A little bit more rowing

September 13, 2017Leave a comment

So, I was delighted to find that my back was not hurting more than usual this morning. It might have even felt a little bit better.

I had a conference call from 7 to 8:30, and then I headed to the gym to squeeze in a workout before my flight home.

I am trying to keep in mind the warnings that I have read about injury risk first thing in the morning, and wanted to be careful about how much I do, so I decided to do a 15 minute treadmill death march as a warmup and then a 30 minute row.

As it turned out, after I finished my warmup, somebody else was actually using the rowing machine. :-O

I had to wait 7 minutes for them to finish flailing about ineffectually. I also had to resist the urge to go offer coaching tips 😉

So, my time window was closing, but I still had 20 minutes. I thought it might be good to do a toned down version of a Fletcher Warmup. I’d do it at a slower pace, and focus on keeping my knees together.

The 15 minute death march (15% grade, 3mph) was the usual UT2 slog. My HR was just hitting the top of the UT2 band as I was finishing up.

While I waited for the erg to free up, I puttered along on an elliptical trainer, trying to keep my HR in the UT2 zone. So, tack on another 7 minutes or so of warmup.

Then the machine freed up, and I settled in for my fletcher.

I was doing it strapless, and I was pretty focused on both keeping my knees together, avoiding over compression at the catch, and avoiding too much layback at the finish. Rowing that way really kind of limited how high a rate I could do to around 25 spm.

The other limiting factor was how hard it was! I was gassed after the initial ramp up. Way too gassed. I have lost a lot of fitness over the past few weeks. Oh well, it is what it is. I have to take it slow and try to come back cleanly.

        Workout Summary - media/20170913-1150310o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|04777|20:00.0|02:05.6|181.0|20.1|156.0|170.0|11.9
W-|04781|20:00.0|02:05.5|178.3|19.9|155.5|170.0|12.1
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|00935|04:00.0|02:08.4|163.3|17.8|134.0|146.0|13.1
01|00958|04:00.0|02:05.3|177.9|20.0|152.7|158.0|12.0
02|00739|03:00.0|02:01.8|194.0|21.8|161.6|164.0|11.3
03|00256|01:00.0|01:57.1|217.1|23.5|166.4|168.0|10.9
04|00134|00:30.0|01:51.9|246.9|25.2|168.6|169.0|10.6
05|00454|02:00.0|02:12.2|154.6|18.4|163.9|170.0|12.4
06|00263|01:00.0|01:54.0|236.4|24.3|165.3|169.0|10.8
07|00451|02:00.0|02:13.1|149.8|17.7|164.1|169.0|12.7
08|00131|00:30.0|01:54.4|225.8|23.2|161.5|162.0|11.3
09|00460|02:00.0|02:10.4|160.5|18.1|162.6|165.0|12.7

Tomorrow: I think I will try to do another hybrid workout. Probably a 30′ run/walk as a warmup and 30′ UT2 on the erg, keeping the stroke pressure low.

This sucks

September 13, 20179 Comments

So, my last post was on September 2nd. Ten days ago. At that time, my back was killing me and I decided that I needed to really lay off the rowing until I figured out what was going on. I bought the book “Back Mechanic”, read it cover to cover, and I’m trying to use the good advice contained within.

This advice can be boiled down to:

Avoid aggravating your injury by practicing good “back hygiene”. This means sitting up straight and avoiding positions that hurt.
Figure out the most likely cause of pain by doing some diagnostic tests. (For me this resulted in a likely diagnosis of a disk injury in the lumbar region. One fun fact that I learning is that disks are hydrophylic, which means that they absorb fluid over night and are “puffy” in the morning. So, if you have a disk impinging on a nerve it will probably hurt more in the morning and will feel better after the disks lose a bit of fluid over the first hour or two of the day. Interestingly, this makes you more susceptible to disk injury first thing in the morning too. So once I get back to rowing, I should do a non-rowing warmup before taking a stroke)
Start strengthening your core muscles with a set of defined exercises that utilize a limited range of motion, but help to work on the muscle balance in you back and abdomen
Don’t do any stretching to the limit of you motion until you are pain free. Stretching will essentially release chemicals that ease the pain immediately, but will continue the inflammation cycle and slow down recovery.

