Monday: 16K Steady State OTW

August 1, 20162 Comments

Up at 5:15am, having gotten very little sleep. Gotta get back into this timezone somehow.

Off to Newton for my first OTW session since July 20th! I decided that a steady state session to just get some meters in the boat.

Plan:

row for about 80 minutes
short <1′ breaks at the turn arounds for a quick drink.
r20
pace target ~2:30
HR cap: 155

Weather was cloudy, 70F and 90% RH. Another recipe for copious perspiration. There was a light wind 2-4mph from the east. This was roughly a head wind heading down river and tail wind going up river.

I used RIM today to see what’s happening with my stroke. Here are plots of a few strokes with a light headwind (purple) and tailwind (yellow)

Not much to see at these rates really. At least it doesn’t look like I am lurging at the catch, like I used to do.

Heart rate was high and speed was slow, as I would expect after so long out of a boat. I tried to easy up when my HR got above 155, but it got harder and harder as I went along to row that slowly. Finally after about 12.5K, I decided to transition over to some form drills, so I finsihed with a few 500m sets of SBR and alternating SBR and feathered rowing. This felt pretty good and I was happy that my balance seemed no worse for the layoff.

Start_|_Dist_|_Split_|_Pace_|_Strks__|_Rate_|_DPS_|_AvgHR_|_Remarks
00020_|_1072_|_05:32_|_2:34.6_|_108___|_19.5_|_09.9_|_133___|_warmup
01087_|_2765_|_13:42_|_2:28.7_|_274___|_20.0_|_10.1_|_153___|_head wind
03852_|_3091_|_15:17_|_2:28.4_|_298___|_19.5_|_10.4_|_152___|_tail wind
06943_|_2698_|_13:48_|_2:33.4_|_273___|_19.8_|_09.9_|_154___|_head wind
09641_|_2890_|_14:33_|_2:31.1_|_282___|_19.4_|_10.2_|_152___|_tail wind
12531_|_3407_|_18:21_|_2:41.6_|_330___|_18.0_|_10.3_|_148___|_drills

Dist__|_Time__|_Pace___|_Strks_|_SPM__|_DPS__|_AvgHR_|_Remarks
01072_|_05:32_|_2:34.6_|_108___|_19.5_|_09.9_|_133___|_warmup
11444_|_57:21_|_2:30.3_|_1127___|_19.7_|_10.2_|_153___|_Main set
03407_|_18:21_|_2:41.6_|_330___|_18.0_|_10.3_|_148___|_cool down
15923_|_21:13_|_2:33.0_|_1565___|_19.3_|_10.2_|_150___|_Total

So, not a bad return to the water. Still working on endurance base.

Tomorrow: 4 x 2700’/4′ rest @ 24-26spm (threshold)

Monday: No Training, Tuesday: 4 x 2800 / 4′ rest

July 20, 2016July 24, 20162 Comments

Weather: Sunny. Beautiful. Building wind from the WNW. I launched at 6:30, and started the first interval about 10 minutes later. I was back on the dock at 8:00. So you can see the wind increasing in the chart below.

Plan:

4 x 2800
4′ rest
rate: 24-26
pace: <2:20
HR: No cap, objective is to maximize time in TR
Technique: early and clean finishes, good reach at the catch.

This was a good workout.

The reason that this workout is 2800m intervals is because that is how much river I have to row on. I row out of a place called Boating in Boston, at the bottom of this map.

I row across the lagoon, which is chock full of weeds, then around a reasonably tight corner. Then there is about 300m of straight water. This is good for a few power strokes and warmup type drills. Then a sharp turn into “the cut”. That is a short cut that cuts out a big, long, annoying oxbow in the river. Coming out of the cut, there is about 100m of weedy channel to get to a little island on the south side of the river. That island is the start point of the “good rowing” and the start of the 2800m interval. This map shows the course of the rowable water.

Starting at the island, you row down a narrow channel for about 100m, and then things open up on both sides. On the south/east side, there is a long cove which is good rowing early in the season, but gets all weedy. On the north/west side, there is a broad area of wetlands. This is a nice broad channel.

About 600m from the start you pass between a point on the east side and little island on the west side. There is a sunken log off the point that I mashed a fin on two seasons ago. I tend to give it a wide berth.

