San Diego: 60 minutes in the fitness center

March 21, 2018Leave a comment

I was up at 4:45am so I could get to the airport to catch a 7:10am flight out to San Diego.

I arrived around 10:30 and I was at my hotel before noon. I had no meetings until 2pm, so I headed off to the fitness center to try to get in some kind of a session.

I was feeling stiff and a bit tired from the early start, so I started easy, with a 30 minute march on the treadmill with the incline at 15%. This slowly brought my HR up to the top of the UT1 range by the time I was finished. Aside from being really bored, I was feeling pretty good.

So, I hopped on the elliptical to do another 30 minutes. This time as a HIIT session with
6 x (4:20 of easy and 0:40 of really hard). This was no where near as traumatic as the HIIT session I did on the treadmill in SF last week, but I was pretty gassed at the end of each sprint.

Then it was off to the rest of my day. 3 hours of internal meetings and then a customer dinner that lasted from 6:30 to 9:30.

Tomorrow: I am hoping to head over to Crossfit Del Mar at 6am before my flight at 10AM up to San Jose. The workout planned is

3 x 1500m / 1’
Rating: Cat IV pace; target SR 23-24 + (1:52)
3 x 500m / 2’ easy
Rating: Cat II pace: target SR 28-30 (1:45)

Doing my best

March 9, 20182 Comments

In brief, things are hectic. I last posted on Friday, February 16, 19 days ago. A lot has happened since then, but it has been tough to maintain a reasonable training schedule. I’ve been on four continents, and slept in my bed at home 5 times in the past 19 days.

Saturday, Feb 17: 4 x 20 / 3′ Dynamic

Maybe the best, most relaxed session I’ve ever had on the dynamic. It still felt sluggish and heavy, but by focusing on the HR cap and allowing the rate to be at r20 instead of r18, it was kind of OK.

          Workout Summary - media/20180217-2015360o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|19586|92:00.0|02:20.9|165.0|20.1|147.7|156.0|10.6
W-|18897|80:00.0|02:07.0|170.7|20.1|148.8|156.0|11.7
R-|00693|12:00.0|08:39.3|059.4|20.3|130.7|156.0|01.2
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|04752|20:00.0|02:06.3|173.1|20.0|142.7|152.0|11.9
01|04708|20:00.0|02:07.4|169.4|20.2|150.2|155.0|11.6
02|04713|20:00.0|02:07.3|169.7|20.1|151.7|156.0|11.7
03|04724|20:00.0|02:07.0|170.8|20.2|150.7|156.0|11.7

Sunday, Feb 18: No Training.

My wife and I flew to Aruba for some fun in the sun.

Monday – Feb 19: 5km run on the beach

Barefoot, right along the water line where the sand was the firmest. It was hot, and I was going slow.

Tuesday – Feb 20: 6km run

My feet were a bit beaten up from the barefoot run, so I wore shoes and ran the foot path along the back of the beach. Lots of twists and turns and people to avoid.

Wednesday – Feb 21: No training – rest day

My legs were really sore from two days of running. I don’t run much!

Thursday – Feb 22: Fitness Center

30 minutes on stationary bike

Treadmill – max incline (15%). 6 x (4:30 walk, 0:30 sec sprint)

Friday – Feb 23: Run on the beach

About 4.4km. Not too taxing

Saturday – Feb 24: Quick run on the beach

We had to clear out of the hotel by 11, so I went for a final quick run on the beach. I pushed the pace a little quicker.

We got home around 8pm that night.

Sunday – Feb 25: 8 x (4:30 @ r20, 0:30 @ r32+)/30″ – Dynamic

I got up early to do this workout. I was departing in the early afternoon for Italy. It seems that my happy times for the Cat VI session on the dynamic do not extend to sprinting. Unlike rowing on slides, where rating up is, frankly, a blast, sprinting on the dynamic is pretty miserable. I suffered through the and came close to the targets, but this session is usually a breeze and it certainly wasn’t.

