15 x 3′ / 1′ Static

September 25, 2017Leave a comment

I felt tired at 5:15 so I rolled over and slept 2 more hours. I’m glad I did.

I headed to the gym at lunch and sat down on the new erg. And my HR strap didn’t link up to either the PM5 or the phone. I popped out the battery and it was wet. Uh Oh. I put in a new battery. Still no life. I think the seal must have gone and sweat has gotten into it.

I pulled out my old wahoo tickr and put a new battery in this one. I had stopped using this one because it seemed to have a problem following fast HR changes, like you see in interval sessions (like today’s workout). This one linked up right away, and I got going with the workout using painsled.

The plan:

15 x 3′ / 1′ rests
Pace: 1:54
Rate: 26
Technique: knees together, limit layback
HR limit: none

So the sensor still has issues. Glad it wasn’t my imagination.

So, targets met. Tired now.

Tomorrow: 80 minutes of endurance training. 20 minutes treadmill, 3 x 20′ on the erg.

30 minutes hard – static

September 23, 2017Leave a comment

It was foggy and windy this morning so no coastal rowing for me. Probably a good thing. I have a lot of issues to work on right now, but threshold fitness is probably the biggest one. It’s probably easier to focus on fitness on the erg compared to a coastal row with a lot of wind, chop and other distractions.

Plan:

5 minute warmup with 10 stroke bursts at 22/24/26/28
30 minutes hard
- rate target: 24
- pace target 1:55
- HR limit: none

Workout Summary - media/20170923-1750570o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|09631|39:00.0|02:01.5|209.7|23.5|163.3|181.0|10.5
W-|07749|30:00.0|01:56.1|223.0|24.0|169.4|181.0|10.7
R-|01885|09:00.0|02:23.3|155.4|21.3|139.2|181.0|08.1
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|01300|05:00.0|01:55.4|232.5|23.8|152.5|162.0|10.9
02|01301|05:00.0|01:55.3|228.9|24.0|164.9|168.0|10.8
03|01286|05:00.0|01:56.7|220.5|23.9|169.2|172.0|10.7
04|01284|05:00.0|01:56.8|219.5|23.9|174.0|175.0|10.7
05|01275|05:00.0|01:57.7|214.7|24.0|176.3|178.0|10.6
06|01304|05:00.0|01:55.1|222.1|24.6|179.8|181.0|10.6

I held onto to 1:55 as the target through the first 10 minutes, but I felt like I wasn’t going to be able to keep it up the whole way. I decided to let the pace drift up to 1:57. That got me through the next 5 minutes. At the halfway point, I decided to try to play a little visualization game. I tried to remember the rough spacing of bridges in the HOCR. I was pretty sure it was about 5 minutes from the Eliot bridge to the end. It was probably a little more than 5 minutes from the Anderson to Eliot, and another 5 minutes from Western to Anderson. So, I tried to visualize the different parts of the course as I did them. I was really struggling at 10 minutes to go, and I was picturing myself going around the long turn from Anderson to Eliot. I pictured the Cambridge Boat Club coming into view with about 2 minutes left and focused to trying to stay close to the buoy line. I let my pace slip a bit slower than 1:57 because I wanted to save a little for the last stretch beyond the eliot bridge. With 5 minutes to go, I split it up even more. First was about 25 strokes to get me to the BBN docks. Then 50 strokes to get around the last turn. Then a final 50 strokes to the finish.

It was pretty satisfying to get it done. I was really losing hope in the middle. I am not pleased at all about the time. My best 30 minutes is 1:48.8 pace back in 2013, and my best hour is at a 1:52 pace late in 2015. Hell, my best half marathon is faster at 1:53.6 (also in 2015). So I am more than 7 seconds off my best pace for head race distances. All I can do is work on my tolerance for pain and do my best.

Tomorrow: Hopefully an easy coastal row.

4 x 2K / 5′ – on the erg – Back at it

September 22, 2017October 2, 2017Leave a comment

When my alarm went off at 5:15 this morning, I felt very tired. I walked downstairs, thought about it for a minute, and then went back to bed for another 2 hours. I got up at 7:30 and felt much better.