After you pass this point, you turn a bit to take the ideal line through the s-curve. The traffic pattern on the river is defined as downriver on the south/east side and up river on the north/west side. But in the curve, on a high intensity workout, I will go for the best line and keep a sharp eye out for boats. The river is usually pretty deserted. The perfect line for the curve is to cut the south shore close going in, then turn as little as possible to get past the north corner, then gradually get back to the east side coming out of the turn. The turn is tight enough to cost me me about 5 seconds on pace in the two turns.

Coming out the turn, there is beautiful stretch in front of an old watch works. It has been converted to condos and offices, but it still looks like a classic New England factory. There is about 600m of nearly straight rowing before you need to think about the bridge.

The bridge. What can I say about the bridge. It’s very pretty, but a challenge for rowers. Here is a view of it from the downstream side on the north/west bank of the river. The nearest arch is unusable because it is too shallow. The middle arch is for going uyp river. The far arch is for downstream traffic. Each arch is about twice as wide as the span of a sculling boats oars, and the bridge carries two lanes of traffic and two sidewalks, so it’s about two boat lengths through.

The challenge is the approach. Coming downstream (at the bottom of the next photo), you need to cut close to the dock, and turn toward the east bank for a few strokes. Then you need to cut back to line yourself up with the center of the arch since the road is not at right angles to the river. Then coming out of the bridge, you should steer a bit back to the east bank to be in the right traffic lane. You can see I didn’t do a good job with that today.

Coming upstream, you can’t just aim at the middle arch because the is a outflow pipe which has made a little sand bar that juts out a bit, so you need to aim at the downstream arch, then turn to the middle, then turn back to get the right angle through the arch. Then there is a bit more adjustment to get out to the upstream lane.

All of this is actually easier than it sounds, but it is a challenge to do it right after 2200m of hard rowing. It’s even trickier at 30spm.

After the bridge is about 600m in a long arc to the Moody Street Dam. This is straightforward but tends to have the worst wind for some reason.

Anyway, not sure why I felt the need to do that, but I did. Back to the workout.

The first rep was magic, I was flying. I was rowing well and moving fast. If only it was always like that. 2:11.8 pace over 2800m including all the shananigans.

After I finished it. I had an “Oh dear” moment, realizing that I had 3 more to do. I decided to hold myself back a bit from then on. I aimed at keeping the pace on the right side of 2:20. That worked out fine. The second interval was trouble free. 2:18.4 pace.

OK, half done. Time to go again. I was tired but ready to give it a go. No problems to report. 2:17.6, with a little bit of help from the WNW breeze.

After three I was smoked. And the breeze seemed to be building. I gave myself permission to suck. And at first I really did. The head wind was not debilitating, but it sure slowed me down across the basin at the start, then it was more of a cross wind, until the S-turn, when I was back into the teeth of it. I was lots of 2:25s and higher in the worst of it. Then when I got back to about the point with the sunken log, I started to push a lot harder, I got a little faster and my level of effort went a lot higher. I charged back up the channel at about 2:10 pace and declared victory. 2:20.3 pace for the last interval, fair enough with the head wind and tired legs.

Here’s the data from the Speedcoach

Start_|_Dist_|_Split_|_Pace_|_Strks__|_Rate_|_DPS_|_AvgHR_|_Remarks
00020_|_1519_|_08:51_|_2:54.9_|_148___|_16.7_|_10.3_|_119___|_warmup
01536_|_2801_|_12:18_|_2:11.8_|_309___|_25.1_|_09.1_|_163___|_light tail wind
04337_|_0145_|_01:18_|_4:27.9_|_020___|_15.4_|_07.3_|_125___|_rest
04482_|_2798_|_12:54_|_2:18.4_|_327___|_25.3_|_08.6_|_169___|_light head
07280_|_0229_|_02:50_|_6:11.4_|_027___|_09.5_|_08.5_|_127___|_
07509_|_2784_|_12:46_|_2:17.6_|_317___|_24.8_|_08.8_|_169___|_light tail
10293_|_0136_|_01:49_|_6:40.4_|_024___|_13.2_|_05.7_|_136___|_
10429_|_2788_|_13:02_|_2:20.3_|_325___|_24.9_|_08.6_|_171___|_stronger head
13217_|_1204_|_08:06_|_3:21.6_|_150___|_18.5_|_08.0_|_135___|_cool down

