Waterfall

September 27, 20172 Comments

Up at 5:15. In the gym around 7:00AM.

The Plan:

10 minute warmup on the treadmill (15% grade, 3mph)
L2 Waterfall
- 3K / 2.5K / 2K
- 5′ rest
- pace target: 1:54
- rate: 24-26
- Technique: knees together
- HR limit: none

I’m trying to warm up off the erg to try to make sure that I don’t take any hard pulls until my back is limbered up. Today was a brisk walk up a 15% grade. My HR was still below the bottom of my UT2 range by the time I had gone 10 minutes, but I had broken a sweat.

This was right on the edge of my capability. I eased up a bit in the 1000m to 500m to go in the last two intervals, but just by about a second or so. It was enough to make it through. Each interval, I counted strokes from beginning to end. Between 96 and 100 strokes per 1000m.

        Workout Summary - media/20170927-1235430o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|09056|43:06.0|02:22.8|204.4|24.4|158.7|180.0|08.6
W-|07500|28:02.0|01:52.2|244.5|25.5|163.9|180.0|10.5
R-|01559|15:04.0|04:50.2|057.2|20.7|142.3|180.0|03.1
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|03000|11:10.0|01:51.7|245.9|25.1|156.8|173.0|10.7
01|02500|09:20.5|01:52.1|243.9|25.6|168.3|179.0|10.4
02|02000|07:32.0|01:53.0|243.2|25.9|168.9|180.0|10.2

Tomorrow: steady state 4 x 15

40 minutes with bumps

September 26, 2017Leave a comment

I slept badly last night, so I didn’t get up until 6:30. That compressed the time available for a workout to my lunch hour. So, an easy 80 minute session wasn’t going to fit.

I had about an hour. Allowing for time to change and shower afterwards, that left about 40 minutes for an actual workout. I decided to trade time for intensity today. I also wanted to do something a bit different, to keep things interesting.

The Plan

40 minutes
8 x 5 minutes
- 4 minutes at 2:05/r20
- 1 minute at 1:54/r24

I don’t have any research to back this up, but I suspect that workouts where you go from a faster pace to a steady state pace help you develop the ability to process lactate. These bump based workouts are a big part of some workout plans (especially the 10 meters per stroke strapless plans). They are also fun to do because you are always counting down to the next bump.

Workout Summary - media/20170926-1700550o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|09821|40:00.0|02:02.2|194.5|21.0|152.5|172.0|11.7
W-|09827|40:00.0|02:02.1|192.9|20.8|152.2|172.0|11.8
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|172.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|00972|04:00.0|02:03.5|181.1|19.4|112.9|134.0|12.5
01|00268|01:00.0|01:52.1|247.5|24.0|140.0|147.0|11.2
02|00964|04:00.0|02:04.5|181.7|19.5|143.5|149.0|12.3
03|00265|01:00.0|01:53.1|240.1|23.9|149.0|155.0|11.1
04|00965|04:00.0|02:04.4|182.2|19.6|149.7|155.0|12.3
05|00264|01:00.0|01:53.8|236.3|24.0|152.1|157.0|11.0
06|00962|04:00.0|02:04.7|181.0|19.9|154.0|159.0|12.1
07|00262|01:00.0|01:54.4|230.7|23.7|157.2|162.0|11.1
08|00962|04:00.0|02:04.8|181.0|20.4|157.7|161.0|11.8
09|00263|01:00.0|01:54.2|234.9|23.9|160.3|163.0|11.0
10|00962|04:00.0|02:04.7|181.8|20.0|160.0|163.0|12.0
11|00264|01:00.0|01:53.5|233.8|23.9|162.6|166.0|11.1
12|00963|04:00.0|02:04.6|181.9|20.8|163.1|166.0|11.6
13|00263|01:00.0|01:53.9|236.2|24.0|165.7|169.0|11.0
14|00964|04:00.0|02:04.5|182.0|20.7|166.9|170.0|11.6
15|00265|01:00.0|01:53.2|243.7|24.2|169.8|172.0|10.9

I was thinking that my HR would have been a bit lower from this, but I don’t really know. It was good fun anyway.