          Workout Summary - media/20180225-1610370o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|10067|44:00.0|02:11.1|169.1|20.7|156.9|177.0|11.0
W-|09602|40:00.0|02:05.0|184.2|21.3|155.8|174.0|11.5
R-|00479|04:00.0|04:10.7|018.9|15.3|168.6|174.0|20.7
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|01100|04:30.0|02:02.8|187.0|20.6|129.9|149.0|11.9
01|00143|00:30.0|01:45.0|303.9|32.6|152.4|156.0|08.8
02|01075|04:30.0|02:05.5|177.2|19.5|148.9|155.0|12.3
03|00146|00:30.0|01:42.9|319.5|34.0|157.2|160.0|08.6
04|01073|04:30.0|02:05.8|174.8|19.8|154.5|162.0|12.0
05|00146|00:30.0|01:42.4|322.2|34.0|160.5|165.0|08.6
06|01061|04:30.0|02:07.2|169.2|20.1|156.0|165.0|11.8
07|00148|00:30.0|01:41.5|331.2|36.4|162.6|167.0|08.1
08|01039|04:30.0|02:09.9|163.6|20.1|158.2|166.0|11.5
09|00150|00:30.0|01:40.1|348.5|35.0|165.7|169.0|08.6
10|01023|04:30.0|02:11.9|158.3|19.0|161.6|172.0|12.0
11|00152|00:30.0|01:38.8|358.4|36.9|166.5|170.0|08.2
12|01009|04:30.0|02:13.8|149.8|18.7|163.7|173.0|12.0
13|00149|00:30.0|01:40.8|333.9|35.2|165.0|168.0|08.5
14|01037|04:30.0|02:10.2|160.5|20.2|167.2|172.0|11.4
15|00151|00:30.0|01:39.5|351.6|35.7|171.4|174.0|08.5

Here is a comparison of the same workout

Static rower
Slides
Dynamic

The first plot shows average power. The first session on a static erg was pretty typical for this workout. The second one, on slides is 10 watts higher because I was having such a blast rating up on slides that I really kicked the sprints hard. I tried to rate up in a similar way on the dynamic, but the stroke was so heavy that I could get the rate. Even though the drag factor was only 129, it felt like the gearing was much much heavier. And I was so gassed from the short sprints that I couldn’t maintain Cat VI power in the slow sections.

Then it was off to Milan for business.

Monday – Feb 26: No Training.

I arrived in Milan at 6am, went to the hotel, napped for an hour, then started my day. We prepped in the office until mid-afternoon when we headed to our customer’s facility for meetings. These lasted until 6:30. Then we out to dinner. I wasn’t back to my hotel until around 11pm. I slept well.

Tuesday – Feb 27: No Training

I needed to be in the office by 9, and I needed to catch up on sleep, so I skipped training.

Wednesday – Feb 28: 50′ in the Fitness Center

The hotel had a tiny, claustrophobic fitness center in the basement. It had 2 treadmills and two stationary bikes, plus one of those useless combination weight machine things. I did a 30 minute max incline fast walk thing and then 20 minutes on the stationary bike on a rolling hills program. I wanted something easy, and it was.

Then I headed off to the airport to fly home. I barely made my connection in Munich, and I guess that added about 20 minutes of very brisk walking to my exercise total for the day. I arrived home around 9pm that night.

Thursday – March 1: No Training

I decided to no try to get up at 5am and I intended to try to sneak to the gym during the day, but things got hectic and I never made it. Bummer.

Friday: March 2: 3 x 20’/ 3′

Just an easy session. At work on the static rower.

Workout Summary - media/20180302-1325350o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|15083|69:00.0|02:17.2|159.7|17.6|140.1|155.0|12.4
W-|14442|60:00.0|02:04.6|180.9|18.8|142.0|155.0|12.8
R-|00643|09:00.0|06:59.6|018.2|09.4|127.2|155.0|36.8
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|04823|20:00.0|02:04.4|181.2|18.8|136.2|145.0|12.9
01|04810|20:00.0|02:04.7|180.7|18.9|142.7|150.0|12.7
02|04809|20:00.0|02:04.8|180.8|18.8|147.0|155.0|12.8

Honestly, I was expecting that it was going to be a lot worse!

Saturday – March 3 – 10 x 500 @ 22 / 2′ rest

At home on the dynamic rower. Another epic battle with a supposedly easy workout.

The weird HR thing at the beginning of the last interval is a glitch. I was working my ass off and watching the HR reaing slowly drop down and the rise up again.

You can see how I gave up on trying to hold Cat VI pace during the rests in the second half of the workout.

Then I rushed around madly to get ready for my trip to Shanghai and Shenzhen. My flight took off around 2am Sunday morning.

Sunday – March 4: Effectively did not exist.

I started flying at 2am, and arrived in Hong Kong at 5am on March 5th with the time zone change.

Monday – March 5: 8 x (4:30 @ 18, 0:30 @32+)

I’m staying at Kerry Hotel in Shanghai which is a great hotel. They have a great fitness center with 2 Concept2 model D rowers. One of them has a PM5, and it linked up fine with painsled. Unfortunately, for some reason the export of the data from this specific rower does not work. I’ve put out a call for help from Rick Terrell, and he said that this particular PM5 is appending some weird stuff at the end of the workout. Anyway, I did the workout. It went pretty well, considering I was on a plane for about 20 hours prior to doing it. And I felt a lot better once I was done.

