Sunday: 2 x 1K on Quinsig

July 3, 2016July 3, 20164 Comments

Weather: Sunny, cool (60f), a bit of wind from the West, about 5-10mph. This was a mostly cross wind, but a little bit to the bow when rowing north, at least I’d like to think so.

Plan:

Warmup
Practice Starts
1000m Race Simulation
recovery
1000m Hard Interval
Cool down

I guess I’m OK with how things went. I was hoping for faster times, but with the cross wind and chop, I was having some trouble rowing long. It was a bit tippy at the catch. The pace variations were mostly caused by gusts. Especially the big drop off about 3/4 of the way in to the second 1000m. In terms of effort, the first one was all out. The second one, I started out a a bit lower stroke rate, and when things seemed to be going OK, I started pushing harder.

But the main point of today was to dig deep, experience the pain, and carry on. From that perspective, this was a very good session. It hurt like hell, but I eased up just a little and carried on. I have a good idea of what I can do in the race. target pace is right around 2:00 for the first 500m, and then go for broke in the second half.

While I was doing the 1ks, I noticed that the speedcoach was reading a bit faster than Crewnerd. I had not recalibrated after reattaching the impeller, and I think it was giving me a couple of seconds on the pace that I was not earning. So, after I got to top of the lake, I did one final 1K, this time trying to keep the rate around a 26 to do a speedcoach calibration. To do this, I set up a 1000m piece on Crewnerd, and put the Speedcoach in to calibration mode. You start them both up, and then you push stop on the speedcoach right when Crewnerd hits zero. The cal factor ended up being 0.971. My old cal factor was 0.983. The change takes away about 1.5 seconds of pace. Whew. I feared it was more.

This afternoon, my wife and I are heading off to Cape Cod to celebrate July 4th out in Provincetown. Tomorrow will be a rest day. Tuesday, I will do an easy erg session in the afternoon.

Saturday: 3 x 20′ / 1’30” rest (with lactate)

July 2, 20161 Comment

My wife and I went to see Weezer outdoors at the Xfinity Center last night. Aside from a terrible warmup band, and a massive thunderstorm that pushed through right before they went on stage, it was a very fun night. We didn’t get home until nearly midnight, so I opted for sleep instead of rowing this morning.

I slept like a log and woke up around 9:30. After various chores and errands, I decided to keep things ticking over with another easy erg session. I’ll hit the time trial hard tomorrow on Quinsig.

Today, I wanted to turn down the power a bit to see if I could hit the endurance sweet spot. Very little HR drift, end HR below 155, and a lactate below 2.0mmol/l. I set up my meter, wet and dry towels and test strips. As Eminem would say…”It’s back to the lab again”.

Plan:

3 x 20′
1:30 rests to accommodate lactate testing with minimal panic
target power: 185W
target rate: 19spm
HR limit: 155
Lactate tests after each 20′ piece.

Lactate test results were:

20′: 1.8 mmol/l
40′: 2.1 mmol/l
60′: 1.9 mmol/l

So that is the difference that 6 watts makes.

Tomorrow: 1k TT, plus starts, plus some other sprint pieces.

3 x 20′ / 1′ rest @ 192W

July 1, 20161 Comment

I decided to just do an erg session today. A nice easy erg session. I’ll do my race prep tomorrow.

Plan:

3 x 20′
1′ rests
Power target: 190W
Rate target: 19-20spm
HR Cap: 155

Today, my HR started low, but just kept going up. I think that means that I was just the slightest bit faster than my ideal training power. I really should have setup to do some lactate testing, but I forgot until I had gotten going. But in the past, when my HR keeps drifting up, my lactates generally came in high. When I plateaued and the drift decreased over the session, then they were generally in range.

Next session, I’ll go for 185W.

Tomorrow: 1K hard. Additional sprints as I see fit.

New Backstays on the Alden

July 1, 20161 Comment

I’m procrastinating. I slept in this morning and didn’t feel like doing the time trial. I am also feeling a bit worn out. Over the last 7 days I’ve totalled 9:30 of time rowing, and 99,828m. That’s a huge increase compared to how the rest of this season has gone so far. My weekly averages are 54,000m and 4:45. They have been great sessions and I’m glad I’ve been home to be able to do them, but I am sore all over and feel very low energy.

