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

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

Friday: 20K Steady State / Technique

June 25, 20162 Comments

I got home around 11pm and got to bed around 1AM. There was no way that I was getting up at 5:15 to go rowing. I did pack my rowing stuff in case I was able to sneak out and go for a row in the afternoon. It turns that I did.

I was not in the mood for the planned 6 x 750. I still felt pretty worn down from all the plane flights and jet lag. Also, I had not been in a boat since the previous Sunday. Even that didn’t entirely count since it was my chubby boat. So, I thought it would be a good idea to work on technique. I went to my go session for working on balance and technique

2′ square blade rowing
2′ alternating square and normal
2′ normal
Rate target: 18 to 20
Pace target: none
HR cap: < 150 (hopefully a lot under 150 for most of it)

It was beautiful out today. Around 80F, but with a nice breeze from the ENE around 5mph, with gusts higher.

It was a really nice outing. Nice and easy. It’s hard to concentrate for that long, but I had stretches where I felt like my rowing was fluid and natural. I also had periods where it was just wobbly and awful.

The XGPS160 was acting up badly today. It froze and I cycled power four times. Each time, the symptoms were identical. The pace and distance would stop updating. I would power it off, power it back on, it would start talking to the iphone again and everything worked fine.

It was also navigating horribly. Here’s the map of the whole outing.

Some of the lines look a little jagged. When you zoom in it gets much more apparent that the position it is reporting has a lot of uncertainty to it.

The first map is the leftmost third. The jaggy line is the beginning of the row. Look at the sudden jumps in the position. Further over, notice that the position is just wrong. It has me rowing through the penisula.

The second picture also has navigation errors showing me rowing into the north bank of the river coming out of the s-turn. I assure you, I did not.

The third picture is the Moody street basin and you can see the weird results by the bridge. Also, the lines down the canal are wrong. The good water is very narrow and I tend to follow it quite consistently, the lines are all over the place.

At this point, I think I am going to be leaving the XGPS160 in my kit bag until I hear something back from the vendor. With this much error in the position and the impact it has on the instantaneous pace display, which is jumping all over the place, it’s worse than the much slower updates of the internal GPS of the iphone.

Tomorrow: The promised 6×750.

Sunday: 70 minutes steady state in the Alden

June 20, 2016June 20, 20162 Comments

Sunny, 70s, windy. Wind SW 5mph with gusts to 15. Sun sparking on the water. Really beautiful.

Today the plan was a low intensity steady state session. I decided to take my Alden out for a spin to get used to rowing it and to figure out what kind of paces are reasonable in a shorter and wider boat. I went to Lake Whitehall, which is about 5 minutes from my house and is a popular kayaking, fishing, and canoeing spot. No rowing though. It works OK, but the longest straight is about 2K and that requires some fancy steering through a couple of narrow spots. As I found today, it also builds some chop. It was not an issue in an open water boat, the power boat wakes weren’t either. They were kind of fun to row over.

The Dual XGPS160 acted up again today. For the first 15 minutes of the row, the pace was just bouncing all over the place. Getting stuck for a few seconds, then dropping down to 0:02/500, then returning to normal. Looking at the view on the map, there were a bunch of zigs and zags as the GPS position got messed up and then locked in again. For some reason, it started working after about 15 minutes.

The first half of the row was quite enjoyable. Since the boat turns on a dime, I tried to hug the shoreline more closely than I normally would. After that, the heaviness of the boat started to get to me. I learned that the analogy that Concept2 uses to describe drag factor is spot on. The heaviness on the drive and the faster deceleration were exactly the same. The only difference is that you don’t have the magical PM making the splits faster for that extra effort. You just go a bit slower. My best guess is about 0:20/500 slower. So, the same effort that produces a 2:30 pace in my fluid, produces a 2:50/500 pace in the Alden.

In essence, I will be doing a fair amount of bungee rowing. This has good and bad aspects to it. The good is that it slows everything down on the drive so it is easy to focus on blades depth and not missing water at the catch. The bad is that the load is heavy and I will need to adapt to two very different boat feels. One thing is clear though. It is much better than erging, both in terms of the stroke mechanics and also just getting outside and having some great scenery.

