July CTC – Sprinting? What’s sprinting?

July 27, 20172 Comments

In an effort to get back to basics, I have been thinking about getting away from fancy training plans and just get back to doing the Wolverine Plan. It was my mainstay for the run up to my first CRASH-Bs and it has the advantage of simplicity and flexibility.

My life is too hectic to try to implement meso-cycle based training, and while I might tailor my sessions a bit to focus on head race distance instead of 2K performance, doing the basic WP would probably get me in much better shape.

Over the past 6 months I have been trying to follow the Eddie Fletcher Marathon Training Plan. I haven’t been very successful with it, but that is not the plan’s fault. My lack of success is directly related to not having enough time to do the sessions, and having travel disrupt the progressions built into the plan. Nevertheless, my endurance is much better than my sprinting ability right now. It’s been a long time since I pulled any sessions at a pace faster than 1:50.

So, today was going to be a shock to the system. At least I had the advantage of going in with very low expectations.

Here’s the CTC definition.

I added a 2K warmup (with some power10s at 1:45 or faster), and a 2k cooldown at 2:15 pace.

Warmup: The 1:45s were hard! And I had a lot of trouble getting the rating up. I haven’t really had my stroke rate much above 25 for the last 6 months. It showed.

The into the main event. I decided to target a 1:45 pace. Mainly because I had no idea what else to do. That proved a little too spicy in the 1000m piece, but otherwise it was a fine target. Based on the HR data, I didn’t phone this one in. I was working at very close to my limits.

My total time added up to 13:53.1 (1:44.1 pace), which puts me in Free Spirits Boat 3 and at 127 of 370 entries. The last guy in Boat 2 is significantly ahead of me in the rankings (13:38.7, 1:42.3 pace), so that is not a good motivation to take another shot at this. The other is that I probably won’t see another erg until I’m back in Boston. Notice how horribly low the stroke rate is. I guess sprinting is something you need to actually train for. Who knew?

I was pretty shattered at the end of it, and I dialed up a 2k cool down. I was originally thinking that I would do a happy ending cool down with 500m at 2:00, then 500m at 2:05, 500m at 2:10 and 500m At 2:15, but I got the feeling I might pass out or throw up during the first 20 strokes at 2:00 pace, so I backed off and just tried to hit exactly 9:00 for the whole thing. I missed by 0.4sec. Another thing I’m out of practice at, I guess!

Here’s the HR data for the whole workout. That’s a whole lotta red! Nearly 6 minutes of it.

I still felt a bit funny after the cool down. I went to my room, and lay down for about 30 minutes. After that I was feeling much better and was ready to start my day.

Tonight I fly to Taiwan. I’m there for a day, then fly on Saturday to Macau. My plan is to do a 60 minute endurance session tomorrow morning at the hotel.

Hooray, the hotel has an erg!

July 26, 2017Leave a comment

Monday, July 24 and Tuesday, July 25: (No Training)

I woke up at the ungodly hour of 4:30am to get to the airportfor my 7am flight. I was flying to Shanghai via Chicago, total flight time 17 and a half hours. Total travel time 22 and a half hours. With the time zone changes, I got into my hotel room at 3:00pm Tuesday afternoon. I took a shower and went to work, then a customer dinner.

I was back in my hotel room by 9:00pm and asleep at 9:01pm (approximately)

I guess you’d call that 2 rest days, but it didn’t feel very restful.

Wednesday, July 26:

I slept pretty well considering the jet lag. I woke up around midnight, but got right back to sleep. I woke up at 3:00am and slept fitfully until 5am. I was in the gym by about 5:30am and what a gym it was.

I’m staying in the Kerry Hotel in Pudong and the fitness center is incredible. The main gym has ceilings two stories high, there is a spinning room and a group room off to the side. They have lots of treadmills, ellipticals, bikes, weight machines, TRX, free weights, kettle bells, all in brand new condition. And they had 2 perfectly maintained concept2 Model D rowing machines with PM4s. I couldn’t believe my good fortune.

When I arrived there was someone using one of the rowers, and so I settled into the second one.

Plan:

80′ L4
4×20’/1′ rest
rate/power
- 16 – 150W
- 18 – 170W
- 20 – 190W
- 22 – 210W
stroke sequence: I decided to go for my all time favorite classic L4 sequence. In shorthand it’s a 2x(168/172/176/180). That means 168 strokes in the first 10 minutes, then 172, then 176, then 180. So, here’s how that looks.

I had a blast! The intensity was just about perfect. The fastest bits pushed me above the top of my UT1 zone, but my HR dropped back in the slower pieces.