As I drove to work, the weather was fine, but a bit windy. It would have been perfectly rowable, but I was glad to get the additional sleep.

My new plan was to do the workout at the end of the day on the erg. Because I have missed just about a full month of serious training, both technique and fitness need attention. Today I wanted to focus on fitness.

I haven’t done this workout since 9/16/2016, just over a year ago. This winter and spring, I was using the Eddie Fletcher Marathon training plan and haven’t been doing the normal interval work at all.

I point out all of that basically to say that I had very low expectations, and I didn’t want to bite off more than I could chew. So, I decided to pick a conservative pace target.

The Plan:

4 x 2000 / 5′ rest
pace target: 1:55 or faster
rate target: 1st: 24, 2nd 25, 3rd 26, 4th: no target
HR limits: none
Technique: Focus on keeping my knees together at Head race stroke rates

        Workout Summary - media/20170921-2215550o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|13292|63:15.0|02:22.8|189.4|23.2|152.6|179.0|09.1
W-|10000|38:14.0|01:54.7|232.6|24.4|159.1|179.0|10.8
R-|03295|25:01.0|03:48.0|074.7|20.0|136.8|179.0|03.8
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|02000|07:55.7|01:58.9|209.5|22.0|138.6|157.0|11.4
01|02000|07:36.8|01:54.2|234.6|23.9|158.0|169.0|11.0
02|02000|07:36.7|01:54.2|236.9|24.6|163.1|174.0|10.7
03|02000|07:29.9|01:52.5|246.0|26.0|167.7|179.0|10.2
04|02000|07:35.0|01:53.8|237.5|25.4|169.4|179.0|10.4

That was hard work. I managed an average pace of 1:53.7. Under “normal” circumstances, I would consider this a massive fail. But given that I am coming back from an injury layoff, and going by the HRs, I was working very hard. Mostly I was really happy about sticking with it in the later reps and I walked a bit taller walking away from the erg.

Tomorrow: OTW steady state. Focus on technique.

Forced back indoors

September 20, 2017September 20, 2017Leave a comment

Up at 5:15. Felt pretty tired. Ramping back up to normal training volumes is a bit of a shock to my system, I guess.

Downstairs and straight into the core workout. I still hate it, but doing the 10 jumping jacks between each set of each exercise breaks it up and makes it a bit more tolerable. It takes about 12 minutes, and I just start to break a sweat by the end.

Then I drove to the river. On the way, there was a bit more drizzle than yesterday, but it seemed OK. When I got there, I grabbed my broom to sweep the goose poop off the dock. While I walked to the dock, I noticed 2 things. First, it was raining harder. It was still very fine mist, but at a higher volume. Kinda like a shower in a cheap motel. And the wind was pretty strong, around 10mph with gusts to 20. There is a tropical storm about 150 miles offshore and the wind field is overspreading eastern Massachusetts.

Anyway, just the walk to the dock was enough to convince me slogging into a headwind with a soaking rain would not provide a magically rewarding fitness experience. So I walked back to the car, drove to work and headed to the fitness center.

The Plan:

15′ warmup – treadmill death march (15% grade, 3mph)
3 x 15′ static erg
- 20 spm
- 2:08
- HR limit: 155 (hopefully lower)
- Work on knees together

Workout Summary - media/20170920-1231170o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|11018|51:00.0|02:18.9|160.6|19.5|143.5|154.0|11.1
W-|10548|45:00.0|02:08.0|166.5|19.6|144.3|154.0|12.0
R-|00473|06:00.0|06:20.5|057.3|17.9|125.7|154.0|06.4
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|03518|15:00.0|02:07.9|166.0|19.2|139.3|147.0|12.2
01|03517|15:00.0|02:08.0|166.4|19.7|144.8|152.0|11.9
02|03514|15:00.0|02:08.1|167.1|19.8|148.8|154.0|11.8

So far, my back is holding up well. I still feel a bit of pain first thing in the morning and I get some warning twinges if I take a bad stroke, but it is tolerating the increased volume without any more pain or stiffness.