By rowing for over an hour, I found two additional issues with the boat. The first is the seat. I must have a different butt geometry than what the seat was designed for. I started noticing some pain at my right sitz bone about halfway through the row and it kept getting worse and worse. By the time I finished, I could barely support my weight on my right leg, and I was concerned that I might not be able to carry my boat out of the water. After about 5 minutes, the pain subsided a bit and I could function, but it’s still quite sore today. I’m going to try to get the exact same seat as what I have in my fluid. I can sit on that for hours without pain.

The second issue was much more serious, and far more abrupt. As I was rowing back from the south end of the lake to the launch ramp, about halfway, all of the sudden I heard a big bang off to starboard in the middle of my drive. I was sure that something had broken, but I wasn’t sure what. I looked at the rigger and I couldn’t see any damage immediately, so I took a couple of gentle paddle strokes while watching the starboard rigger. Ah ha! I saw that the starboard backstay on the rigger had parted right at the oarlock pin. Every stroke, the rigger was flexing toward the bow. This picture shows where the backstay broke.

So, now I will try to get some new backstays and get it all fixed up.

Start_|_Dist_|__Time_|_Split Pace_|_Strokes_|_SPM__|_DPS__|_Remarks
00010_|_4190_|_14:23_|_1:43.0_____|_276_____|_19.2_|_15.2_|_corrupted data
04200_|_1872_|_11:29_|_3:04.1_____|_224_____|_19.5_|_08.4_|_headwind
06072_|_3000_|_16:33_|_2:45.5_____|_327_____|_19.8_|_09.2_|_tail wind
09072_|_0078_|_01:13_|_7:51.1_____|_013_____|_10.6_|_06.0_|_rest
09150_|_2800_|_16:25_|_2:55.8_____|_337_____|_20.5_|_08.3_|_headwind
11950_|_0150_|_01:18_|_4:21.6_____|_019_____|_14.5_|_07.9_|_rest
12100_|_1800_|_10:06_|_2:48.3_____|_195_____|_19.3_|_09.2_|_tailwind
13900_|_1303_|_10:06_|_3:52.7_____|_177_____|_17.5_|_07.4_|_broken rigger

Distance_|_Time__|_Pace___|_Strokes_|_SPM__|_DPS__|_Remarks
4190_____|_14:23_|_1:43.0_|_276_____|_19.2_|_15.2_|_warmup
9472_____|_54:32_|_2:52.7_|_1083_____|_19.9_|_08.7_|_Main set
1531_____|_12:38_|_4:07.6_|_209_____|_16.5_|_07.3_|_rest meters
15193_____|_21:34_|_2:41.0_|_1568_____|_19.2_|_09.7_|_Total

Today: I skipped rowing this morning because I didn’t get to bed until after 1AM last night. I’m hoping to get a sprint session in on the erg before I fly to Germany tonight on the red eye. The plan is 4 x (6 x 1′ on / 1′ off) 5′ rest.

Crushed by the lactate wave. 750m intervals

June 16, 2016June 16, 2016Leave a comment

Weather: sunny, warm mid-70s, basically no wind. A great day for rowing.

Pity it was such a shitty workout.

Plan:

8×750 / 4′ rest
Rate: 28-32
Pace: 2:00
Standing starts
Paddle in the rests

I am feeling the effects of a big increase in Volume. I got my boat back last week and I’ve rowed everyday since last Friday. I’ve also done longer sessions this week. Last night, I got enough sleep, but I woke up feeling very sore and lethargic. I also had stomach issues which forced me stop for an unscheduled pit stop on my way to the boathouse.

By the time I got on the water, it was nearly 7am, and I had less than an hour for the workout. I did a quick warmup and then attempted to start the first interval. I got 5 strokes in and noticed that I hadn’t pushed start on CrewNerd. The second attempt at the start actually worked and off I went. I took a little too long to settle down to a realistic pace, and I felt the familiar “Lactate Wave”. Nausea, feeling like I’m drowning. This is a feeling I hate, but I need to get used to in order to well in sprint races. It’s kind of the whole point of this workout.