Each of the 5′ intervals are 4:30 at about 2:05, and 0:30 at about 1:35. It was fun to try to make sure that the total for 5 minutes was just above 1250m.

Tuesday – March 6: 10 x 500@r22 / 2′ rest

Another good workout, considering the road miles. The 2′ rests were just 500m intervals rowed at Cat VI pace.

Wednesday – March 7: 3 x (5 x 500 @ r24/1′)/5′

This was hard work.

500m warmup at cat vi
5 x 500 @ 24 / 1′ rest
for the 5′ rest, 1′ rest/500′ at 2:45 ish/1′ rest
repeat twice more

I felt pretty tired after the first set, but I kind of got into a groove for the rest of the workout.

The rest f the day was pretty busy. I had a lunch with a customer, and then a group of us fly from Shanghai to Shenzhen in the evening. We got to the hotel in Shenzhen around 11pm.

Thursday – March 8: 60′ Fitness Center LIT

Nice Westin hotel. Reasonably equipped fitness center, but no rowing machines.

30 minute cross trainer random program, level 16
30 minute max incline (15%) fast walk. Adjusted speed to maintain < 155HR.

Friday – March 9: Strength Session plus 30 minutes cross trainer

The hotel had kettle bells!

Strength session

PT stuff (SI joint stretch, archer stretch, med ball twists on swiss ball)
KB swings (with 20kg bell)
- 10 both arms
- 2 x 2 x 20 singe arm swings (alternating arms by set)
Chin ups: 4, 3, 3, 2
(the bar was really high, I had to jump up to it. It’s a lot harder starting from such a low position.
Dumbell Deadlifts: 30 kg. 3 x 10 deadlifts

Then I did a 30 minute random program level 14 on the cross trainer.

I wore my HR strap during the strength session just to get an idea of what was going on.

Whew. That brings us up to the present. I have checked out of my room and I’m about to take a car from here to the Hong Kong Airport, which I am told is a long drive. I catch a flight at 6pm tonight fly for 15 hours and magically arrive in Boston around 8pm Friday night.

Tomorrow: I have a new workout plan from Marlene. I can’t wait to get going. I have decided that I need some competition to get myself focused and motivated. So, I’m aiming to do the Cromwell Cup in July, a 1km sprint race. So, she has put together a plan to start me down the road for that event.

The first session….looks a lot like a pretty classic rate ladder session. Might be a bit tough on the dynamic, but that’s OK.

3 x 15’ / 4′
- 5’@ Cat VI; SR 20 –> 2:03 to 2:08
- 4’ @ Cat V; SR 22 –> 1:58 – 2:02
- 3’ @ Cat IV; SR 24 –> 1:52
- 2’ @ Cat III; SR 26 –> 1:48
- 1’@ Cat II; SR 28 –> 1:45

If you’ve made it this far, congratulations.

Wednesday: More HIIT, today on the treadmill

January 25, 20182 Comments

I’m liking this stuff. Today, I decided to try to use the treadmill.

So, I set it up for a 15% grade and started walking at a nice gentle 2.5mph pace. After 4:20, I turned up the speed. The first interval I got up to 6.2mph, and sprinted until the next minute turned over. I got just over 30 seconds of sprinting at speed, and then I hopped off the belt to the sides and turned the speed back down. Then I’d walk it off for the next 4 minutes. I boosted up the speed a bit on each of the sprints. The surprising thing was that my sprinting economy improved through the session, so I found it easier later on even though I was up to 7.4mph by the last interval.

Overall it was a bit easier from an aerobic perspective than yesterday, but a hell of a lot more fun.

Tomorrow: I have a 7:50AM flight from LAX to Boston, so I need to leave the hotel before 6am. I get home around 6pm, so probably no training.

Tuesday: Something new. Minimalist Intervals

January 24, 2018January 24, 20183 Comments

Yesterday, I was up at 3:30am, on a flight at 6, then in meetings to 6 and dinner until 9:30, add in the time zone change and it was a 21 hour day on 2 hours of sleep. I was pretty tired.

Tuesday: I had to be at a meeting by 8 so I didn’t have a ton of time. On the flight out, I spent some time reading this book.

Now, I was suspicious of this book right from the title, but the author is at McMaster University and he has published some well regarded research into HIT, so I thought I would give it a chance. The book is based on a really good paper from 2012.

