Tuesday: 10K easy plus strength trainig

November 15, 2016Leave a comment

At work in the fitness center.

First, some erging to warmup and keep the aerobic base. Goal is to run this right at the top of the UT2 band. I want enough training stimulus to maintain blood volume but not enough to take away from the strength work coming next.

10km
10W x stroke rate
HR cap at 145

Workout Summary - media/20161115-140421-sled_2016-11-15T06-49-38ZEST.strokes.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|10000|40:43.0|02:02.2|19.0|141.8|149.0|12.9
W-|10000|40:43.0|02:02.2|18.9|141.9|149.0|13.0
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|00.0|000.0|149.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|01000|04:00.2|02:00.1|19.1|124.0|134.0|13.1
02|01000|03:59.8|01:59.9|20.1|138.3|142.0|12.5
03|01000|04:01.6|02:00.8|19.8|143.1|145.0|12.6
04|01000|04:03.3|02:01.7|19.2|143.3|145.0|12.9
05|01000|04:03.9|02:02.0|19.1|144.5|146.0|12.9
06|01000|04:04.3|02:02.1|19.0|145.1|148.0|12.9
07|01000|04:07.0|02:03.5|18.4|145.1|148.0|13.2
08|01000|04:08.3|02:04.1|18.1|144.2|146.0|13.4
09|01000|04:08.1|02:04.1|17.9|145.1|147.0|13.5
10|01000|04:07.3|02:03.7|18.8|145.5|149.0|12.9

I started at 190w and it felt pretty easy, so I upped it to 200w and rowed until I hit the HR cap. Then I backed off to 190(ish) and played with pace and rate to try to keep my HR between 144 and 146. It was good sweaty, easy fun.

Then I took about 10 minutes, went and grabbed my exercise bands and ab wheel and changed my shirt. Now it was time for some strength work.

(weight in pounds)

Squats

45 x5

135 x6

185 x5 x5 x5

185 was a good weight. I could have probably squeezed out another rep in each set. I think I’ll push this slowly up to 3×8 at 185, and then up the weight.

Chin ups (red band on knee)

3 x 5

Next time I will do the first set unassisted

Standing press

45 x5

65 x6

75 x5 x6 x5

I need to work on form for this exercise. I think I am arching my back too much. Surprisingly hard for such light weights.

AB wheel roll outs (from knees)

3 x8

Oh my. These were hard! My calves were cramping up.

Push-ups

3 x10

I was very disappointed with how weak I felt in the push ups. Might have been from the standing press, but I felt like I had no “pop”

Tomorrow: Early flight to Texas. Probably a rest day.

Monday: 4×20′ L4 (embedded in an HM)

November 14, 2016Leave a comment

So, as usual for a Sunday night, I had trouble sleeping. But I woke up before the alarm at 5:15 and headed off to work.

My standard endurance workout these days is a 4 x 20 minute session which is usually about 20km including some paddling during the rests. So, I thought I could continue my polarized training plan by adapting my normal endurance session by just doing a 1000m or so of cool down at the end. I was thinking that I could fit other more intense sessions into the basic HM format as well, since I have the tools I need to analyze the data afterward too. Perhaps I could call it the Polar Bear Challenge?

So today’s Plan:

4 x 20′ / 1′ paddle
L4 format
Power target: 10W x stroke rate
Slow start at 16spm (160W)
Aim for mid 190s for average power
HR limit at 155

Again, with the magic of rowsandall.com, I can reslice the data into 10 minute blocks to see how accurately I hit my targets.

Targets:

1 – 170 strokes, 170W
2 – 184 strokes, 184W
3-8 – 190 strokes, 190w

Workout Summary - media/20161114-135715-sled_2016-11-14T06-37-25ZEST.strokes.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|21097|88:00.0|02:05.1|18.8|140.4|155.0|12.8
W-|19564|80:00.0|02:02.7|18.8|140.4|155.0|13.0
R-|01538|08:00.0|02:36.0|14.1|116.9|155.0|13.5
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|02390|10:00.0|02:05.5|17.1|123.8|135.0|14.0
02|02437|10:00.0|02:03.1|18.6|135.1|139.0|13.1
03|02459|10:00.0|02:02.0|19.1|135.2|145.0|12.9
04|02457|10:00.0|02:02.1|19.1|142.7|145.0|12.9
05|02459|10:00.0|02:02.0|19.2|141.9|150.0|12.8
06|02454|10:00.0|02:02.3|19.1|148.7|152.0|12.8
07|02452|10:00.0|02:02.4|19.2|145.1|152.0|12.8
08|02457|10:00.0|02:02.1|19.2|150.5|155.0|12.8

So, generally 1 or 2 strokes over and a bit high on watts.

