Tag: Cat VI

Wednesday: 3 x (5 x 500m / 1′) / 5′

Leave a comment

I was pretty excited to give this workout a try.

  • 3 sets of (5 x 500m)
  • Rest between: 1’ between each 500m
  • 5’ between each set
  • Rating/Pace: Cat IV: SR 24  <– 1:52

It should have been quite doable and it was.  I had a bit extra left over to put some extra grunt into the last rep of the last two sets, trying to keep the rate at 24.

To make the interval setup easy, I just did it as 500m work and 1′ rest.  After each 5 hard 500s, I paddled a 500 really slowly, aiming at a 3′ time.  That plus the 1′ before and after gave me a 5 minute break.  Since I would dissect the intervals in rowsandall afterward, it worked out fine.

Today, I was using a PM3 with painsled via the usb connection.  I was using the OH1 HR sensor connected to the iphone.  Painsled seemed a bit unhappy about this and the HR display on the phone danced between the correct reading and 0.  As it turns out, that’s also what it logged in the data, so the time in zone data is useless, but you can get the picture from the plot.

There was also a weird occurrence during my warmup.  I did 2k with 10 stroke bumps at my target pace every 500m.  After my second bump, painsled popped up the completing session message, and then kept going.  In the log, there were two files, one for each half of my warmup. No problem, I glued the two pieces of the warmup and the mainset together in rowsandall before doing the plots.

          Workout Summary - media/20171227-2016050o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|12037|53:49.0|02:14.1|232.6|21.5|75.2|178.0|10.4
W-|07500|27:39.0|01:50.7|260.6|23.7|097.5|178.0|11.5
R-|04545|20:10.0|02:13.2|202.8|18.4|042.3|178.0|19.2
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|00500|01:50.6|01:50.6|252.5|23.6|088.0|156.0|11.5
01|00500|01:53.9|01:53.9|252.8|23.5|103.2|161.0|11.2
02|00500|01:51.2|01:51.2|254.9|24.2|080.3|164.0|11.2
03|00500|01:50.6|01:50.6|259.1|24.0|121.9|167.0|11.3
04|00500|01:50.9|01:50.9|258.4|23.3|109.5|166.0|11.6
05|00500|01:51.3|01:51.3|254.2|24.0|090.5|161.0|11.2
06|00500|01:52.0|01:52.0|251.5|23.2|097.4|163.0|11.5
07|00500|01:51.5|01:51.5|260.4|23.7|082.5|165.0|11.3
08|00500|01:50.6|01:50.6|259.7|23.5|106.2|166.0|11.6
09|00500|01:48.1|01:48.1|279.7|23.2|100.5|173.0|12.0
10|00500|01:50.4|01:50.4|260.5|24.3|081.6|163.0|11.2
11|00500|01:51.8|01:51.8|247.9|23.6|097.2|165.0|11.4
12|00500|01:51.2|01:51.2|261.3|23.2|098.8|169.0|11.6
13|00500|01:51.3|01:51.3|255.0|23.6|110.9|172.0|11.4
14|00500|01:44.6|01:44.6|305.2|24.1|094.0|178.0|11.9

It was a reasonably hard session, but definitely not over the top.  I enjoyed it.

Tomorrow:  I am going up to Marblehead to collect my father’s set of woodworking tools.  I plan to move them down to the house on the cape and set up a little workshop in the basement (near the erg!).  If I have time in the afternoon, the planned session is a 4 x 20/3′ at r18.  My new pace range for these is 2:03 to 2:08.  I think I will push from 2:06 to 2:05 as my target.

 

Tuesday: 10 x 500 / 2′ – Cat V

Leave a comment

Well, I have my new paces.  And a new workout to try them out with.

The description was pretty simple.

Session: 10 x 500m
Rest between: 2’
Rating/Pace: Cat V: SR 22-23
Notes: Medium tempo session. Use the faster end of your Cat V split. Focus on posture, firm core, chin level, breathing.