I really should get a USB cable so I can use ergdata with the PM3 and PM4, but for now all I get is HR data.

: Last week’s row

Tomorrow: I think I’ll stick with the Wolverine theme and do this month’s CTC. It will be slow, but I’d like to put a score on the board.

Off to China

July 24, 20175 Comments

Once every calendar quarter we have business reviews. As an engineering company, we are naturally enthralled with applying acronyms to everything, so the weeks of reviews is QBR week. I am in a position where I am the principle reviewer for a set of them, and then later in the week, I try to put together a summary review for my supervisors. At the same time, we have to prepare for board meetings, get ready for employee communications meetings, and also actually take care of business.

Tuesday, 18 July: No training

I managed to find a brief window to exercise on Monday, and I was hopeful that I would be able to do some OTW rowing on Tuesday morning, but that was spoiled by a bit of a stomach bug that hit me Monday night. I was up for a lot of the night and I needed to be at work for an 8am meeting. After that, I was in meetings until 8pm. After that, I worked until 10pm catching up on email. I got home around 11:00 and didn’t get to bed until nearly 1am.

Wednesday, 19 July: No training

I slept until 7am and hustled off to work for more business review meetings which started at 9am. These went straight through to 6pm. After that, I needed to prepare for meetings with my boss that were happening on Thursday. I was at work until 10pm again, and got to bed after midnight

Thursday, 20 July: No Training

I was up at 6am, and right out the door. Thursday was a bit less stressful, with only 7 hours of meetings, but 4 of those hours were with my boss, so I needed to be on my toes. I needed to get right out the door at 6pm to get to an appointment. The evening was filled with domestic chores because I’d be leaving right after work for Cape Cod. Again, it wasn’t until after midnight when I got to bed.

Friday, 21 July: No Training

Again up at 6am, and quickly out the door. Meetings from 9 to 4. At four, I bolted out the door and headed home. I picked up my stuff and continued on to the cape, arriving at about 8pm (having picked up pizza right near my destination). Needless to say, I was eager to get to bed early, and I slept a long time.

Saturday, 22 July: 3 x 20’/1′ on the erg.

My schedule wouldn’t work out for a coastal row today, so before breakfast, I snuck down to the basement for a easy endurance session. I purposely kept the power really low since it had been 4 days without training.

I did the first two 20′ sections at 180w. At the end of the second, I was seeing my HR going a bit high, so I decided to do the last 20 minutes as 2×10′ L4 rate ladders

4min / r17 / 160w
3min / r18 / 170w
2min / r19 / 180w
1min / r20 / 190W

This was very entertaining, and I didn’t much mind that my HR spiked up a bit with the rate restriction and ladders.

Workout Summary - media/20170722-1545410o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|14888|63:07.0|02:07.2|174.1|19.0|147.6|165.0|12.4
W-|14430|60:00.0|02:04.7|180.2|18.9|147.6|165.0|12.8
R-|00464|03:07.0|03:22.1|052.2|20.3|146.9|165.0|07.8
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|04847|20:00.0|02:03.8|184.0|18.8|137.3|148.0|12.9
01|04829|20:00.0|02:04.2|183.0|19.7|149.9|157.0|12.3
02|00932|04:00.0|02:08.7|161.2|17.1|145.6|152.0|13.6
03|00713|03:00.0|02:06.3|173.6|18.1|154.1|156.0|13.1
04|00485|02:00.0|02:03.8|184.3|19.3|158.5|160.0|12.6
05|00246|01:00.0|02:01.8|194.0|19.9|160.8|162.0|12.3
06|00932|04:00.0|02:08.7|164.5|17.1|158.6|162.0|13.6
07|00711|03:00.0|02:06.6|172.2|18.1|157.4|159.0|13.1
08|00485|02:00.0|02:03.7|185.1|19.2|160.8|163.0|12.7
09|00250|01:00.0|02:00.0|201.4|20.1|163.6|165.0|12.5

That was good fun. I think I’ll do some more of that.

Sunday, 22 July:

I was planning on a coastal row, but I was stymied by weather. It was grey and blustery when I got up, so again, I opted for an erg session. Today’s plan

80 minute L4
4×20’/1′
Same rate vs power as Saturday
Keep it nice and easy.

Nice low HR, easy row. The low rates started to bug my back by the end though.

I notched up one stroke per minute after 30 minutes to make it a bit harder.