A few stroke metrics. Power versus rate, peak and average force versus rate and drive length versus time.

Tomorrow: 40′ erg and strength training.

Sunday: HM (I guess it was an L3 workout)

November 13, 2016November 14, 2016Leave a comment

I’ve been reading all these posts about people doing the Crazy Bear Challenge. This challenge is to row 30 Half marathons in the 45 days between November 11 and Christmas. I’m tempted to join in, even though it doesn’t make perfect sense with my training objectives.

Anyway, I wanted to have a little fun today, so I thought I would do a Half Marathon and target a pace just under 2:00. That seemed like a respectable place to start.

It turned out to be reasonably easy, all but the last 15 minutes or so were UT1 or below. And this result put at 25th in the rankings. I might do some more of these and gradually psh the pace a bit faster.

One of the fun things you can do with rowsandall.com is to arbitrarily assign new split lengths. On the PM5, I used 2000m splits. On rowsandall, I split the row into 1000m segments. Looks pretty darn consistent.

Workout Summary - media/20161114-021734-sled_2016-11-13T17-25-38ZEST.strokes.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|21097|83:29.0|01:58.7|22.1|149.4|161.0|11.4
W-|21097|83:31.0|01:58.8|22.1|149.3|161.0|11.4
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|00.0|000.0|161.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|01000|03:55.0|01:57.5|20.8|130.2|140.0|12.3
02|01000|03:57.8|01:58.9|21.1|140.0|142.0|12.0
03|01000|03:57.8|01:58.9|21.7|141.5|144.0|11.6
04|01000|03:57.3|01:58.7|21.8|143.3|146.0|11.6
05|01000|03:58.1|01:59.1|21.9|142.8|145.0|11.5
06|01000|03:57.8|01:58.9|22.0|144.1|148.0|11.5
07|01000|03:57.3|01:58.7|22.0|145.7|148.0|11.5
08|01000|03:57.5|01:58.7|22.1|147.1|150.0|11.4
09|01000|03:57.5|01:58.8|22.2|148.9|151.0|11.4
10|01000|03:57.8|01:58.9|22.1|150.0|152.0|11.4
11|01000|03:57.6|01:58.8|22.0|150.6|152.0|11.5
12|01000|03:57.5|01:58.7|22.3|151.4|154.0|11.4
13|01000|03:57.7|01:58.9|22.6|151.3|153.0|11.2
14|01000|03:57.6|01:58.8|22.2|153.0|155.0|11.4
15|01000|03:57.3|01:58.7|22.3|153.5|155.0|11.3
16|01000|03:58.0|01:59.0|22.3|154.8|157.0|11.3
17|01000|03:57.7|01:58.8|22.2|155.2|156.0|11.4
18|01000|03:58.1|01:59.0|22.4|156.4|157.0|11.3
19|01000|03:57.7|01:58.8|22.7|157.2|159.0|11.1
20|01000|03:57.5|01:58.8|22.6|158.5|161.0|11.2
21|01000|03:57.3|01:58.6|22.9|158.5|160.0|11.0
22|00097|00:23.0|01:58.8|22.9|157.4|158.0|11.0

Another magical afternoon row. I am sure that I could do at least 1 split faster, maybe more.

Saturday: 10K push

November 12, 2016November 14, 20162 Comments

I had a busy day on Saturday. I had a haircut appointment in the morning, then some shopping to do. I got home around 1 and we needed to head out to pick up some friends for dinner and a concert at 2:30.

I almost didn’t workout, but I was feeling antsy, so I decided to do a 10K push workout. For those unfamiliar, these workouts are AWESOME! Here’s how it works

10K distance
Start at something close to your steady state pace
Speed up by 0:01/500 for each 1000m of the workout

I have done this workout a 3 times in the past year.

Dec 10, 2015: Start at 2:00, failed at 4K to go, peak HR 180
Dec 15, 2015: Start at 2:02, success, peak HR 178
May 30, 2016: Start at 2:03, success, peak HR 177
Aug 15, 2016: Start at 2:05, success, peak HR 177

I was feeling pretty cocky after my good 10K last month for the CTC, so I decided to start at 1:59 today. It worked out very well.

Nov 12, 2016: Start at 1:59, success, peak HR 174

No problems at all. A nice cruise and I was only pushing hard for the last 3000m or so.