Dist__|_Time__|_Pace___|_Strks_|_SPM__|_DPS__|_AvgHR_|_Remarks
01519_|_08:51_|_2:54.9_|_148___|_16.7_|_10.3_|_119___|_warmup
11171_|_51:01_|_2:17.0_|_1278___|_25.1_|_08.7_|_168___|_Main set
00510_|_05:57_|_5:49.7_|_071___|_11.9_|_07.2_|_129___|_rest meters
01204_|_08:06_|_3:21.6_|_150___|_18.5_|_08.0_|_135___|_cool down
14404_|_13:54_|_2:33.9_|_1647___|_22.3_|_08.7_|_155___|_Total

Tomorrow: Completely the same and totally different. Again 4 x 2800, but with 1′ rests, at r20 and with a HR cap at 150. Steady State endurance training.

Sunday: 15K of Technique

July 17, 2016July 17, 20162 Comments

Well, more like 13K of technique and 2K of slogging through nasty chop.

Weather: Weird. It started out just fine. Little or no wind. Overcast. About 70F and more humid than yesterday, about 80% RH. We launched at about 6:45 and the weather stayed that way until about 8am. Just when we had hit the south end of the lake. We turned around and all of the sudden there was a pretty considerable headwind from the North. It was a slog up to the narrows, and it got worse from there. The chop on the north side of the narrows was awful, and it made me feel like all the good drill work that I had been doing had gone to waste.

Don’t take my word for it. Take a look at the plot from Weather Underground.

Anyway, back to the rowing.

Today’s Plan:

2K of rowing with a bungee. Trying to work on relaxing my arms and shoulders through the drive and getting my arms out straight. Work on sequencing the drive better and holding a forward position through the leg drive.
(500m of SBR, 500m of alternating SBR and feathered, 500m of feathered) repeated over and over again. Working on trying to maintain the same back position at the finish when feathered of square. Try to correct my habit of laying back too much. Also try to get way out at the catch and challenge my balance at the catch.

We launched and headed north. I had a bungee around the boat about where the footplate was. I was working on getting my arms straight and my shoulders relaxed. At first, I was really hammering the catch and opening up my back too early. I was also rowing at a very low rate. As I continued up lake, I was doing better getting to full compression, easing into the drive, and holding my body forward longer. This was a much smoother stroke and my speed and rate both picked up. Very satisfying at the end seeing the water flying everywhere off of the bungee.

At the north end of the lake, I had a quick drink and took off the bungee. Then I started my 500s with my blades square. My balance was pretty good and I was able to get out to full compression reasonably well. I was having some trouble keeping my finishes clean. On about 1/3 of the strokes, I could feel myself getting hung up as I extracted the oars. My best strokes, the finish was much smoother, essentially maintaining the pace of the stroke at the finish and just lifting the blades clear of the water. On the bad strokes, I would reach the end of the stroke with the blades still buried and I could feel the pressure on the blades from the boat velocity. It got a bit better as I continued to work on it.

The alternating SBR and feathered is a great drill (in my opinion anyway). I have noticed that I tend to layback too much, especially as I get tired and leave the oars in the water too long. Then I feather and extract the oars in one movement. By doing alternating strokes, I can try to match the exact body position at the finish for both SBR and feathered. An early finish on SBR leads to a smooth extraction, going late leads to a hang up. The feeling is much more pronounced than when rowing feathered and the turn of the oar handle avoids the hangup. The alternating strokes reinforces the right moment in the drive to push the handles down.

It’s always a relief to do the 500m of feathered rowing, but also a chance to really try to reinforce the body position that I was holding at the finish. I caught myself with too much layback a bunch of times, but the good thing was that I really noticed it and corrected it.

The 500m chunks are a good length because it’s enough time to really work on stuff, but not so long that you lose concentration.

I did about 11K of this drill, so maybe 7 complete sets or so. the last couple sets were into the newly developed head wind. I could really feel it pushing back on square blades. I bailed out on the drill at the narrows because the water was too nasty to row n the square productively. I slogged along until I was nearly at the bridge and then pumped up the rate a couple notches and tried to finish with a bit more effort.

Workout Summary - media/20160717-165231-2016-07-17-0647o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|15370|86:10.0|02:48.2|17.8|146.0|169.0|10.0

Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|15370|86:09.0|02:48.2|17.8|146.0|169.0|10.0

Tomorrow: Probably a rest day. I am picking my wife up at the airport at 11:30pm. I doubt I’ll want to get up at 5am after going to bed around 1am.