Tomorrow: L2 Waterfall: 3k/2.5k/2K on 5′ rest. Target pace 1:54.

15 x 3′ / 1′ Static

September 25, 2017Leave a comment

I felt tired at 5:15 so I rolled over and slept 2 more hours. I’m glad I did.

I headed to the gym at lunch and sat down on the new erg. And my HR strap didn’t link up to either the PM5 or the phone. I popped out the battery and it was wet. Uh Oh. I put in a new battery. Still no life. I think the seal must have gone and sweat has gotten into it.

I pulled out my old wahoo tickr and put a new battery in this one. I had stopped using this one because it seemed to have a problem following fast HR changes, like you see in interval sessions (like today’s workout). This one linked up right away, and I got going with the workout using painsled.

The plan:

15 x 3′ / 1′ rests
Pace: 1:54
Rate: 26
Technique: knees together, limit layback
HR limit: none

So the sensor still has issues. Glad it wasn’t my imagination.

So, targets met. Tired now.

Tomorrow: 80 minutes of endurance training. 20 minutes treadmill, 3 x 20′ on the erg.

12km coastal row in Wellfleet

September 25, 2017Leave a comment

Oh, what a beautiful morning! It was in the mid 60s, very little wind, flat water and bright sunshine. It was just after low tide, and there was just enough water depth to launch and row out. The seabirds were wheeling around my boat as I started out, and I could see the bottom. Schools of striped bass swam under my boat chasing after smaller fish.

The Plan:

60-80 minutes of easy rowing
HR cap: ~150
rate: ~20
Technique: Work on keeping my knees together and tapping down cleaning without a lot of layback. Get those blades off the water!

I followed the Lt Island shoreline out toward deeper water. My path out is the more northerly one in the map below. Once I was clear of the projecting point of the shoal, I turned west and headed toward the red buoy, but I couldn’t pick it up over my shoulder yet. I was heading out and the tide was coming in, so the pace in this section was a bit slow. After about 2000m, I did a more purposeful scan and found is bit to the south, so I turned and headed towards it. I did a u-turn around the buoy and headed north to Wellfleet inner harbor, now with the tide behind me and the pace improved by at least 30 seconds per 500. I rowed to the green buoy and then continued past two more marks around the tip of the breakwater. I decided to turn at 6000m. I stopped and had a drink of water.

I turned around and headed back the way I came. I seemed to weave around a bit more on the way back. I suspect that the tide was setting me east or west depending on my direction relative to flow. The last 1000m of the row back to the red buoy was a bit sloppy. A little bit of wind from the east had sprung up and there was a bit of cross chop that was making it hard to keep a good rhythm. Once I turned into the wind at the buoy, the boat felt a bit heavier, but it was easier to hold a rate.

As I got closer to the end, I pushed the rate and pressure up a bit just for fun.

A fantastic outing.

        Workout Summary - media/20170924-160226-Greg Smith 20170924 0910amo.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|12101|72:55.0|03:00.8|000.0|19.6|142.2|160.0|08.4
W-|11831|69:55.0|02:57.3|000.0|19.7|142.4|160.0|08.6
R-|00273|03:00.0|05:29.5|000.0|18.1|126.4|160.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|02397|15:30.0|03:14.0|000.0|19.3|134.2|147.0|08.0 - a/ tide
01|03610|19:30.0|02:42.0|000.0|19.3|144.4|148.0|09.6 - w/ tide
02|03643|23:00.0|03:09.4|000.0|19.6|142.8|150.0|08.1 - a/ tide
03|02180|11:55.3|02:44.0|000.0|20.8|149.0|160.0|08.8 - w/ tide

Tomorrow: Short interval/Short rest on the erg. 15 x 3’/1′

30 minutes hard – static

September 23, 2017Leave a comment

It was foggy and windy this morning so no coastal rowing for me. Probably a good thing. I have a lot of issues to work on right now, but threshold fitness is probably the biggest one. It’s probably easier to focus on fitness on the erg compared to a coastal row with a lot of wind, chop and other distractions.