Workout Summary - media/20161114-185906-sled_2016-11-12T13-36-38ZEST.strokes (1).csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|10000|37:52.0|01:53.6|23.5|153.1|174.0|11.2
W-|10000|37:52.0|01:53.6|23.5|152.4|174.0|11.3
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|00.0|000.0|174.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|01000|03:54.5|01:57.2|21.3|130.0|138.0|12.0
02|01000|03:54.3|01:57.1|22.2|141.7|145.0|11.5
03|01000|03:52.4|01:56.2|22.3|145.8|148.0|11.6
04|01000|03:51.0|01:55.5|23.0|147.9|152.0|11.3
05|01000|03:49.5|01:54.8|23.1|150.6|153.0|11.3
06|01000|03:47.3|01:53.7|23.3|153.7|156.0|11.3
07|01000|03:45.1|01:52.6|23.9|159.0|161.0|11.2
08|01000|03:43.4|01:51.7|24.4|162.2|165.0|11.0
09|01000|03:41.0|01:50.5|25.0|165.3|168.0|10.9
10|01000|03:34.2|01:47.1|26.5|171.0|174.0|10.6

Generally, the splits line up pretty well between the postprocessed results and the PM5 data. The first split is off a little bit.

I purposely tried to use a fluffier stroke rate on this piece, so I was interested to see how my power versus stroke rate would look. It’s kind of fun to see the results. Here is the whole thing. From this you might conclude that there is a positive correlation between stroke rate and drive force.

So, I split the data set to look at the first half versus second half. Now you can see the the first half is flat and the tail is in the second half. This got me thinking, is there a correlation, or did I just hammer the last 1000m.

Answer: I hammered the last 1000 meters. Theses two plots are the first 9000m and the last 1000m.

What a fun workout and I drank beer at dinner with little or no guilt.

Friday: 4 x 20 L4

November 11, 2016November 14, 20161 Comment

Thursday was a “rest day”. Up at 5am to fly home. Driving home from the airport sucked, nearly 2 hours in traffic.

I decided a good night sleep was needed and made the call to work from home. That made my morning a lot easier. I woke up at 8:30, had breakfast and was in a meeting at 9.

I worked until around 3:30 and then decided it was time for some training.

Plan:

4 x 20′ / 1′ rests
L4 format
Start slow, then push it a little harder than last weekend
10W per stroke

Having a little issue with the interval editor, so no details on each 10 minute segment.

Lactate test at the end, after 80 minutes, 2.0mmol/l – right on the nose.

One other note. It was nice and cold. 57F when I finished.

I think the key thing that I noticed is that my HR was following the power very closely. I think that is the key for me, if I start to see more decoupling between HR and power, then I am pushing the session too hard.

By the way, I had a blast with the stroke sequence today.

Tuesday: 3 x 20′ L4 at Fitness Evolution

November 8, 2016November 9, 2016Leave a comment

In San Jose. My hotel had a deal with the gym across the road. By some miracle, it had a half dozen well maintained Model D rowers with PM5s.

Plan was to do 4×20 L4, but once I got going, I found that I was working very hard to go very slowly. I cut it short after an hour.

Here is the row versus time, with pie charts for HR and power.

Compare this to Sunday’s row. Longer row, higher power, lower Heart rate.

Why the difference:

Time of day: I do better in the afternoon. Tuesday’s row was at 5:30am.
Rest: I did not sleep well. I spent 6 hours on a plane on Monday
Nutrition: I had 2 beers the night before the Tuesday Row. I think that hurts a bit.
Environment: Sunday was with a fan and the windows open. It was 61F in the room when I finished. Tuesday was in a corner of the club with no airflow. I left big puddles.

It’s still an impressive difference. Another reason to use RPE as the guiding principle for endurance intensity.

Sunday: Easy 4 x 20′ L4

November 7, 2016Leave a comment

I like late afternoon workouts. I seem to be much better.

Today, I started around 4:30 at home after we returned from Cape Cod.

Plan:

4×20′
L4 format
power target: 10W x spm
Slow start to warmup
HR limit: 155 (never got even close to that)
Lactate test at the end

Completely routine until about 12 minutes to go from the end. My phone rang, and the number that came up was my Dad. I thought that I would call him back as soon as I finished. But as soon as it stopped ringing, he called again. Now I was worried, so I stopped and picked up. No emergency, thank goodness. Then I picked up where I left off and finished.