Week #1: Plan vs Actual

Date	Day	Workout Type	mode	Planned Workout	*Actual*
Meso Cycle #1 – Endurance
7/11/16	Mon	Rest	rest		40′ UT2 cross training
7/12/16	Tue	Hard Distance	erg	60′ @ 1:57	60′ Threshold on treadmill
7/13/16	Wed	Steady State	erg	4 x 20′ / 1′ (hr cap at 150)	80′ UT2 on elliptical, bike, treadmill
7/14/16	Thu	Hard Distance	erg	60′ @ 1:57	rest day
7/15/16	Fri	Technique UT2/UT1	otw	Bungee Row first half, Steady state r20 second half	3×20′ UT2/UT1 on erg
7/16/16	Sat	Hard Distance	otw	2 x 5.5K r26	1×5.5k hard distance, plus 60′ LIT
7/17/16	Sun	Technique UT2/UT1	otw	Square Blades / Slow Roll Up / r20 2 minutes each, repeated	90′ OTW Technique work
Summary				240′ LIT SS 110′ Threshold distance work	330′ LIT SS 85′ Threshold

Happy enough with that. Priority is on lots of SS minutes now.

Saturday: Hard Distance – 5.5K

July 16, 20163 Comments

Weather: Stunningly beautiful. Clear skies. mid 70s. Nearly flat calm when we started. At the very end, during the row back to the dock, the wind picked up from the North. By the time we were off the water, it was about 7mph.

Plan:

2 x 5.5K
5′ rest
rate target: 24
pace target: 2:15 to 2:20

There is a big waterskiing competition at the lake today and tomorrow, so we started a half hour earlier to try to avoid the traffic. I headed north on the lake first and slowly built a bit of pace. About halfway up the lake someone in a single turned in behind me. They kept looking over their shoulder and slowly ratcheting up the rate. I wasn’t sure what they were intending, but but it seemed like he had put a target on me. Of course, I wanted to stay ahead of them, so I ended up being very warmed up by the time I got to the end of the lake.

I had a drink of water and hung out for a little while, getting myself psyched up for a good hard row. This would be the first head race simulation of the season and would help set a marker for me to use for training over the next month or so. It couldn’t have been a better day for it. The wind and water would be giving me no excuses and the power boats were not out yet in any kind of numbers.

During head racing season, I will be doing these pieces at about 28 spm. But I need to work my way up to that. Today, I was looking to hold about 24 spm. As it turned out, even that was a tough ask. I was finding myself settling at a 23 and my HR was pretty high. I think I have to row a bit lighter if I want to get efficient at a higher rate.

The row was entirely uneventful. I passed three or four singles as I made my way down lake. I wore a hat with a mirror today and although it wasn’t hugely useful, it wasn’t terribly distracting either. That is another project for me this summer. To get used to using a mirror for head races. I counted strokes. 100 strokes would take me about 900m or so. So I figured that 600 strokes would take me the 5500m. I was kind of worried after the first 100 strokes. I felt pretty tired and I wasn’t sure I’d be able to complete the piece. Luckily, during the second 100 I had a single in my sights and chased him down. That was distracting enough that I was able to manage my breathing and ease up just enough to be sustainable. The third block of 100 strokes took me through the route 9 bridge, and coming out that, I spotted another single, which helped keep me on task as I passed him. The fourth set of 100 got me just about to the narrows. I was really feeling it at this point, but the end was getting a lot closer. I got past the islands, and into the part that always feels incredibly long. There is a stretch of open water from the last island to the mouth of the south cove. I hit 500 strokes about at the island, just another 100 to go. This stretch gave me a good chance to use the mirror to aim at the point at the entrance of the cove. I have to get used to using this thing when I am tired. This was my first chance and it worked out. I nailed the line and passed nice and close to the point

I had 30 strokes to go when I passed and it was time to push a little bit harder to the end. There wasn’t much to draw on though, I was tapped out. It felt great to see Crewnerd count up past 5500m, and I coasted to stop. There was no way that I had another piece like that in me today. I decided to just do some easy technical rowing to finish out the day. I had a bit of wait before some of the other folks arrived in the cove, and I was happy enough to just sit in the sun drink my water. I ultimately paddled up lake to intercept them and came back down lake with them. I paddled up lake with Bob. As we came out of the cove, the wind picked up pretty suddenly and made it a bit of a slog to get back to the dock.