But truth be told, part of it is being scared of the time trial. I’ll either go over later today or do it tomorrow morning.

But in the mean time, I finished the project to put new backstays on the Alden. I broke a backstay a couple weeks ago, as I described here, during my first real outing in the Alden Star. After that, I tried to find a replacement backstay. I attempted to contact the folks who sold me the boat (no reply), I attempted to contact Alden (no reply). I called the folks at Adirondack Rowing. They were great. They told me that they did not have the part, and that they were having a lot of trouble getting any merchandise from Alden. They pointed me to another guy who might have the part. He did not, but told me that it would be a lot easier to just make them instead of trying to buy them.

I asked him if there was anything special about the material. He said that most of them were standard aluminum tube. So, I google my way over to onlinemetals.com, navigated my way to the aluminum tube products and bought:

Aluminum 6061-T6 Bare
Drawn Tube
0.5″ x 0.049″ x 0.402″

They had anodized, but not in the dimensions I wanted. I might eventually paint them, or I might not.

Then, I paid a visit to my Dad, who has an impressive workshop. He was so excited by the project that he went out and bought himself a new, bigger, better, vise to form the ends. Using the one backstay that I had as a template, I cut the tubes to length, then flattened the last inch in the vise. Matched the hole sizes from the previous backstay to a drill and drilled the holes for the ends. A little work with a file to remove all the burrs and we were done.

Here’s the result.

The only thing that I am not completely happy with is the original was formed on the ends so that the bottom side of the stern end and the top side of the rigger end were flush. You can see in the picture above, that with available technology (a bench vise), that the flattening is centered on the tube, so there is a slight interference between the round tube and the stern deck. The problem is entirely cosmetic though.

Well, that’s done now. On to the next project. And hopefully, I’ll get myself pumped up enough to go rowing.

Thursday: r20 Steady State

June 30, 20162 Comments

Weather: Perfect. warm, 70F when I started, 75F when I finished. Sunny. Light WNW wind ~ 2mph. This was a cross/tail wind going downstream and cross/head going upstream. Water was very flat. Really delightful.

Plan: I was originally thinking to do a technique session, but I changed my mind. I have been doing a lot of rate ladders and technique work, but not much pure steady state rowing. And when I do, it tends to be at r18. This has helped me work on balance and stroke mechanics, but it also has encouraged me to pull really hard at the low rate to get any kind of decent pace. Today, I decided to try upping the rate a bit, and lighten my stroke to keep it low intensity

Steady State
4 x ~3000m
1′ rests to turn the boat and grab a quick drink
Rate: 20 SPM
Pace: faster than 2:30
Heart Rate: < 155, start to ease up on pressure when HR gets above 150
Technique: Favor length over power. Get fully compressed at the catch. Finish clean and early. Get those damn blades off the water.

rowsandall.com plots of the TCX data from CrewNerd

Plots from Speedcoach impeller data

Summary data from Speedcoach

Start_|_Dist_|_Split_|_Pace_|_Strks__|_Rate_|_DPS_|_AvgHR_|_Remarks
00020_|_1115_|_07:59_|_3:34.9_|_136___|_17.0_|_08.2_|_114___|_warmup
01137_|_2697_|_13:01_|_2:24.8_|_265___|_20.4_|_10.2_|_147___|_downstream tail wind
03830_|_0061_|_00:33_|_4:29.7_|_009___|_16.4_|_06.8_|_126___|_
03900_|_2728_|_13:27_|_2:27.8_|_272___|_20.2_|_10.0_|_148___|_upstream head wind
06617_|_0171_|_01:09_|_3:22.3_|_018___|_15.6_|_09.5_|_137___|_
06800_|_2827_|_13:54_|_2:27.5_|_281___|_20.2_|_10.1_|_148___|_downstream lt tail
09615_|_0124_|_00:41_|_2:47.3_|_014___|_20.2_|_08.9_|_124___|_
09750_|_2731_|_13:33_|_2:28.9_|_274___|_20.2_|_10.0_|_151___|_upstream lt head
12480_|_1203_|_07:09_|_2:58.2_|_128___|_17.9_|_09.4_|_139___|_cool down