Plan:

5 minute warmup with 10 stroke bursts at 22/24/26/28
30 minutes hard
- rate target: 24
- pace target 1:55
- HR limit: none

Workout Summary - media/20170923-1750570o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|09631|39:00.0|02:01.5|209.7|23.5|163.3|181.0|10.5
W-|07749|30:00.0|01:56.1|223.0|24.0|169.4|181.0|10.7
R-|01885|09:00.0|02:23.3|155.4|21.3|139.2|181.0|08.1
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|01300|05:00.0|01:55.4|232.5|23.8|152.5|162.0|10.9
02|01301|05:00.0|01:55.3|228.9|24.0|164.9|168.0|10.8
03|01286|05:00.0|01:56.7|220.5|23.9|169.2|172.0|10.7
04|01284|05:00.0|01:56.8|219.5|23.9|174.0|175.0|10.7
05|01275|05:00.0|01:57.7|214.7|24.0|176.3|178.0|10.6
06|01304|05:00.0|01:55.1|222.1|24.6|179.8|181.0|10.6

I held onto to 1:55 as the target through the first 10 minutes, but I felt like I wasn’t going to be able to keep it up the whole way. I decided to let the pace drift up to 1:57. That got me through the next 5 minutes. At the halfway point, I decided to try to play a little visualization game. I tried to remember the rough spacing of bridges in the HOCR. I was pretty sure it was about 5 minutes from the Eliot bridge to the end. It was probably a little more than 5 minutes from the Anderson to Eliot, and another 5 minutes from Western to Anderson. So, I tried to visualize the different parts of the course as I did them. I was really struggling at 10 minutes to go, and I was picturing myself going around the long turn from Anderson to Eliot. I pictured the Cambridge Boat Club coming into view with about 2 minutes left and focused to trying to stay close to the buoy line. I let my pace slip a bit slower than 1:57 because I wanted to save a little for the last stretch beyond the eliot bridge. With 5 minutes to go, I split it up even more. First was about 25 strokes to get me to the BBN docks. Then 50 strokes to get around the last turn. Then a final 50 strokes to the finish.

It was pretty satisfying to get it done. I was really losing hope in the middle. I am not pleased at all about the time. My best 30 minutes is 1:48.8 pace back in 2013, and my best hour is at a 1:52 pace late in 2015. Hell, my best half marathon is faster at 1:53.6 (also in 2015). So I am more than 7 seconds off my best pace for head race distances. All I can do is work on my tolerance for pain and do my best.

Tomorrow: Hopefully an easy coastal row.

The Voyage of the Doomed

September 22, 20172 Comments

Or…The Accidental Triathlon

The day started like any other day. I woke up, did my hated core exercise routine, and drove to Newton to go for a row. Little did I know that my easy steady state session would end up…in disaster.

It was cool and grey out. They was a brisk, gusty wind from the ENE blowing about 15mph with gusts to 20. This was a cross head wind going downstream. The 4km trip from the dock to the dam was an uneventful slog. I have not spent enough time in the boat and my rowing was terrible. There was a bit of chop in some places, and the wind was hard enough to toss around my oars. But I just worked on trying to keep my oars off the water on recovery and take nice smooth strokes.

I turned around at the dam, and I was really looking forward to working with a tail wind. I rowed back under the bridge, and in front of the watch factory. As I was approaching the s-turn, I heard a loud metallic pop behind me and my port oar washed out. I looked over my shoulder and my rigger had failed. I row in a Fluid which has a bow mounted rigger. There is a main strut and a smaller reinforcing strut. The main strut had completely severed, right near the edge of the hull. The only thing holding the rigger on was the thin reinforcing strut.

After a few moments considering my situation. I was roughly 3km of river away from the dock. I decided to see if I could gently paddle along on what was left of the rigger and make back to the dock. This worked great! For about 20 strokes. Then the joint connecting the severed main strut to the reinforcing strut parted and I was left holding an oar that just dragging in the water. An immediate moment of panic passed when I realized that I could keep the boat balanced by leaning to starboard a bit on my good oar. That gave me time to think. The first thought was…I am not getting out of this boat without getting wet.

Obviously, I wasn’t going to be able to make it back to the dock, but there was a boat launch ramp about 100m from me. 100m is not far to go, but if you have no means of propulsion, and it’s 100m upwind, it isn’t really close either. For about a minute, I thought the wind would push me to the bank of the river and I could get out there. Then it became clear that I was getting pushed to a part of the bank where there was a lot of underbrush, and I wouldn’t have been able to get out.