So, the pace target was 1:58.  This seemed pretty easy to me, so I decided to do the 2′ rests as Cat VI.  This was a bit of a challenge since I didn’t get any feedback on pace or rate.  As it turned out, my sense of rate and pace is pretty good because I took a total of 354 strokes during the 20 minutes of rest, so 17.7spm.  And I did 4661 meters over 20 minutes for a pace of 2:08.7.

Because of the way that the PM3 records strokes in ergdata, the plots are weird.  The total distance and heart rate are right, but the power, pace and rate are only accurate during the work intervals

From now on, I will setup this workout as variable intervals and record the rests as if they were work sections.

Tomorrow:  Another new session.

  • 3 sets of (5 x 500m)
  • Rest between: 1’ between each 500m
  • 5’ between each set
  • Rating/Pace: Cat IV: SR 24 <– 1:52

 

Sticking to the easy stuff 4 x 20 / 3′

Leave a comment

Just trying to keep my base building going.  Another instance of the PM5 misbehaving and painsled losing all my data.  This is getting old.

Nice and easy.  HR stayed below 150 the whole way.

This was one of the error codes.  It popped up with 3:00 left in the whole row.

2017-12-24 16.04.22

I guess I will try a firmware upgrade tomorrow.

 

A bit better. An easy 40 minutes

Leave a comment

Around 6pm, I decided I really wanted to exercise a bit more.  So, I jumped on the erg, dialed up 40 minutes and started rowing.

The thought was to just pile on some Cat VI meters.  And that’s what I did.

Workout Summary - media/20171223-2300300o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|09554|40:00.0|02:05.6|176.4|18.4|144.6|154.0|13.0
W-|09555|40:00.0|02:05.6|176.4|18.4|144.6|154.0|13.0
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|154.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|02394|10:00.0|02:05.3|176.7|18.4|133.1|143.0|13.0
01|02386|10:00.0|02:05.7|176.1|18.6|144.4|146.0|12.8
02|02387|10:00.0|02:05.7|176.4|18.3|148.6|151.0|13.1
03|02387|10:00.0|02:05.7|176.4|18.4|152.4|154.0|13.0

I felt a bit better after that.  Tomorrow, more of the same.  4 x 20′ / 3′ – Cat VI.

 

 

Where’s my mojo.

2 Comments

Thursday: First day of vacation.  I’m feeling kind of down.  I’m not sure why.  But my motivation to train is quite low.  The plan for the day was to do the session that was planned for wednesday that I delayed to do an easier session

Plan:

  • 4 x ( 1500m + 500m ) / 2′
  • 1500m – Cat V: 2:00, r22
  • 500m – Cat IV: 1:55, r24

Workout Summary - media/20171221-1645290o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|09387|39:29.0|02:06.2|192.1|22.0|151.7|175.0|10.8
W-|08000|31:29.0|01:58.1|214.4|22.3|152.1|175.0|11.4
R-|01389|07:59.0|02:52.8|083.4|20.5|148.6|175.0|09.3
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|01500|05:57.1|01:59.0|205.8|21.7|137.2|149.0|11.6
01|00500|01:53.3|01:53.3|241.7|23.7|156.5|160.0|11.2
02|01500|06:00.1|02:00.0|204.2|21.9|149.0|159.0|11.4
03|00500|01:55.1|01:55.1|237.2|23.5|162.1|167.0|11.1
04|01500|05:59.8|01:59.9|204.3|22.0|152.8|161.0|11.4
05|00500|01:54.8|01:54.8|236.8|23.5|165.7|170.0|11.1
06|01500|05:58.6|01:59.5|206.6|22.0|155.2|164.0|11.4
07|00500|01:50.9|01:50.9|258.3|23.8|168.0|175.0|11.4

That was a bit harder than it should have been.