#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|02393|10:00.0|02:05.4|17.3|126.8|136.0|13.8
02|02442|10:00.0|02:02.8|18.6|133.0|136.0|13.2
03|02448|10:00.0|02:02.5|18.8|133.4|139.0|13.0
04|02456|10:00.0|02:02.1|18.9|134.3|138.0|13.0
06|02464|10:00.0|02:01.8|18.9|134.2|138.0|13.1
07|02139|08:42.0|02:02.0|19.0|131.9|138.0|12.9
08|02262|09:09.7|02:01.5|18.9|130.8|137.0|13.0

I tested lactate when I finished….1.2mmol/l

Last time I did this workout, it was over 2.

Thursday: 15 x 3’/1′ off the red eye

November 3, 20161 Comment

I landed in Boston at 6:30am. I was on the erg by 8am. I managed to get some sleep, but my expectations for the session were pretty low.

Plan:

15 x 3’/1′
Rate: 25-28
Pace: 1:52 or better

I did this session in September (described here). The jump up was an average pace of 1:50.7, and over 9 minutes spent in the anaerobic HR band. It was brutal. Today, I was way more careful.in the way that I started, and basically negative split the workout. The end result was an average split of 1:49.9, and zero time spend in the AN band.

I think the improvement comes from both a more intelligent pacing strategy for the workout, and improved aerobic fitness since mid-September.

The plots and pictures below include 1 warmup rep and 1 cool down rep that are excluded from the pace calculations.

Here is the split summary from rowsandall.com. It looks like the way that painsled reports data, it can mess up short intervals by a few meters, so it is different from the PM picture.

Workout Summary - media/20161103-135324-sled_2016-11-03T08-06-32ZEDT.strokes.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|16244|68:00.0|02:05.6|24.3|155.4|178.0|09.8
W-|13610|51:00.0|01:52.4|24.4|154.9|178.0|11.0
R-|02648|17:00.0|03:12.6|22.8|161.4|178.0|03.7
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|00756|03:00.0|01:59.0|19.5|125.1|138.0|13.0
02|00801|03:00.0|01:52.3|24.0|140.8|151.0|11.1
03|00809|03:00.0|01:51.2|24.2|145.1|155.0|11.2
04|00814|03:00.0|01:50.6|24.3|148.4|157.0|11.2
05|00809|03:00.0|01:51.2|24.6|149.9|159.0|10.9
06|00806|03:00.0|01:51.7|24.9|152.8|162.0|10.8
07|00813|03:00.0|01:50.8|24.5|153.9|162.0|11.1
08|00805|03:00.0|01:51.7|24.7|155.0|165.0|10.9
09|00807|03:00.0|01:51.5|24.6|158.3|167.0|10.9
10|00817|03:00.0|01:50.1|24.7|160.2|169.0|11.0
11|00814|03:00.0|01:50.5|25.0|162.5|170.0|10.9
12|00811|03:00.0|01:51.0|24.8|163.0|171.0|10.9
13|00806|03:00.0|01:51.6|25.2|163.6|172.0|10.7
14|00812|03:00.0|01:50.8|25.3|164.7|173.0|10.7
15|00825|03:00.0|01:49.1|26.3|167.5|175.0|10.5
16|00827|03:00.0|01:48.8|27.6|170.4|178.0|10.0
17|00675|03:00.0|02:13.3|19.8|151.3|158.0|11.3

This session provides another opportunity to explore some of the stroke metric analysis you can do on rowsandall.com.

First, here is a view of the stroke metrics versus time.

You can see the warmup and cooldown reps. The other thing that you can just begin to see is that I got all the pace improvement in the last couple of reps by increasing rate, not force. The best place to see that is in the drv and rcv time plot, where you can see the recovery time decreasing, but the peak and average force are quite consistent with the prior reps. You can also see how my drive length increased and my avg force decreased a bit over the first few reps. Let’s dig a bit deeper into those parameters.

First, lets look at drive length over time and also versus stroke rate. I’ve used the controls on the site to exclude all rest strokes and all strokes below 23 spm, which screen out the warmup and cool down.

So, there is definitely a strong time dependence to my drive length. I start short, get longer as the workout continues, and only shorten up again at the end when I start to push pace much harder. The relationship between drive length and stroke rate is very weak.

Next, lets look at peak and average force.

There is little change in these parameters over time or stroke rate. The area that I want to understand better is the spread of the peak power. I wonder if I am wasting energy by having an inconsistent stroke.

Tomorrow: 4 x 20′ / 1′ L4

Tuesday: 4 x 20′ / 1′ rest L4 (and stroke metrics)

November 1, 20164 Comments

Standard session.