So, I’ve been dutifully doing my core exercises nearly every day. They are boring and a pain in the ass, but I have to put in the effort. Over the ten days, the amount of pain I feel in the mornings has been steadily decreasing, but is not going away.

Yesterday I went to the doctor for my annual physical. I asked him about my back issues and he diagnosed me as having a problem with my SI Joint. This is the joint between the Sacrum and the Ilium. I am less than completely convinced he is right.

So, he has set me up for x-rays next week, and referred me for physical therapy. I need to find myself a PT that understands rowing.

I also discovered to my horror that I have gained 12 pounds over the past couple of months. I guess my eating hasn’t changed even though I’m burning a thousand less calories a day. Another thing I have to fix.

In terms of training, here’s a quick synopsis of the past 10 days.

9/3 – Another walk around the island.

9/4 – Another walk around the island.

9/5 – Fly off to California – no training. Used a lumbar cushion on the airline seat and that seemed to help reduce pain.

9/6 – 60 minutes in the fitness center. 30 minutes on the treadmill set to max incline at 3 mph, a fast walk. Then 30 minutes on an elliptical machine.

9/7 – 48 minutes in the fitness center. 30 minutes on the treadmill same deal, max incline, fast walk. Then I moved over to the elliptical for another 30 minutes. 18 minutes into that, I got a call from the guy I was meeting saying that he was in the lobby. I thought I had another 45 minutes before he was arriving. Dashed off to the shower. Long day of meetings. Caught the red eye home.

9/8 – Got home around 7am and slept for a couple of hours. Then worked from home. Late in the day, I decided to go for a short run to see if my back would tolerate that. It did. I ran for 30 minutes and then walked another 15.

9/9 – We headed back to the Cape on Friday evening and I’m glad we did. Saturday morning, it was incredibly beautiful out. I went for another walk around the island. I was feeling a lot of stiffness from the run on Friday, but my back was not significantly worse. The tide was low so I could get out on the sand flats a bit more and watch the birds.

9/10 – Same thing as the day before. Another glorious day, another walk. Still sore from Friday’s run, but less so.

9/11 – Monday. I had my doctors appointment, then a few hours of meetings and then headed off to the airport. I flew out to Las Vegas for a conference, arriving around 8 pm. Got to the hotel, grabbed dinner and went to bed. No training.

9/12 – Tuesday. I slept in a bit longer than I should have, so by the time I did my core exercises, I only had enough time for a 30 minute death march on the treadmill. I did that, showered and went to the conference. This finished around 5, and so I headed back to the gym. Now this hotel (The Wynn Hotel) has a fantastic fitness center. Lots of treadmills, stationary bikes, and a nearly new Concept2 Model E rowing machine with PM5. I managed to ignore it this morning, but it’s siren song was way too tempting for me this afternoon. I melted under the pressure and before I knew it I was sitting on the seat, linking my phone to the PM and firing up painsled.

Part of me thought this was pretty stupid. But part of me thought that a session done at lighter pressure would be a gentle test to see if I might be ready to resume some light rowing specific training. I decided to do 30 minutes and to up the stroke rate by 2 from my more normal stroke pressures. So 18 SPM would yield 160w and 20 SPM would yield 180W.

I also wanted to really focus on trying to limit my over reach at the catch. I’ve been dropping my legs apart to get more length and I suspect that this new aspect of my style is what is putting more stress on my back. So the goal for the day was to row with my knees together, even at the catch. I caught myself slipping a few times, but generally it was OK.