The problem is that I was not mentally prepared for what this workout demanded. I made it through the wave in the first interval by slowing down. The second interval, I powered through it and was happy that I hit the target pace, even while steering to the bridge. This one really hurt after I finished. I nearly puked, but by the end of the rest I thought I was better.

Twenty strokes into the next interval, I discovered that I wasn’t. I bailed out the interval approaching the bridge, and then slowly picked back up to a reasonable pace for about the last 400m. I was pretty annoyed with myself.

I paddled through the s-curve during the rest and decided to hold the rate a bit lower during the next interval. The result was a slower split and a more manageable wave.

I quit on the next interval and frankly, I’m not even sure why. It was after about 20 strokes, and this time I picked back up pretty quickly and pushed through the rest of the piece. This was not going well.

I was running out of time and so I decided to make the next one my last. No quitting allowed on this one. I managed the wave and finished reasonably well.

I rowed feet out back to the dock. I have to come back and do this workout again soon.

Workout Summary – media/20160616-173853-2016-06-16-0646.CSV–|Total|-Total-|–Avg–|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg

–|Dist-|-Time–|-Pace–|SPM-|-HR–|-HR–|-DPS

–|07319|36:50.0|02:37.1|22.6|134.1|145.2|08.5

Workout Details

01|01240| 07:56 |03:11.9|16.4|117.0|132.0|09.5

02|00000| 00:10 |0000:00|00.0|0.0|0.0|0nan

03|00750| 03:07 |02:05.1|28.1|154.0|165.0|08.5

04|00750| 03:00 |02:00.6|30.2|164.0|174.0|08.2

05|00750| 03:41 |02:27.7|23.8|146.0|161.0|08.5

06|00750| 03:09 |02:06.2|28.8|165.0|176.0|08.2

07|00750| 03:15 |02:10.4|27.0|158.0|174.0|08.5

08|00750| 03:11 |02:07.7|29.1|165.0|178.0|08.1

09|01579| 09:21 |02:57.7|20.1|138.0|147.0|08.4

Tomorrow: “rest day”. I’m flying to sandiego in the morning and back on the redeye. Some rest day.

Wednesday: Steady State Rate Ladders

June 15, 20162 Comments

Weather: Sunny, 70F, light shifty wind from the WNW about 2-4 mph. Wind was not really a factor, but slowed me down at times.

Plan:

6′ Rate Ladders
3′ @ 17 / 2′ @ 19 / 1′ @ 21
1′ rests when I turned at the ends of the river.
Technique Notes: Keep the drive smooth. Get the blades off the water.

Notice the purple box? If you look over to the right hand side at the speed scale, it indicates that I was going 4600 km/h. Pretty nice acceleration, eh?

What actually happened was the Dual XGPS160 unit and it took me a little while to notice. The interesting thing is that the pace and distance seemed to update for a while after the point where the straight line started. I thought it was only about 30 seconds or so where I saw the pace and distance frozen before I stopped and cycled power on the unit, but the data is missing for nearly 9 minutes. Some weird s**t going on here.

Cycling the power made everything happy again.

Today was a day of mishaps. On my last trip down the river, Was trying to squeeze in the end of a ladder and I pushed it too far. There is a cable across the river with big orange floats (about 18″ in diameter) strung on it. I put on the brakes, and tried to turn, but managed to get my bow and starboard oar blade under the cable between two floats, and my boat basically parallel to the float line. What ensued was an ungainly display of backing and forthing and turning and wobbling as I tried to get my bow extracted, my boat turned around and get myself clear. It was an ugly demonstration of what not to do in a boat.

After that, I finished the journey up river and was approaching the dock. There are a few challenges to deal with. First, there was a bit of cross wind. No big deal. Second, there is an underwater propeller under one side of the dock that is artificially creating a current to try to keep area by the dock clear of weeds. Also no big deal if you approach the other side of the dock. Third, is the weeds themselves. They are floating in great clumps right now. This was the cause of my downfall today. I was aiming to put my bow about a foot away from the side of the dock, so I would come in on the port side of the boat. But when I was about 6 feet from the dock, my port oar caught a great hunk of weed, and turned my bow to the port side.