It’s time to take stock of where I am and what to do now. The first and most pressing decision is what to do about the HOCR, which is on the morning October 21st. 32 days from now. Seeing where I am now, versus where I was last time I rowed the HOCR, I would certainly do a lot worse. Back then, my 2.0 mmol power was around 185W on the erg. Right now, I would bet that it’s around 165W. So, my guess is that I would be about 5 sec/500 slower than last time. So, tack another 50 seconds on my finish time. So, I’d go from a 22:15 to a 23:15, dropping from 25th place to 37th place (out of 58).

I wouldn’t be delighted with that, but its better than DFL. I sure love rowing in this race. I think I want to do it, even though I would not be at my best. The question is: What is the best way to prepare for it? I’m obviously not going to improve my aerobic fitness much over 32 days. I will get some of that fitness back quickly just by regaining some blood volume. But the main focus has to be on head race pace rowing. Actually the main focus has to be on injury prevention. After that I can focus on head race prep.

So, the mini plan is.

2 UT2 sessions per week 60 to 80 minutes of work per session. Interval based. No longer than 15 minutes continuous on the erg with stretching

1 UT1 session per week 60 minutes of work hopefully on the water

1 head race simulation per week. Starting at r24 and moving up in rate.

1 long interval session per week. basically 4×2000 type stuff with nice long rests

1 short interval/short rest per week. concentrate on technique at r26 and r28

Daily core exercises (ugh)

In all sessions work on keeping knees together, limiting layback, and keeping my spine straight.

Tomorrow: Hopefully back on the water. Long intervals. 4 x 2k. Should be a disaster.

Back on the water

September 19, 2017September 20, 2017Leave a comment

Sunday, September 17th

We hung out down on the cape until mid-afternoon and then headed home. There was still no AC in the house. But around 8pm, I settled in for a sweaty erg session. Today, painsled decided to cooperate.

The same session as Saturday. 4 x 15′ / 2′ rest with stretching in the rests. HR limited at 155.

        Workout Summary - media/20170917-2005310o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|14605|68:01.0|02:19.7|145.9|21.6|141.6|156.0|09.9
W-|13735|60:00.0|02:11.0|155.6|21.4|143.0|156.0|10.7
R-|00874|08:01.0|04:35.5|041.6|22.8|123.3|156.0|06.5
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|03481|15:00.0|02:09.3|161.5|21.3|132.8|142.0|10.9
01|03463|15:00.0|02:09.9|159.5|21.2|143.6|152.0|10.9
02|03412|15:00.0|02:11.9|152.7|21.3|146.1|155.0|10.7
03|03379|15:00.0|02:13.2|148.8|21.9|149.4|156.0|10.3

Monday, September 18th

Yet again I had to be home in the morning to let workmen in and get them setup. That killed any chance for a morning workout. I finally had a window around 5pm. I headed down to the fitness center. I’m worried about too much rowing, so I decided to start off on the treadmill with a 20 minute death march (15% grade, 3mph).

After that I was planning to jump on our brand new Model D indoor rowing machine. But someone beat me to it! While I waited, I jumped on a elliptical machine to get a few more aerobic minutes.

Now the rower was open and I hopped on. The PM5 picked up my HR monitor and linked with Painsled with no issues. I set up a time based interval session. 15 minute work and 2 minute rest. I intended to do 2 intervals.

        Workout Summary - media/20170918-1720320o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|07324|34:00.0|02:19.3|160.0|19.2|149.3|158.0|11.2
W-|06991|30:00.0|02:08.7|164.2|19.1|150.1|158.0|12.2
R-|00335|04:00.0|05:58.0|079.4|19.1|133.8|158.0|05.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|03562|15:00.0|02:06.3|172.6|19.5|151.0|158.0|12.2
01|03428|15:00.0|02:11.3|155.9|18.8|149.3|153.0|12.2

I was interested to see how it compared to the dynamic. Same stroke rate. I think about a 4 second pace differential, not as much as I would have thought going in.

Tuesday, September 19

I was so excited to get back on the water, I woke up before my alarm and just lay there imagining how awesome it would be.

Since this was my first early morning workout since my injury, I wanted to put in place my new protocol. I got up and went straight into my core routine (curl ups, side planks, bird dogs). Man, I am coming to loathe doing ab exercises. I stretched before and during and did some jumping jacks and stuff. Hopefully it was enough to squish some of the extra fluid out of my disks before I went rowing.

