Saturday: 2 x 5K Pushes

December 17, 2016December 18, 20163 Comments

I love push workouts. Almost always, I will do a 10K push, start at a 2:00 pace and then speed up a second every 1000m. Today, I wanted to do it a bit differently, so I did 2 5K pushes.

2 x 5K push workout
- First 5K
  - start at 2:00 pace
  - drop the pace by 2 splits every 1000m
- 2 min rest (paddle and drink)
- second 5K
  - start at 2:00 pace
  - drop the pace by one split every 500m
- No rate restrictions
- No HR caps

So, I stuck to the pace targets except for the last 1000m of the first rep and the last 500m of the second rep.

It was a good threshold workout. with some good variety of intensity.

It’s fun to look at the metrics for this workout because it is free rate and I just try to find the most efficient rate for each target pace. It still comes out very close to the kind of increment I see in L4 workouts, about 2 splits per SPM.

On this workout you can see in increase in work per stroke as the stroke rate goes up. In an L4 workout, this would be nearly constant.

I saw Sander included the avg/pk force ratio in his workout. I wanted to compare. Here’s mine.

So, my force ratio was 0.67, versus a 0.56 for Sander. This is a much larger difference than I was expecting to see. Here are the two parameters that go into the ratio.

To complete the set. Here’s drive length. You can see that I am back to full slide, with no significant knee issues.

This intrigued me, so I looked at drive length versus power and drive length versus SPM. Nearly constant for both. I think that’s a good thing.

Sunday: another brief 10K workout. Probably just an easy L4.

Friday: 10K L4

December 16, 2016December 17, 20164 Comments

I wrote some stuff about my Dad, but moved it over to a different post. I decided it doesn’t have much to do with training.

I had a tough day at work on Friday. There are multiple projects going on and one of them in particular is in that critical stage, that it seems all projects go through, where it looks like the world is ending. I was supposed to review progress at 3, but they waved me off because they were in the middle of a test run, so I had a hole in my schedule.

I thought a quick workout would help me keep my head clear and thinking straight, so I headed to the gym. I decided to do a 10K L4. Since I am training so little right now, overtraining is NOT going to be a factor, so I dialed up the intensity. Instead of trying to keep my HR below a cap, I just rowed to power, and I included a fair amount of work at 22spm and 24 spm.

Of course, since I was on a tight schedule, today had to be the day that Painsled decided to not work. I am not sure whether it was because of changes in PainSled, or because my phone was in a funny state, but it would not stay linked to the PM. It would get the first HR and then not update after that. I tried a couple of things and couldn’t get it working, so I bailed on painsled and went to ergdata. Say what you want about ergdata, it seems very reliable. It always links, the syncing to the logbook is fast and easy. The support in the logbook is getting better all the time.

Heres what the workout detail page looks like now, if you row with ergdata.

Pretty good huh? It has all the basics including heart rate. If it recorded the stroke metric esoteric that painsled does, I’d be really happy.

Of course you can’t do the stuff you can do on rowsandall. Let’s use this workout for a quick comparison.

Workout summary:

rowsandall provides the ability to do summaries using distance or time. concept2 is time only.
rowsandall provides a plot of power in addition to pace. Since I row to power, that’s handy.
Splits: concept2 provides the same splits that were defined in the PM. rowsandall does the same as default, but provides a way to redefine splits, which I used to look at each segment.
Drag Factor: concept2 has this on the summary page, for rowsandall, it is on the summary plot.
Accuracy: Because rowsandall is reconstructing the row from stroke data, there is some error in the distances recorded, generally much less than the distance in a stroke. This can cause significant changes in avg pace for very short intervals.
Concept2 log integration: ergdata to concept2 log is incredibly easy. so is export from rowsandall to concept2. However, watch out for rankable pieces. Because of the interpolation on rowsandall, if you export a HM you might end up with a 21094m which you can’t rank. In general, for ranking pieces, I log them manually to make sure they match the PM exactly. On ergdata/concept2 syncing, they seem to match exactly every time. (I wonder if they are using features that they are not publishing in the API?)

Of course there is stuff that you can’t do on the concept2 log page. Here are a few examples:

Time in Zone HR chart and Time in Zone Power chart

And of course flex charts: Here is pace versus SPM. Which I’ve defined as one of my favorites in the tool.

You can also easily generate a power histogram for the workout.

