Tag: Cat I

Wed / Thur / Fri: Remarkable luck, an erg in Taiwan.

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I flew out of SFO to Taipei at 12:05AM on Wednesday morning.  This is a 13 1/2 hour flight and with the time change, arrives at 5:50AM on Thursday morning.  On the flight, I managed to sleep about 7 hours, watch a movie, do a few crossword puzzles and do some work.  I finally arrived at my hotel around 7:30AM.

Thursday

I was being picked up to go to the office at 10:00, so I didn’t have enough time to sleep, but too much time to just shower and go to work, so I decided to go do a workout.  I was lucky that the plan called for an easy one today.

  • 3 x 20′ / 3′
  • Cat VI: Pace 2:06-2:11, Rate: 18

The fitness center has a pristine looking Model C.  It took me a couple minutes to remember how to use the old style PM, but the drag factor was good.  The handle return shock cord was a bit slack, but for this workout it didn’t matter at all.

I was expecting to under perform, but it turned out to be a good workout.

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It was one of those workouts where I felt better afterwards than I did before.  The rest of the day was sequence of meetings, more meetings, receptions, and a formal dinner for 200 people.  The best thing about the dinner was that it took place in my hotel, so I walked to the elevator, went up to my room and I was asleep by 9pm.

Friday:

I woke up before my alarm, around 4:30.  I tried to get back to sleep, but gave up just after 5am.  I did my PT exercises, and headed to the gym about 5:45.  Today’s workout was a bit more challenging.

  • 45′
  • Cat VI Pace: 2:06-2:11, Rate: 18
  • Every 5′ – 20 strokes Cat I – Pace: <2:40, Rate: >32

I had a few obstacles today.  First, I felt tired.  Second, the erg was tough to rate up on because of the shock cord.  Third, the gym was hot and humid.  I guess they don’t turn on the AC until after 6am.

Anyway, I struggled to hold the Cat VI paces after a few on the power 20s, and ultimately failed after 6 of them.  I stopped for a quick drink and paddled that section more slowly.  That restored me enough to do the last couple.

You can see the sky high heart rates and slow HR recoveries in the chart.

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12-8b

There were impressive puddles of sweat under the machine when I finished and I was really tired.  From there, I was on calls and in meetings until I went to the airport at 7pm.  I’m looking forward to getting some sleep on  the flight.  I’m sore all over.

I arrive home at 7am on Saturday morning.  The workout plan for the weekend calls for

  • Saturday: 6 x (5′ @ 28, 5′ @ 18)
  • Sunday: Hour of Power – r22, Pace: < 2:00.

I think I will swap the two workouts and do the harder one on Sunday.

 

 

Friday: 45 minutes with bumps

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I flew back from Dallas last night and got home around 12:30am.  I slept in to about 7:30, and eventually made my way to work.

Around 12:30 I headed to the gym and discovered to my horror that the noon time fitness class was using the rower!  So, I did my Physio homework while I waited for them to finish up.  That there was some really ugly rowing, all with the damper set to 10.  Why do people subject themselves to that kind of abuse?

Around 1:00 I was able to hop on and do my planned session:

  • 45′ continuous with bumps
  • Cat VI (rate: 18, pace 2:06)
  • Every 5 minutes 20 stroke burst at r32+

The only modification was to change the 20 stroke burst to be a 40 second burst.  This worked out to 21 to 24 strokes depending on how well I rated up.

I thoroughly enjoyed this workout, although when you really sprint your guts out for the bump, it’s really hard to focus on holding the split when you slow back down.  The first 30 seconds, I find very unpleasant.

          Workout Summary - media/20171201-1840300o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|11234|44:59.0|02:00.1|230.1|21.4|153.5|174.0|11.7
W-|11243|44:59.0|02:00.1|210.8|20.2|153.6|174.0|12.7
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|174.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|01041|04:20.0|02:04.9|174.6|18.0|124.3|134.0|13.3
01|00213|00:40.0|01:34.1|400.7|31.0|139.3|150.0|10.3
02|01037|04:20.0|02:05.4|182.4|18.3|148.0|158.0|13.1
03|00213|00:40.0|01:34.0|406.5|31.5|148.6|159.0|10.1
04|01038|04:20.0|02:05.2|179.1|17.9|152.2|165.0|13.4
05|00211|00:40.0|01:34.6|404.6|31.7|150.4|160.0|10.0
06|01032|04:20.0|02:06.0|177.7|18.0|154.1|167.0|13.2
07|00212|00:40.0|01:34.5|398.1|32.5|151.0|161.0|09.8
08|01035|04:20.0|02:05.6|182.3|18.5|156.6|168.0|12.9
09|00209|00:40.0|01:35.6|388.6|31.9|153.4|162.0|09.8
10|01038|04:20.0|02:05.2|182.6|18.4|158.3|168.0|13.0
11|00212|00:40.0|01:34.2|416.4|33.0|156.3|164.0|09.7
12|01037|04:20.0|02:05.4|180.3|18.2|161.2|172.0|13.1
13|00214|00:40.0|01:33.4|418.1|33.5|158.9|166.0|09.6
14|01032|04:20.0|02:06.0|176.0|18.1|163.1|172.0|13.1
15|00214|00:40.0|01:33.4|411.2|33.3|158.2|166.0|09.7
16|01039|04:20.0|02:05.1|183.9|18.7|164.7|174.0|12.8
17|00218|00:40.0|01:32.0|461.8|36.4|163.6|172.0|09.0

So, compare this to a very similar workout on the dynamic.  In that workout, I did take 2 1′ breaks and I also did some pause drills during the slow parts.  That explains why my HR ended up going higher today.  The rate is quite similar.  The power is where things are remarkably different.  I was putting up 100 more watts in the bursts today.  And I was working on technique.  I was really concentrating on getting my hands away fast and holding my knees down when I rated up.

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Tomorrow:  The weather looks good so I am going to go rowing.  Tough workout though.   6 x (5′ @ 28, 5′ @ 18).  I can’t wait!

Friday: 20 stroke bumps

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Thursday:  Rest day.  Thanksgiving.  We went up to Woodstock, Vermont and spent the day with my wife’s relatives.  We had two cars full.  My wife and I, our three adult children, and two significant others.  Good food and good company.

Friday:  We spent the night up in Vermont and had a nice brunch at the Woodstock Inn on Friday morning.  Then we packed back into our cars and drove home.  In the late afternoon, I settled in for an erg session.

The Plan:

  • 3 x 15′ / 1′
  • Cat VI Pace: 2:06 to 2:11, r18-20
  • Every 5′ – 20 strokes at r32  (Cat I)
  • Also, insert 5 strokes of a pause at rocked over on recovery every 5 minutes or so.

My technique objective was to work on correcting my problems with breaking my knees too early and also maintain the right back posture.  I did the pause drill as the first 5 strokes of each 5 minutes to get myself setup right, then rowed continuously until there was 2:50 seconds left in the 5 minute segment, then I would do 40 seconds of rowing at r32.  This ended up being about 23 or 24 strokes.  Then I would finish out the last 2:10 seconds at r18.  After three sets of that, I took a quick swig of water and did the pause drill during the rest of the break.

It was a very enjoyable workout.  I was happy to see my HR coming back down nicely at the Cat VI pace.

One thing I did not enjoy was doing this workout on the dynamic erg.  When I crank up to a 32 rate on the static erg (or on slides), the pace tumbles easily down to 1:35 or below.  On the dynamic, I was pulling as hard as I could at 32 and it was a massive struggle to get down below 1:45.

After I finished the main set I did a 2k happy ending cool down.