01860|07:30.0|02:01.0|197.6|22.8|175.6|178.0|10.9
09|01892|07:30.0|01:58.9|209.3|24.3|178.7|181.0|10.4

Tomorrow: Rest Day. Then on Tuesday is the 1K test.

Saturday: Peak Power Test

October 28, 2017Leave a comment

Friday: I slept in. I needed the sleep. Rest Day

Saturday: Down on the Cape. Time to start the RoyleRow fitness tests.

Day 1: 10-Second Peak Power Test:

Peak Power is measured with a 10s erg test. On a CII set the drag factor to 200. The high drag factor is necessary to provide adequate resistance so that you can hit a true peak power. Lower drag factors do not provide enough resistance and you will get lower peak power numbers. Warm up by paddling easy for 5-10 minutes. At the end of your warm up come to a full stop and let the fly wheel stop. Set your monitor so that you can see the watts for each stroke. From a stop row as hard and as fast as possible for 10 seconds, recording the highest power you see on any stroke. There is no rate cap but you must row as close to full slide as possible right from the first stroke, do not use a racing start. Rest for 3-5 minutes and repeat again. There is a slight learning effect when you first do this test so you might want to do it 2-3 times to get a true peak power score.

I started with a Fletcher warmup.

          Workout Summary - media/20171028-1410300o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|05001|20:00.0|01:60.0|217.3|21.3|144.6|170.0|11.7
W-|05005|20:00.0|01:59.9|207.5|20.7|143.7|170.0|12.3
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|170.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|00949|04:00.0|02:06.5|170.3|17.8|115.8|130.0|13.3
01|00975|04:00.0|02:03.1|187.9|20.0|136.2|142.0|12.2
02|00764|03:00.0|01:57.8|213.4|22.0|146.3|152.0|11.6
03|00265|01:00.0|01:53.1|240.7|24.0|152.3|154.0|11.1
04|00139|00:30.0|01:47.7|278.4|25.9|156.2|159.0|10.7
05|00482|02:00.0|02:04.4|184.2|18.6|155.8|160.0|13.0
06|00300|01:00.0|01:39.9|345.8|29.4|156.5|164.0|10.2
07|00485|02:00.0|02:03.8|188.7|18.5|161.1|166.0|13.1
08|00165|00:30.0|01:31.1|463.1|35.5|156.5|163.0|09.3
09|00481|02:00.0|02:04.6|187.4|19.0|164.0|170.0|12.7

That was invigorating. No on to the main event. I set the damper on 10, which yieldeda DF of 196. I guess I should clean out my machine. The PM5 has a minimum interval time of 20 seconds. So I set up for 20 second intervals with 3 minute rests. Then I would row the first 10 seconds of the interval hard and then paddle it out.

I exported the CSV to go look for the peak power. It was in the fourth interval, 721W. I rowed at about 44 spm, peaking up above 45.

Then I did a 2K cool down, which didn’t record right on painsled for some reason.

Tomorrow: 75′ aerobic threshold test.

Taipei / Shanghai – Ticking Along

October 26, 20176 Comments

After the race on Saturday, we had lunch in Cambridge, and then headed home. I had some organizing to do since I was heading off to Taiwan. My flight was scheduled to depart at 1:45AM Sunday morning, and my wife and I had a nice afternoon and evening.

I headed off to the airport around 11pm, and got on the plane, and waited. We taxied out from the gate, and then the pilot came on and said that there was a problem with one of the engines so he was heading back to gate to wait for maintenance to come deal with it. After about an hour parked at the gate, the call came over the PA asking if there was a doctor on board. Apparently, someone on board had had a heart attack. Now it seemed to me that the engine trouble was a real blessing for both the heart attack victim and the rest of us on the plane. He was wisked off the plane within minutes. If we had been in flight, they would have had to divert the flight and that would have taken a lot more time. And I bet it would have delayed the rest a lot too.

We didn’t get going until after 4AM. Then it was fifteen hours and 30 minutes of flight time to Hong Kong. Then a quick shuffle through the airport to catch the next flight to Taipei. I was in Taiwan by 11am on Monday morning, and at the hotel by 12:30. I made it just in time to shower and change before the event I was going to. I slept pretty well on the flight, getting maybe 8 hours of sleep total, but in short segments.

The work event lasted from 1:30 until 10:30PM. I crashed hard as soon as I got back to my room.

So, I guess that means:

Sunday: Travel Day – No training.

Monday: Rest day?

Tuesday:

I had a flight Shanghai in the early afternoon so I planned to sleep in, but I woke up around 5am, and couldn’t get back to sleep. Eventually, I made my way down to the fitness center. I had plenty of time, so I did a long fitness center triathlon.

30 minutes: Treadmill death march, 15% grade, 5km/h
30 minutes: Elliptical, level 14, random
30 minutes: Stationary bike, level 14, “Hills”

It was sweaty. It was boring.

Then I headed to the airport and flew off to Shanghai. I had a customer dinner in the evening and some conference calls after that. I got to bed around 1AM.

Wednesday:

I got up at 6 and headed straight to the fitness center. I was staying at the Kerry Hotel in Pudong, which has the one of the finest fitness centers I’ve ever seen. They have two Model D ergs. Mechanically they are both fine, but one of them has a display problem so you can’t see the time remaining. The good rower was being used, so I grabbed the one with the display issue.

Plan:

3 x 20′ / 1′
rate: ~20
power: 175W
HR limit: 145/150/155

I noticed that my heart rate took off like a rocket from the start and by the time I got through the first 20 minutes, I knew I had to ease up. Even then, I was really struggling.

After 40 minutes, the other erg was free so I swapped over to continue. I basically gave up after 3 minutes in the last piece and just paddled the rest of it out.

Lack of fitness? Lack of Sleep? Who knows. Anyway, time to reset my power target lower for the next session.

After my workout, I headed to the office for some internal meetings, a customer lunch, more meetings, and a customer dinner. I got back to the hotel around 10, and had a beer with a colleague. I was in bed by 11.

Thursday:

I was up at 5:30 to fit in my workout. Back to the fitness center for some more rowing.

Plan:

3 x 20′ / 2′ (longer rest to allow stretching between piecese
- rate: 20
- power: 165
- HR limit: 145/150/155
2 x 1′ / 1′ (I see Paul Buchanan doing these at the end of aerobic sessions and I’ve read that it’s has a beneficial training effect. It’s also an energizing way to finish the workout – In theory)
- rate: >32
- power: >360W

This was much better. Based on my HR, the power was pretty close to right on for base training. I could probably push a couple more watts, but not much. My HR plateaued nicely right around 149 and stuck there for most of the second and third interval.

And the 1′ sprints were a blast. I think I will make them a regular part of my routine.

And I left a nice sweat pattern on the floor.

After that, I packed up, had a work breakfast, then headed to the airport. I’m now in Narita in transit back to Boston. I will get home around 7:30pm Thursday night.

I’ve decided to start working with a coach, Marlene Royle. Next week I have a bunch of erg tests to do. I may start them this weekend, but only if I am not having jetlag issues.

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