Or generate it for a range of dates, so you can see how well you are managing intensity for a polarized workout plan. Here are all the erg strokes I’ve taken since November 8th.

You can see that I am in a low intensity, endurance maintenance mode right now, with very little work being done above 200W.

With regard to the workout, it was a useful diversion. I enjoyed it so much that in the last 2500m, I decided to push it harder. I did 500m each at 18/20/22/24 and 26. I was rowing strapless so the 24 and 26 was a bit of a challenge. I was in a much better place when I finished than when I started.

Here’s the summary

Workout Summary - media/20161217-143940-concept2-result-28153486o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|10000|39:31.0|01:58.6|210.8|20.7|147.7|169.0|12.2
W-|10000|39:32.0|01:58.6|208.3|20.4|147.0|169.0|12.5
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|169.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|01000|04:07.0|02:03.5|182.3|17.7|121.8|133.0|13.7
02|00750|02:58.6|01:59.1|204.0|20.2|138.1|143.0|12.5
03|00500|01:55.6|01:55.6|223.8|22.0|146.4|149.0|11.8
04|00250|00:55.7|01:51.3|250.5|24.0|150.0|152.0|11.3
05|00500|02:03.0|02:03.0|188.7|18.3|148.2|153.0|13.3
06|00500|02:04.3|02:04.3|180.0|18.0|138.2|142.0|13.4
07|00500|01:58.8|01:58.8|205.8|20.1|143.2|147.0|12.6
08|00500|01:57.4|01:57.4|214.1|21.0|147.3|151.0|12.2
09|00500|01:53.8|01:53.8|234.2|22.8|152.0|155.0|11.6
10|01000|04:07.5|02:03.7|184.5|18.2|147.4|156.0|13.3
11|00750|02:58.9|01:59.2|203.9|20.1|148.7|152.0|12.5
12|00500|01:55.7|01:55.7|222.2|21.9|154.6|156.0|11.8
13|00250|00:56.2|01:52.3|244.9|23.9|158.2|160.0|11.2
14|00500|02:03.4|02:03.4|188.3|18.4|156.0|160.0|13.2
15|00500|01:59.3|01:59.3|203.5|20.2|152.5|154.0|12.4
16|00500|01:56.1|01:56.1|220.7|22.0|156.4|159.0|11.7
17|00500|01:52.6|01:52.6|241.1|23.9|160.7|163.0|11.1
18|00500|01:48.7|01:48.7|268.8|25.4|166.4|169.0|10.9

Not sure if I will row today. It might be a good idea to keep myself busy until the snow clears.

Wednesday: 60′ of fitness center purgatory

December 14, 20161 Comment

I really shouldn’t complain…but I will anyway.

I finished up my last meeting today around 4 and was dropped off at the Movenpick hotel at the Stuttgart airport. I thought it would be a great thing to go work out. I had noticed when I checked in that the fitness center had a Model D rower, and I was itching to do some long slow meters.

So, I suit myself up, put on some nice podcasts, sit down on the rower, adjust the foot height, and pull on the chain. It was bad. Really bad. The clutch was going on the erg, so it would lurch and grind on the pull. I thought it might calm down over a few pulls, but no, it was entirely unusable.

If there had been no erg, I would have contentedly toddle over to the bike and just gotten going, but my shuffle to the bike after failing on the erg was quite depressing. I hopped on the bike and watched the minutes pass glacially toward 30. At 30 minutes, I had had more than enough pedalling, so I moved over to the treadmill. Here I cranked up the incline all the way to 15% and walked briskly (at 5km/h) for another 30 minutes.

By this point, I was tired, sweaty and bored, so I decided to call it a day.

Tomorrow morning I have a 7:10am flight out of Stuttgart through London back home to Boston. It will be good to get back to a working erg!

Monday: Quick 10K in Munich

December 12, 2016December 14, 20168 Comments

I arrived at 5:00AM on the red eye from Boston to Heathrow, and connected to Munich, finally getting there at about 10am. I had found my train and gotten to my hotel by 11:15. There was nothing on my calendar until 1:00, so I decided to bolt over to the “Fitness First” next door to the hotel and band out a quick 10K. I had no real plan, and pretty low expectations since I was working on basically no sleep.

The club has two meticulously maintained model Es with Pm4s.