Workout Summary - media/20170723-1435180o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|19158|84:08.0|02:11.8|168.8|18.0|132.0|150.0|12.7
W-|18866|80:00.0|02:07.2|171.1|17.9|131.7|150.0|13.2
R-|00306|04:08.0|06:45.7|086.2|20.1|127.8|150.0|07.4
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|00917|04:00.0|02:10.8|154.2|16.0|106.3|119.0|14.3
01|00701|03:00.0|02:08.5|164.9|17.3|121.0|123.0|13.5
02|00475|02:00.0|02:06.2|174.0|18.1|124.3|126.0|13.1
03|00242|01:00.0|02:04.0|183.0|19.1|125.5|127.0|12.7
04|00917|04:00.0|02:10.9|156.4|16.4|124.4|129.0|14.0
05|00701|03:00.0|02:08.4|165.5|17.2|123.1|125.0|13.5
06|00476|02:00.0|02:06.0|175.0|18.2|124.1|127.0|13.1
07|00244|01:00.0|02:02.8|185.6|19.1|129.5|131.0|12.8
08|00916|04:00.0|02:11.0|156.4|16.1|116.8|124.0|14.2
09|00700|03:00.0|02:08.6|164.4|17.3|125.7|129.0|13.5
10|00480|02:00.0|02:05.1|178.7|18.2|129.8|132.0|13.2
11|00242|01:00.0|02:03.8|184.7|19.1|134.8|137.0|12.7
12|00933|04:00.0|02:08.6|164.8|17.4|131.5|137.0|13.4
13|00715|03:00.0|02:05.8|175.6|18.1|134.1|136.0|13.2
14|00486|02:00.0|02:03.4|186.2|18.9|138.5|142.0|12.9
15|00246|01:00.0|02:01.7|193.6|19.9|140.4|141.0|12.4
16|00900|04:00.0|02:13.4|168.2|17.0|126.0|134.0|13.2
17|00714|03:00.0|02:06.0|175.1|18.2|137.2|139.0|13.1
18|00484|02:00.0|02:03.9|183.7|19.2|140.3|143.0|12.6
19|00246|01:00.0|02:01.9|193.6|20.1|141.6|142.0|12.2
20|00936|04:00.0|02:08.3|166.5|17.4|137.9|142.0|13.4
21|00714|03:00.0|02:06.0|174.5|18.2|136.1|139.0|13.1
22|00483|02:00.0|02:04.1|183.3|19.3|140.5|143.0|12.5
23|00246|01:00.0|02:01.8|193.6|20.2|142.5|143.0|12.2
24|00932|04:00.0|02:08.8|161.5|17.4|131.9|139.0|13.4
25|00712|03:00.0|02:06.4|173.4|18.3|140.2|142.0|13.0
26|00483|02:00.0|02:04.1|182.8|19.4|142.6|144.0|12.4
27|00248|01:00.0|02:01.1|196.2|20.2|144.7|147.0|12.2
28|00247|01:00.0|02:01.5|195.5|20.3|149.4|150.0|12.2
29|00480|02:00.0|02:04.9|179.7|19.3|148.3|150.0|12.4
30|00712|03:00.0|02:06.5|172.8|18.4|144.0|147.0|12.9
31|00936|04:00.0|02:08.2|166.5|17.4|142.3|145.0|13.4

Now I’m off to Shanghai, the first stop on a two week trip with 4 different destinations.

Monday: Totally blind 40 minutes

July 17, 20172 Comments

Well, sometimes you just have to improvise. I went to the gym at lunch and settled in on the one erg. I found the batteries dead in the PM5, so I replaced them. Then I got all set up and started pulling. The PM would not register any strokes. I reset everything, and the PM would dutifully show me my HR, but not the pace, meters or stroke rate.

I was losing time, so I decided to just set up my iphone to show me my heart rate, and then I counted strokes per minute using the elapsed time there. I tried to hold about 20spm and I pushed hard enough to do most of the row as UT1. I backed off the pressure a bit as my HR passed 157.

Very unsatisfying, but at least I rowed.

Tomorrow: Back to Fluid in Newton. I think I will do an easy rate ladder session to get re-acclimated to the flat water rowing. I’m not entirely sure, but I don’t think I have been in my Fluid since June 21! :-O

Sunday: 15km towards Eastham

July 17, 2017Leave a comment

Our guests left around 10am, and we set about cleaning the house. I had such a good time walking the sand flats that I dragged my wife out for a walk around noon to explore around the north end of the island.

Things we well under control around 3 in the afternoon, so I decided to go for a row. Just about all of my rows have gone north into Wellfleet Harbor, generally to ge some shelter from the prevailing SW winds. Today, with very light winds, I decided to go south along the Eastham shore.

It was a very enjoyable trip. I wanted to row for about 90 minutes, which at my plodding pace in the Aero would take me about 15km. I was just going to row south for 7.5km and turn around and come home.