Friday:  My daughter came in from St. Louis around noon.  I picked her up at the airport and we took a quick detour to Boston’s North End, which is the italian neighborhood.  I wanted to get some pastries, pasta and bread for dinner.  With all the bustling around, I didn’t find a time to train.  If I am being honest with myself, I wasn’t all that motivated to train anyway.

Saturday:  With everyone home it was going to be another day of family stuff.  I knew it would be weird for me to disappear to erg, so I hopped on the erg as soon as I got up in the morning.  Despite a HRV reading that said I was good to train hard, I felt really unmotivated.  I was also a bit intimidated by the planned session.  This is the hardest session of the week for me.

Plan:

  • 6 x (5′ @ r28, 5′ @ r18)
  • r28 – Cat III, 1:51 or faster
  • r18 – Cat VI, 2:06-2:11

I didn’t have a lot of time, so I skipped the stretching and PT exercises that I usually do before an erg session.  To get a little bit of a warmup, I did the first 5 minutes at r18.  I found it disturbingly hard to hold 2:06 even though I had fresh legs.

The first r28 section was OK, but I was pretty tired by the end of it.  I recovered OK during the next r18 section.  The second r28 section was horrible.  I was trying to lighten up my stroke and counting down.  The next slow section was not nearly slow enough.  I blew up at the end of the third r28 section and paddled through most of all the next r18 section.  I managed to get myself psyched up to do the next one by deciding that I would stop after 4 instead of going to 6.

But, my plans were blown up by getting a phone call in the middle of the last r28 interval.  This cost me at least 30 seconds, then I pushed hard through the last 2:30 of interval.  I was so disappointed that I just stopped after that instead of doing the last r18.

To add insult to injury, the phone call seemed to blow up my painsled session.  When I finished, no workout was recorded. Fcuk.

I’m not sure what my problem is, but I think I need to ease off and do some base sessions.  I might sneak off an do a second session later today, maybe a 2×20′.

Tomorrow:  4 x 20′ / 3′

 

4 x 20′ / 3′

Leave a comment

Not surprisingly, I felt pretty tired this morning.  The HRV data agreed.  Luckily, I had an easy sessions scheduled.

Plan:

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

This felt like a lot of work, but my heart rate stayed nice and low.

          Workout Summary - media/20171218-1410320o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|20017|92:00.0|02:17.9|168.0|18.0|138.5|147.0|12.1
W-|19074|80:00.0|02:05.8|175.3|18.0|139.5|147.0|13.2
R-|00947|12:00.0|06:20.3|057.5|18.2|126.4|147.0|01.4
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|04772|20:00.0|02:05.7|175.1|17.9|135.9|143.0|13.3
01|04766|20:00.0|02:05.9|175.3|18.0|140.2|146.0|13.2
02|04770|20:00.0|02:05.8|175.5|18.1|140.6|145.0|13.2
03|04766|20:00.0|02:05.9|175.3|18.1|141.5|147.0|13.2

Screen Shot 2017-12-18 at 2.41.37 PM

Tomorrow: I really would have liked to train tomorrow, but I am flying to San Diego at 7am, and flying back on the red eye.  Next session is probably Wednesday afternoon.

 

Thursday: 4 x 20′ / 3′

Leave a comment

The plan for the session was to keep it nice and easy.

  • 4 x 20′ / 3′
  • Cat VI: 2:06-2:11 pace, 18 spm
  • Heart rate: < 150

I felt very stiff this morning from yesterday’s adventure.  I had low expectations, but I was glad that it was a long slow session.  As it turned out, my heart rate plateaued early and at a low level and basically stuck there.  I was able to hold the 2:06 split throughout without coming close to the HR limits.

