Tag: double

Mulching, rowing and wimping out

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Saturday:  In the driveway was a pile of 5 cubic yards of dark pine mulch.  It was raining and about 60F.  I procrastinated until about 11am, and then I finally got my ass outside to spread it.  The process is simple and labor intensive.

  • Use an edger to clean up the edge of the bed
  • dig out the dirt and mulch that has settled into the edges
  • Get all the weeds out of the bed
  • Spread mulch

It sounds simple, but I spent from 11am to 3pm, and then from 3:30 to 7:00pm doing it and I didn’t quite finish.  By the time I was done, I could barely lift my arms, and getting up from a sitting position was a struggle.  I’d call that 7 and a half hours of strength/endurance training.

Sunday:  I was tired and sore when I woke up, but I really wanted to go rowing with my friends out in Worcester.  The morning was grey, around 50F, and windy.  The wind was blowing from the SSW between 10 and 15 mph.  It felt like the gusts were higher than that.

We had 6 of us rowing, two people wanted to take singles, so I doubled up with Bob in our “new” wintech double.  I was eager to give it a real tryout.

Screen Shot 2017-05-08 at 11.23.35 AM

I didn’t have much of a plan for the workout, so we just rowed down to the south end of the lake, into the wind.  We had a lot of starts and stops at the beginning as I tried to get the speedcoach working and Bob got his Garmin Fenix running right, but after the first 1000m or so, we got into a rythym.  It was slow going into the wind, but the boat felt good.  I was enjoying myself a lot.

When we turned around at the south end of the lake, I asked Bob if he would be OK doing some rate ladders.  I ended up messing with some of the durations as we went, but it was good to row with specific rate targets.  I think we got better synchronized as the row went on.

After we got the north end of the lake, we noticed that the wind had picked up even more.  The row back to the boathouse was very slow and heavy going.  I was glad that I was in a double.  It would have been a bit hair raising in my single with that much wind and chop.

5-7a

I tried to reconstruct the ladders as best I could.

Workout Summary - media/20170508-150701-SpdCoach 2182533 20170507 0744amo.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|10759|55:03.0|02:33.5|000.0|23.0|154.3|176.0|08.5
W-|10500|52:03.0|02:28.7|000.0|23.0|155.2|176.0|08.8
R-|00268|03:00.0|05:35.9|000.0|20.1|119.5|176.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|00004|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|09.5|086.0|86.0|00.0
01|00682|03:15.0|02:23.0|000.0|22.3|141.1|149.0|09.4
02|01967|09:45.0|02:28.7|000.0|23.8|152.7|166.0|08.5
03|00651|03:00.0|02:18.2|000.0|20.7|142.9|153.0|10.5
04|00432|02:00.0|02:19.0|000.0|21.6|156.1|158.0|10.0
05|00218|01:00.0|02:17.8|000.0|23.0|159.1|161.0|09.5
06|00228|01:00.0|02:11.4|000.0|24.9|161.7|162.0|09.2
07|00860|04:00.0|02:19.6|000.0|22.8|163.0|169.0|09.4
08|00643|03:00.0|02:19.9|000.0|22.2|159.4|161.0|09.6
09|00438|02:00.0|02:17.1|000.0|24.7|163.9|167.0|08.8
10|00229|01:00.0|02:11.2|000.0|26.1|168.5|170.0|08.8
11|00812|04:00.0|02:27.8|000.0|21.1|161.7|169.0|09.6
12|00421|02:00.0|02:22.4|000.0|22.8|160.8|163.0|09.3
13|00702|03:15.0|02:18.8|000.0|27.0|168.2|176.0|08.0
14|01751|10:00.0|02:51.3|000.0|22.1|148.9|159.0|07.9
15|00462|02:48.2|03:02.0|000.0|24.1|157.4|167.0|06.9

It was hard work, but a pretty short session.

5-7b

It was great to see my friends and I really like the wintech double.

After I got home, I spent another couple hours finishing up the mulching.  Not nearly as strenuous as Saturday’s labors but still.

Monday:  I felt awful last night.  I thought I might be coming down with something.  Or maybe I was just worn out from my busy weekend.  I felt like I might be getting a fever.  Nevertheless, I set out my stuff to go rowing this morning, and I was out the door before 5:30 to get to the river.

As I was driving there, it started to rain.  And I notice that the temperature was only around 42F.  I made an executive decision.  I decided to blow of “real” rowing and just go do a quick erg session at work before my first meeting at 9am.  I had some prep to do and I felt my stress level go down as soon as I decided.

I didn’t have any shoes, so I rowed in socks.  I don’t much like that since my heels tend to slip out, but it would do for the short session I had in mind.

I just did a easy 10K push.  I started with a target of 2:09, and sped up by a second for every 1000m.  This was easy to keep track of because the pace was the same as the leading digit of the distance to go.  9xxx –> 2:09, 8xxx –> 2:08, 7xxx –> 2:07, etc.

It was also really easy rowing at the beginning and only started to feel tougher with about 3000m to go.

5-8c

I enjoyed that session too.

Tomorrow:  I will try to get back on the marathon plan.  I haven’y yet done any of these workouts on the water.  So tomorrow will be.