The trip was in about 6 legs.

From the beach to Red Buoy #10 (across the incoming tide)
Southeast from the red buoy to the Eastham shore (incoming tide on the starboard bow)
South along the shore until 7.5km (straight into the tide)
NNE along the shore until I got to the southern edge of Lt Island (with the tide)
Follow the shore around to the northwest corner of the island (not much tidal current)
Back to the beach, with a little bonus distance to get to 15km. (with the tide, this was fun!)

As I rowed, I kept track of distance and time. You can see the HR climbing as I approached 5K. I wanted to be sure I did that in less than 30 minutes. Then I eased off a little bit, until I was getting close to 7.5km, which I wanted to get done in under 45m.

I finished that about a minute and a half ahead of the pace plan, and took about that amount of time to drink some water and turn the boat.

Coming back with the tide, I got way ahead of the plan, but I was having fun pushing a bit harder, so I went with it. Then when I passed the northwest corner, and saw the pace getting faster from the tide, I wanted even more, so I kicked up the rate a bit and tried to hold about a 2:15 pace.

I saw that I would be short of 15km, so I headed a bit north toward the indian head shore line. I turned back when I reached the floats marking the corners of the commercial oyster beds. Then I just rowed until the speedcoach clicked over 15km.

I coasted to a stop had a drink and paddle back to the beach.

Fantastic!

I took a quick look at the iphone versus speedcoach GPS data on the charting SW. Generally it lines up very well.

If you zoom in you can see some differences. The most noticeable difference was the turn at 7.5km. The error there is 40m.

We left the cape around 8:30 and it took us nearly 3 hours to get home. I slept in instead of rowing this morning. I’m going to go do a quick 10K on the erg at lunch instead.

Business & Pleasure

July 16, 2017July 17, 2017Leave a comment

Monday, July 10: travel day. flew to California, immediately went to meetings down in San Jose until 6pm, then drove up to San Francisco. Had room service for dinner and went to bed early.

Tuesday, July 11: Up early for conference calls, which lasted until about 9am. Then I headed down to the gym for an easy endurance session. First was 30 minutes on the treadmill at 15% grade. Then 30 minutes on the elliptical, easy intervals.

Then I showered, got dressed and headed out for meetings around the big conference. The meetings took me out to about 5pm, then we had a corporate function until 9pm, then I was out with customers until 1:15am.

Wednesday, July 12: No surprise, I didn’t get up to work out. I needed to be at the conference site by 8am because I was giving a presentation at 8:30am. This wrapped up by around 10, and then I was in meetings and conference calls the rest of the day until 6pm when I drove off to the airport. I caught the red eye back to Boston. No training. 😦

Thursday, July 13th: I slept maybe 2 hours on the flight and arrived in Boston around 5am. I headed straight to Cape Cod. We were having some guests coming to the house later in the day. I got to the house around 7am and went to bed for about 3 more hours of sleep. The rest of the day was a flurry of cleaning and shopping, and they arrived around 4pm. No training.

Friday, July 14th: We still had guests, and there was no way to really sneak away to train. However, we were pretty active. We went for a nice walk around the north side of the island. When it was low tide, we went out and gathered about 3 dozen oysters from the sand flats around the island. These were a very tasty addition to dinner on Friday and Saturday.

Later, my friend and I kayaked around the island. This is a pretty cool route. You start on the northeast beach, and cross Loagy Bay. You then enter a labyrinth of channels in the salt marsh and you have to guess which one will take you to cut under the bridge. All other channels are dead ends. Coming out of from under the bridge, we saw a big white bird. It looked like a Great Blue Heron, but it was white instead of grey. I would have sworn it was a Crane, but we don’t really get that species around here. After we exited the salt marsh, the route continues along the south shore of the island. There is a platform that has been built for the Osprey’s to build nests on. This one has a big nest and there was an Osprey standing on top of it glaring at us as we paddled past. Then rowed up along the outer shore of the island, and back into the wind to the beach where we launched. It’s probably about 5km of paddling and it took us about an hour. Not much in the way of aerobic exercise, but good fun.

The tides are perfect right now. The low tide is in the late morning, and the high tide was around 6pm. We were hanging out at the house and the weather got sunnier and warmer as the day went on. Around 5pm, the wind died down and it seemed like it might be fun to let our guests try my new boat. So, I carted the oars and boat down the stairs to water. I took a quick spin, maybe 15 minutes or so, and then everybody took a turn. The hardest exercise that I got was the half dozen or so trips up and down the ~80 steps from the house to the beach.