          Workout Summary - media/20171214-1350320o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|20012|92:00.0|02:17.9|167.5|18.0|136.9|147.0|12.1
W-|19066|80:00.0|02:05.9|175.0|18.0|138.2|147.0|13.2
R-|00951|12:00.0|06:18.7|056.0|17.0|119.5|147.0|02.8
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|04772|20:00.0|02:05.7|175.1|18.2|132.7|142.0|13.1
01|04767|20:00.0|02:05.9|175.2|18.0|139.3|144.0|13.2
02|04764|20:00.0|02:06.0|174.9|18.0|140.3|147.0|13.3
03|04763|20:00.0|02:06.0|174.8|18.0|140.5|145.0|13.2

All in all, a nice way to spend 90 minutes.

Tomorrow:

  • 45′
  • Cat VI
  • Power 20 every 5 minutes at r32

 

Sunday: rest, Monday: 6 x (5′ @ 28, 5′ @ 18)

5 Comments

Sunday:  I intended to workout, but I slept in late, ran lots of errands, and set up the Christmas tree.

Monday:  Up at 5:15.  In the gym at 6:45.

          Workout Summary - media/20171211-1315300o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|16336|65:12.0|01:59.7|223.0|23.2|159.1|176.0|10.8
W-|16342|65:12.0|01:59.7|212.0|22.1|157.6|176.0|11.7
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|176.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|01178|05:00.0|02:07.4|165.6|17.0|121.0|136.0|13.9
01|01385|05:00.0|01:48.3|277.9|27.3|156.6|165.0|10.2
02|01153|05:00.0|02:10.1|167.4|17.8|147.6|165.0|13.0
03|01371|05:00.0|01:49.4|270.6|27.6|162.2|170.0|09.9
04|01162|05:00.0|02:09.1|167.2|17.9|153.8|170.0|13.0
05|01369|05:00.0|01:49.6|269.8|27.0|164.6|173.0|10.1
06|01153|05:00.0|02:10.1|160.3|17.6|156.7|173.0|13.1
07|01357|05:00.0|01:50.5|264.8|27.1|166.5|175.0|10.0
08|01141|05:00.0|02:11.5|162.3|17.9|159.8|175.0|12.8
09|01353|05:00.0|01:50.8|261.8|27.4|168.0|175.0|09.9
10|01151|05:00.0|02:10.4|163.0|17.7|160.6|174.0|13.0
11|01356|05:00.0|01:50.6|261.6|27.6|169.4|176.0|09.8
12|01214|05:12.1|02:08.6|165.2|18.1|161.6|176.0|12.9

That was a bitch!

Tomorrow: 4 x 12′ at 2:01/r22

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

Leave a comment

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.

12-7a.png

12-7b

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.

12-8a.png

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.

 

 

4 x 20′ / 3′

Leave a comment

 

It was a fantastic workout.  I did it in the basement on the old rowing machine from work.  I brought it home to fix it on Friday.  A couple of new screws, and resetting the rower type in the PM5 was all that was required to have it working like new.

The plan:

  • 4 x 20′ / 3′
  • Cat VI (pace: 2:06-2:11, rate: 18)

Actual

My HR hardly every broke 140 and every stroke felt effortless.  I am really happy with how my base endurance seems to be improving with Roylerow training plan.  I am looking forward to the next round of tests (20′ and 75′) that are coming up in a couple weeks.

Tomorrow, I head off to San Francisco.  I’m there on Monday and Tuesday, and then I fly to Taiwan for meetings on Thursday and Friday.  I will get back on Saturday morning.  Depending on how the day goes tomorrow, I might try to get a workout done in the evening.  If I do, it will be a 4×12’/1’30” at r22 and 2:01 pace.

On a side note, I had another PM related problem in today’s workout.  It dropped the connection to my phone 70′ minutes into an 80 minute workout and started to throw error messages.  I’ve seen this before when the batteries get low, and swapping them after I finished seems to have fixed the problem.  It is crazy that the mechanics of the rowing machine are so robust that a machine that is probably 20 years old can be restored to working order with two screws and windex, but the electronics are so half baked that they can’t even let you know when the batteries are running low.  I hope that they can make improvements in the PM over time, because I think it is holding them back in the broader fitness market.