        Workout Summary - media/20170912-2040320o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|07278|31:07.0|02:08.3|169.9|18.9|145.0|157.0|12.4
W-|07280|31:07.0|02:08.3|169.1|18.8|145.4|157.0|12.4
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|157.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|02417|10:00.0|02:04.1|182.4|19.9|132.3|148.0|12.1
01|02364|10:00.0|02:06.9|173.6|18.7|150.1|155.0|12.6
02|02322|10:00.0|02:09.2|162.8|18.0|153.5|157.0|12.9
03|00176|01:07.8|03:12.2|068.3|17.7|148.3|157.0|08.8

Not very impressive, but I was glad to have done it. My back is letting me know that it’s a little unhappy, but the true test will be how it feels in the morning.

After that, I had reached my 30 minute limit for rowing, so I moved over to the treadmill and did 20 minute death march.

Tomorrow, I head home. I might have time for a quick workout in the morning before I leave, but I will only go if I’m not paralyzed with pain.

Back Injury

September 2, 2017September 2, 20172 Comments

Injuries are an unavoidable part of being an aging athlete. Generally, they are minor twists, scrapes and contusions, but some are more serious. Over the past 8 years, I have worked through a whole assortment of injuries

Rib Stress Fractures (cured by rest)
Osteo-arthritis in my knees (treated with cortizone shots and improved with arthroscopic surgery)
Sciatica (improved by using seat pad on the erg and better seat in the boat)
pinched nerve in my high back (trained through)

Now I am working out how to manage an injury to my lower back. I hurt it in an open water session a couple of weeks ago. I didn’t notice it at the time, but by that evening, I had trouble standing up. It was a very localized pain right at the top of my left buttock, between my spine and my hip. If I stood straight up, I could lean slowly forward at my hips and it would hurt at a very specific angle, around 60 degrees from vertical.

After that, I would stretch and maybe take a day or two off from rowing and then return. The back pain was there, but manageable and I thought it was improving. Then on 22 August, I did a sprint workout, a Pyramid session (250/500/750/1K/750/500/250) in my single. I felt fine immediately afterward, but by the end of the workday, it was very painful to stand up from a sitting position and the pain made it difficult to sleep in any position but flat on my back. I took two days off of rowing and then eased back in with some lighter pressure endurance sessions. It still hurt when I woke up in the morning, but felt pretty good through the day and at night.

On 29 August I rowed out on Lake Quinsigamond with my friend Joe. We did a 2 min on / 1 min off session. This was a bit moretame than a pure sprint session, with stroke rates around 26-28 for most of the on sessions. But the same pattern occurred. Felt fine right after, but by the end of the day, I was in serious pain. Again, I could only sleep on my back. The pain in the morning made it a challenge to bend over to put on my underwear and pants. Working out was out of the question. I’ve been trying to figure out what to do since then.

I even went to the unimpeachable fount of information, facebook, and posed the question to the master rowers group. To my surprise, I’ve gotten over 120 replies so far and a lot of good advice. Here’s a synopsis of what I’ve gleaned and the framework of my plan.

Make immediate changes to try to improve my spinal hygiene. This includes getting a lumbar support brace to remind me to sit up straight. Sit on an exercise ball. Stand more (I’m going to ask for a standing desk at work)
Take anti-inflammatories (Ibuprofen for now) as needed
Stop rowing until I get cleared up
Seek a genuine medical diagnosis so I understand what is going on in there (I’ll get a referral from the guy who did my knee)
Learn all I can about back injuries and how to manage them (Many people recommended this book “The Back Mechanic” by Stuart McGill. Other folks pointed me to this online presentation by Fiona Wilson)
Once I have a diagnosis and treatment plan, find a physical therapist who does a lot of work with rowers to help me figure out a plan to strengthen my core and improve my injury resistance (If anyone knows a good physio in the Boston area, please let me know)
Multiple people commented on my posture in my facebook profile picture which shows me with an unusual amount of layback. They recommended that I get some immediate coaching. I think that is actually really good advice. Once I can get back into a boat, I will try to find a good online (or local) coach. I have higher hopes for online coaching since my training schedule is so constrained and variable.

