Septum Mirabilis

September 22, 20191 Comment

Since last Saturday, I rowed my single 6 days in a row! It’s a miracle. I think the first time all season.

Sunday – Sept 15 – 16km on the Lower Charles

I met my friends from Worcester at the public docks at CRI in Brighton. I brought my single. They brought a single, double, quad and believe it or not a triple. Our club bought a couple of lightly used Swift Triples. These boats are going to be great. Having the option of using a triple when we have an odd number of rowers, or if we want to balance lineups will be awesome.

We launched around 7:30. The goal was to scout the river for the people that we going to do the CRI Fall Classic the following weekend. My goal was to have some fun and maybe do a threshold piece.

I succeeded at having fun, but by the time, I tried to settle in for a 5k threshold piece, I was already pretty tired and gave it up halfway through.

We made our way down river, and ultimately got to the beginning of the powerhouse stretch. I asked the other boats if they wanted to do a race pace 1K, since this is the best place to do it. They acquiesced and off we went. I felt pretty good for the first 500 or so, but I rapidly ran out of oomph.

We continued down to the basin, and waited for everyone to regroup. From there, we headed upriver to the area where they marshall the start of the CRI Fall Classic. We regrouped again and then we took off. they continued to just scout the course, but I wanted to do my threshold piece, so I got pretty far ahead of the group. I made it around 2500 meters, then the combination of river traffic, a bit of headwind and lack of training got to me and I pulled up instead of trying to pass a big group of boats as the river was narrowing. I put on a few bursts of speed the rest of the way, but I was really tired out.

        Workout Summary - media/20190915-1631070o.csv
--|Total|-Total----|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time-----|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|15880|02:00:44.3|03:48.1|107.2|21.8|137.1|178.0|06.0
W-|10841|00:53:27.1|02:27.9|148.1|23.0|153.6|178.0|08.9
R-|05056|01:07:18.7|06:39.4|074.7|20.9|123.9|178.0|02.4
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|00403|02:04.8|02:34.9|139.7|19.1|134.3|140.0|10.1
02|00541|02:39.8|02:27.8|137.1|20.6|140.1|147.0|09.9
03|00578|02:57.5|02:33.5|138.1|19.6|141.9|147.0|10.0
04|00205|01:03.4|02:34.4|106.2|19.9|137.7|142.0|09.8
05|00206|01:02.6|02:32.2|143.7|20.2|139.7|144.0|09.8
06|00182|00:56.4|02:34.5|111.6|19.1|139.9|143.0|10.2
07|00576|02:49.0|02:26.7|160.0|22.3|155.9|162.0|09.2
08|00742|03:46.4|02:32.6|126.2|20.1|143.2|150.0|09.8
09|00876|03:46.4|02:09.2|209.0|27.6|164.6|176.0|08.4 - most of a 1k
10|00632|03:07.9|02:28.7|126.3|21.4|150.7|157.0|09.4
11|00695|03:34.6|02:34.3|152.1|22.6|144.6|154.0|08.6
12|00316|01:38.2|02:35.2|142.7|21.4|153.0|156.0|09.1
13|00398|02:04.9|02:37.1|121.7|20.2|141.2|147.0|09.5
14|00604|03:03.4|02:31.9|127.5|21.2|150.7|157.0|09.3
15|02561|12:10.2|02:22.5|164.9|26.1|167.9|178.0|08.1 -- a bit of hard rowing.
16|00462|02:21.7|02:33.5|125.7|24.6|164.6|169.0|08.0
17|00241|01:10.3|02:25.9|182.3|27.3|170.4|174.0|07.5
18|00409|02:04.4|02:32.2|141.5|24.0|160.3|167.0|08.2
19|00214|01:05.2|02:32.1|133.0|23.9|144.3|155.0|08.3

An incredibly enjoyable outing.

Monday – 16 Sept – Drills on the 5s

After Sunday’s exertions, I took it easy on Monday.

