Tuesday: 30′ @ MP and skierg

January 24, 2017January 26, 20171 Comment

Monday: No training. I flew out to San Jose, and headed straight into the office. Straight from the office to a business dinner. Back to hotel around 10pm.

Tuesday: Early start, in the office at 7am to prep for big meeting. Then lots of other meetings through the day. My last meeting finished around 4pm and I decided to sneak out. I went back to my hotel, threw on my workout clothes and ran over to Evolution Fitness in downtown San Jose. I bought a day pass and hopped on an erg. I had to be done, back to the hotel, showered, and in a cab in time for a 6pm business dinner.

Originally, I thought I had time to do a 2×30′ session, but as I was grinding away in the first 30 minutes, I was working out the timing and logistics of getting to my dinner on time and it was clear that I didn’t have that much time. When I came into the gym, I notice a row of 4 nice new skiergs along a wall. I decided that a I just finish up the first 30 minutes on the erg, and then give the skierg a try.

So 30 minutes at marathon pace, and then an exploratory session on the skierg. The workout did not go very well. It was hard work to sustain even the low end of the marathon pace band and my heart rate was way high. It might have had something to do with not enough sleep, too much alcohol and way too much stress. In any event, I was just glad to have had the chance to do a little training.

The skierg was quite an experience. I just walked up to it, set the damper at 4, the PM to a 10 minute session and started pulling. I started off at something like 38 SPM, and after a minute found that it was not even remotely sustainable. I back off to 30 or so, and still redlined about 8 minutes into it. My pace was incredibly slow, so I have to assume that my technique was crappy. But it was an impressive workout. It is full body like a rowing machine, but almost entirely the opposing muscles. My shoulders, back and neck are all stiff today.

Workout Summary - media/20170125-0115190o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|07207|30:05.0|02:05.2|178.5|19.2|152.9|160.0|12.5
W-|07210|30:05.0|02:05.2|178.4|19.2|153.0|160.0|12.5
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|160.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|01221|05:00.0|02:02.9|186.7|19.1|139.4|150.0|12.8
01|01210|05:00.0|02:03.9|183.9|19.6|152.5|155.0|12.4
02|01210|05:00.0|02:04.0|183.5|18.9|155.8|157.0|12.8
03|01198|05:00.0|02:05.2|178.4|18.9|157.1|160.0|12.7
04|01179|05:00.0|02:07.2|170.0|19.7|156.7|158.0|12.0
05|01191|05:05.3|02:08.1|168.2|19.1|156.2|159.0|12.3

Workout Summary - media/Import_28626041.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|02351|10:00.0|02:07.6|168.4|30.9|169.2|183.0|07.6
W-|02356|10:00.0|02:07.3|167.8|30.8|169.8|183.0|07.7
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|183.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|00253|01:00.0|01:58.5|187.7|35.2|143.0|159.0|07.2
01|00242|01:00.0|02:04.0|183.8|30.5|159.1|166.0|07.9
02|00237|01:00.0|02:06.5|173.2|31.1|166.6|169.0|07.6
03|00238|01:00.0|02:06.1|175.6|31.4|171.2|174.0|07.6
04|00232|01:00.0|02:09.3|161.5|30.8|172.7|175.0|07.5
05|00231|01:00.0|02:10.0|160.4|28.9|173.4|175.0|08.0
06|00231|01:00.0|02:10.0|159.2|28.2|175.9|178.0|08.2
07|00229|01:00.0|02:11.0|155.3|29.8|177.0|178.0|07.7
08|00228|01:00.0|02:11.4|153.9|29.3|178.0|180.0|07.8
09|00235|01:00.0|02:07.7|167.1|32.7|180.8|183.0|07.2

Sunday: 3 x 20′ @ mp / 10kp / hmp

January 22, 20173 Comments

This was a redo of the workout I did on Wednesday, but this time with lower power levels

3 x 20′ intervals
Pace Targets:
- 1st interval: Marathon Pace
- 2nd Interval: 10K Pace
- 3rd Interval: Half Marathon Pace
2′ rest between pieces
HR Range: 80% to 90% of HRMax (149 to 168)

So, based on yesterday’s happy workout, I aimed 5 watts above the bottom of each pace range, so my targets were

Marathon Pace: 185W
10K Pace: 215W
Half Marathon Pace: 200W

I stayed just below the HR limit in the second and third interval.