Saturday, July 15th: Again, the started out pretty grey. I slept in, and then after breakfast went for walk at low tide. I walked out as far as I could and as I went, I thought it would be fun to see how far that was on the chart. You can get an idea of how far the sand flats go, and this wasn’t even a very low tide, and was starting to come in by the time I reached the outer point.

Here’s the view back to the island from the farthest out point.

Just like Friday, the day got nicer and nicer as it got later. By the afternoon, it was gloriously sunny, and there was very little wind. I again launched the Maas from the steps at high tide. I went for a quick 20 minute row, and then everyone else had a go at it. Just like Friday, the major exercise was going up and down the stairs.

Sunday: 15km in Wellfleet

July 9, 2017July 9, 2017Leave a comment

Weather: nearly perfect. Temp in the low 70s, sparkling sunshine, wind from the NW at about 5-10mph with gusts to 15. This made the water lumpy, especially on the eastern side of the bay.

I launched from the northeast beach, my plan was another UT2/UT1 outing, about 90 minutes or so.

I headed up to Wellfleet inner harbor figuring that I would have less chop to contend with if I was closer to the north. As it turned out, the wind swung a bit to the west so I don’t think it helped all that much.

The row north was not that pleasant. I was bashing into the waves and not making very rapid progress. I was glad when I finally passed the breakwater and turned east. I was glad until 3 big cabin cruisers passed me at close range and high speed, stopping me dead in my tracks. After that, it was a smooth coast into the harbor, past the commercial dock and along the town jetty. I turned around the end and behind my boat, I saw a curious seal pop up his head to see what the hell I was doing.

I turned around behind the jetty and had a quick drink of water. A fishing boat pulled out ahead of me as I started to go back the way I came, and because of the “no wake” 5 mph speed limit in the inner harbor, I passed him. Later, as e passed the buoy marking the end of the speed limit, he returned the favor, complete with a monumental wake.

The row out of the harbor over to the great spit was another slog. I was going into to teeth of the wind but the waves were considerably smaller. I took on a lot less water and made good progress. I reached the shallows by the spit at around 8000m and turned SW to row in the lee of the spit. This bit was good fun. Flat water, wind on my starboard beam. I counted out strokes until I hit 11000m. In my fluid, on flat water, I do about 10m/stroke steady state. In the Aero, which is shorter and slower, and with a slightly higher stroke rate, I do between 7-8m/stroke. So it takes 120 to 130 strokes to cover a kilometer.

When I hit 11km on the speedcoach, I had a quick drink, and turned for home. This was bouncy fun. I was going nearly dead down wind and the waves built as I went across to the east side of the bay. It wasn’t particularly fast, but it was a blast.

As I passed the northwest point of the island I started a slow turn back to the beach, finishing just past the 15km point.

After I got my boat loaded, I went for a quick and refreshing swim.

Workout Summary - media/20170709-163411-Greg Smith 20170709 0901amo.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|15095|95:39.0|03:10.1|000.0|21.5|139.7|155.0|07.4
W-|14814|92:33.0|03:07.4|000.0|21.5|139.9|155.0|07.5
R-|00284|03:06.0|05:27.8|000.0|20.4|124.0|155.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|05172|34:18.0|03:19.0|000.0|21.8|139.0|155.0|06.9
01|05702|35:36.0|03:07.3|000.0|21.5|141.5|149.0|07.5
02|03940|22:39.1|02:52.5|000.0|21.0|138.7|147.0|08.3

Tomorrow: I catch a 8am flight to San Francisco. I’ll be out there for a few days, returning on the Wednesday red eye.

Saturday: Choppy 10k in Wellfleet

July 8, 20172 Comments

Weather: Sparkling sunshine. mid 70s. Breezy, about 10-15mph with gusts to 20mph from the SSW.

I launched at about 1:45pm, from the Northeast beach. I wanted to go for about an hour. Since the wind was from the SW, I decided to go south for a change so that I would finish by coming downwind. I also have not explored that side of the island at all.

I hugged the shoreline of Lieutenant Island as it wraps around to the south, then south east, and I skirted along the edge of the salt marsh. The initial part to the south was quite choppy and I managed to fill the foot well a few times. I am having trouble with the self bailer. It does not want to stay deployed. I think there is a spring that is supposed to hold it in position, but it is not working. So, ultimately, I gave up and just rowed with the foot well full of water. On the plus side, it’s a small foot well.

Once I turned the southern corner of the island and headed along the salt marsh, I was headed more across the wind and it took some work to get used to the waves on my beam. I didn’t realize how much the wind had built up until I turned around to head west. The wind was whistling past my ears and I was pounding into the waves. But the water was warm and the sun was out and I felt pretty confident in my boat. I just tried to keep track of my heart rate and basically ignore the pace. I kept track of the distance and I decided that I could turn north after I hit 6000m.