So, I did a technical session, with 4 minutes of steady state and 1 minute of these drills.

open hands on recovery
half slide
delayed feather
square blades
pause at body over

By the way, the weather was perfect!

Tuesday – 17 Sept – 4 x 2k/4′

Another perfect morning. A scary workout. I decided to go easy on myself and rate limit it. r22, r24, r26, r26.

It was a great workout. I felt good throughout.

The summary shows where I am. Now that my impeller is calibrated. When I was in good racing shape, I was knocking these out around 2:15 or faster. It is what it is.

        Workout Summary - media/20190917-1607180o.csv
--|Total|-Total----|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time-----|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|11117|01:05:23.0|02:56.4|127.2|22.6|145.5|176.0|07.5
W-|07957|00:36:49.3|02:18.8|173.5|24.6|160.3|176.0|08.8
R-|03166|00:28:33.9|04:30.7|067.6|20.0|126.4|176.0|07.3
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|00118|00:35.0|02:27.7|143.5|20.6|129.2|132.0|09.9
02|01952|09:06.7|02:20.1|165.8|22.5|152.1|165.0|09.5
03|01989|09:07.0|02:17.5|178.1|24.4|161.9|174.0|08.9
04|01923|08:50.5|02:18.0|178.1|25.9|164.6|176.0|08.4
05|01975|09:10.1|02:19.3|174.3|25.9|164.8|176.0|08.3

Wednesday – 18 Sept – Steady State

Working on piling up the meters and rowing clean. Did the session with Humon to keep me honest about intensity, Halfway through, I decided to pop up to r22 and row lighter. It seemed to work quite well. I needed to cut it about 10 minutes short because I needed to get to work for an early meeting.

        Workout Summary - media/20190920-1546120o.csv
--|Total|-Total----|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time-----|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|11969|01:08:32.5|02:51.8|125.2|21.0|133.6|157.0|08.3
W-|10145|00:51:16.7|02:31.6|143.6|20.8|140.0|155.0|09.5
R-|01833|00:17:16.6|04:42.8|070.6|21.4|114.6|155.0|06.5
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|00209|01:07.2|02:40.5|142.5|19.5|126.2|131.0|09.6
02|02722|14:16.9|02:37.4|141.3|19.7|137.5|148.0|09.7
03|02679|13:21.8|02:29.6|138.1|19.8|137.4|148.0|10.1
04|00589|03:04.4|02:36.5|131.6|22.3|136.4|144.0|08.6
05|01314|06:41.6|02:32.9|150.2|22.2|146.8|154.0|08.8
06|02005|09:46.0|02:26.2|149.3|21.5|145.9|155.0|09.6
07|00341|01:33.8|02:17.6|182.7|26.3|139.4|153.0|08.3 - nice ending
08|00286|01:25.0|02:28.7|132.2|22.6|135.2|143.0|08.9

Thursday – 19 Sept – 3′ on / 1′ off

Again using rate limiting to manage intensity. (22,24,26,28) The annoying thing is that I must have bumped the speedcoach I got my drink of water after the first set, because that’s where the data ends!

Here’s the heart rate from my apple watch

And here’s the view from Humon.

Another really good workout.

Friday – 20 Sept – Steady State

Just like wednesday. Using Humon to keep me honest and trying to get the best speed with the least effort. The key seems to be a nice, clean, early tap down.

That and maintaining good body posture through the leg drive. When I open up my back early, I work much harder and go slower.