These to be just about right. Challenging, HR coming close to the limit.

Saturday: 4 x 15′ 5kp/mp step downs

January 20, 2017January 22, 20171 Comment

Friday: I had a teleconference for work at 9pm that I actually needed to go to work to do. The call lasted 90 minutes and then I had to do a couple of follow up calls. I finally got home around 1 in the morning. I decided to sleep in instead of getting up to row.

Saturday: I went to row about 3 in the afternoon, after taking care of some errands and chores. I wanted to try out the workout from Tuesday with the lower power targets.

4 x 15′
4′ rest
the first 6 minutes of each interval is rowed at your current 5k pace
the last 9 minutes of each interval are rowed at you current projected marathon pace
HR limit: 92.5% of HRMax (172)

Pace Targets:

Today, I would start off using 225W for the 5kp and 180W for the MP. I decided I wanted a short warmup, so I decided to program the whole thing as a variable interval session on the PM. I set it up as

1000m / 2′ rest
4 x 15′ / 4′ rest

I was able to boost up the power a bit. Maybe because I do better in the afternoon, or maybe it’s a very fine line. My HR never came close to the limit.

I am finding this workout to be very fascinating or looking at stroke metrics. Here’s a whole lot of them.

So, I think I am at the right power now. These workouts get tougher by going to 7′ at 5kp, then to 9′ at 5kp in each 15′ interval, so I won’t be trying to go faster.

Thursday: 2 x 30′ @ mp

January 19, 2017January 22, 2017Leave a comment

After the Wednesday session, I knew that I needed to dial it back a notch, so I decided to try one of the bread and butter endurance sessions from the plan.

2 x 30′
Marathon Pace or Slower
HR Limit: 75% of HRMax

A 75% of HR max cap is very low for me. That’s a HR of 140. I decided to use 80% of HRMax instead which is 148. I used 195W as my starting marathon pace. That pace did not last very long. Even with the higher HR limit, and in fact, blowing through that limit up to 84% of HRMax, I had to continually slow down.

Yep, The high end of the range is too high.

Wednesday: 3 x 20′ @ mp/10kp/hmp

January 18, 2017January 22, 20174 Comments

Wednesday’s workout was another one of the basic types from the Eddie Fletcher Marathon Plan.

3 x 20′ intervals
Pace Targets:
- 1st interval: Marathon Pace
- 2nd Interval: 10K Pace
- 3rd Interval: Half Marathon Pace
2′ rest between pieces
HR Range: 80% to 90% of HRMax (149 to 168)

These pace targets are defined by the plan from estimated current 2k pace as follows:

Just like the step down workout from Tuesday, I aimed at the top end of the range and ignored the HR limits. Again, I successfully completed the workout, but it was extremely difficult. I had some kind of a hangup on painsled during the first 20 minute piece, so I didn’t get any data for that one beyond the picture from the PM. Form that you can see that I held 199W (vs a target of 195W), and that my HR was about 82% of HRMax at the end of it.

The second and third intervals were extremely challenging.

I had an astonishing 11:45 with my heart rate above 95% of HRMax. Looking back at it today, I have no idea why I didn’t quit, or at least slow down.

So, next time, I’ll be aiming at the bottom of the ranges.

Tuesday: 4 x (6′ @ 5kp + 9′ @ mp)/4′ rest

January 17, 2017January 21, 20173 Comments

Pretty incomprehensible title, huh? This week I am experimenting with the week #1 workouts from the Eddie Fletcher Marathon Training Plan.

There are some very interesting concepts in the plan, and some intriguing workouts that I have never done before, so I decided to make a guess about my current capabilities, try a few workouts and then adjust as I need to when I start the plan in earnest.