The drive to where I launch is about 30 minutes. I was on the water by 6:30. The weather was less than perfect. It was around 65F, with a fine misty drizzle and a bit of wind from the northeast, maybe about 7 mph. This was a headwind going downriver.

I was really happy that my balance wasn’t terrible. I felt comfortable almost immediately. The plan for the day was pretty simple:

steady state
r20
heart rate limit: 150. lower is better
no pace target
technique focus: keep knees together at the catch. rock hips over at the catch and keep spine straight. focus on isolating the back swing.

I was using the speed coach the whole workout but because I stopped right at the beginning to change what I looked at in one of the display fields, it stopped and I forgot to restart it. I didn’t realize what I had done until I went to upload the session and saw that it was for a total distance of 8 meters!

But, as an experienced speedcoach user, I have my backup. No heart rate, but at least I have the whole session on RIM.

        Workout Summary - media/20170919-193028-95635o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|12766|70:59.0|02:46.8|000.0|20.0|0.0|000.0|09.0
W-|11801|58:39.0|02:29.1|000.0|20.3|000.0|000.0|09.9
R-|00973|12:20.0|06:20.4|000.0|17.5|000.0|000.0|03.6
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|00821|04:07.2|02:30.6|000.0|19.8|000.0|0.0|10.1 - To the cut
02|03019|15:10.2|02:30.7|000.0|20.0|000.0|0.0|09.9 - To the dam headwind
03|02865|14:00.0|02:26.6|000.0|20.4|000.0|0.0|10.0 - Back to the cut Tail
04|02013|10:25.2|02:35.3|000.0|20.4|000.0|0.0|09.5 - to the bridge
05|02178|10:34.8|02:25.7|000.0|20.5|000.0|0.0|10.0 - back to the cut
06|00905|04:22.2|02:24.8|000.0|20.7|000.0|0.0|10.0 - Back to the dock

I think the paces are overly optimistic. I can see the jaggies on the map

(map provided by rowsandall using the latest and greatest navionics overlay!)

It’s more obvious in a close up of the s-turn.

I was so happy to be back on the water, I can’t even begin to describe how much better the rest of my day was. I was just walking around grinning.

Even more rowing

September 17, 2017September 19, 20171 Comment

I arrived home from Vegas around 9pm on Sept 13th.

Sept 14th: I worked from home because we are having some work done around the house and I needed to be there while the various tradesmen did their things. Around 4 in the afternoon, they cleared out and I went for a quick run. My intent was to do an erg session afterwards, but my wife came home while I was out running, so that part never happened.

It wasn’t much of a run, about 5km. I ran the first 4.3km, then walked for about 5 inutes and then jogged home.

Screen Shot 2017-09-16 at 9.56.06 PM.png

September 15th: The various projects that were supposed to conclude on Thursday, did not, in fact conclude on Thursday, so I needed to be home in the morning to supervise. I needed to be at work in the afternoon, so I left them unattended. A big mistake as it turned out because the work that was done on our heating system was done badly and will need to be redone. Since I got to work late, I spent the rest of the day rushing around, and then in the evening my wife and I spent hours trying to track down the people responsible for messing up our heating system. Ultimately we gave up and drove down to the Cape. So, no training on Friday.

Saturday, September 16th.

On the way to the cape, we got a call from the heating system company. They would have a technician at our house between 10 and 11 on Saturday morning. Oh well, I was hoping for an easy coastal row on Saturday morning, but priorities must be maintained. I headed back first thing the morning. I was quite pleased to see that it was way to foggy to row anyway.

The technician showed up at 1:50pm, in other words, nearly 3 hours late. And the work they did was just as bad as the work done on Friday. It will all need to be done yet again on Monday. The highlight was a slow and sweaty session that I did on the dynamic.

I’m taking a bit of a different strategy with the dynamic. I have upped the drag a bit, setting it around 4 or so. (drag factor 120). and I am keeping the stroke rate above 20. I am also working very hard to keep my knees together at the catch, keep my chin up and limit the amount of layback. It leads to a very different feeling strong. Less long and smooth, but much easier on my lower back.