Who knows how this will go or how long it will take to get better, but my priority is to get healthy and fix whatever elements of my rowing style (and lifestyle) contributed to injury before resuming hard training. My most important objective is to be able to row until I am very, very old. I don’t want to do something now that will jeopardize that.

So, for now, it will be cross training. Walks, jogs, maybe some biking if I am pain free. I won’t scratch from the HOCR yet, but I’ll make a decision about that in a month or so.

By the way, today, I went for a nice 4km walk around the island. About 40 minutes or so.

Walk around Lt Island

Tuesday: 9 x 2′ / 1′ in the double

August 29, 2017Leave a comment

I needed to drop off my car for service out in Shrewsbury for service at 7am. So, I dropped a text to my friend Joe to see if he wanted to take out a double with me before I dropped off my car. We met at the boathouse at 5:30am, and the eastern sky was just starting to lighten up. It reminded me of last fall when we would do a couple sessions a week like this when we were getting ready for the HOCR.

It was cool, only about 50F and there was a lot of mist on the water. There was a bit of wind blowing from the North, maybe 6 mph of so. Just enough to make the boat feel heavier when we were rowing up lake.

My plan called for an L1 workout today. An 8×500 sprint session. I decided to dial it back a little bit and change it to more of a head race type session since I didn’t think it would be good to try to rate up too much. It takes a few good practices together before you can really get the timing down well enough to sprint together. I figured by cutting back the rests ad bringing down the stroke rate it would be a good threshold workout and it would fit into the trip up the lake. That would leave us the trip from the boathouse down to the south end of the lake to warmup and get used to rowing together, and the trip from the north end of the lake back to the boathouse for cool down.

So, the Plan:

8 or 9 x 2′ / 1′ rest
Target stroke rate: 26-28
Heart Rate Limit: None
Pace Target: Who knows. Maybe 2:15?

       Workout Summary - media/20170829-131818-Greg Smith 20170829 0546amo.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|11696|62:17.0|02:39.8|000.0|24.2|149.1|173.0|07.8
W-|09238|43:52.0|02:22.5|000.0|24.7|153.0|173.0|08.6
R-|02471|18:24.0|03:43.5|000.0|22.1|132.5|173.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|03364|16:00.0|02:22.7|000.0|22.3|143.9|162.0|09.4 - warmup
02|00414|02:00.0|02:25.0|000.0|25.1|144.7|158.0|08.2 - rep 1 - waked
03|00440|02:00.0|02:16.5|000.0|26.8|160.2|166.0|08.2 
04|00416|02:00.0|02:24.3|000.0|28.5|163.3|168.0|07.3 - waked
05|00437|02:00.0|02:17.4|000.0|27.6|162.9|171.0|07.9
06|00434|02:00.0|02:18.1|000.0|26.5|165.7|171.0|08.2
07|00445|02:00.0|02:14.9|000.0|26.7|163.1|171.0|08.3
08|00452|02:00.0|02:12.9|000.0|27.7|166.7|172.0|08.1
09|00451|02:00.0|02:13.1|000.0|27.4|166.3|173.0|08.2
10|00454|02:00.0|02:12.1|000.0|28.0|164.8|172.0|08.1
11|01932|09:52.7|02:33.4|000.0|23.9|151.3|160.0|08.2 - cool down

There was a ski boat out at the same time as us. He nailed us in the middle of our first interval, and then again with 30 seconds left in the third interval. We were free and clear after that. With the head wind we were a bit slower than I thought we’d be, but I was also rowing a bit lighter than I normally would, trying to be careful of my back.

My back was really touchy this morning before we set off. If I bent wrong, I got shooting pains in my hip and lower back. I stretched a bit before we launched and worked my way out to full length during the warmup and it felt much better by the time we finished.

It was a great workout. I really like rowing in the double. I like stroking and not having to worry about steering and its nice to be out rowing with someone literally in the same boat.

Tomorrow: The workout plan calls for an 80′ L4. I am going to continue to substitute r20 endurance sessions for L4s for the foreseeable future to minimize risk of aggrevating my back injury.