Today’s workout was 4 x (6′ @ 5kp + 9′ @ mp)/4′ rest. What that means…

4 intervals each of them 15′ long
4 minutes of rest between interval
the first 6 minutes of each interval is rowed at your current 5k pace
the last 9 minutes of each interval are rowed at you current projected marathon pace

The training plan does not explain exactly what the logic is for this, but having done it, I have a pretty good idea. By starting at a 5k pace, you are working above your MLSS (Maximum Lactate Steady State) pace, which means that you are accumulating lactate. By the time you finish 6 minutes at that pace, your heart rate is up, and you are feeling a bit like you would be much further into a marathon length row. When you slow down to marathon pace, you are no longer building up your lactate levels, but the level of effort is such that you don’t clear much of it either, and your heart rate slowly (very slowly drifts down). This workout seems like a very clever way to simulate rowing in the last hour of a marathon.

I just took a guess about pacing. Based on the 4×4′ CTC, I figured that my 2k pace is around a 1:45. For this workout plan, you use 4 basic paces, which are just percentages of your 2k power. I did a quick table for mine.

The plan was very clear that you should start at the low end of the power range and work your way up. The plan also includes HR limits for the workout. The limit for this one was 92.5% of HRMax, which for me is 172bpm.

Of course that is exactly what I didn’t do. In typical fashion, I looked at the top end of the range as the absolute minimum that I should see on the monitor, and I completely ignored the HR limit. And I enjoyed it.

That made it a very hard workout. I started with a 1k warmup, since the first chunk would be at 5k pace. I worked my way up to 240 watts over the first 400m and then held it for the last 600.

Then into the workout.

Workout Summary - media/20170118-145925-sled_2017-01-17T07-10-05ZEST.strokes.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|17233|76:00.0|02:12.3|196.7|23.6|159.6|177.0|09.6
W-|15317|60:00.0|01:57.5|218.1|23.9|164.1|177.0|10.7
R-|01922|16:00.0|04:09.7|057.0|20.9|138.6|177.0|02.3
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|01611|06:00.0|01:51.7|248.7|25.2|151.1|165.0|10.6
01|02238|09:00.0|02:00.6|199.5|22.3|159.9|165.0|11.2
02|01597|06:00.0|01:52.7|246.8|25.4|159.8|172.0|10.5
03|02235|09:00.0|02:00.8|198.7|22.9|166.3|172.0|10.9
04|01569|06:00.0|01:54.7|244.4|25.6|160.3|176.0|10.2
05|02236|09:00.0|02:00.7|199.3|23.1|170.8|177.0|10.8
06|01590|06:00.0|01:53.2|245.0|25.8|165.9|177.0|10.3
07|02240|09:00.0|02:00.5|200.2|23.4|172.1|177.0|10.6

The results were quite consistent, but I had to go very deep into the well for it. The last 9 minutes at marathon pace were excruciating.

Since this workout is at higher stroke rates and pressure, I thought it would be interesting to look at some of the metrics to compare the sections done at 200W to the sections done are 245W.

Drive was consistent across the two powers, so was force ratio. Force ratio looks like it got more erratic in the last interval (the spread around 0.8 looks broader). I was expecting to see a bigger change in stroke rhythm between rowing at 22-23 for the 200W and rowing at 24-25 for the 245W, but it stayed around 31%. At this point, I don’t understand that metric to know if that is good or bad or indifferent.

So, next time I do this workout, I’m aiming for the bottom of the ranges, 225w and 180W.

Monday: 3 x 5K/1′ rest

January 16, 2017January 18, 20172 Comments

Not enough sleep on Sunday night, and I felt pretty tired going in to this session. The whole point was to just do something and keep it easy.

Plan:

3 x 5k
first 5k, start slow and speed up over the first 2k.
second 5k hold roughly marathon pace (2:00)
third 5k, row to a 150 HR cap.
Stick with a lighter stroke rate, 22 spm for 2:00 pace

I had a hang up with painsled today. I was rowing the session as distance intervals with 5000m and a 1 min rest. Soon after I started the second interval, I noticed that painsled stopped updating, and so did my HR on the PM5. I rowed out the rest of the second interval at a 2:00 pace and no idea about my HR. It felt like I was above the cap for the last 5 minutes or so.