With a small bump, I hit the end of the dock. No big deal, right. The bow ball is there, right? Well, on this specific dock, there is a 4″ wide gap between the board along the side of the dock and the one on the end of the dock, and my bow hit that gap with extraordinary precision, and the bow became wedged between the two bits of wood. I had to back the boat with a fair amount of pressure to get it free, and it took a couple of strokes to do it.

Between those strokes, I was processing what the hell I would do if I couldn’t get it free. I guess, jump out and swim. That would have been pretty damn humiliating! I’m glad it didn’t come to that. There was no damage to the boat. In the future, I will approach the dock with less speed and more paranoia.

Tomorrow: 8 x 750 / 4′ rest.

Tuesday: Starting to work on Starts

June 14, 2016June 14, 2016Leave a comment

Weather: Basically like yesterday. Sunny, cool and blustery. Generally WNW, 5 mph with gusts to 15 mph.

Plan:

Rojabo style warmup to the moody street dam
Do as many starts as I can stand
15 strokes each start, 10 stroke paddle, then stop the boat, reset and do it again
In each start work on:
- Get set comfortably at the catch.
- Do NOT go to full compression, stop when it feels like my heels are beginning to lift. The key is to be rock solid at the start of the first stroke.
- First stroke: Smooth, powerful acceleration, very early finish, get the blades way off the water, barely feather.
- Second Stroke: get back to 1/2 slide fast! get the blades in, keep it smooth, finish early, get the blades clear
- Third through fifth: keep taking short strokes and focus on balance and finishes
- fifth through tenth: extend out to full slide. Keep stroke rate up above 38, but keep recovery smooth.
- 10 to 15: full pressure, good strokes
Long cool down focusing on technique

Here is the whole session in google earth. I paddled to the lap02 flag, then did the Rojabo warmup. That took me to the end of the basin in Waltham. Then I turned and did 14 starts going up river and generally with a cross/tail wind. That took me back to the beginning, I had a drink, turned again, and did another 14 starts going back down river, now with a bit of a head wind. A few of them, especially #’s 22 to 25 were definitely impacted by a reasonable strong headwind at the time.

Here’s the whole session as interpreted by Rowsandall

This is time based, so it gives you a better picture of the gap between intervals. There is something fishy about the pace display. The graph from google earth is in km/h. Here is a closer view of the speed.

The top speed is 18.7 km/h. This is a foreign unit to me, so here’s the translation

15 km/h = 2:00.0/500
17 km/h = 1:45.9/500
19 km/h = 1:34.7/500

This intrigued me enough that I exported the CSV file from crewnerd and plotted it in Excel.

That matches Google earth.

Next time, I will set it up as a predefined workout in Crewnerd. 15 strokes on and about 1:30 rest would be about the same thing. I’ll have to pause it sometimes to get to a fortuitous starting point, but it should workout OK.

Other than the interesting pace discrepancies, it was a useful and interesting workout. The key really is the first stroke. Being a little conservative and finishing clean is the biggest thing. Once the boat starts to build a little momentum, it gets easier.

I’ve registered for the Cromwell Cup. This is a 1km sprint race on July 10th. So, that should provide some motivation to do some more start practices.

I also had a useful live demonstration of the value of magik oarlocks. Right now, one of the tension bands, the one on my port oarlock, is busted. So that oarlock acts just like a normal C2 oarlock. The tension band on the starboard oarlock is intact, so the little lever applies pressure to the stern side of the oar.

In normal rowing, I can detected no difference between port and starboard, but sitting at the catch with blades buried, I sure could. With the wind today, there was a bit of chop, and I could feel my port oar rattling around at the catch, my starboard oar was just solid. No movement at all. I don’t know if it was coincidence, or self fulfilling prophesy, but most of the problems that I had with imperfect first strokes were on the port side.

I enjoyed the cool down. I did two repetitions of 500m SBR, 500m of alternating SBR and normal, and 500m of slow roll ups. That took me back to the cut. From there it was just a paddle back to the dock.

Tomorrow: Another session of easy rate ladders. HR cap at 155.

Monday: Easy Rate Ladders

June 13, 20164 Comments

Weather: Sunny, upper 50s, Windy! Sustained winds around 10mph, with gusts to 20. Shifting around between the west and the north.