I made the decision to eject. I leaned to port, and quick as a wink, I was in the water next to my inverted boat. I kept a grip on the loose oar. I was worried that the extra weight of the broken rigger on it might be enough to make it sink, which I now doubt would have happened, but at the time, it seemed quite important to me. With my free hand, I flipped the boat back over, got my water bottle and flip flops back in the cockpit and started swimming upwind to the dock.

The swim took a while, maybe 5 minutes or so. I’m looking at this as the second leg of my triathlon. Then I put my boat and oars off in a grassy corner of the little park where the ramp is. It was a bit worrying that I could hear water sloshing around in the bow. I’ll have to look into that later.

OK. So I was on land and I had a boat. What’s my next step. I knew that I was 3km from the dock on the river. I had no idea how far it was to get there on foot. And then I discovered reason #67 to have a smartphone with you when you row.

Reason 67 to have a smartphone with you in a boat: If your rigger fails and you need to get back to your car, you can use it to give you directions!

It turns out that there is a path that runs along the river, but cuts out a lot of the twists. Google maps told me that my car was 1.5 miles away. I put on my flip flops and jogged the whole way for the final leg of the Triathlon. I got to my car, changed into some dry clothes and then drove to pick up my boat. I never knew that it would be so handy to keep my boat rack on my car. I’m just glad that I do! I picked up my boat and my oars and headed to work. The crazy thing is that I got to work almost exactly at the time that I normally do. It was a disaster, but a very efficient one from a time point of view!

Part 1 of the row. No HR data because it was connected to the speedcoach that ran out of battery power. This took me about 3km into the row. When the speedcoach packed up, I stopped this session and hooked the HR monitor to RIM to continue with part 2.

Part 2 of the row. Finishing the trip down to the dam, turning around and rowing until the boat busted. Then the swim to the ramp!

I didn’t bother tracking HR or pace on the run back to my car, but it took about 15 minutes.

Tomorrow: We’re heading to the cape tonight. If the wind dies down I might go for a coastal row tomorrow. Other wise it will be on the erg. In either case, the goal will be head race simulation. 30 minutes at 24 spm.

Here are few pictures of the busted rigger

4 x 2K / 5′ – on the erg – Back at it

September 22, 2017October 2, 2017Leave a comment

When my alarm went off at 5:15 this morning, I felt very tired. I walked downstairs, thought about it for a minute, and then went back to bed for another 2 hours. I got up at 7:30 and felt much better.

As I drove to work, the weather was fine, but a bit windy. It would have been perfectly rowable, but I was glad to get the additional sleep.

My new plan was to do the workout at the end of the day on the erg. Because I have missed just about a full month of serious training, both technique and fitness need attention. Today I wanted to focus on fitness.

I haven’t done this workout since 9/16/2016, just over a year ago. This winter and spring, I was using the Eddie Fletcher Marathon training plan and haven’t been doing the normal interval work at all.

I point out all of that basically to say that I had very low expectations, and I didn’t want to bite off more than I could chew. So, I decided to pick a conservative pace target.

The Plan:

4 x 2000 / 5′ rest
pace target: 1:55 or faster
rate target: 1st: 24, 2nd 25, 3rd 26, 4th: no target
HR limits: none
Technique: Focus on keeping my knees together at Head race stroke rates

        Workout Summary - media/20170921-2215550o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|13292|63:15.0|02:22.8|189.4|23.2|152.6|179.0|09.1
W-|10000|38:14.0|01:54.7|232.6|24.4|159.1|179.0|10.8
R-|03295|25:01.0|03:48.0|074.7|20.0|136.8|179.0|03.8
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|02000|07:55.7|01:58.9|209.5|22.0|138.6|157.0|11.4
01|02000|07:36.8|01:54.2|234.6|23.9|158.0|169.0|11.0
02|02000|07:36.7|01:54.2|236.9|24.6|163.1|174.0|10.7
03|02000|07:29.9|01:52.5|246.0|26.0|167.7|179.0|10.2
04|02000|07:35.0|01:53.8|237.5|25.4|169.4|179.0|10.4

That was hard work. I managed an average pace of 1:53.7. Under “normal” circumstances, I would consider this a massive fail. But given that I am coming back from an injury layoff, and going by the HRs, I was working very hard. Mostly I was really happy about sticking with it in the later reps and I walked a bit taller walking away from the erg.