After I finished the second interval, I reset the PM, hooked everything up again, and setup a single 5k to finish off the workout.

The remarkable thing to me was that painsled managed to capture the first part of the workout, right up to where the hang happened. I was impressed that it was able to recover as gracefully as it did.

The first chunk

The last interval, I played with pace to try to hold my HR right at 150.

Thursday: 10K @ 2:00 split

January 12, 2017January 13, 2017Leave a comment

I had limited time this morning and frankly, I was a little grumpy. I just decided to ignore HR and just row 10K.

Workout Summary - media/20170112-1255080o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|10000|39:42.0|01:59.1|206.3|21.9|157.5|171.0|11.5
W-|10000|39:43.0|01:59.2|206.3|21.9|157.4|171.0|11.5
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|171.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|01000|03:55.9|01:58.0|207.9|20.9|131.9|144.0|12.2
01|01000|03:57.1|01:58.6|209.9|21.8|148.2|152.0|11.6
02|01000|03:58.4|01:59.2|207.0|21.9|153.1|155.0|11.5
03|01000|03:58.3|01:59.2|206.6|22.0|156.1|158.0|11.5
04|01000|03:58.8|01:59.4|205.7|21.8|157.8|160.0|11.5
05|01000|03:59.0|01:59.5|205.1|22.0|160.3|162.0|11.4
06|01000|03:59.0|01:59.5|204.8|22.0|163.3|165.0|11.4
07|01000|03:59.1|01:59.5|205.1|22.0|165.0|167.0|11.4
08|01000|03:59.0|01:59.5|204.9|22.0|167.7|171.0|11.4
09|01000|03:58.5|01:59.2|206.4|22.3|169.7|171.0|11.3

It’s 1:20am and I’m on a work phone phone call :-O

I’m not sure I will have time to train. If I do, it will be just a quick 30 minutes or so.

Wednesday: Very Slow Half Marathon

January 11, 2017January 13, 2017Leave a comment

I’ve been ramping volume pretty hard since last week. I’ve put in a total of 93km since January 5th. I probably should have ramped more slowly, but I haven’t had any knee issues (which is pretty cool)

I know I need to show a little patience, but it really bugs me to be as slow and unfit as I am right now. Today, the plan was to row a nice, slow half marathon and keep my Heart Rate below a HR cap of 150. It did not work out that way.

I thought I would be able to hold a 2:05 split, which is just about the 180W. I held that for about 10K, but by then, my heart rate had cruised up to nearly 160bpm. I dropped the power down to 170W, then 160W (2:10), but my heart rate just stubbornly stayed up around 160. I didn’t feel too bad, and I had no trouble sustaining this level of effort, but seriously? That kind of HR for this effort is horrifyingly bad for me.

Workout Summary - media/20170111-1350080o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|21097|89:01.0|02:06.6|172.3|19.9|153.6|161.0|11.9
W-|21097|89:02.0|02:06.6|172.3|19.9|153.6|161.0|11.9
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|161.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|01000|04:05.2|02:02.6|183.2|19.3|125.3|137.0|12.7
01|01000|04:07.4|02:03.7|184.8|19.9|139.0|143.0|12.2
02|01000|04:07.8|02:03.9|184.1|19.8|144.3|147.0|12.2
03|01000|04:07.7|02:03.8|184.3|19.9|148.1|152.0|12.2
04|01000|04:08.1|02:04.0|183.5|19.9|150.7|154.0|12.1
05|01000|04:08.2|02:04.1|183.2|20.1|152.8|155.0|12.1
06|01000|04:08.7|02:04.4|182.0|20.0|155.2|157.0|12.1
07|01000|04:08.9|02:04.5|181.4|20.0|156.4|159.0|12.0
08|01000|04:11.3|02:05.7|176.3|20.1|156.2|158.0|11.9
09|01000|04:12.7|02:06.3|173.7|19.9|156.9|158.0|11.9
10|01000|04:14.0|02:07.0|170.7|20.0|157.2|159.0|11.8
11|01000|04:15.9|02:07.9|167.2|19.8|156.8|157.0|11.9
12|01000|04:16.2|02:08.1|166.3|19.8|156.9|158.0|11.8
13|01000|04:17.1|02:08.5|164.7|19.9|157.0|160.0|11.7
14|01000|04:17.8|02:08.9|163.6|19.9|156.8|159.0|11.7
15|01000|04:17.6|02:08.8|163.8|20.0|157.8|159.0|11.6
16|01000|04:18.7|02:09.4|161.5|20.0|159.0|160.0|11.6
17|01000|04:18.3|02:09.1|162.5|20.0|158.7|160.0|11.6
18|01000|04:17.2|02:08.6|160.7|20.0|158.9|160.0|11.7
19|01000|04:20.7|02:10.3|161.9|20.0|158.7|160.0|11.5
20|01000|04:18.2|02:09.1|162.5|19.6|159.6|161.0|11.8
21|00097|00:24.6|02:07.0|172.1|21.1|159.7|160.0|11.2