For reference, here’s the link to the google sheet with my workout plan and daily summary.

Monday: 75′ Endurance Session 1x

August 28, 20173 Comments

Weather: Stellar! Wonderful! Sunny. Almost chilly. Around 55F at the start, mid 60s when I finished. No wind at the beginning. A little headwind for the last trip up the river.

Plan:

2 laps of the river, roughly 75′
One water break halfway through. Otherwise, just turn and go.
stroke rate: r20 (to reduce the pressure on my lower back)
pace target: I would like to say I didn’t have a target, but I really like seeing the pace be faster than 2:30.
Heart Rate Limit: 155 max. Try to keep it around 150.
Technique: I watch effective length and tried to keep it in the upper 70s

        Workout Summary - media/20170828-145353-Greg Smith 20170828 0641amo.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|13983|74:31.0|02:39.9|141.8|20.0|145.4|156.0|09.4
W-|12631|63:30.0|02:30.8|151.7|20.1|146.0|155.0|09.9
R-|01357|11:01.0|04:03.9|088.6|19.8|142.1|155.0|07.3
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|00913|04:42.0|02:34.4|149.0|21.0|127.4|142.0|09.3 - to start
01|02944|14:33.0|02:28.3|156.3|20.2|146.2|150.0|10.0 - to dam
02|02823|14:15.0|02:31.4|151.6|19.8|147.3|153.0|10.0 - back to cut
03|02751|13:43.8|02:29.7|149.7|19.9|146.4|153.0|10.1 - back to dam
04|03200|16:16.8|02:32.6|150.1|20.1|149.8|155.0|09.8 - back past cut

The challenge of this workout was to balance three things at the same time. Keep my stroke long, keep my stroke rate up at r20 and keep my HR below 155. SInce I have been doing most of my endurance work at r18, or even lower, I am very used to rowing with a lot of stroke pressure. With a higher stroke rate, there are two things that could happen. I could row shorter with the same stroke pressure, or stay the same length and reduce the peak force. I wanted to do the latter.

Mission accomplished….

A few other parametrics.

consistent power
consistent length. A little shorter in the last 15 minutes or so
wash got worse as I went along.

Sunday: Same as Saturday 3 x 20′ / 1′ Dynamic

August 26, 2017August 28, 2017Leave a comment

We had house guests so I couldn’t work out until later in the day. I’m still struggling with the dynamic so I decided to just redo the saturday workout with similar targets to see what happened.

Plan:

3 x 20′ / 1′
stroke rate: r20
Heart Rate Limit: 155
Power target: ~160W (up 3W from yesterday, but I started higher than that yesterday and bled down as I went along. I wanted to be steadier in this session.

       Workout Summary - media/20170827-2245360o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|14300|63:00.0|02:12.2|156.2|21.1|145.7|159.0|10.8
W-|13918|60:00.0|02:09.3|161.2|20.7|145.7|158.0|11.2
R-|00386|03:00.0|03:53.2|060.1|28.8|144.4|158.0|05.3
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|04662|20:00.0|02:08.7|163.3|20.4|137.2|145.0|11.4
01|04640|20:00.0|02:09.3|161.6|20.5|147.5|152.0|11.3
02|04616|20:00.0|02:10.0|158.9|21.1|152.3|158.0|11.0

Comparison of Saturday to Sunday

Much more level power profile
Stroke rate wiggled around a bit in the last 20′ as I tried to max out power without blowing the HR limit.
HR climbed more slowly at the beginning, but was almost exactly the same for the last 2/3 of the workout.

Saturday: 3 x 20′ / 1′ dynamic

August 26, 2017August 27, 2017Leave a comment

HR limit at 155. Still struggling with this erg. Easily 20W to 30W lower power for equivalent HR. Rowing strictly to the HR limit.

I did concentrate on trying to keep my stroke lighter and stroke rate higher to try to reduce the stress on my lower back.