      Workout Summary - media/20190920-1557290o.csv
--|Total|-Total----|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time-----|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|13521|01:15:46.3|02:48.1|127.4|20.4|138.0|164.0|08.8
W-|11593|00:57:48.7|02:29.6|147.9|20.3|144.6|161.0|09.9
R-|01935|00:17:58.2|04:38.7|061.4|20.6|116.7|161.0|03.4
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|00150|00:46.3|02:34.1|134.2|19.4|117.4|125.0|10.0
02|02746|13:45.0|02:30.2|144.0|19.6|138.1|148.0|10.2
03|02584|12:52.8|02:29.5|150.0|19.9|146.2|154.0|10.1
04|02698|13:25.5|02:29.3|146.0|20.1|147.3|155.0|10.0
05|02717|13:46.1|02:32.0|144.7|20.1|148.4|155.0|09.8
06|00358|01:35.0|02:12.8|211.5|27.7|146.9|161.0|08.2
07|00340|01:38.0|02:24.1|151.4|25.1|141.9|153.0|08.3

When I got back to the dock, I turned around and it was just so pretty that I had to take a picture.

I felt great, and headed off to work. In the evening, we drove down to the cape.

Saturday – 21 Sept – No Training

Our house has a huge deck surrounding 3 sides of the house. Today’s mission was cleaning it with the pressure washer so that I can seal it tomorrow. It took me 5 hours. The Apple watch tells me that it was about 15000 steps. I am tired and sunburnt, buy the deck looks fantastic!

Rowing in Shanghai!

June 26, 2019June 26, 20191 Comment

Before I left on my trip, I reached out to the amazing Master Rowers International community on Facebook to find out if there were any clubs in Shanghai. Within minutes, I was pointed to the Shanghai Rowing Club. I sent them a message on facebook, and was directed to contact them through WeChat instead (since Facebook is blocked in China, which should have occurred to me). I sent them a message on WeChat and they got right back to me.

What a great group of people! The club president is a wonderful guy and a skillful rower named Pascal. He has been living in China for a few years and is one of the people who is really getting this club off the ground. He arranged for one of the members to pick me up at my hotel and give me a lift to the club. (Pretty amazing hospitality).

Michael showed up at my hotel with his son and whisked me off to the club. Shanghai Rowing Club has a ancient history, but has only been revived in the past few years. Their brand new boat house is adjecent to Shanghai Disneyland and they row on the “moat” that surrounds the property.

Pascal put me in a quad with him, Xi and Alex. In fact, it’s that shiny new quad in the picture above.

Alex was an impressively tall german dude in an italian rowing uni. Xi was a chinese rower in the club. Pascal was in bow and on this particular day, he was obsessed about a balance drill that he had seen the chinese national team do.

So, we have a french guy, a german dude, a chinese guy and an old american in a boat together for the very first time trying to do this drill. I have to say, it was a blast. At first, we worked on it by one. Then by twos, then different combinations of twos, then by three. Mind you this took place over the course of two and half hours of going back and forth on a 2.7km stretch of this canal. Finally, we got to the point where we would try it by four. We didn’t quite make it.

I was having a great time, but we were out there for a very long time. The last thing we did was a set of race starts, and then a hard 500. The race starts were actually pretty good, especially the second one that we did. The boat really got up and went.

The 500 was another story. It might have been a bit longer than five hundred, but probably not. We did a race start, and then then a high 10, then settled. But we settled to something like a 34. The boat was going pretty fast (at least by my sedate standards)

Over this short piece, we averaged about 4.5 m/s (about a 1:50 pace). I faded horribly. I went out with way too much gusto and by the time we had done 30 strokes, I was very seriously gassed. I just tried to hang on and keep time. It was ugly.

After that, we made one more attempt at the blades flying high, without any more success and then called it a day.

After we put the boat away and had the obligatory pictures taken, I headed back to my hotel. Tired and sunburned, but incredibly happy. I am so grateful for generous hospitality that I was shown by all the folks at the Shanghai Rowing Club.

The past three weeks

May 27, 2019May 27, 2019Leave a comment

Last post on May 7th. I had just had a very good 4 x 2k session on the water.

Wednesday – May 8th – 30 min L4

I had a busy day ahead of me and in the morning, when I got to work, I ended up getting distracted with emails. I finally looked up and I only had about 45 minutes until my first meeting. I zipped down to the gym and did a quick 30 minute L4.