3 x 20′ / 1′ rest @ r20 plus rowpro experiment

January 10, 2017January 10, 20172 Comments

Last night I downloaded the new version Rowpro. I used to use it a lot on my machine at home, but since upgrading the PM5 and the release of ergdata and especially PainSled, I haven’t. Rowpro still provides an unmatched ability to row online with other people in different places, and since their is a pretty big user base for it, I thought I should give it another try.

RowPro5 is the first release that supports macOS, so I decided to download and try that one. It doesn’t seem like the mac version is very mature. It worked, but the UI seems incomplete. For example, I could not find a way to save the strokes from my row, or to export the row as a CSV file the way I did on the old windows version. That made it pretty useless to me.

I did a quick 5 x 250m / 0:30 rest session as a test. Here is the rowpro report that it generated.

One interesting thing about rowpro is that it connects to the PM by the USB port. You can, in parallel connect the PM to ergdata or painsled and use that at the same time. Why would you do that, you might ask? I have a few good reasons.

You want to see all the cool stroke data that you get from ergdata like drive length or peak force
You want to watch to cool accumulating force curve in painsled
You are paranoid about using rowpro because if you get interrupted for any reason, you tend to lose all of the data from your row.

After I did the row, I remembered the way that rowpro does intervals. It sets each interval and each rest as a completely separate row on the PM. This allows the statistics to be accurate for each interval, but it has two negative effects. First, the PM has lots of little rows so it’s hard to see what you were doing. The second effect only matters if you are using rowpro with ergdata or painsled. You get the same plethora of files as you do on the PM.

Anyway, I’m going to try to figure out how to export rows from the mac version, but I think I will only use rowpro for continuous rows, and probably only if I am going to row online. It’s too much hassle to get it all setup for no real additional benefit.

After that as a warmup, I went on to do the intended workout of the day. I was originally planning of a 4 x 20′ session, but I did nearly 10 minutes of rowing as part of my experiment, so I cut back to 3 20′ intervals.

I had originally planned to try to row to a HR cap of 150, but my HR shot up so fast, and at such low power, that I decided to be satisfied to stay under 155. Sticking to 155 required my to row at a pretty low power, but at least I found an intensity that managed the HR drift.

Workout Summary - media/20170110-1305060o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|14440|63:00.0|02:10.9|177.0|19.8|151.5|159.0|11.6
W-|14347|60:00.0|02:05.5|177.2|19.8|151.5|159.0|12.1
R-|00095|03:00.0|15:51.9|152.4|22.3|154.4|159.0|01.7
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|04843|20:00.0|02:03.9|183.5|19.7|148.3|157.0|12.3
01|04763|20:00.0|02:06.0|174.9|19.8|152.3|157.0|12.0
02|04741|20:00.0|02:06.6|173.1|19.9|153.8|159.0|11.9

HR drift today:

2nd Interval–> 174.9/152.3
3rd Interval –> 173.1/153.8
2% (versus 6.5% yesterday)

Time for some patient work to build up my aerobic base.

Tomorrow: Slow HM, HR cap of 155.

Quantified Rowing

Measure – Adjust – Improve

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