Physiological adaptations to low-volume, high-intensity interval training in health and disease

The thing that I am struggling to comprehend is that this research is showing a measurable effect on endurance. My understanding before was that low intensity duration built endurance and HIT improved lactate tolerance, strength and power. This seems to say that doing intervals above VO2Max power has a beneficial effect on endurance, which is just plain weird.

But, anyway, it seemed like good chance to give this nasty hard interval stuff a try. So, I decided to do the same workout that they used in the 2012 study for the HIT group.

The study was done with stationary bikes, but it seemed any mode would work: treadmill, elliptical, stationary bike or erg. Today, I went to the fitness center and the elliptical was open so I jumped on that. I just programmed a 30 minute manual session and started going at about a level 14. After 4:25, I cranked the “level” up to 23-24 (out of 25) and pushed as hard as I could. At this level, I could barely move the pedals at first and it was pretty tough to make it through 30 seconds at the intensity. The HR increase was so sharp that the monitor seemed to lag a bit. Next time I torture myself, I will try to use the OH1 and Polar H7 to compare.

Here’s the HR response. The first one I only got the level up to 22 and I think it was a bit too easy. The second one I got all the way to 25 and pushed so hard I nearly threw up. I kind of settled on 24 after that and it was just manageable to get to the full 30 seconds (plus whatever extra I got by turning up the level early.

Since I am always pressed for time on the road, and I seem to be trading off workout time versus sleep time, I think that this kind of short interval work might be a good travel solution. If I am reading the paper correctly, it may do a better job maintaining my endurance than the shorter LIT sessions I typically do on the road. Anyway, it will be interesting to see what happens. If I have time and an erg I will stick to the “real” training plan, but otherwise, I think I will tryout this HIIT style sessions on the road.

Tomorrow: Another HIIT session before I fly down to LA for more meetings.

Late night in the fitness center

October 14, 2017Leave a comment

Wednesday: No time to work out in the morning. I was finally able to get to the gym very late Wednesday night, actually just into Thursday morning.

20 minutes treadmill (15% grade, 3.3 mph)
20 minutes elliptical (level 17, hill profile)
20 minutes stationary bike (level 16, random profile)

All were slightly harder than the day before, my HR response was correspondingly a bit higher too.

Thursday: I finished around 1:15am, then made a couple of calls. I got to be at about 2:30am and needed to get up at 4:30am. I had a 7:25am departure from Munich to Lyon. So, walk to the ostbanhof train station, catch the 5:24am train to the airport, arrive at around 6:00. Plenty of time.

I slept a bit on the flight from Munich to Lyon, and a bit more in the 90 minute cab ride from Lyon to Grenoble. Then I had an internal meeting, business lunch, two customer meetings, and a business dinner. I got back to my room around 10:15pm and immediately crashed.

Friday: My alarm was set for 5:30. We were out on the road to Milan by 6:00. We got to Milan around 10:30, and straight to a customer meeting at 11. This wrapped up after 12. Then a lunch with my colleagues, and straight to the airport. My flight was at 3:50pm to London, and then 6:50 departure to Boston. I landed around 8:30 local time, was home by 9:30 and in bed by 10:30. I slept for nearly 11 hours.

Not the way I wanted to spend the last real prep week before the HOCR, but needs must.

Fitness Center Triathlon

October 10, 2017Leave a comment

Last night I flew from Boston to Stuttgart via Amsterdam, arriving at 9:15AM. I got maybe 3 hours of fitful sleep on the plane.

I had a meeting from 11-12 and the lunch with the customer. Then we drove back to Munich, well I rode and Martin drove. I fell asleep in the car for about an hour of the trip. Honestly, it was better sleep than what I got on the plane.

Back in Munich, I hung out at our office for an hour or so and caught up on emails. Then I walked to my hotel, which has a small but serviceable fitness center. I put on my workout clothes and headed down.

The plan was to do 60 to 80 minutes of low intensity aerobic work. And that’s what I did.

20′ treadmill death march: 15% grade, 3.2 mph
30′ elliptical trainer, random profile avg level 16/25
30′ stationary bike, hill profile, avg level 15
HR limit: 150

I was happy with the nice low HR, and especially that my HR was dropping fast with lower loads. Not exactly what I want to be doing 12 days before the HOCR, but you do what you need to do.

Tomorrow: Morning workout, then meetings all day. Probably something a bit more challenging and shorter than this. Maybe treadmill intervals.

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.

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.

Quantified Rowing

Measure – Adjust – Improve

Tag: Cross Training