5 x 6′, where each 6′ was 3′ @ r18, 2′ @ r20, 1′ @ r22

       Workout Summary - media/577a150d295c4f34_38173149.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|07313|30:00.0|02:03.1|187.8|19.0|150.0|000.0|12.5
W-|07313|30:00.0|02:03.1|187.8|19.0|150.0|000.0|12.5
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|000.0|00.0

Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|01453|06:00.0|02:03.9|184.1|20.0|000.0|0.0|00.0
01|01465|06:00.0|02:02.9|188.7|19.0|000.0|0.0|00.0
02|01465|06:00.0|02:02.9|188.7|19.0|000.0|0.0|00.0
03|01462|06:00.0|02:03.1|187.5|19.0|000.0|0.0|00.0
04|01468|06:00.0|02:02.6|189.9|19.0|000.0|0.0|00.0

I was aiming at a slightly lighter stroke, so I made my targets

r18 – 170W
r20 – 190W
r22 – 210W

Thursday – May 9 – 8 x 2′ / 2′ L1 – On the Water

Back in Newton. I was not trying to set any records and I haven’t done much work at higher stroke rates. I did 4 intervals going down stream, then 4 coming back up. Each set, I aimed at r24, r26, r28, r30. The summary shows that I wasn’t all that great at hitting the stroke rates.

       Workout Summary - media/20190510-1638000o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|08168|45:50.0|02:48.4|127.6|22.2|144.2|172.0|08.0
W-|03727|15:40.0|02:06.2|215.1|27.4|153.1|172.0|08.7
R-|04448|30:11.0|03:23.6|082.1|19.6|139.6|172.0|07.4
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|00465|02:02.4|02:11.6|185.9|24.0|149.1|158.0|09.5
02|00498|02:07.6|02:08.1|207.2|26.3|151.0|164.0|08.9
03|00422|01:43.2|02:02.2|245.8|29.1|153.0|168.0|08.4
04|00457|01:50.4|02:00.7|254.9|30.3|153.6|170.0|08.2
05|00451|01:55.7|02:08.2|193.1|25.4|147.8|163.0|09.2
06|00485|02:04.5|02:08.3|192.5|27.1|154.5|168.0|08.6
07|00467|01:57.3|02:05.5|223.7|29.1|158.3|169.0|08.2
08|00481|01:59.4|02:04.2|226.6|28.6|157.8|172.0|08.4

Good workout though.

Friday – May 10 – No Training

Don’t remember why.

Saturday – May 11 – Threshold 10K (on slides)

Down on the cape. Started slow, and then pushed harder. Nice to get through one without a bobble in the middle.

Sunday – May 12 – 3 x 20′ / 2′ L4

Down on the cape. On Slides

Nice and easy.

Monday – May 12 – 5 x 1500 L2

At work. Having all kinds of issues. The workout ended up in 3 different files. While doing the first interval, I discovered that I needed to go to the bathroom. It was remarkably unpleasant getting through the last 300m or so. I rushed off, too care of business, and then decided to try “rerow”, which I thought would just bring up a normal distance interval session. I was wrong. Since I had done one rep the first time, that what it did for the rerow. So, I needed to reprogram the P5 for the last 3 intervals. When I glued them together, the start time for the set of three intervals looks wrong. I didn’t wait 20 minutes between the 2nd and 3rd interval. I did however, you out too aggressively in the thrid interval and I needed to dial it back, which I did.

Tuesday – May 14 – No training

I was hoping for a quick row in the middle of the day, but work got in the way.

Wednesday – May 15 – Alternating 2′ SBR or Slow roll ups / 2′ Steady State

Back in my single in Newton. I would 2 minutes of square blades, then 2 minutes of steady state, then 2′ of slow roll ups, then 2′ of steady state. And then repeat.