Tomorrow: OTW steady state. Focus on technique.

Forced back indoors

September 20, 2017September 20, 2017Leave a comment

Up at 5:15. Felt pretty tired. Ramping back up to normal training volumes is a bit of a shock to my system, I guess.

Downstairs and straight into the core workout. I still hate it, but doing the 10 jumping jacks between each set of each exercise breaks it up and makes it a bit more tolerable. It takes about 12 minutes, and I just start to break a sweat by the end.

Then I drove to the river. On the way, there was a bit more drizzle than yesterday, but it seemed OK. When I got there, I grabbed my broom to sweep the goose poop off the dock. While I walked to the dock, I noticed 2 things. First, it was raining harder. It was still very fine mist, but at a higher volume. Kinda like a shower in a cheap motel. And the wind was pretty strong, around 10mph with gusts to 20. There is a tropical storm about 150 miles offshore and the wind field is overspreading eastern Massachusetts.

Anyway, just the walk to the dock was enough to convince me slogging into a headwind with a soaking rain would not provide a magically rewarding fitness experience. So I walked back to the car, drove to work and headed to the fitness center.

The Plan:

15′ warmup – treadmill death march (15% grade, 3mph)
3 x 15′ static erg
- 20 spm
- 2:08
- HR limit: 155 (hopefully lower)
- Work on knees together

Workout Summary - media/20170920-1231170o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|11018|51:00.0|02:18.9|160.6|19.5|143.5|154.0|11.1
W-|10548|45:00.0|02:08.0|166.5|19.6|144.3|154.0|12.0
R-|00473|06:00.0|06:20.5|057.3|17.9|125.7|154.0|06.4
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|03518|15:00.0|02:07.9|166.0|19.2|139.3|147.0|12.2
01|03517|15:00.0|02:08.0|166.4|19.7|144.8|152.0|11.9
02|03514|15:00.0|02:08.1|167.1|19.8|148.8|154.0|11.8

So far, my back is holding up well. I still feel a bit of pain first thing in the morning and I get some warning twinges if I take a bad stroke, but it is tolerating the increased volume without any more pain or stiffness.

It’s time to take stock of where I am and what to do now. The first and most pressing decision is what to do about the HOCR, which is on the morning October 21st. 32 days from now. Seeing where I am now, versus where I was last time I rowed the HOCR, I would certainly do a lot worse. Back then, my 2.0 mmol power was around 185W on the erg. Right now, I would bet that it’s around 165W. So, my guess is that I would be about 5 sec/500 slower than last time. So, tack another 50 seconds on my finish time. So, I’d go from a 22:15 to a 23:15, dropping from 25th place to 37th place (out of 58).

I wouldn’t be delighted with that, but its better than DFL. I sure love rowing in this race. I think I want to do it, even though I would not be at my best. The question is: What is the best way to prepare for it? I’m obviously not going to improve my aerobic fitness much over 32 days. I will get some of that fitness back quickly just by regaining some blood volume. But the main focus has to be on head race pace rowing. Actually the main focus has to be on injury prevention. After that I can focus on head race prep.

So, the mini plan is.

2 UT2 sessions per week 60 to 80 minutes of work per session. Interval based. No longer than 15 minutes continuous on the erg with stretching

1 UT1 session per week 60 minutes of work hopefully on the water

1 head race simulation per week. Starting at r24 and moving up in rate.

1 long interval session per week. basically 4×2000 type stuff with nice long rests

1 short interval/short rest per week. concentrate on technique at r26 and r28

Daily core exercises (ugh)

In all sessions work on keeping knees together, limiting layback, and keeping my spine straight.

Tomorrow: Hopefully back on the water. Long intervals. 4 x 2k. Should be a disaster.