Dist__|_Time__|_Pace___|_Strks_|_SPM__|_DPS__|_AvgHR_|_Remarks
01115_|_07:59_|_3:34.9_|_136___|_17.0_|_08.2_|_114___|_warmup
10983_|_53:55_|_2:27.3_|_1092___|_20.3_|_10.1_|_148___|_Main set
00356_|_02:24_|_3:21.7_|_041___|_17.1_|_08.7_|_130___|_rest meters
01203_|_07:09_|_2:58.2_|_128___|_17.9_|_09.4_|_139___|_cool down
13657_|_11:26_|_2:36.9_|_1397___|_19.6_|_09.8_|_143___|_Total

Tomorrow: 1000m time trial, 10 minute rest, 4 x 750 / 4′ rest

Wednesday: Tons of Starts (28 of them)

June 29, 2016June 30, 2016Leave a comment

Weather: Cloudy, warm 70F, intermittent light rain. Wind flukey, generally from the SW about 2mph.

Plan:

Warmup: increasing stroke rate bursts over about 3000m.
Start Practice:
- Standing start (obviously)
- 15 strokes (5 to get to full length, 5 hard, settle to race rate over last 5)
- 1 minute rests, with longer pauses to turn and avoid twisty bits of the river.
- Technique: Sit comfortably at the catch. Don’t overly compress. First stroke start smooth and finish early. Quick, short strokes, barely feather, get blades off the water. Then go out to full slide at maximal pressure for 5 strokes. Crisp downshift to racing rate after 10 strokes. Keep it light and above 30 spm.
Cool down: SBR, easy steady state, then feet out.

After an uncertain start, I had a blast. My stomach wasn’t feeling all that great, and I stopped for a bathroom break on the way to the boathouse. I didn’t feel strong and powerful during the warmup either, but I noticed that my paces were actually pretty good.

The warmup took me to the Moody Street Dam, and I turned around, had a drink and set myself up for my first start. It was terrible. The first stroke was uncertain and left me unbalanced, which led to multiple weak and shaky strokes. But I hung in with it and eventually got up to speed. The next one I took more carefully and it was pretty smooth. Another 6 starts took me to the beginning of the S-turn. I paddled through the turn and took about a 4 minute rest.

Then I did 6 starts up which took me to the newton end of the river. By now, I was getting very comfortable at the catch and reliably getting my splits down into the low 1:40s.

I turned and took another 3 or 4 minute rest and had a drink. Then I took off for the next set. The light wind that was slowing me down a bit before was now behind me, and all the sudden I was seeing 1:39 or 1:38 as my peak pace. This was getting fun. I did 6 starts to the start of the s-turn. Another quick break for a drink and to paddle through the turn.

Then it was 4 starts to get to the bridge, then a quick paddle through it and then 4 more to the end of the basin. The last 4 were a blast. After I finished I noticed that my legs were vibrating. I was pretty beat. But I was happy. I achieved the highest strokes I ever have and I actually felt like I had better control than in previous sessions. I also have never routinely seen 1:39 splits. And it’s fun to go fast. The thing I need to work on is getting a good settle and getting the pace back to around 2:00 so I don’t torch myself in the first 500m of the race.

Tomorrow: Steady State Endurance. Probably technique oriented. Definitely HR capped below 155.