Felt like a very productive session. Good to work on balance, and oar control.

Thursday – May 16 – OTW Steady State

Trying to continue to work on technique. Needed to keep it to an hour to get to work in time for my first meeting.

        Workout Summary - media/20190516-1555460o.csv
--|Total|-Total----|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time-----|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|10608|00:56:16.1|02:39.1|133.5|19.8|146.8|158.0|09.5
W-|09928|00:49:34.5|02:29.8|141.0|19.9|149.1|158.0|10.1
R-|00685|00:-197:29.8|-143:-24.7|71028479286579533185024.0|41576773771231976488960.0|310807103207674254196736.0|158.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|03808|18:16.0|02:23.9|146.1|19.6|146.9|158.0|10.6
02|02834|14:36.6|02:34.7|138.0|19.4|151.2|156.0|10.0
03|01122|05:30.6|02:27.3|139.0|19.3|145.6|152.0|10.6
04|01317|06:42.9|02:32.9|141.3|21.4|150.2|156.0|09.2
05|00356|01:51.0|02:36.1|145.5|21.0|155.0|157.0|09.1
06|00491|02:37.4|02:40.3|122.8|21.5|152.8|156.0|08.7

Friday – May 17 – No Training

I was up until very late on Thursday night on conference calls. My company is impacted by some of the new developments in the trade dispute between the US and China. We were on the phone with our team there working out plans to deal with it. I slept in a bit on Friday morning.

Saturday – May 18 – Mulching

5 hours and 47 minutes of mulching. The process works like this.

Weed the bed, shovel out and excess soil along the edging
load wheelbarrow with mulch
dump and spread
repeat 2-3 until bed is finished
move to next bed, repeat 1-4

This requires about 5 cubic yards of mulch and about 8 hours of work.

On Saturday, I set out to get as much done as I could. It turns out to be good endurance exercise. Sub-UT2, but still quite taxing after you do it for hours.

The span from 2:10 to 3:20, I was working but the HR sensor in the watch was dirty from the mulch. You can tell that I was motivated to get done in the last hour or so. You can also see a clear 3-4 minute pattern for each load of mulch in that last section.

Sunday – May 19 – More Mulching, then an aborted L4.

Just finishing it off, less than 2 hours.

Then later in the afternoon, I thought I should do an erg session. I was wrong. I got 20 minutes in and decided to pack it in. I was sore and tired.

Monday – May 20 – 2 x 20′ / 2′ L4

At work. I was up until 2am on the phone with China. I slept in and then planned to go to the gym at lunch. I was pressed for time, so I only did a 4 minute session. HR was quite high. I think work stress is getting to me.

Tuesday – May 21 – Drills on the fives

A glorious day on the water. Continuing to work on technique. Today, I was doing 4 minutes of steady state, then a minute of drills. They were

pause at body over
open hands on recovery
half slide
square blades
slow roll ups

Wednesday – May 22 – No Training

I was up at 4:15 to head to the airport. I flew out to San Jose for an afternoon meeting and dinner. Then I caught the red eye home.

Thursday – May 23 – 40′ L4

I came home after the red eye and slept from about 8 to 10am. Then I was on calls just about the rest of the day. Around 5pm, I decided to do a quick session. I decided to just do a 40′ L4 without the break in the middle. It felt good.

Friday – May 24 – 5 x 4′ / 4′ L1(ish)

I’ve been thinking about coming up with a training plan that fits my current situation a bit better. With the situation in China and various other things going on, I am finding it challenging to put as much time into training. I am also spending more time on the erg this season (compared to water time) than in prior seasons. I attribute this to the time constraints, plus the fact that I am now equipped with slides at home instead of the dynamic, which I hated using enough to avoid sessions.

Anyway, I am toying with a 40 minute version of the WP. Basically, try to fit all the different types of sessions into a 40 minute block. Keep it time based.