If I want to do 2 of these pieces, which I do during this endurance block, then I have to use a more conservative pace target, like 2:20 to 2:25.

Workout Summary - media/20160716-161035-2016-07-16-0635.CSV
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|13065|70:04.0|02:40.1|19.7|151.0|169.3|09.3
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|02265| 12:38 |02:47.3|16.8|141.0|163.0|10.7
02|05533| 25:21 |02:17.4|23.3|170.0|183.0|09.4
03|05267| 32:05 |03:02.3|19.0|142.0|162.0|08.7

So, a 2:17 pace at 23 spm. I’m OK with that. Last year, my best head race was a 2:13.9 pace at 27 spm. I think with some decent training and losing some weight, I’m be at that pace or better by race time.

Tomorrow: Technical session on Quinsig. Start with some bungee rowing, then 500m blocks of SBR, alternating SBR/feathered and feathered.

Sunday: Cromwell Cup

July 10, 201611 Comments

Weather: misty rain. Temp around 65F. Light winds. Flat water, except for some launch wakes.

I got to Riverside around 6am. I unloaded and parked my car close by. I was all settled in time for the 6:20 racers meeting. Then I waited around to launch. My start was at 8:43, so I launched just after 8AM, and made my way up river to the warmup area above the start. I did a version of my normal warmup with increasing rates, and then did some starts. The first couple were pretty horrid, but I settled down and eventually shook off the nervousness. Then it was pretty much OK.

Were called to the line 5 minutes before our start and lined up across the river. No bouys marking lanes or the start line. There was just a tent on the shore and a person with a megaphone calling alignment. As soon as she called it aligned, the starter on the launch behind us called out. “This is the start. Ready. Attention. Row!” I’m very glad that I setup at the catch when alignment was called, because there was no screwing around on this one.

My start was clean, but uninspired. I was in lane 2, which share the center span of the two bridges with lane 3. I was side by side with the guy in lane 3 through the first bridge and there was only about 5 m between us. It was exciting stuff, but he was faster than I was and I was flying and dying trying to stay side by side with him. After the first bridge, I settled in at about r30 and just tried to hold on to some semblance of technique. The launch was aggressively calling steering commands to all of us, and I found it a bit disruptive. I lost stroke count a couple of times because I was trying to listen, steer, watch the pace, count and row cleanly. But the main thing was that I had gone out too hard and I was paying the price now.

The second bridge is only about 300m away from the first, but I felt like time was passing in slow motion. That’s what happens to me when I don’t have a good stroke count to keep me centered. I went under the second bridge, finally, and looked at Crewnerd. Crewnerd told me I had 350m left to go. In my head, I translated that to another forty strokes. Two sets of 20. I can do that. I started pushing the pace again and got through 20 strokes. At this point, I got some more steering suggestions. I had drifted over into lane 1, by the docks of the Riverside Boathouse. I took a couple of hard port strokes, and then counted out the remaining 20 strokes to the finish, but no beep! I kept on going for a couple more strokes and the finish horn finally went off. I was massively disappointed with my time, 4:01.3. I finished 3rd in my 4 person race.

Here are the results of the other heat.

After the finish, I rowed down to the BU bridge for a cool down, and that was it for the day.

Here’s the whole row. The race was from LAP002 to LAP003.

Here’s a zoomed view of my course. You can see that my steering was way less than ideal. I started off going toward lane 1, eventually got my point on the bridge and went through it side by side with the guy in lane 3. After that bridge, I veered away from him, but it looks like my course was reasonably straight toward the second bridge. Coming out of the second bridge, I started veering toward lane3, and was pointed back by the launch following us. I guess I must have overcorrected because you can see how I drifted out into lane 1. The guy in lane 1 was well behind at this point, so there was no interference, but I added some extra distance and slowed myself down to steer at the end.

Here’s pace, spm and heart rate.

Here’s a zoomed view of the race.

I covered an extra 10-20 meters over the 1k due to my lousy steering. The slow down at the end was me steering back to lane 2 away from the dock.

00010_|_3489_|_22:34_|_3:14.0_|_381___|_16.9_|_09.2_|_142___|_warmup

03498_|_1012_|_04:00_|_1:58.6_|_126___|_31.5_|_08.0_|_173___|_race

04510_|_1416_|_09:38_|_3:24.2_|_153___|_15.9_|_09.3_|_134___|_cooldown

So, what am I to make of this race.