Workout Summary - media/20160629-183958-2016-06-29-0658.CSV
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|11195|57:28.0|01:58.0|37.8|146.2|159.1|08.4
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|04050| 21:32 |02:37.9|19.7|134.0|166.0|09.7
02|00103| 00:27 |02:12.0|33.1|130.0|148.0|06.9
03|00097| 00:23 |01:56.9|39.9|143.0|157.0|06.5
04|00114| 00:26 |01:54.7|34.3|147.0|161.0|07.6
05|00104| 00:25 |01:57.4|36.8|148.0|161.0|06.9
06|00107| 00:25 |01:57.2|36.0|154.0|162.0|07.1
07|00113| 00:26 |01:57.8|33.7|152.0|162.0|07.5
08|00113| 00:27 |01:58.9|33.4|152.0|162.0|07.5
09|00102| 00:25 |01:59.3|36.8|152.0|161.0|06.8
10|00329| 02:04 |03:07.6|18.9|140.0|157.0|08.4
11|00109| 00:27 |02:04.0|33.4|132.0|151.0|07.3
12|00097| 00:23 |01:56.6|39.6|144.0|159.0|06.5
13|00094| 00:22 |01:55.0|41.7|133.0|154.0|06.3
14|00101| 00:24 |01:56.0|38.4|146.0|159.0|06.7
15|00101| 00:23 |01:54.7|38.7|149.0|160.0|06.7
16|00098| 00:23 |01:57.0|39.4|150.0|160.0|06.5
17|00110| 00:25 |01:53.6|36.0|138.0|157.0|07.3
18|00110| 00:23 |01:48.2|37.8|148.0|160.0|07.3
19|00094| 00:21 |01:51.5|42.9|151.0|161.0|06.3
20|00103| 00:22 |01:46.2|41.0|153.0|162.0|06.9
21|00087| 00:19 |01:50.3|47.2|151.0|159.0|05.8
22|00093| 00:21 |01:49.0|44.4|151.0|161.0|06.2
23|00101| 00:23 |01:53.2|39.4|140.0|157.0|06.7
24|00092| 00:20 |01:51.0|44.0|150.0|159.0|06.1
25|00094| 00:21 |01:49.5|43.9|152.0|160.0|06.3
26|00090| 00:20 |01:52.1|44.4|151.0|159.0|06.0
27|00092| 00:20 |01:48.4|45.0|144.0|158.0|06.1
28|00095| 00:21 |01:52.9|42.1|153.0|162.0|06.3
29|00094| 00:21 |01:50.4|43.4|152.0|161.0|06.3
30|00089| 00:19 |01:50.5|45.9|152.0|161.0|05.9
31|04019| 23:10 |02:52.0|20.0|141.0|155.0|08.7

Tuesday: Rate Ladders in a 2x

June 28, 20162 Comments

I had an appointment to have my car serviced this morning and the dealership is out near Lake Quinsigamond in Shrewsbury. I dropped my friend Joe a note yesterday to find out if he would be interested in taking out a double this morning for a row before I dropped off my car. He was. So we met at the lake around 5:45 and took out a nice Vespoli double that we have.

Joe is recovering from a surgical repair of a torn biceps tendon. He missed all of last season, but this season he is starting to get back to his old form. We put our names in the draw for the masters double event at the HOCR. Today was the first time we’ve been out in a double for about 2 years. We decided to do some rate ladders to work on our timing and try to match up our techniques a bit.

Plan:

Rate Ladders: 4′ @ 18, 3′ @ 20, 2′ @ 22, 1′ @ 24
Short rests at the south and north ends of the lake.

Weather: Cloudy, some light rain, warm around 70F. Wind was from the south at 3 to 5 mph. (1.8 to 2.2 m/s) The boat felt a lot heavier rowing south than it did rowing north.

We started out from just north of the rt 9 bridge and headed south. The first ladder started at 2 minutes. We hit the south end of the lake at the end of the r20 section of the second ladder and turned around to finish the r22 and r24 sections. Rowing north was a treat. The boat felt light and I felt like our timing was working better. One challenge we have to work on is that Joe and I seem to want the boat to lean in slightly different directions. I always feel like the boat is leaning a bit to port. Another thing to work on is finishes. I noticed that my finishes were sloppier in a double than in the single, I imagine because the stroke is a bit quicker.

We finished the 3rd ladder about 1000m south of the route 9 bridge and continued into the fourth. By the time we got to the r24 part of the fourth interval, I felt like we were rowing pretty well together and I called that we would go keep pushing the rate up. I heard the reaction, I was hoping for from Joe in the bow…”Alright!”. So, a minute at 26 felt great. Then up to 28. This started to be a bit more ragged, but still good fun. Then finally to 30. This was pretty nasty rowing, and not really any faster than the r28 bit. I don’t know about Joe, but I was feeling pretty winded by the time we were into the r30. We finished the r30 section right before we got to the I290 bridge and paddled it out to the north end of the lake.