       Workout Summary - media/20170826-2215270o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|14107|63:00.0|02:14.0|155.5|20.3|147.3|157.0|11.0
W-|13842|60:00.0|02:10.0|159.2|20.1|147.4|157.0|11.5
R-|00268|03:00.0|05:35.7|047.5|26.6|141.7|157.0|04.4
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|04730|20:00.0|02:06.9|170.9|20.2|141.2|149.0|11.7
01|04570|20:00.0|02:11.3|154.8|19.8|147.4|154.0|11.6
02|04542|20:00.0|02:12.1|151.8|20.4|153.6|157.0|11.1

I am still perplexed about my performance on the dynamic. Here are very similar 3×20′ sessions. One done on the static about a month ago, and the one fro the dynamic done yesterday. I did a bunch of comparison charts, but I can’t draw any good conclusions.

I will do another session like this on Sunday.

Friday: Easy hour on the water

August 25, 2017August 27, 2017Leave a comment

This was a busy week at work, and I my lower back continued to give me trouble. I had business dinners on Tuesday night and Thursday night, and I was preparing for an important meeting on Friday morning. I was hoping that I could help out both situations by taking a few days off rowing.

I last rowed on Tuesday morning. A tough interval session. My back was killing me afterward. Tuesday I had a full day of meetings with a group from a customer, and we had dinner Tuesday night with them. Wednesday we had a group from a different customer visiting first thing in the morning, plus a big internal meeting that I was hosting. I ended up working quite late. On Thursday, more meetings and then a business dinner that kept me out until almost 11. On Friday, I was presenting in an important meeting at 9am, so I want to get to work early to dry run my materials a couple of times before I was up. It paid off, the meeting went well, and I felt a huge sense of relief after it was over. I finished up what I needed to get done by about 3:30 and decided to go for a nice easy row on my way to relax a little.

The plan:

60 minutes
Heart rate limit: 150
Stroke rate target: 20 (This is a significant shift for me. I have been rowing with much higher stroke power and lower rate)
No pace target.

        Workout Summary - media/20170827-150206-Greg Smith 20170825 0437pmo.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|10795|58:28.0|02:42.5|136.5|18.6|140.7|152.0|09.9
W-|10315|55:25.0|02:41.2|139.0|18.2|140.7|152.0|10.2
R-|00485|03:03.0|03:09.1|111.8|22.8|141.6|152.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|00908|05:00.0|02:45.2|144.2|18.7|127.1|141.0|09.7 - to start
01|03047|15:58.2|02:37.2|152.2|18.2|142.8|148.0|10.5 - to dam
02|02780|14:22.8|02:35.2|140.9|17.7|139.5|147.0|10.9 - back to start
03|01122|06:31.8|02:54.6|128.8|17.6|142.6|148.0|09.8 - 7 min out 
04|01333|07:25.2|02:47.0|128.3|18.1|144.4|152.0|09.9 - 7 min back
05|01125|06:07.1|02:43.1|119.5|19.8|142.7|150.0|09.3 - back to dock

The summary looks a bit weird for the pace on intervals 3 and 4. The eyeball average for the pace looks a bit faster than the summary.

I got distracted during the row and I completely forgot to keep my rate up, so I reverted to my normal r18 kind of rowing. But I did row a bit slower than a similar session from Monday. I was also rowing a lot shorter (as measured by effective length). I dug into the metrics

You can see that everything is a bit smaller for Friday’s row. That’s me being careful with my back.

Tuesday: OTW Pyramid

August 22, 2017August 24, 2017Leave a comment

Weather: Perfect.

Plan:

L1 Pyramid workout
250m/500m/750m/1000m/750m/500m/250m
Roughly 1’30” of rest per 250m rowed
stroke rate target: 28-32
pace target: Not really sure, maybe around 2:00
Technique: Work on improving efficiency at high stroke rates. Try to maintain length and form. Especially keep finishes clean.

I was not feeling good about this workout. My back hurt and I debated whether it was wise to risk to row with it hurting. I’ve had mixed results, some days rowing doesn’t seem to cause any problems and other days, I feel much worse afterwards. (More about that later). I decided to give it a try and bail out if I felt too compromised.