As you can see from the HR charts, I started a bit slow, then tried to hold at a HR cap around 160. Then with 2K left to go, I tried to speed up and hold about 210W the rest of the way. This was hard work.

I’m glad I did it, but it was pretty ugly at the end.

WTF 10K

December 11, 20161 Comment

I ended up skipping training yesterday. I was just doing other stuff, and I didn’yt really feel like it. You might be able to tell that my discipline is ebbing, as my surgery date approaches.

Today, I knew I would be getting on a long flight and I always do better if I have exercised before I fly. So, I decided to do a quick 10K before I got ready to head to the airport.

I also wanted to push my knee some more. As perverse as it sounds, I wanted it to hurt. I wanted it to lock up. I wanted it to misbehave. It refused to do that.

I dutifully put down my bandaid to limit compression, but as I went along in the piece, I started to ignore it and try to push as far into compression as I possibly could. I was reaching for the handle guard in front of the fan cage, and nearly touching it. My knee started to feel a bit sore, but did not misbehave. Not a click was heard, no locking happened, and it didn’t betray me, as much as I wanted it to. What the hell is up with that.

Anyway, my intent was just a nice UT1 kind of workout. A bit spicier than a normal endurance session since I was only going for 10K. I ended up pushing harder than that. And the only thing UT1’ish about the session was the rate.

Workout Summary - media/20161211-214912-sled_2016-12-11T13-16-31ZEST.strokes.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|10000|38:28.0|01:55.4|227.3|22.3|163.2|184.0|11.6
W-|10000|38:28.0|01:55.4|227.1|22.3|162.9|184.0|11.7
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|184.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|01000|03:51.8|01:55.9|217.4|21.0|129.6|143.0|12.3
02|01000|03:49.1|01:54.5|232.9|22.4|150.2|156.0|11.7
03|01000|03:50.2|01:55.1|229.7|21.9|157.3|159.0|11.9
04|01000|03:52.4|01:56.2|223.2|21.5|160.4|162.0|12.0
05|01000|03:52.2|01:56.1|223.4|21.9|163.3|166.0|11.8
06|01000|03:53.1|01:56.6|221.2|22.0|166.7|171.0|11.7
07|01000|03:51.6|01:55.8|225.6|22.5|170.1|173.0|11.5
08|01000|03:50.9|01:55.4|227.5|23.0|173.8|176.0|11.3
09|01000|03:50.8|01:55.4|227.5|23.1|176.8|179.0|11.3
10|01000|03:46.4|01:53.2|242.6|23.8|180.8|184.0|11.1

Now, this was no where near as fast as my 10K CTC in October, but I was interested in comparing the two workouts.

First, comparing power.

In October, I started fast and faded a bit. Today, I started slower and held it.

Stroke rate…Very different. I rated higher the whole way in October.

This infers that my work per stroke should be higher this time…And it is.

Which led to a higher rise in HR.

Now, what about drive length? I started today shorter, but as I started to test my knee, I matched my stroke length from that row.

This got me thinking about drive length versus peak force. Here’s the two plotted together for today’s row.

Goes to show you how much length matters!

So, now I’m at the airport, getting ready to board. Not sure what the training will be like this week.

Friday: Temptation

December 9, 2016Leave a comment

So, I don’t really know what to think about how things are going with my knee. There is no doubt that the MRI showed an damaged area of the meniscus cartilage, but right now, it is hurting a lot less. I still get clicking and I am treating it very carefully, but I am worrying about whether getting it scoped is the right thing to do.

The thing is that I would not be able to row well the way it is now. I would be constantly worried that I would over compress and lock it up in the boat. This would be painful at least and could be potentially dangerous, if it was as bad as when it happened in Vermont (or numerous times the following couple of weeks).

Anyway, this morning, the plan was for a 60 minute endurance session. I was originally planning to just do another boring ride on the stationary bike. I started there, and did 30 minutes that way, and I got really bored. My knee also felt perfectly fine.

Hmmm. Maybe I could do a little erging. Either it would go OK, or at least I’d be more certain about the procedure.

So, I toddled over to the erg. I put down a bandaid on the rail to give myself a reminder to not compress too far. I dialed up 10km on the PM5 and started rowing.

At first I was very tentative about stroke length, and the time off the erg was definitely having an effect. But over the first 10 minutes I got more comfortable and confident and lengthened my stroke a bit. I’m still not squeezing hard into full compression at the catch, but I was going an inch or so past the bandaid. As this happened I was able to bring the rate down a bit too.