After I turned north, I got a better appreciation of how big the waves were since they were coming at me from the stern. Since my vantage point is so low, the waves looked huge, but I bet they were not much bigger than a foot. But at times, my bow would be completely buried. Other times, the stern would be buried for two or three feet, and most impressively, there were some waves that submerged the shafts of my oars while I was recovering. That was new experience for me.

Generally, I was able to handle the waves well, but a couple of times, I was pushed broadside to the waves and pushed around. But the boat has a ton of natural stability and I never felt like I was going to go over.

I turned the corner at the northwestern tip of the island and headed over to indian head. The waves were smaller and more regular here and much easier to judge. Finally I turned for home, heading back into the waves one last time.

I tried to draw the wind and tidal flows on the chart. The key thing was the tide was against the wind, which I think help pile up the water a bit more.

Screen Shot 2017-07-08 at 5.14.42 PM

You can see the effect of wind and tide on the summary chart.

to 800m: flat water in the lee of the island
800m to 3500m: rowing south along the shore with the wind and waves abeam, slowly turning to the east following the shore.
3500m to 4400m: rowing south east across the waves
4400m to 6000m: bashing my way to the west basically right into the wind and waves. The transients to very slow pace are essentially when a big enough wave totally stopped my and filled to footwell.
6000m to 8100m: Wind and waves on my port stern. This was the wildest bit. Again the slow downs were swampings.
8100m to 8900m: easy and fun surfing dead down wind.
8900m to 9500m: back into the wind for the last bit back to the beach.

You can see how rowing downwind in this amount of chop is more technical than aerobic. My HR was much lower.

myimage (84)

It turned out to be a pretty close to perfect 60 minute aerobic session (and a hell of a lot of fun)

myimage (85)

Its hard to describe rowing in waves. The gopro point of view doesn’t seem to show what it’s like. Here’s a picture of the waves after I got back to the house, from about 40 feet above the water.

2017-07-08 15.34.52

When I was out, there were more white caps and the waves were a bit bigger. They certainly seemed a lot more confused than they look from here.

This has nothing to do with rowing, but last Sunday, I went for a walk as the tide was falling. I skirted the edge of a salt marsh and I ran into what looked like the kingdom of the hermit crabs.

Tomorrow is the last day of my vacation. I’m flying out to California on Monday morning for a conference. I hope to wake up reasonably early and get my last row in.

Vacation continues

July 7, 20172 Comments

Monday, July 3: We delivered my sister in law and her two sons to the ferry in the morning and spent the day doing laundry, cleaning and hanging out. It was great to have company, but it was also nice to have the house to ourselves again. Around 3:30 in the afternoon, I decided that the wind had died down enough for a row. So, I packed up my boat and headed off to the northeast beach. The wind was blowing about 10mph from the WNW, and there was a ton of chop from the wind and whole lot of motor boats.

I launched from the northeast beach of the island and headed up to wellfleet harbor. The tide was coming in, so I was going with the current up along the shore of indian neck. I went into the harbor and did a broad turn up toward “The Cove”. As I came back toward the channel, there was a sailboat coming out of from behind the jetty. It’s pretty shallow where I was, and I suspected it was even shallower where they were. Sure enough, I soon heard a grinding noise and they came to a stop, aground on a sand bar. As I rowed out of the harbor, I saw them back the sails and maneuver off the bar.

I then headed west along mayo beach. At certain points, it go pretty shallow. I could see the bottom and a couple of times one of my oars touched bottom, but it was OK. Then I took a broad turn toward the south and circled around the point of great island.

The row from there to my turning point was bouncy and somewhat unpleasant. The waves were very confused with all the motor boat traffic, and the various shallow spots. Eventually, I noticed the time and turned for home.

I had intended to row due east straight past the red buoy #10, but the waves wanted me to take a bit of a more northeasterly course. I swung around in a big arc and headed for the beach when I passed the northwest tip of the island.

Workout Summary - media/20170704-015955-Greg Smith 20170703 0352pmo.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|15925|98:02.0|03:04.7|000.0|21.1|154.1|163.0|07.7
W-|15470|93:50.0|03:02.0|000.0|20.9|154.6|162.0|07.9
R-|00458|04:00.0|04:22.2|000.0|25.0|142.9|162.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|04982|29:30.0|02:57.7|000.0|20.0|154.8|162.0|08.4 - to harbor
01|06740|42:47.2|03:10.5|000.0|21.0|155.6|160.0|07.5 - across and down
02|03749|21:33.0|02:52.4|000.0|21.7|152.3|162.0|08.0 - back to beach

I was working hard through the whole row, and the HR shows it. I have to avoid doing that in long races or I will burn out for sure.