I did a short warm up while heading through the twisty bits to the start of the good section of the river. Since I am training for head races, I eased into each interval with a rolling start, not a racing start (also a bit easier on my back).

I did the intervals by distance. This was a bit of a challenge because I wanted the 4 fields on the speedcoach for pace, HR, effective length and work per stroke. I used RIM for distance and stroke rate on the boat acceleration screen. Analyzing the data later, it looks like there is some innaccuracy in how RIM starts measuring meters because even though I rowed through the full distance by the display, the data on the speedcoach shows I cheated each interval by up to 50 meters. I think I’ll go by time delimited intervals from now on when I’m on the water.

I pounded out the first interval and, frankly, it felt awful. Well, it’s more complicated than that. I really enjoyed the feeling of getting up to speed and seeing the speedcoach dip down into the 1:50s on pace. I love the gurgling noise the boat makes when I’m going fast. I also like the skinny smoothies at higher rates. I felt more stable, and under control above 30 SPM with the longer oars and I felt like the softer shafts made the drive smoother. So, that was what dominated my thinking for the first 20 strokes. Then it hit me. The last 10 strokes really hurt. Whoops. I guess I need to be a little more conservative.

So, I backed off a bit for the 500m. That went OK. The 750m was basically the same deal. I was now struggling a bit with intestinal issues that hit pretty hard after I finished each piece. The back was feeling OK though. I was not looking forward to the 1000m.

For the first 2 intervals, I had rowed back to the start after each and rowed them downstream, but for the 1000, I rowed it in the other direction. There wasn’t much current, but there was a light breeze blowing down river and it surprised me how much slower I was going on the 1000m in the other direction. But I made it through it and it was pretty clear sailing for the rest of it.

I didn’t realized how tired I was getting, but I had a bad case of tunnel vision in the last 250m and nearly ran myself into the riverbank with some very poor steering. I had to do one of those full stops where you jam both oars in and reverse feather to avoid it.

I rowed back to the dock with feet out and tried to work on perfect finishes.

When you look at it on a pie chart it looks a lot easier than it felt.

You can see how the intervals all got shaved down a bit. Very disappointing for a completist like myself. i probably would have been close to the 2:00 target if I hadn’t been working against the head wind in the 1000m piece.

        Workout Summary - media/20170822-151706-Greg Smith 20170822 0636amo.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|10478|69:33.0|03:19.2|130.5|23.7|138.4|176.0|06.3
W-|03780|15:34.0|02:03.7|267.5|29.4|158.8|176.0|08.2
R-|06699|53:59.0|04:01.8|069.6|21.1|129.5|176.0|07.2
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|00233|00:55.6|01:59.3|278.9|29.9|149.0|159.0|08.4
02|00475|01:55.1|02:01.2|274.7|30.0|152.8|165.0|08.2
03|00701|02:54.6|02:04.5|274.4|28.4|158.3|172.0|08.5
04|00962|04:09.7|02:09.8|251.3|28.8|163.9|175.0|08.0
05|00704|02:56.3|02:05.2|248.8|28.8|160.9|174.0|08.3
06|00464|01:49.3|01:57.8|289.5|30.8|160.3|176.0|08.3
07|00241|00:54.2|01:52.5|308.9|33.0|150.3|167.0|08.1

I did a lot of metrics charts.

power and wps: pretty consistent through the workout.
stroke rate and pace: I tried to hold 28 for the 750s and 1000. I tried to push it up to 30 or higher for the 500s and 250s
peak force: I think it’s interesting that I was most consistent in the last 500m interval. I bet that’s a good thing. The prior 750 looks much sloppier.
length: Very happy that my effective length was consistent as I got more tired.

The bads news was that I could barely stand up after I got back to the dock. My lower back was VERY irritated. Well to be more precise about it, the area at the top of my left glute, right around where my pelvis is. It is not very painful once I find a reasonable position, but bending over and getting up from sitting cause me problems.