10W * stroke rate as the target power

10 minute blocks

Plan:

Results: About 0.7 sec fast on pace, and just about right on strokes (+4 for the whole workout)

Workout Summary - media/20161101-131736-sled_2016-11-01T06-47-09ZEDT.strokes.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|19719|83:09.0|02:06.5|18.5|144.9|162.0|12.8
W-|19482|80:00.0|02:03.2|18.4|144.8|162.0|13.2
R-|00242|03:09.0|06:30.6|17.1|128.3|162.0|09.2
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|02382|10:00.0|02:05.9|17.0|123.7|138.0|14.0
02|02437|10:00.0|02:03.1|18.4|139.9|145.0|13.2
03|02429|10:00.0|02:03.5|18.4|139.2|145.0|13.2
04|02448|10:00.0|02:02.5|18.7|145.6|149.0|13.1
05|02447|10:00.0|02:02.6|18.8|146.0|153.0|13.0
06|02451|10:00.0|02:02.4|18.9|152.5|156.0|13.0
07|02448|10:00.0|02:02.6|18.9|153.4|159.0|13.0
08|02439|10:00.0|02:03.0|18.5|158.4|162.0|13.2

In terms of effort, it felt great through the first 40 minutes, but when I added in the little 2 minute chunks at 200W, it seemed to really bury me. My HR climbed pretty hard in the last 30 minutes of the workout. This is a bit harder than I want to be working in these sessions. Next time, I will go back to just alternating 18s and 19s.

Since I have the enormous power of rowsandall.com at my finger tips, I decidedto do a bit deeper analysis of the row. This was an L4 workout so the power and stroke rate is closely prescribed. Here’s a view of the power versus strokes rate.

You can see that even though my averages were about right, that there is considerable variation in the power from stroke to stroke. I wonder if greater consistency in applied power at each stroke rate would be a sign of better efficiency?

Here’s a view of Drive Length versus stroke rate.

I would have thought that drive length would increase at lower stroke rates, but that is NOT what happened. You can see that my stroke actually gets shorter as the stroke rate decreases. I am also surprised at the variation from stroke to stroke, nearly 10 cm difference. Maybe a more repeatable stroke would be more efficient?

Now a look at peak and average force

I haven’t really sorted this one out. There is definitely a negative correlation between peak force and stroke rate, and a less pronounce relationship with average force. The spread is the thing that has me fascinated.

Finally, work per stroke. Basically “SPI”. This by the design of the workout should be pretty flat.

And it is. The interesting thing to me on this plot is that my consistency gets better as the rate increases.

I posted these for three reasons.

It’s the beginning of erg season and I need a new way to keep myself entertained.
I would like to find ways to get faster that I have not yet explored
I would like to capture a baseline for the beginning of the season. Then in March, I can do this same workout and compare the graphs at the end of the season.

This afternoon, I am flying off to San Diego. Tomorrow will be a fitness center session, then another endurance session on Thursday morning after I get off the red eye.

Hopefully during the flight today I can figure out what my next objectives are and begin to lay down a training plan.

Monday: October CTC – 10K Unrestricted

October 31, 20162 Comments

Sunday: It was a lovely day down on the cape. I did some maintenance around the house, including replacing some shingles that were blown off the roof by a wind storm and digging out some sand that built up around the basement entrance. We hung out until late in the afternoon and I never got a chance to do a training session. No great loss.

Monday: Today is the 31st, so it was my last chance to post an entry for the October Cross Team Challenge.

As usual during the OTW season, I go into these challenges not having a good idea about pacing. My all time best 10K was in December of 2013. I was in fantastic shape at that point and was knocking off most of my middle distance PBs. Right now, my training has been focused on middle distance work for the head racing season, but I wasn’t sure how well that would translate to the erg.

I decided to try go out at a 1:52 pace and see how things went.

If you have been reading my training journal, you can probably suspect what a 1:52 target means in practice. It means I went out around 1:50-1:51.

The way I do these middle distance pieces is to count strokes for each 1000m. At the start, I was doing about 94 strokes per 1000m. In this piece, I started to struggle a bit around 5000m and started to ease up on the pace. The worst was at 2500m to go. I saw a few 1:53s and 1:54s on the monitor. I would push a bit, then ease up, then push again. Once I got to 1500m left, I felt pretty sure I was going to make it, and I started to push harder and got 1:52s and 1:51s back on the screen. With 500m to go, I started counting down strokes and rating up.

I am delighted with the result. 37:08.1, a 1:51.4 pace. I ranked it on the C2 site and it’s 18th (97th percentile). For the CTC results, I’m in at 77th place and the 4th place for Free Spirits.

I did a quick 1K warmup before and a 2k cool down after.