The HR response was pretty poor for such a slow piece, but it was great to get back on the erg and my knee is showing no ill effects afterward.

Workout Summary - media/20161209-181650-sled_2016-12-09T07-29-45ZEST.strokes.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|10000|41:28.0|02:04.4|181.4|19.0|151.2|160.0|12.7
W-|10000|41:28.0|02:04.4|181.2|19.0|151.5|160.0|12.7
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|160.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|01000|04:05.0|02:02.5|185.0|20.0|137.1|146.0|12.2
02|01000|04:05.5|02:02.8|189.1|19.9|148.8|152.0|12.3
03|01000|04:07.3|02:03.6|185.2|19.5|150.5|152.0|12.4
04|01000|04:07.3|02:03.6|185.5|19.2|151.4|153.0|12.6
05|01000|04:10.1|02:05.1|178.8|18.9|152.6|154.0|12.7
06|01000|04:11.0|02:05.5|176.9|18.7|152.7|154.0|12.8
07|01000|04:10.4|02:05.2|178.3|18.9|153.3|155.0|12.7
08|01000|04:10.1|02:05.0|179.1|19.1|154.7|157.0|12.6
09|01000|04:10.5|02:05.3|178.0|18.2|155.5|157.0|13.2
10|01000|04:11.2|02:05.6|176.6|17.2|157.6|160.0|13.9

Here’s a quick plot showing how I extended my stroke length over the first 10 minutes or so.

Here are HR stats for the whole workout from Wahoo fitness.

Gotta say, I feel a lot better for having done it, but the worries about doing the wrong thing with the surgery are unabated.

Tomorrow: Probably another easy erg session and some strength work. Maybe I’ll try some kettlebell stuff for fun, plus push ups and chin ups.

Thursday: 30′ warmup and Strength

December 8, 20161 Comment

30′ warmup on the stationary bike. Manual setting 15. This felt harder and my HR rose faster than yesterday’s 60′ session. That’s what I wanted.

Then a quick shirt change and on to strength training.

Deadlifts with our brand new Trap Bar!

The thing weighs 75 pounds!

Bar only x10
165lbs x10
255lbs x5 x5 x5
(That was really fun. Never used the trap bar before. I got more confident in each set. I think I could go up in weight a bit)

Chin ups
Unassisted x6
Red Band x5 x4
(felt weaker today than on Tuesday, might have been the deadlifts. They were a bit tough at the end)

Push ups
x12 x12 x7 (fail)
(felt really spent on these, my arms were shaking all over in the last set)

I’m thinking that getting 2 rest days between strength sessions might work better for my purposes right now.

Tomorrow: 60′ Endurance Session

Wednesday: 60′ Endurance

December 7, 2016December 8, 20164 Comments

Not very exciting. 60 minutes on the stationary bike. Manual setting 14.

Tuesday: Strength

December 6, 20161 Comment

30 minute warmup on the stationary bike (manual, level 13)

Then into a strength session

Squats
(limited depth to protect my knee, put a Bench behind me and stopped when my butt hit it, it was about 3/4 depth)
45 x 10
95 x 10
145 x 10
165 x 8 x 3 sets

Chin ups
Unassisted x6 (yes! I’m making progress)
assisted x6 x6 x4

Good Mornings
45 x 10
95 x 10
145 x 10 x 3 sets

Push ups
(with rotating handle pads)
10 x 4 sets

Pretty happy with how that went, especially the squats. I really want to work on leg strength and preserve range of motion. I felt safe doing the squats this way.

Not by coincidence, I saw a tweet from Yann La Meur reviewing a paper by Rhea. This was talking about the specificity of squat training. In the experiment they took 28 collegiate athletes and only varied the type of squat exercise that they did within an otherwise identical strength training program. They found that quarter squats translated into bigger improvements in vertical leap and sprint speed than either full squats or half squats.

Now, of course the range of knee motion for rowing is a lot larger than running or jumping, so I am not sure that quarter or half squats are good for specific rowing training, but I found the article very interesting nonetheless. Mainly though, I want to avoid having my knee lock up while I have 200 pounds on my shoulders.

Tomorrow: Stationary Bike endurance session, ~ 60 minutes.