Tuesday, July 4: We packed up ourselves and headed back to Hopkinton. The traffic on the day after July 4th can be murderous on the cape, and we wanted to avoid it is possible. We got home in the late afternoon, and eventually, I settled down for what I hoped would be a quick and easy 40 minute session. Of course this was on the cursed, awful dynamic erg at home, so it didn’t turn out that way.

The plan for was an L4 style workout. I really enjoyed the last 20 minutes of the session I did on Saturday, so I decided to do basically the same thing. But I found doing it on the dynamic to be a whole different experience. It was massively difficult. I have never worked so hard to go so slow!

One mitigating factor was the heat and humidity. It was 70% humidity and 80F in the room when I finished. It took two towels to mop up the floor.

Wednesday, July 5th: I guess I must have been tired, because I slept until 10:30. The rest of the day was a blur of shopping and yard work. We aren’t around the house much and the outside was looking a bit shabby. All day long I was dreading the idea of doing another session on the horrible dynamic in the sweatbox.

The plan was to stick to strict HR cap at 155, no matter how slow I had to go. That turned out to be very slow, and continually slower to stay under the cap.

So, how much worse is the dynamic. I used the comparison charts to look at this workout, and the 3×20’/2′ workout that I did on the prior Saturday on a static erg.

Both sessions were endurance sessions, with a HR cap at 155. Here’s the HR compared.

The orange trace is the dynamic. The green is static. Now here’s power.

In the middle of the last interval, when the HR’s were about the same, I was pulling 50w lower on the dynamic!

Here’s a scatter plot of the HR vs power. You can on the static (green points), the expected relationship of higher powers and higher heart rates holds. The dynamic (orange points) shows a backwards relationship. It seemed as if no matter how much I backed off the pace, my HR was pegged in the 150s. This is consistent with my thought that there is something wrong with the machine which is increasing the friction on the drive.

One confounding factor is temperature. The static session was in a cool (but humid) basement. The dynamic session was in 80F/70% humidity. That could explain a bit of the difference.

Thursday, July 6th: My father passed away last December. He took up sailing in the 1970s and it became more and more important to him over the next four decades. For the last thirty years, he has been a member of the Boston Yacht Club and over that time has been the chairman of the race committee and a principle organizer of a big ocean race that the club runs every other year between marblehead and Halifax Nova Scotia.

We decided that a fitting send off for my Dad would be to scatter his ashes at sea off of marblehead. We planned it for this Thursday because the start of this race is coming on Saturday and many of the folks that he knew from Nova Scotia would be around for the race.

A friend of his has a very serious vessel, the Elizabeth M. It’s a 40′ trawler. Here’s a video of it out for a cruise on another day…

We had aabout 25 people on board, took a slow cruise around the harbor, and then, once we were off marble head light, we scattered my Dad’s ashes and left some white flowers.

It was a really nice send off for him. He had a great group of friends and he has left a legacy at the club behind him.

Then we headed home, packed up and headed back to the cape.

Friday, July 7: Rain was in the forecast starting in the late morning, so I got up early (ish), and headed out for a row around 7:30. I launched from the NE beach. It was overcast with very little wind. The wind picked up a bit about half way through the row, but only to about 8mph, from the SSE.

The plan was for an easy row. Try to get the feeling of rowing at a stroke rate of 20 SPM and stay in the UT2 HR zone. For a 3 to 4 hour race, I want to be doing a pace I can hold all day long!

I decided to explore wellfleet inner harbor a bit today. I rowed out to Buoy #10, then turned north. The trip up to the harbor was fast and smooth. There was little wind and I was rowing with the tidal current. I rowed to the breakwater that marks the entrance to the inner harbor and rowed along the town jetty, and around behind to the boat slips. The speedcoach showed that I had done 7500m.

I stopped for a drink of water, and then retraced my steps. The row back from the breakwater to buoy #10 was a lot slower. The wind had picked up a little bit and I was rowing against the current. The plots show a good 30 seconds difference in pace.

I turned around Buoy #10 and headed due east to get back to the beach. When I reached the place where I launched, I was about 500m short of 15km, so I continued on a bit, turned around and beached the boat right when the speedcoach passed 15000m.

It was a very happy row.