Since then, I’ve been on a diet of ibuprofen and rest. I skipped yesterday’s L4 and today’s L2. I’m not sure how long this will take to heal, but I think I will avoid rowing for a few days. I’ll give the stationary bike a go to see if I can at least save a bit of aerobic fitness.

Monday: Exactly one hour

August 21, 2017Leave a comment

Well, vacation is over. This morning at 5:15, my alarm went off. The alarm was loud enough to wake up my wife, but not me, so she nudged me awake. I was so tired that I felt nauseous, so I just shut it off and rolled over to go back to sleep.

But my brain had other ideas. There were so many different voices in my head. “Get up, do the session” “You need more sleep” “When’s my first meeting” “Do I have any free time blocks to go catch a quick workout on the erg?” “Should I even be rowing with my sore back?” After 9 minutes of this jabbering, I gave up, got up, and stumbled through my morning routine. The bathroom phase of the routine took a bit longer than normal. There is nothing worse than trying to row when you need to poop (sorry, but it’s true)

By the time I got on the road, I knew that my workout would be time limited. Luckily, traffic wasn’t too bad and i was on the water by 7:03am. I knew I needed to be on the road by 8:15 to my 9:00am meeting on time (allowing a generous 12 minutes to shower and change). So, that provided a window exactly one hour long for my row.

The plan:

60 minute recovery / endurance session
stroke rate target: 18 spm
target effective length: 80deg
target WPS: >450
HR limit: 150

My plan was to row until the elapsed time was 29:30, then turn around and retrace my path. This ended up being about 1/3 of the way back to the start from the dam in Waltham, right before the s-turn.

My heart rate was stubbornly low today. I’m coming to think that this is related to very hard efforts the day before. After about 15 minutes, I got up into the UT2 range, and I was able to hold my heart rate right at the top of the ut2 range with very small changes in stroke pressure. It was only in the last quarter when I felt a bit of time pressure did I push hard enough to get into the meat of the ut1 range.

Of course, I wish the splits were faster, but this was a good workout. It was nice to be on glassy flat water, and I felt like I could take long, smooth strokes. I am not enjoying the back issues though. Most strokes felt fine, but some strokes, especially when I was turning, or not well balanced at the catch provided not very subtle form feedback through my frayed nerve endings. I’m worried that this could get worse before it gets better.

        Workout Summary - media/20170821-193402-Greg Smith 20170821 0703amo.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|11157|59:12.0|02:39.2|142.1|17.8|139.0|152.0|10.6
W-|10839|56:02.0|02:35.1|145.8|17.7|138.8|152.0|10.9
R-|00322|03:10.0|04:55.8|080.6|20.9|137.3|152.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|01095|06:00.0|02:44.3|128.9|16.9|112.7|124.0|10.8 - slow turny bit
01|02932|14:47.2|02:31.3|149.7|17.7|136.1|144.0|11.2 - down to dam
02|01393|07:12.0|02:35.0|151.1|17.7|141.8|146.0|10.9 - back to 29:30
03|01395|06:52.8|02:28.0|157.6|17.5|141.2|146.0|11.6 - back to dam
04|03078|16:04.8|02:36.7|146.6|17.8|145.4|151.0|10.7 - back to start
05|00946|05:05.5|02:41.5|128.5|18.6|149.0|152.0|10.0 - slow turny bit

So, how much difference does nice flat water make? Here is a comparison of the stroke profile for work strokes yesterday and today.

So, with slick flat water I get higher peak and average force, an extra degree on the catch, a degree on slip, 3 degrees on the finish. Together it ends up increasing my effective length by about 7 or 8 degrees. That’s about 10% more length! The peak force angle also moved about 4 degrees to the bow. I guess more work in choppy water would be a good idea!

Here are some more stroke metrics. Nothing really weird in the data. The averages here do not exactly match the stroke profile because I pruned all strokes with WPS below 350J to get the turning strokes out.