The pace that I managed was what I should have been expecting based on the prep work I had been doing. I was doing an all out 500m at a 1:55 pace, so a 1K should have been between 1:58 and 1:59.
My steering was bad. I think that was mainly because I have been trying to make up for a lack of good specific preparation by trying to push very close to my limits. Last year, I was very disciplined about looking every ten strokes and it was a better race.
With regard to race specific training. Between my travel schedule, my lack of a boat until a month ago, and not having a good specific training plan, I was not well prepared for this race. I did enough training on starts, but I did not do enough heavy lifting. I needed more 4x1Ks, 6x750s and 8 x 500s.
My base fitness isn’t as good as it has been either. My 2mmol power is around 185w right now on the erg. I think last year it would have been about 10 watts higher. That’s about 4 seconds on pace, and I think it made a big difference in the second half of the race.

Based on all of that, I did as well as I should have expected. And I’m fine with that. Honestly, I’m not completely fine with it, but I understand it, and I will use it to define my training from here on out.

Now I set my sights on head racing season. Here’s a preliminary race schedule.

Sept 17: CRI Fall classic (5K)
Oct 2: Textile River Regatta (6K)
Oct 9: Quinsigmond Snake Race (4K)
Oct 22: Head of the Charles (5K) (If I get in the lottery)
Nov 5: Merrimack Chase (5K)

I need to put together a more formal training plan, but for now, I will be focusing on aerobic base. Lot’s of 2mmol rowing. It’s also time for some video and RIM feedback.

Friday: 2 x 500- still tapering

July 9, 20162 Comments

Weather: cloudy, windy around 7 mph, with gusts above 15mph. A cross wind.

I slept in this morning. Late this afternoon, I went to go for a short row and pick up my boat for this weekend’s race.

Plan:

Warmup
practice starts
2 x 500
- pace target: 1:55 to 1:57
- rate target: 30-32
cool down

I felt tired and frankly a little weird. My heart rate was really high even right after I left the dock. The wind was also a bother. A pretty stiff cross wind was kicking up some chop and also at times shifted around to be a nasty headwind.

The warmup was slow and I felt sluggish throughout. I was also paranoid because there were quite a few other boaters out. Kayaks, canoes, fishing boats. All randomly puttering along blissfully unaware that the river has a traffic pattern at all.

The past few days, I’ve been doing exactly the same warmup, but today, my heartrate was a good 10 to 15 beats higher throughout for about the same effort. Maybe too much caffeine or something.

After the warmup, I paddled to the end of the basin, turned and setup Crewnerd as instructed by Sander. Sounds on, speech on, autostart off, and then I set up the workout for practice starts. This is a 15 second countdown, 15 strokes, 1 minute rest. I planned 4 reps. With the speech on, Crewnerd gives you a tone warning at 15 seconds, then it says “ready” at 2 seconds to go, “attention” at 1 second, and “go” at zero. It works well and gives it a little more realism.

I played the first start conservatively, working on stability and crisp blade work. The next three I pushed harder. Each time, the same sequence. Comfortable at the catch at about 3/4 slide. Smooth push to get the boat moving. Early finish, blades high, barely feather, half slide, get blades in, finish early. Try to get the rate up around 45 for the first 5 short strokes. Then lengthen out to full slide in strokes six and seven, keep the rate high up through stroke 10. Then settle down to 32 and let the pace drift up toward 1:55 by stroke 15. I think these starts were good and solid. I was happy with them. None were perfect, but none were botched.

The last start put me about 20m away from the bridge, and I drifted under it and got myself lined up for the first 500. Again with autostart off, a 15 second countdown and speechified starting commands. It was basically flat calm as I started, but when I got out to around stroke 15, I was hit with a pretty strong gust of head wind, and it persisted through about 10 strokes, then eased a bit, and then slammed me again. This interval was right by the watch factory and I think the wind was swirling around the building. By the fortieth stroke, I was clear of the building and the wind calmed right down. I pushed the pace back down and really hammered the last 25 strokes. I paid the price after I finished.