So, today, I was aiming for a session that was a little more aerobic than the 4x1k, so I decided to slice the session up into 5 – 4 minute intervals with 4 minutes of rest. I would aim at holding splits below 1:50.

        Workout Summary - media/20190524-2140480o.csv
--|Total|-Total----|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time-----|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|09675|00:39:26.8|02:02.3|198.1|23.9|152.5|183.0|10.3
W-|05483|00:19:51.1|01:48.6|275.5|27.6|163.5|183.0|10.0
R-|04196|00:19:36.3|02:20.2|119.7|20.1|141.3|183.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|01103|04:01.2|01:49.3|269.5|26.2|155.4|167.0|10.5
02|01111|04:03.3|01:49.5|273.2|26.7|160.9|174.0|10.2
03|01108|03:59.5|01:48.1|279.8|28.2|165.4|178.0|09.8
04|01056|03:49.2|01:48.6|273.8|28.0|166.0|180.0|09.9
05|01106|03:58.0|01:47.7|281.4|29.1|170.3|183.0|09.6

That was great! Good choice on pacing. I arranged it so I did the rest first, which was essentially a quick warmup. Then the interval. Easy programming a good change.

Saturday – May 25 – 40′ L4

Just like Thursday. A bit better HR response.

Sunday – May 26 – Caprentry plus 8 x 1’30″/3’30” L1

Down on the cape. Around noon, I set to work on replacing the stairs down to the water from our house on Cape Cod. This winter (like last winter), there was pack ice that ripped the stairs away. It ended up looking like this.

I started 2 weekends ago and managed to replace the frame for the bottom platform. This weekend, I wanted to get that planked and get the stairs back to the beach.

The challenging part of this was anchoring the stairs at the bottom. There used to be a pair of angle irons that I could bolt to, but the were destroyed last winter. I decided to put in a bottom landing, anchored to the bank using snow fencing posts. Snow fencing is put up on posts that you can drive into sand. The posts are about 8 feet long, and I have a heavy tool that slips over the top of the post, and can be lifted and dropped to drive the post down through sand. It looks like this.

So, I would drive 4 posts around a piece of 2×8 that would act as the landing for the stairs. I would drive them about 5 feet into the sand, which I figured would at least hold the stairs for the season. The finished product looked like this.

Hard to believe each of those posts goes down 5 feet! Driving the posts was hard! Each one took about 200 blows, which I did in sets of 20. My sons came and helped for the last 2, where we switched off to drive them in.

Once the base was in place, The rest was pretty easy, but it took about 3 hours.

Later in the evening, I decided to do an erg session.

Another adaptation of an L1. This one aiming to be slightly more intense than a 8 x 500 by shortening the work period.

Lots of missing strokes. Which messed up the summary. But the workout was great. Very challenging at the end. By using the flex plot and suppressing all strokes below 24 spm and all strokes with a WpS below 200, I could get an idea of the interval power. Here is is shown as an avg of 320. (1:43 pace)

I was happy with this session, especially since my upper body had gotten a good workout from the post driving.

Today, we are back in Hopkinton (It’s a three day weekend). I will do a 40 minute L4 later.

Oh my hands – May 5 to May 7

May 7, 2019May 7, 2019Leave a comment

Well, really just my right hand.

Because of travel, there was a period of 8 days between 25 April and 4 May where I did no OTW rowing. Over that period of times, my hands got all soft. Then on Saturday, I hop into my Aero and go for a 18k row that takes about an hour and forty five minutes. This was 1887 strokes, and there was enough chop that my hands and the handles were wet. The chop also makes it impossible to maintain the light fingertip grip that we all aspire to. By the time I was on the last leg back to the beach, my hands were really hurting. Over the rest of the day they were a weepy blistered mess.

On Sunday, the weather sucked, so I wasn’t tempted to go back out on the water, but I did a hard 10K (with limited success, more to come on that later) on slides. My hands were perfectly OK with that.