I was annoyed that I didn’t have my HR strap, so I just rowed to constant pace (2:10, ~160W). In another strategy to limit the back strain, I rowed 15 minute pieces and 2 minutes rests, and I got off the erg and stretched during the rests. This resulted in a reasonable intensity and a huge sweat fest in the humidity (Did I mention that the issues with the heating also effected the air conditioning?)

I was further annoyed when painsled hung up around 8 minutes into the second interval. The PM kept going, but stopped talking to painsled for some reason. It’s really a pretty unreliable connection.

Here’s the first 23 minutes of rowing.

9-16

        Workout Summary - media/20170916-2110320o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|05470|25:12.0|02:18.3|157.2|20.5|0.0|000.0|10.6
W-|05383|23:12.0|02:09.4|160.9|20.5|000.0|000.0|11.3
R-|00088|02:00.0|11:18.4|029.4|21.9|000.0|000.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|03484|15:00.0|02:09.1|161.5|20.2|000.0|0.0|11.5
01|01898|08:12.5|02:09.7|159.9|20.9|000.0|0.0|11.1

Here’s the rest of it on the PM

Tomorrow: I hope to go for a row in the morning. Nice and gentle. Focus on good form.

A little bit more rowing

September 13, 2017Leave a comment

So, I was delighted to find that my back was not hurting more than usual this morning. It might have even felt a little bit better.

I had a conference call from 7 to 8:30, and then I headed to the gym to squeeze in a workout before my flight home.

I am trying to keep in mind the warnings that I have read about injury risk first thing in the morning, and wanted to be careful about how much I do, so I decided to do a 15 minute treadmill death march as a warmup and then a 30 minute row.

As it turned out, after I finished my warmup, somebody else was actually using the rowing machine. :-O

I had to wait 7 minutes for them to finish flailing about ineffectually. I also had to resist the urge to go offer coaching tips 😉

So, my time window was closing, but I still had 20 minutes. I thought it might be good to do a toned down version of a Fletcher Warmup. I’d do it at a slower pace, and focus on keeping my knees together.

The 15 minute death march (15% grade, 3mph) was the usual UT2 slog. My HR was just hitting the top of the UT2 band as I was finishing up.

While I waited for the erg to free up, I puttered along on an elliptical trainer, trying to keep my HR in the UT2 zone. So, tack on another 7 minutes or so of warmup.

Then the machine freed up, and I settled in for my fletcher.

I was doing it strapless, and I was pretty focused on both keeping my knees together, avoiding over compression at the catch, and avoiding too much layback at the finish. Rowing that way really kind of limited how high a rate I could do to around 25 spm.

The other limiting factor was how hard it was! I was gassed after the initial ramp up. Way too gassed. I have lost a lot of fitness over the past few weeks. Oh well, it is what it is. I have to take it slow and try to come back cleanly.

        Workout Summary - media/20170913-1150310o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|04777|20:00.0|02:05.6|181.0|20.1|156.0|170.0|11.9
W-|04781|20:00.0|02:05.5|178.3|19.9|155.5|170.0|12.1
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|170.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|00935|04:00.0|02:08.4|163.3|17.8|134.0|146.0|13.1
01|00958|04:00.0|02:05.3|177.9|20.0|152.7|158.0|12.0
02|00739|03:00.0|02:01.8|194.0|21.8|161.6|164.0|11.3
03|00256|01:00.0|01:57.1|217.1|23.5|166.4|168.0|10.9
04|00134|00:30.0|01:51.9|246.9|25.2|168.6|169.0|10.6
05|00454|02:00.0|02:12.2|154.6|18.4|163.9|170.0|12.4
06|00263|01:00.0|01:54.0|236.4|24.3|165.3|169.0|10.8
07|00451|02:00.0|02:13.1|149.8|17.7|164.1|169.0|12.7
08|00131|00:30.0|01:54.4|225.8|23.2|161.5|162.0|11.3
09|00460|02:00.0|02:10.4|160.5|18.1|162.6|165.0|12.7

Tomorrow: I think I will try to do another hybrid workout. Probably a 30′ run/walk as a warmup and 30′ UT2 on the erg, keeping the stroke pressure low.