Rowing on the upper charles from newton down to Waltham. In my wonderful Fluid.

Plan:

Rate Ladders (3’/2’/1′)
Rate: 17 / 19 / 21
Pace: Completely useless with the shifty wind
Technique: Work on getting way out at the catch and slowly squaring the oars at the catch.

I used Crewnerd with the Dual Skypro XGPS160

This unit provides a 10Hz update rate for GPS information to the iPhone over bluetooth. This is 10x faster than the internal GPS of the iPhone. This is a good thing because pace changes should be reflected more quickly and accurately in CrewNerd. If you are getting updates that quickly, you can turn down the smoothing from ~100m to ~20m and the annoying lag is a lot better and with the fast update rate, the pace does not hunt around. When it works it works great, unfortunately I have never been able to complete an entire workout without the unit hanging up. When that happens, the pace and distance on Crewnerd stop updating. It happened to me today. You can see it in the map below where the course goes from yellow to red.

The updates actually stopped about 1km before that, at the little blue flag. Here’s a zoom in.

The updates stopped coming out of the s-curve. It seemed like the display was live for at least another 2 minutes, and then froze, about 100m before the “lap001” flag.

I experimented to try to figure out what was going on. I quit crewnerd and restarted it. It was still not updating pace and distance. I started up the XGPS utility app. It took a while to open, and then finally failed, and crashed. Next, I cycled power on the XGPS unit, and that seemed to do the trick. But I am not sure that the iphone was actually using the XGPS anymore because the pace was madly misbehaving. It was misbehaving just like it does when you don’t use enough smoothing and the internal GPS.

Anyway, I am not sure if it is the worth the hassle to use the XGPS. I like the crisper pace display, but it really pisses me off when technology does not work reliably. I’ll be glad when I get my impeller back.

So, back to the workout. My pace was terrible and all over the place because of the wind. I focused on trying to hit my rates and keep my HR below 155. I also focused on the technique notes. Even though it was windy, I really enjoyed the session.

The first plots are for the bulk of the session, up to the hang. The second is for the last 2 minutes of the last ladder and the paddle back to the dock. Looks like I did 12 complete 6′ ladders.

Tomorrow: Time to start working on starts! The plan will be to do a long warmup (Rojabo style) to the Moody Street dam, and then do starts, lots of them. Basically 20 strokes from a standing start, paddle 20 strokes, stop the boat, repeat. Focus is on cleanly building speed and hitting stroke rates in the mid 30s during the second 10 strokes.

A whole boat load of 1′ intervals

June 11, 2016Leave a comment

Cloudy, calm, upper 50s. A little bit of a wind from the south picked up while I was rowing. About 3-4 mph by the tie we finished.

I was out in Worcester on Lake Quinsigamond with my clubmates today. We had 10 of us. We boated 2 quads and two singles. I had cartopped my wonderful, repaired fluid.

Last night I stopped at the hardware store on the way home and picked up some silicone sealant. I repaired the small leak behind the fin in the parking lot, and then continued my drive home. Today, the repair was set and there was no water in the stern when I finished. Tick that item off the list.

The plan was for 1′ intervals.

6 x 1′ on / 1′ off
4 sets with 5′ rest or so between sets
Target pace: 2:00
Target rate: 30 spm
Technique Objective: Smooth recovery, good catches, smooth acceleration, early finish.

We were on the water around 7:30 and the lake was beautifully flat. I did about 2000m of warming up going down lake and then set off on my first set. In the fourth interval I was waked by a waterskiing boat, but nothing too serious, it just made me miss a coulpe strokes. The fifth interval took me all the way down to the south end of the lake, so I had to spin and come back north to finish the first set. I then spun again and hung around until every one was down in the cove and ready to head north.

By the time I finished the 5th interval of the second set, I had just passed the narrows going north. During the rest between the 5th and 6th interval, I was passed at close range by another waterskiing boat. I paused the timer during the rest to let the wake pass me before I started the sixth, but I was working from a standing start and the water was still pretty messed up.