I then paddled through the s-turn, and setup at the end of the straight section. The wind was still blowing, and here it was a cross/head wind. It felt like it was around 6-8mph and pretty constant. There wasn’t much chop where I started, but the river opens up to the port side of the boat after about 100m and there is enough room to build up a little bit of wave action. Nothing impressive by lake standards, but enough to make it tough to get out to full compression and maintain good balance. My start was good, and I just slogged my way through the breeze. Steering in sprints is always a challenge. I try to get a good look in about every ten strokes. In this piece, when I looked around at the 10th stroke, I saw a fishing boat to my port, safely clear. At 20, I looked again, and they appeared to be puttering along on a course that was converging with mine. I then steered to starboard to give myself some room. At thirty strokes, they seemed to have adjusted their course to try to get in my way. I steered more and snuck a look in at 35 strokes. They were right off my port bow, but clear by about 20m or so. I picked it up and pushed past them and it really started to hurt. So at 50 strokes, I pulled back and tried to set a rate and pressure that I could have sustained longer. This was a good way to finish, because I didn’t feel so bad after this rep.

I paddled with square blades most of the way back to the dock.

I decided to take a full rest day today and recharge my batteries for the race tomorrow.

The race tomorrow.

I’m in lane 2. This lane shares the center arch of the bridges. Scott Hornney is the guy who beat me by a little in last year’s Cromwell cup, and by a lot in a couple of head races. He’s a good rower, and pulled a 6:27 at last year’s CRASH-Bs! I have no expectation of beating him. Thomas Beretich was in the Cromwell Cup last year and he was a bit slower than I was. I don’t think that I’ve raced against James Ball before.

This year there might be a new twist. It looks like they are using the US Rowing age based handicaps. So, I get a 2.5 second of advantage against Thomas and Scott, and 3.7 vs James. That’s an intriguing twist, and one that I plan to ignore. I like racing on raw time.

The race meeting is at 6:20, so I plan to get there around 6 to unload and park. Then it will be a couple hours of waiting for (hopefully) less than 4 minutes of rowing. I’m very excited.

Thursday: 3 x 500 taper

July 7, 20163 Comments

Weather: Cloudy, cool. A bit more wind this morning. About 4mph from E, but swinging randomly around from NE to SE.

Plan: Day 2 of the taper

warmup
practice starts
3 x 500
- pace target 1:55-1:57
- rate target: 30-32
cool down technique work

Here are zoom views:

Zoom1: 4 practice starts
Zoom2: rep #1
zoom3: rep #2
zoom4: rep #3 (headwind gust right around 6800m)

I think I must have been feeling a bit tired today. I felt sluggish in the boat and it took a ton of effort to hit paces that I was doing yesterday. My balance was also off a little bit. Maybe the light wind upset my balance and timing a bit?

My first practice start was horrific. My initial stroke was off balance, and that screwed up my next two strokes. I was working on getting the boat set right and not able to really put power into the little half slide strokes. It wasn’t until the fourth stroke that I was really laying down some power. The next 3 starts were much better.

I blew the start of the first 500, but recovered well. I took my time settling down to pace, and paid a pretty steep price. I was in real pain during the last 20 strokes, and I was a mess for a minute after I finished. The good news, a 1:56.1 pace, even with the lousy start. Even Crewnerd liked this one…1:54.8 on crewnerd.

I paddled through the s-turn, and got setup at the downstream end of the 1K straight section. Today, I remember to setup Crewnerd correctly. This start was better, but still not all that dynamic. I settled more aggressively and tried to stick to 30spm to try to save myself from the mild discomfort I had experienced in rep #1. I needed to do a bit of steering in the last 20 strokes, but all in all a pretty good rep. 1:56.9 on speedcoach, 1:59.0 on CrewNerd.

More paddling around, and then the final rep. When I spun at the uptream end of the 1K, I noticed that the wind was a bit fresher, and for this part of the river, right on my bow. Resigning myself to a slower rep, I got set for the start, and pretty much nailed this one. I settled to 30, and was even seeing some 29s. The boat felt a fair amount heavier, and the pace was hovering around 2:00. Then around the 40th stroke, I noticed the water flattened, and the pace pick up a bit. I was in a lull. But then the inevitable gust happened after that and it slowed me right back down again. At this point there were about 15 strokes left, and I really didn’t want to have the pace be over 2:00, so I pushed the rate and pressure up. On Speedcoach, the average pace was 1:59.6. On Crewnerd, it came out 2:08.6?????? I assume that I must have accidentally triggered the timer at the start before I actually went.

After all that, I rowed with square blades most of the way back to the dock.

Tomorrow: 2 x 500.