This sucks

September 13, 20179 Comments

So, my last post was on September 2nd. Ten days ago. At that time, my back was killing me and I decided that I needed to really lay off the rowing until I figured out what was going on. I bought the book “Back Mechanic”, read it cover to cover, and I’m trying to use the good advice contained within.

This advice can be boiled down to:

Avoid aggravating your injury by practicing good “back hygiene”. This means sitting up straight and avoiding positions that hurt.
Figure out the most likely cause of pain by doing some diagnostic tests. (For me this resulted in a likely diagnosis of a disk injury in the lumbar region. One fun fact that I learning is that disks are hydrophylic, which means that they absorb fluid over night and are “puffy” in the morning. So, if you have a disk impinging on a nerve it will probably hurt more in the morning and will feel better after the disks lose a bit of fluid over the first hour or two of the day. Interestingly, this makes you more susceptible to disk injury first thing in the morning too. So once I get back to rowing, I should do a non-rowing warmup before taking a stroke)
Start strengthening your core muscles with a set of defined exercises that utilize a limited range of motion, but help to work on the muscle balance in you back and abdomen
Don’t do any stretching to the limit of you motion until you are pain free. Stretching will essentially release chemicals that ease the pain immediately, but will continue the inflammation cycle and slow down recovery.

So, I’ve been dutifully doing my core exercises nearly every day. They are boring and a pain in the ass, but I have to put in the effort. Over the ten days, the amount of pain I feel in the mornings has been steadily decreasing, but is not going away.

Yesterday I went to the doctor for my annual physical. I asked him about my back issues and he diagnosed me as having a problem with my SI Joint. This is the joint between the Sacrum and the Ilium. I am less than completely convinced he is right.

So, he has set me up for x-rays next week, and referred me for physical therapy. I need to find myself a PT that understands rowing.

I also discovered to my horror that I have gained 12 pounds over the past couple of months. I guess my eating hasn’t changed even though I’m burning a thousand less calories a day. Another thing I have to fix.

In terms of training, here’s a quick synopsis of the past 10 days.

9/3 – Another walk around the island.

9/4 – Another walk around the island.

9/5 – Fly off to California – no training. Used a lumbar cushion on the airline seat and that seemed to help reduce pain.

9/6 – 60 minutes in the fitness center. 30 minutes on the treadmill set to max incline at 3 mph, a fast walk. Then 30 minutes on an elliptical machine.

9/7 – 48 minutes in the fitness center. 30 minutes on the treadmill same deal, max incline, fast walk. Then I moved over to the elliptical for another 30 minutes. 18 minutes into that, I got a call from the guy I was meeting saying that he was in the lobby. I thought I had another 45 minutes before he was arriving. Dashed off to the shower. Long day of meetings. Caught the red eye home.

9/8 – Got home around 7am and slept for a couple of hours. Then worked from home. Late in the day, I decided to go for a short run to see if my back would tolerate that. It did. I ran for 30 minutes and then walked another 15.

9/9 – We headed back to the Cape on Friday evening and I’m glad we did. Saturday morning, it was incredibly beautiful out. I went for another walk around the island. I was feeling a lot of stiffness from the run on Friday, but my back was not significantly worse. The tide was low so I could get out on the sand flats a bit more and watch the birds.

9/10 – Same thing as the day before. Another glorious day, another walk. Still sore from Friday’s run, but less so.

9/11 – Monday. I had my doctors appointment, then a few hours of meetings and then headed off to the airport. I flew out to Las Vegas for a conference, arriving around 8 pm. Got to the hotel, grabbed dinner and went to bed. No training.

9/12 – Tuesday. I slept in a bit longer than I should have, so by the time I did my core exercises, I only had enough time for a 30 minute death march on the treadmill. I did that, showered and went to the conference. This finished around 5, and so I headed back to the gym. Now this hotel (The Wynn Hotel) has a fantastic fitness center. Lots of treadmills, stationary bikes, and a nearly new Concept2 Model E rowing machine with PM5. I managed to ignore it this morning, but it’s siren song was way too tempting for me this afternoon. I melted under the pressure and before I knew it I was sitting on the seat, linking my phone to the PM and firing up painsled.