M1 4 x 15′ / 4′ 6′ @ 5KP, 9′ @ MP 92.5% (172)

Now, I don’t really know exactly how to pace this, so I will try to row it to power.  So that would make my targets  225 to 240 for 5KP and 180 to 195 for MP.  I’m interested to see how it works.

1-17j

The other challenge that I have is river length.  I can just about squeeze in 15 minutes, but the longer intervals in the plan will require me to spin to get them done.

 

 

Saturday: 11K in a double and National Learn to Row Day

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Saturday was National Learn to Row day here in the US.  Many club host open house events, ours was no exception.

Before all the festivities got started at around 8AM, five of us met up for a row on Quinsigamond.  I was in a double with Joe in the bow.  Bob and Eric were in another double, and Deb was in a single.

It was overcast and a chance for rain, but it never materialized.  There was a 5-10mph breeze from the North, which was a tailwind heading down lake and a headwind heading up lake.  This breeze built slowly through the morning and was around 15 mph by the time we finished the Learn to Row Day activities at 11:30AM.

Joe had been sick all week and was nursing a sore shoulder from a minor injury last weekend, but he was game to row hard.  I had gone into the session thinking I would just take it easy.  But when we headed down lake we were side by side with the other double and I did NOT want to get dropped.  So, I kept the rate around 24 or 25 and full pressure all the way down the lake.  The boat felt quite heavy.  We had opened up a couple of lengths on them by the end, but we looked a lot worse off.  Joe had to fight off the urge to throw up.  I guess he wasn’t all the way recovered.

When we turned around up lake, I dropped the rate down to 22 but still kept pulling hard.  I didn’t want to completely lose contact with Bob and Eric.  We hung on like that through nearly 4K of rowing into the wind, and I have to assume that Joe was feeling a bit better because he started calling for sets of 10 hard, with 10 at a paddle.  Then for the last 3 sets, he was asking for 3/4 pressure during the off bits.  You can see from my HR how hard I was working in that stretch.  I was too busy rowing to look around, but I think we closed the gap a bit with the other boat during this bit.

We turned to head home and really just rowed pretty easy for most of the way.  Finally, Joe said that we had 500m left, what did I want to do with it.  I said I wanted to bring up the rate and row it hard.  I brought the rate up to 28 and focused on trying to keep my strokes clean.  The boat felt like it was moving reasonably well in this block.  Then we headed back to the dock.

Looking at the HR data, I was a brutally hard workout.  Looking at the pace, not so much.

Screen Shot 2015-06-07 at 11.25.49 AM Screen Shot 2015-06-07 at 11.25.34 AM

|Start|Dist_|Time_|_Pace__|_SPM___|avg HR|DPS_|Remarks
|00018|00088|00:26|02:27.7| 18.2  | 121  |11.2|Warming up
|00106|03291|14:43|02:14.2| 24.7  | 165  |09.0|hard 3K to south end of lake
|03397|00090|05:12|28:53.3| 17.1  | 118  |01.0|rest
|03487|04062|20:40|02:32.6| 22.7  | 164  |08.7|moderately hard 4K into headwind
|07549|01459|07:06|02:26.0| 26.1  | 177  |07.9|9x power 10s, 10 strokes rest
|09008|00075|02:46|18:26.7| 20.1  | 144  |01.4|turn around at north end of lake
|09083|01645|08:35|02:36.5| 22.6  | 151  |08.5|cooling down
|10728|00398|01:40|02:05.6| 28.4  | 176  |08.4|hard 400m
|11126|00013|02:46|46:24.6| 28.0  | 140  |00.2|back to dock

We got the boats put away, and I ran off to get coffee and treats for the event.  By the time I got back, there were already about 20 people there.  By the end of the day, we had hosted over 35 folks curious about rowing and gotten 29 of them out on the water.  I also got to try sweep rowing for the first time.  I stroked an 8 for two of the outings.  We would put 2 experienced rowers in seats 7 and 8, and fill the rest of the boat with the “Learn To Row” (LTR) folks.  We would then have everyone row by pairs, then try it by fours, then just have the stern pair set the boat with the all the newbies rowing.  By the end of each outing, we were able to get all 8 of us rowing and give them a feel for what it is like.

We had 2 eights on the water and about 8 or 10 boatloads of folks out on water all together.  It was the most successful LTR day that we can remember for our club and a lot of them indicated an interest in taking classes.  Very exciting stuff.

I’m not sure I got much of a feel for sweep rowing under the circumstances, but I enjoyed it.  The oar is huge, but with two hands on it, it feels like you can control the feathering and height off the water quite precisely.  The body motion would also take some getting used to.  Getting the arm farthest from the oarlock out between my knees at the catch, and leaning out over the oar was a new experience.  I think I like it and I’d welcome the chance to get into a sweep boat in the future.

Today (Sunday):  I am giving myself a day off.  My elbow is still bugging me, so I am popping the Ibuprofen and wearing my brace.  Tomorrow, I’m back on the Charles in my single.  I think 1000m repeats are the order of the day, but probably with a rate cap.