There is just about 3K from the north end of the lake to the boathouse. We decided to do 20 strokes on / 20 strokes off until we had about 500m to go and then finish hard…just in case there was anyone at the boathouse to impress :-).

With about 700m to go, I brought up the rate and with 500m to go we went to full pressure at r28 and I started counting strokes to the finish.

I really enjoyed that. From a pure training effectiveness perspective, I probably should have kept the intensity a little lower, but I think it was good to work on technique at higher rates, and it was fun.

Looking at the biorow data, the wind would have slowed the pace down about 9 seconds going south and sped us up about 7 seconds going north.

Tomorrow: Back in the single. Race prep. Standing starts, 15 strokes, 1′ rests over and over.

Monday: Steady State r18/r20

June 27, 2016Leave a comment

Weather: Sunny and beautiful. Light wind, around 2mph which was gusty and gained a bit of strength during the session, ending at around 5mph. It was a headwind going up river and it sure felt a lot heavier rowing that direction.

Plan:

Steady State Rate Ladders
alternate 2′ @ 18 / 2′ @ 20
1′ rests at the ends of the river (roughly every 15 minutes)
Heart Rate Cap: 155, try to stay well below the cap
Technique: Long reach, clean finishes, good balance

I enjoyed the workout. It was good to have my speedcoach back. I missed getting pace feedback on a stroke by stroke basis. My first trip down the river, I was delighted by how light the boat felt. I was also pretty happy with the pace I was seeing. When I finally turned around at the Waltham end of the river, I noticed that there was actually a light tailwind helping me along for the first 20 minutes. Rowing back into it was a very different experience. I tried to row by effort and allowed the pace to float up. It was tough to judge because the feel of the stroke was very different, much heavier.

But, it was a very nice workout. And I managed to keep my HR in the right place and work a lot on finishes and balance.

Lots of split data, now that I have my happy speedcoach back. The only interesting bit is the totals for r18 and r20. r18 pace was 2:33, r20 pace was 2:28. I’d like to see those about 3 seconds faster than that, but when you include the starting, stopping, and head wind, I’m OK with it.