I was feeling some fatigue by this point and I paddled the 4′ rest pretty slowly continuing north. The first interval of the 3rd set brought me under the route 9 bridge. The next 5 intervals brought be all the way up to the Donahue Rowing Center. I finished my last interval in front of their docks with a number of people standing there watching the old guy gasping past at 30 spm. I tried to look as debonair as possible.

I paddle up to the north cove of the lake and spun around. After we had reassembled, I took off back home. There was another single that took off when I did, but he didn’t take the bait and turned into the DRC docks. My legs were pretty much done, so I let the rate sag a bit. I was waked again in the 4th interval, but I tried to make a good finish in the last 2. This brought me just past our docks, so I spun and went back in without much of a cool down. I crawled out of the boat. 34 minutes in the TR zone.

It would be nice if I was faster, but it I felt more comfortable at r30 than I expected. It would also be nice if I had my speedcoach. The pace lag on short intervals is awful on CrewNerd. If I don’t have my impeller mounted by next weekend, I might risk using the Dual GPS dongle to make it a bit better.

Workout Summary - media/20160611-215914-2016-06-11-0727.CSV
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|09520|48:12.0|02:12.9|28.1|160.4|169.9|08.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|01845| 10:38 |02:52.9|19.9|135.0|162.0|08.7
02|00252| 01:00 |01:57.5|30.4|160.0|169.0|08.4
03|00253| 01:00 |01:58.6|31.0|164.0|171.0|08.2
04|00252| 01:00 |01:58.6|30.1|165.0|172.0|08.4
05|00239| 01:00 |02:05.2|30.1|165.0|173.0|08.0
06|00252| 01:00 |01:58.7|29.1|169.0|176.0|08.7
07|00249| 01:00 |02:00.0|30.1|172.0|178.0|08.3
08|00602| 04:27 |03:41.9|20.2|133.0|162.0|06.7
09|00243| 01:00 |02:03.2|29.0|158.0|168.0|08.4
10|00256| 01:00 |01:57.1|31.0|168.0|175.0|08.3
11|00247| 01:00 |02:01.3|30.1|169.0|175.0|08.2
12|00239| 01:00 |02:04.9|30.2|171.0|176.0|08.0
13|00244| 01:00 |02:02.1|30.3|171.0|177.0|08.1
14|00237| 01:00 |02:04.9|30.4|162.0|171.0|07.9
15|00528| 03:23 |03:12.8|20.3|142.0|164.0|07.7
16|00242| 01:00 |02:02.1|31.5|159.0|170.0|07.8
17|00248| 01:00 |02:01.1|30.0|169.0|175.0|08.3
18|00248| 01:00 |02:00.7|30.1|170.0|175.0|08.3
19|00236| 01:00 |02:06.6|29.1|166.0|172.0|08.1
20|00245| 01:00 |02:01.9|30.2|166.0|174.0|08.2
21|00240| 01:00 |02:03.9|29.2|168.0|174.0|08.3
22|00563| 03:51 |03:22.0|18.7|144.0|165.0|07.9
23|00238| 01:00 |02:04.6|31.4|158.0|167.0|07.7
24|00236| 01:00 |02:05.5|30.4|166.0|170.0|07.9
25|00231| 01:00 |02:10.0|28.0|163.0|168.0|08.2
26|00224| 01:00 |02:13.7|29.0|160.0|170.0|07.7
27|00233| 01:00 |02:08.5|29.1|164.0|172.0|08.0
28|00233| 01:00 |02:08.4|30.1|167.0|174.0|07.8
29|00165| 01:53 |05:35.9|14.6|127.0|131.0|06.1

All Intervals
   05817| 24:00 |02:03.8|29.8|

Tomorrow: 4 x 20’/1′ rest on the erg, nice and easy.

Quantified Rowing

Measure – Adjust – Improve

Tag: 1x

Wednesday: Tons of Starts (28 of them)

Monday: Steady State r18/r20

Sunday: 6 x 750 / 4′ rest on Quinsig

Friday: 20K Steady State / Technique

Sunday: 70 minutes steady state in the Alden

Crushed by the lactate wave. 750m intervals

Wednesday: Steady State Rate Ladders

Tuesday: Starting to work on Starts

Monday: Easy Rate Ladders

A whole boat load of 1′ intervals