Wednesday: 4 x 500 – Race Taper

July 6, 2016July 6, 20165 Comments

Weather: Sunny and Hot 75F, 75% RH. Light breeze 1-2mph from the NW. This was basically a cross wind, although it was at it’s strongest and a bit of a head wind during the final rep.

I have used the same taper plan for racing for the past couple of years and I really like it. It’s documented here. It’s very simple. The theory is to maintain intensity, and reduce volume as you approach the race. Today, I did 4 – 500m intervals, tomorrow I’ll do 3, then 2 on Friday, one on Saturday, and race on Sunday. The approach was shown in the linked study to improve the time to exhaustion at 1500m running pace by 22% (from 250 seconds to 320 seconds) when compared to taking rest days and 14% compared to a low intensity taper. I like it because it gives me the chance to keep practicing starts and work on race pacing.

So today’s plan:

Long Rojabo style warmup finishing with 20 strokes at faster than race pace.
A few practice starts
4 x 500m intervals
- 1:55 pace
- 30-32 spm
Long rests
Cool down

Here’s a map view of the whole session. The river level is quite low and the water is getting really murky. There are a lot of floating weeds, but I didn’t have any issues with them today.

The warmup was uneventful. I was hitting some sweet paces, and I felt like I was rowing clean. I was having some intestinal troubles. These continued through the whole session. I hate that.

After the warmup, I did 4 practice starts. None of the four were disastrous, none of them were great either. The last one was the best one.

Then into the intervals. I pushed the first one really hard, and really smashed into the lactate wall at about 50 strokes, the last 15 really hurt. I had massive shivers after I finished. On CrewNerd, it was a 1:57 pace, upstream. On the speedcoach, it was a 1:54.1. That was definitely a bit too fast.

I was an idiot on the second interval. I got all set up, did my start and settle, and then looked at the iphone. That’s when I noticed that I didn’t set up a 500 interval and I didn’t know where I was. I bailed out around 250m. It was a pretty good 1:55 pace though.

I took a couple minutes to get my breath back and then setup CrewNerd for another 500m. Off I went, and I was determined to get a good start and settle aggressively to my target rate at 30 spm. This one was another 1:57 on CrewNerd, but 1:55.8 on Speedcoach (still upstream, but less current here). The lactate wave was less debilitating in this interval. In think this is a better pace target for me.

Then I paddled around, had a drink, spun and setup for interval number 3. This one was downstream, and what wind there was, was a bit of a tail wind. I had high hopes. This one was a disappointing 1:59 on CrewNerd because I stopped about a stroke too soon. On Speedcoach it was a 1:57.5. Good rate discipline.

I setup for the fourth interval, now heading up river. The breeze was a little fresher and was a headwind about 30 degrees off the bow. I got a good start, and then settled. The boat felt heavier even though the headwind was light, only about 2mph. The settle took my pace above 2:00. I tried to focus on holding the rate and taking long strokes. Around the 40 stroke point, I noticed that I was a bit off course and needed to do some steering. I counted out to 60 strokes and looked at the iphone to see how much distance I had left, expecting to see about 30 meters or so. Instead, I saw 112 meters and the display was not updating. The frigging thing had frozen! I took another 2 strokes and guessed that I had finished the 500m. Turns out I was off by about 30m. This interval was at 2:00.5 pace. Part of it was head wind. Part of it was fatigue. It was close to a maximal effort.

It looks like Crewnerd kept working in the background, despite the display being frozen. And once I brought up a Just Row and started it, the display was live again. I was pretty irked. This kind of freeze had not happened to me unless I was using the Dual GPS before. I am edging closer and closer the buying a Speedcoach GPS.

After the last interval, I pulled my feet out of the shoes and rowed back to the dock concentrating on trying to get perfect finishes.

Tomorrow: Same thing, but 3 intervals.

Finally, apropos to nothing, but while I was driving to the lake on Saturday morning, the sun was rising behind me and the shadow of my boat on my car was kind of cool.

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.

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

Quantified Rowing

Measure – Adjust – Improve

Tag: 1x

Monday: 16K Steady State OTW

Monday: No Training, Tuesday: 4 x 2800 / 4′ rest

Sunday: 15K of Technique

Saturday: Hard Distance – 5.5K

Sunday: Cromwell Cup

Friday: 2 x 500- still tapering

Thursday: 3 x 500 taper

Wednesday: 4 x 500 – Race Taper

Sunday: 2 x 1K on Quinsig

Thursday: r20 Steady State