Back on the water

September 19, 2017September 20, 2017Leave a comment

Sunday, September 17th

We hung out down on the cape until mid-afternoon and then headed home. There was still no AC in the house. But around 8pm, I settled in for a sweaty erg session. Today, painsled decided to cooperate.

The same session as Saturday. 4 x 15′ / 2′ rest with stretching in the rests. HR limited at 155.

        Workout Summary - media/20170917-2005310o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|14605|68:01.0|02:19.7|145.9|21.6|141.6|156.0|09.9
W-|13735|60:00.0|02:11.0|155.6|21.4|143.0|156.0|10.7
R-|00874|08:01.0|04:35.5|041.6|22.8|123.3|156.0|06.5
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|03481|15:00.0|02:09.3|161.5|21.3|132.8|142.0|10.9
01|03463|15:00.0|02:09.9|159.5|21.2|143.6|152.0|10.9
02|03412|15:00.0|02:11.9|152.7|21.3|146.1|155.0|10.7
03|03379|15:00.0|02:13.2|148.8|21.9|149.4|156.0|10.3

Monday, September 18th

Yet again I had to be home in the morning to let workmen in and get them setup. That killed any chance for a morning workout. I finally had a window around 5pm. I headed down to the fitness center. I’m worried about too much rowing, so I decided to start off on the treadmill with a 20 minute death march (15% grade, 3mph).

After that I was planning to jump on our brand new Model D indoor rowing machine. But someone beat me to it! While I waited, I jumped on a elliptical machine to get a few more aerobic minutes.

Now the rower was open and I hopped on. The PM5 picked up my HR monitor and linked with Painsled with no issues. I set up a time based interval session. 15 minute work and 2 minute rest. I intended to do 2 intervals.

        Workout Summary - media/20170918-1720320o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|07324|34:00.0|02:19.3|160.0|19.2|149.3|158.0|11.2
W-|06991|30:00.0|02:08.7|164.2|19.1|150.1|158.0|12.2
R-|00335|04:00.0|05:58.0|079.4|19.1|133.8|158.0|05.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|03562|15:00.0|02:06.3|172.6|19.5|151.0|158.0|12.2
01|03428|15:00.0|02:11.3|155.9|18.8|149.3|153.0|12.2

I was interested to see how it compared to the dynamic. Same stroke rate. I think about a 4 second pace differential, not as much as I would have thought going in.

Tuesday, September 19

I was so excited to get back on the water, I woke up before my alarm and just lay there imagining how awesome it would be.

Since this was my first early morning workout since my injury, I wanted to put in place my new protocol. I got up and went straight into my core routine (curl ups, side planks, bird dogs). Man, I am coming to loathe doing ab exercises. I stretched before and during and did some jumping jacks and stuff. Hopefully it was enough to squish some of the extra fluid out of my disks before I went rowing.

The drive to where I launch is about 30 minutes. I was on the water by 6:30. The weather was less than perfect. It was around 65F, with a fine misty drizzle and a bit of wind from the northeast, maybe about 7 mph. This was a headwind going downriver.

I was really happy that my balance wasn’t terrible. I felt comfortable almost immediately. The plan for the day was pretty simple:

steady state
r20
heart rate limit: 150. lower is better
no pace target
technique focus: keep knees together at the catch. rock hips over at the catch and keep spine straight. focus on isolating the back swing.

I was using the speed coach the whole workout but because I stopped right at the beginning to change what I looked at in one of the display fields, it stopped and I forgot to restart it. I didn’t realize what I had done until I went to upload the session and saw that it was for a total distance of 8 meters!

But, as an experienced speedcoach user, I have my backup. No heart rate, but at least I have the whole session on RIM.

        Workout Summary - media/20170919-193028-95635o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|12766|70:59.0|02:46.8|000.0|20.0|0.0|000.0|09.0
W-|11801|58:39.0|02:29.1|000.0|20.3|000.0|000.0|09.9
R-|00973|12:20.0|06:20.4|000.0|17.5|000.0|000.0|03.6
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|00821|04:07.2|02:30.6|000.0|19.8|000.0|0.0|10.1 - To the cut
02|03019|15:10.2|02:30.7|000.0|20.0|000.0|0.0|09.9 - To the dam headwind
03|02865|14:00.0|02:26.6|000.0|20.4|000.0|0.0|10.0 - Back to the cut Tail
04|02013|10:25.2|02:35.3|000.0|20.4|000.0|0.0|09.5 - to the bridge
05|02178|10:34.8|02:25.7|000.0|20.5|000.0|0.0|10.0 - back to the cut
06|00905|04:22.2|02:24.8|000.0|20.7|000.0|0.0|10.0 - Back to the dock

I think the paces are overly optimistic. I can see the jaggies on the map

(map provided by rowsandall using the latest and greatest navionics overlay!)