Start_|_Dist_|_Split_|_Pace_|_Strks__|_Rate_|_DPS_|_AvgHR_|_Remarks
00006_|_1152_|_06:49_|_2:57.6_|_121___|_17.7_|_09.5_|_115___|_warmup
01158_|_0396_|_01:58_|_2:28.7_|_036___|_18.3_|_11.0_|_131___|_18
01554_|_0436_|_02:05_|_2:23.6_|_042___|_20.1_|_10.4_|_140___|_20
01990_|_0395_|_01:58_|_2:28.9_|_036___|_18.4_|_11.0_|_140___|_18
02385_|_0408_|_01:58_|_2:24.1_|_040___|_20.4_|_10.2_|_144___|_20
02793_|_0401_|_02:00_|_2:29.3_|_036___|_18.0_|_11.1_|_141___|_18
03194_|_0432_|_02:04_|_2:24.1_|_042___|_20.2_|_10.3_|_144___|_20
03626_|_0394_|_02:01_|_2:33.2_|_035___|_17.4_|_11.3_|_142___|_18
04020_|_0399_|_01:58_|_2:28.2_|_040___|_20.3_|_10.0_|_136___|_20
04419_|_0399_|_02:02_|_2:33.1_|_038___|_18.7_|_10.5_|_145___|_18
04818_|_0401_|_01:58_|_2:26.6_|_040___|_20.4_|_10.0_|_146___|_20
05219_|_0389_|_01:59_|_2:33.0_|_036___|_18.2_|_10.8_|_146___|_18
05608_|_0396_|_01:59_|_2:30.0_|_040___|_20.2_|_09.9_|_148___|_20
06004_|_0396_|_02:04_|_2:36.1_|_038___|_18.4_|_10.4_|_149___|_18
06400_|_0378_|_01:56_|_2:33.7_|_040___|_20.7_|_09.5_|_152___|_20
06778_|_0148_|_01:02_|_3:30.8_|_011___|_10.6_|_13.5_|_117___|_r
06926_|_0392_|_01:57_|_2:29.5_|_036___|_18.4_|_10.9_|_130___|_18
07318_|_0423_|_02:01_|_2:22.6_|_040___|_19.9_|_10.6_|_146___|_20
07741_|_0403_|_02:00_|_2:29.5_|_036___|_17.9_|_11.2_|_145___|_18
08144_|_0415_|_02:00_|_2:24.6_|_040___|_20.0_|_10.4_|_148___|_20
08559_|_0399_|_02:00_|_2:30.0_|_036___|_18.0_|_11.1_|_147___|_18
08958_|_0436_|_02:04_|_2:22.2_|_042___|_20.3_|_10.4_|_149___|_20
09394_|_0374_|_01:59_|_2:38.8_|_032___|_16.2_|_11.7_|_148___|_18
09768_|_0380_|_02:00_|_2:38.6_|_040___|_19.9_|_09.5_|_139___|_20
10148_|_0376_|_01:58_|_2:37.0_|_036___|_18.3_|_10.4_|_149___|_18
10524_|_0377_|_01:58_|_2:36.2_|_040___|_20.4_|_09.4_|_150___|_20
10901_|_0389_|_02:05_|_2:40.3_|_038___|_18.3_|_10.2_|_150___|_18
11290_|_0392_|_01:59_|_2:31.3_|_040___|_20.2_|_09.8_|_150___|_20
11682_|_0383_|_01:59_|_2:35.4_|_036___|_18.2_|_10.6_|_151___|_18
12065_|_0387_|_01:57_|_2:31.8_|_040___|_20.4_|_09.7_|_154___|_20
12452_|_0399_|_02:05_|_2:36.4_|_038___|_18.3_|_10.5_|_151___|_18
12851_|_1040_|_06:09_|_2:57.3_|_119___|_19.4_|_08.7_|_140___|_c

Dist__|_Time__|_Pace___|_Strks_|_SPM__|_DPS__|_AvgHR_|_Remarks
01152_|_06:49_|_2:57.6_|_121___|_17.7_|_09.5_|_115___|_warmup
00148_|_01:02_|_3:30.8_|_011___|_10.6_|_13.5_|_117___|_rest meters
01040_|_06:09_|_2:57.3_|_119___|_19.4_|_08.7_|_140___|_cool down
05885_|_30:03_|_2:33.2_|_543___|_18.1_|_10.8_|_144___|_r18
05660_|_27:57_|_2:28.2_|_566___|_20.2_|_10.0_|_146___|_r20
11545_|_58:01_|_2:30.7_|_1109___|_19.1_|_10.4_|_145___|_main set

Just for fun, so you can see the difference between speedcoach and Crewnerd data. Here is the same session, both plotted on rowsandall.com.

First is Speedcoach. I was setup to log data every second stroke. One key difference is that no data is logged when I am turning, so the rests disappear. The second is from Crewnerd.

Tomorrow: A rare midweek row out on Quinsig. Another low intensity session. I think this one will be technique oriented. Probably 2′ SBR, 2′ Alternating, 2′ r20.

Sunday: 6 x 750 / 4′ rest on Quinsig

June 26, 2016June 26, 20163 Comments

It was a lovely morning. Temperature started around 65F and was 75F by the time we finished. Wind was light from the south, about 2mph with gusts to 5 mph. It seemed to be strongest during the first 3 intervals (2 with head wind and 1 with tail wind) and then died down. Very sunny, I was glad I wore a hat.

The plan for today was hard intervals.

6 x 750
4 minute rests
standing starts
rate: original plan was to start at 26 and work my way up. But I changed my plan when I was able to tempt Bob from my club to do the 750s with me. So, no rate cap.
pace: As close to 2:00 as I could manage without dying
technique: Work on getting a clean start, and rowing clean and light. Try to keep the blades off the water.