Part of me thought this was pretty stupid. But part of me thought that a session done at lighter pressure would be a gentle test to see if I might be ready to resume some light rowing specific training. I decided to do 30 minutes and to up the stroke rate by 2 from my more normal stroke pressures. So 18 SPM would yield 160w and 20 SPM would yield 180W.

I also wanted to really focus on trying to limit my over reach at the catch. I’ve been dropping my legs apart to get more length and I suspect that this new aspect of my style is what is putting more stress on my back. So the goal for the day was to row with my knees together, even at the catch. I caught myself slipping a few times, but generally it was OK.

        Workout Summary - media/20170912-2040320o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|07278|31:07.0|02:08.3|169.9|18.9|145.0|157.0|12.4
W-|07280|31:07.0|02:08.3|169.1|18.8|145.4|157.0|12.4
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|157.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|02417|10:00.0|02:04.1|182.4|19.9|132.3|148.0|12.1
01|02364|10:00.0|02:06.9|173.6|18.7|150.1|155.0|12.6
02|02322|10:00.0|02:09.2|162.8|18.0|153.5|157.0|12.9
03|00176|01:07.8|03:12.2|068.3|17.7|148.3|157.0|08.8

Not very impressive, but I was glad to have done it. My back is letting me know that it’s a little unhappy, but the true test will be how it feels in the morning.

After that, I had reached my 30 minute limit for rowing, so I moved over to the treadmill and did 20 minute death march.

Tomorrow, I head home. I might have time for a quick workout in the morning before I leave, but I will only go if I’m not paralyzed with pain.

Sunday: Same as Saturday 3 x 20′ / 1′ Dynamic

August 26, 2017August 28, 2017Leave a comment

We had house guests so I couldn’t work out until later in the day. I’m still struggling with the dynamic so I decided to just redo the saturday workout with similar targets to see what happened.

Plan:

3 x 20′ / 1′
stroke rate: r20
Heart Rate Limit: 155
Power target: ~160W (up 3W from yesterday, but I started higher than that yesterday and bled down as I went along. I wanted to be steadier in this session.

       Workout Summary - media/20170827-2245360o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|14300|63:00.0|02:12.2|156.2|21.1|145.7|159.0|10.8
W-|13918|60:00.0|02:09.3|161.2|20.7|145.7|158.0|11.2
R-|00386|03:00.0|03:53.2|060.1|28.8|144.4|158.0|05.3
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|04662|20:00.0|02:08.7|163.3|20.4|137.2|145.0|11.4
01|04640|20:00.0|02:09.3|161.6|20.5|147.5|152.0|11.3
02|04616|20:00.0|02:10.0|158.9|21.1|152.3|158.0|11.0

Comparison of Saturday to Sunday

Much more level power profile
Stroke rate wiggled around a bit in the last 20′ as I tried to max out power without blowing the HR limit.
HR climbed more slowly at the beginning, but was almost exactly the same for the last 2/3 of the workout.

Saturday: 3 x 20′ / 1′ dynamic

August 26, 2017August 27, 2017Leave a comment

HR limit at 155. Still struggling with this erg. Easily 20W to 30W lower power for equivalent HR. Rowing strictly to the HR limit.

I did concentrate on trying to keep my stroke lighter and stroke rate higher to try to reduce the stress on my lower back.

       Workout Summary - media/20170826-2215270o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|14107|63:00.0|02:14.0|155.5|20.3|147.3|157.0|11.0
W-|13842|60:00.0|02:10.0|159.2|20.1|147.4|157.0|11.5
R-|00268|03:00.0|05:35.7|047.5|26.6|141.7|157.0|04.4
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|04730|20:00.0|02:06.9|170.9|20.2|141.2|149.0|11.7
01|04570|20:00.0|02:11.3|154.8|19.8|147.4|154.0|11.6
02|04542|20:00.0|02:12.1|151.8|20.4|153.6|157.0|11.1

I am still perplexed about my performance on the dynamic. Here are very similar 3×20′ sessions. One done on the static about a month ago, and the one fro the dynamic done yesterday. I did a bunch of comparison charts, but I can’t draw any good conclusions.