It’s more obvious in a close up of the s-turn.

I was so happy to be back on the water, I can’t even begin to describe how much better the rest of my day was. I was just walking around grinning.

Even more rowing

September 17, 2017September 19, 20171 Comment

I arrived home from Vegas around 9pm on Sept 13th.

Sept 14th: I worked from home because we are having some work done around the house and I needed to be there while the various tradesmen did their things. Around 4 in the afternoon, they cleared out and I went for a quick run. My intent was to do an erg session afterwards, but my wife came home while I was out running, so that part never happened.

It wasn’t much of a run, about 5km. I ran the first 4.3km, then walked for about 5 inutes and then jogged home.

Screen Shot 2017-09-16 at 9.56.06 PM.png

September 15th: The various projects that were supposed to conclude on Thursday, did not, in fact conclude on Thursday, so I needed to be home in the morning to supervise. I needed to be at work in the afternoon, so I left them unattended. A big mistake as it turned out because the work that was done on our heating system was done badly and will need to be redone. Since I got to work late, I spent the rest of the day rushing around, and then in the evening my wife and I spent hours trying to track down the people responsible for messing up our heating system. Ultimately we gave up and drove down to the Cape. So, no training on Friday.

Saturday, September 16th.

On the way to the cape, we got a call from the heating system company. They would have a technician at our house between 10 and 11 on Saturday morning. Oh well, I was hoping for an easy coastal row on Saturday morning, but priorities must be maintained. I headed back first thing the morning. I was quite pleased to see that it was way to foggy to row anyway.

The technician showed up at 1:50pm, in other words, nearly 3 hours late. And the work they did was just as bad as the work done on Friday. It will all need to be done yet again on Monday. The highlight was a slow and sweaty session that I did on the dynamic.

I’m taking a bit of a different strategy with the dynamic. I have upped the drag a bit, setting it around 4 or so. (drag factor 120). and I am keeping the stroke rate above 20. I am also working very hard to keep my knees together at the catch, keep my chin up and limit the amount of layback. It leads to a very different feeling strong. Less long and smooth, but much easier on my lower back.

I was annoyed that I didn’t have my HR strap, so I just rowed to constant pace (2:10, ~160W). In another strategy to limit the back strain, I rowed 15 minute pieces and 2 minutes rests, and I got off the erg and stretched during the rests. This resulted in a reasonable intensity and a huge sweat fest in the humidity (Did I mention that the issues with the heating also effected the air conditioning?)

I was further annoyed when painsled hung up around 8 minutes into the second interval. The PM kept going, but stopped talking to painsled for some reason. It’s really a pretty unreliable connection.

Here’s the first 23 minutes of rowing.

9-16

        Workout Summary - media/20170916-2110320o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|05470|25:12.0|02:18.3|157.2|20.5|0.0|000.0|10.6
W-|05383|23:12.0|02:09.4|160.9|20.5|000.0|000.0|11.3
R-|00088|02:00.0|11:18.4|029.4|21.9|000.0|000.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|03484|15:00.0|02:09.1|161.5|20.2|000.0|0.0|11.5
01|01898|08:12.5|02:09.7|159.9|20.9|000.0|0.0|11.1

Here’s the rest of it on the PM

Tomorrow: I hope to go for a row in the morning. Nice and gentle. Focus on good form.

Quantified Rowing

Measure – Adjust – Improve

Waterfall

40 minutes with bumps

15 x 3′ / 1′ Static

12km coastal row in Wellfleet

30 minutes hard – static

The Voyage of the Doomed

4 x 2K / 5′ – on the erg – Back at it

Forced back indoors

Back on the water

Even more rowing