When I launched, the HR was working on CrewNerd, but not the Speedcoach. Then the Crewnerd HR blinked out. Time for a new battery.

We started with a warmup for about 1500 meters or so. Some 10 strokes bursts, and then a few practice starts. Once we were past the narrows, We set up for the first interval. I setup Crewnerd for the workout. I guess I must of splashed a bit in my start, because a drop of water strategically hit the crewnerd screen right in the right place to take me to the “Live Tracking” screen. So, I didn’t have a view of how many meters remained. Since I was responsible for the interval distance for both me and Bob, I counted out strokes, and when I got to 95, I called it done. Turns out I stopped about 10 meters short.

Looking at the weather data, it seemed like the wind was very light, but it was hard to get down to target pace. A 2 mph wind is about 1m/s. This will add about 3 seconds onto the split. It felt more like a 6 second adder.

The second interval was unremarkable. Still the light but pernicious headwind. And it really hurt! If the goal of this workout is to provoke the lactate wave, it was certainly doing it’s job. I felt like I was going to shit myself after this interval.

Now we turned and headed up lake. By now we had calibrated how much time to leave between us starting so that we would finish just about even. This ramped up the level of intensity. The third interval was nice and fast with a bit of tail wind.

The fourth was interrupted at 400m by a gigantic, boat stopping wake. We picked it back up and did 250m to finish it off after the wake had rolled through.

The fifth and sixth were just damn painful, which was the point. To provoke the lactate wave, and push through it. In each of the last two, the wave hit at about 400m, and I just counted down the strokes to the end. Each of them took 91 strokes.

From there, we paddled to the north end of the lake, with square blades. Then we spun, I took my feet out of the shoes and worked on nice clean finishes for the 2500m back to the boathouse. I was really tired.

The whole workout, pace and rate, from the speedcoach.

The fifth and sixth intervals. I need to remember that the pace gets messed up at 10m per point and use strokes for hard workouts.

Tomorrow: Steady State rate ladders

Saturday: 3 x 20′ / 1′ r L4

June 26, 20163 Comments

Stayed up too late, and decided to sleep instead of heading to the lake. I’ll row tomorrow instead. Got up around 9:30 and hopped on the erg.

After yesterday’s very long row, I decided to only do 60 minutes today. I also decided to stick with a stroke sequence and let my HR do what ever it wanted to do.

I did the following sequence: 2′ @ 16, 2′ @ 17, 2′ @ 18, 2′ @ 19, 2′ @ 20

Power was 10W * stroke rate (so 16spm = 160W)

One interesting thing in the charts is the drive length. As usual, you can see my drive length increasing over the first 10 minutes. I think it is cool how it becomes more erratic as I get tired. I like all the data that you can get out of painsled.

Started off feeling great. But I kind of hit the wall in the last 20 minutes. HR was a lot higher. I’ve decided to try to do my LIT endurance workouts in a fasted state. I think the research is pretty clear that it helps keep you metabolizing fats to a higher intensity than if you have eaten recently. The thing that I am trying to work out now is intensity.

I have the feeling that if I had limited to high end of this workout to 190W, I probably would have maintained a lower heart rate. It might be better to go back to a constant power level for these workouts. My suspicion is that there is a fair amount of hysteresis in the crossover between fat and CHO metabolism. Once you flip the switch to start burning glycogen, that you have to go way down in intensity to flip the switch back to fat. I think that where I am now, that going above 180W I am flipping the switch.

For now, if I have to do any steady state on the erg, I think I will start doing lactate testing again, and stick to constant power. Pity. It is very boring. But I want to get some unequivocal data on where my base fitness is right now.

Quantified Rowing

Measure – Adjust – Improve

Sunday: 2 x 1K on Quinsig

Saturday: 3 x 20′ / 1’30” rest (with lactate)

3 x 20′ / 1′ rest @ 192W

New Backstays on the Alden

Thursday: r20 Steady State

Wednesday: Tons of Starts (28 of them)

Tuesday: Rate Ladders in a 2x

Monday: Steady State r18/r20

Sunday: 6 x 750 / 4′ rest on Quinsig

Saturday: 3 x 20′ / 1′ r L4