Workout Summary - media/20170707-170512-Greg Smith 20170707 0739amo.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|15049|87:41.0|02:54.8|000.0|20.5|139.6|157.0|08.4
W-|14836|85:11.0|02:52.3|000.0|20.6|139.7|157.0|08.5
R-|00216|02:30.0|05:47.9|000.0|18.0|119.6|157.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|02397|15:00.0|03:07.7|000.0|20.8|133.1|146.0|07.7 - to buoy #10
01|02947|15:00.0|02:32.7|000.0|20.4|141.4|146.0|09.6 - to bkwtr
02|01704|09:00.0|02:38.4|000.0|20.6|139.5|142.0|09.2 - to turn
03|01163|07:00.0|03:00.5|000.0|20.0|130.1|136.0|08.3 - back out of hbr
04|04753|29:00.0|03:03.1|000.0|20.5|141.7|147.0|08.0 - back to buoy #10
05|01872|10:11.7|02:43.4|000.0|20.9|148.4|157.0|08.8 - back to beach

Now it is raining like crazy.

Tomorrow, hopefully another row just like this one!

Back from Korea – some training (and some eating)

July 2, 2017Leave a comment

Thursday, June 29: I posted about my workout in the morning. I had the morning in the office, and then headed to the airport at 2pm Korea time. I took off at 5:30pm, arrived in Dallas, around 4:30pm. Connected to Boston, taking off at 6:25pm and arrived in Boston around 11pm. I got my car and pulled around to a different terminal to meet my daughter who was flying in from St. Louis.

She took over driving duties and we headed off to Cape Cod, arriving at 1:30AM. My total travel time 24 hours and 30 minutes. I was surprised to see my sons when I got to the house. I guess they keep late hours.

Friday, June 30: Honestly, I don’t remember much about Friday. I was tired. It was very windy. The highlight of the day was my quest to make great lobster rolls. First stop, great bread from this amazing french bakery near us (PB Boulangerie in Wellfleet). The traditional lobster roll is on a buttered split top hot dog bun. I prefer a fresh Croissant. Still buttery, but also flakey and light. Next stop, Mac’s fish market on the pier to buy some cooked lobster. Finally, the Wellfleet market for celery, since lobster salad needs a little crunch.

Lobster Salad (serves 2) (I quadrupled the recipe)

Two big flakey, fresh croissants
1/2 pound cooked lobster, cut into biggish chunks
1 stalk celery, diced
Hellman’s Mayonaisse to taste
dash of salt
dash of ground black pepper
dash of italian seasoning
1/4 lemon squeezed

Warm up the croissants in the oven while you make the salad. mix the lobster, celery, salt, pepper and italian seasoning in a bowl. Add a tbsp of mayo and mix, and then add a tsp at a time until the salad just barely clings together. Squeeze a bit of lemon juice over the top

Slice the croissants, add the lobster salad and enjoy.

Ummmm. No training

Saturday, July 1: More hanging around. More wind. It was above 40mph sustained winds for a while. I did an erg session.

3 x 20′ / 2′

I just wanted to keep it easy so I set off at 2:08 pace and held it for the first 2 pieces. I got bored so I did the last 20 minutes L4 style

Workout Summary - media/20170701-2315210o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|14515|65:12.0|02:14.8|162.9|18.9|138.5|154.0|11.8
W-|13640|58:00.0|02:07.6|168.7|18.9|138.6|154.0|12.5
R-|00880|07:12.0|04:05.7|082.0|19.0|129.7|154.0|10.9
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|04697|20:00.0|02:07.8|167.4|18.7|129.0|138.0|12.5
01|04696|20:00.0|02:07.8|168.4|18.9|140.3|146.0|12.4
02|00925|04:00.0|02:09.7|160.1|17.8|136.4|145.0|13.0
03|00707|03:00.0|02:07.4|169.3|19.0|147.2|148.0|12.4
04|00478|02:00.0|02:05.5|176.6|19.9|150.4|152.0|12.0
05|00486|02:00.0|02:03.3|186.5|20.6|153.2|154.0|11.8
06|00714|03:00.0|02:06.0|175.3|19.7|152.5|153.0|12.1
07|00937|04:00.0|02:08.0|166.8|18.6|150.3|152.0|12.6

Later in the day, I went and gathered some oysters from the sand bars in front of the house. Then it was my first attempt at solo shucking. I got a quick lesson last summer, and I managed to shuck a dozen or so oysters without impaling myself.

Sunday, July 2nd: Too much stuff going on all day. We dropped our daughter off at the ferry in Provincetown, and I went for a nice walk around the island, but no training.

There was a very nice sunset on Sunday though.

And later that night the next town had their fireworks. They were pretty far off in the distance, but it was fun to be able to see them from our porch. They were down in Rock Harbor, which is 10.7km SSE from where we are. The fireworks plainly visible, but not very impressive from that distance.

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