On Monday, they were still pretty beat up, but I ignored that and did a nice technical session in the boat. A lot of the drills put pressure on my blistery bits, and ripped open some blisters under old callouses.

I wasn’t sure if my hands were up for it, but the weather this morning was beautiful!, So, I went for it. I had a great session, and I didn’t have any real grip issues to deal with, but boy, it stings. Especially in the shower!

Enough complaining. On to the training.

Sunday – May 5 – Hard 10K on slides.

Started with a 2k warmup. Pick drill followed by a few bursts at possible paces for the 10k piece

Then the real thing. I was a bit scarred from the 10k session that I bailed on last weekend, so I specifically tried to give myself permission to target a pace of 2:00. Of course, as soon as I started and it felt easy, I immediately changed my mind and stuck on 1:57. This lasted for about 6 or 7K and my HR was up at 177. I couldn’t handle the idea of rowing the last 12 minutes “in the red”, so I tried to back off, and then a dropped a few strokes and slowly brought myself back to around a 2:00 target. By the time I had 1000m to go, I was pissed at myself and I rowed it hard.

       Workout Summary - media/Import_38138690.csv.gz
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|10000|39:31.0|01:58.6|207.5|25.0|166.5|182.0|10.1
W-|10000|39:32.0|01:58.6|207.5|25.0|166.5|182.0|10.1
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|182.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|01000|03:54.5|01:57.2|212.8|24.6|141.9|155.0|10.4
01|01000|03:54.8|01:57.4|213.9|25.0|157.4|160.0|10.2
02|01000|03:54.9|01:57.5|213.1|24.8|163.2|164.0|10.3
03|01000|03:56.3|01:58.1|209.8|24.8|165.7|167.0|10.2
04|01000|03:57.4|01:58.7|206.9|24.5|168.4|171.0|10.3
05|01000|03:55.8|01:57.9|211.0|25.4|171.0|174.0|10.0
06|01000|03:57.1|01:58.5|208.0|25.2|174.8|177.0|10.1
07|01000|04:07.7|02:03.8|184.3|24.7|169.4|176.0|09.8
08|01000|04:00.1|02:00.0|200.1|25.0|173.7|177.0|10.0
09|01000|03:53.7|01:56.8|216.6|25.7|179.7|182.0|10.0

So, what do we make of this? First, it was probably an effective workout from a physiological point of view. I had 27 minutes in the TR and AN HR zones. But in terms of grit, this one was a fail. Also from a discipline perspective, also a fail. I should have rowed it conservatively and gotten a good marker for the next session.

Monday – 6 May – Drills on the 5s – 60′ session

As is usual, I spelt pretty poorly on Sunday night. The weather was OK. It was grey and there was a pretty steady wind from the north. Temps were in the 50s.

I thought under the circumstances that a session focused on technique would be a good idea. So, back to a favorite, drills on the 5s. Row steady state for 4 minuutes then do a minute of a drill. The drills were

half slide
slow roll ups
open hands on recovery
pause at body over
on the square

The drills were useful and the format of the workout makes time pass very quickly. A lovely session.

Tuesday – 7 May – 4 x 2k on the water

Time to do some heavy lifting! I was out late last night at a business dinner, but I managed to get my ass out of bed on time. I was a bit worried about how well I’d do in the session. I’m not sure if this was a cause or effect, but I felt a bit wrong in the intestinal department.

Anyway, the weather was awesome! Bright and Sunny about 50F with a light wind from the SW. So, I paddled out to the start of the 2k section, had a drink and went for it. The training objectives for this session were:

Stroke rate: 25-27
Target pace 2:15 to 2:20
Focus on crisp releases. Really tap down.
With increased fatigue focus on maintaining rate, lighting up pressure and maintaining good form, especially at the release

Gotta say, it was pretty magical! I had a bit of tail wind behind me on the first interval, so the splits were nice and fast and the strokes felt light. That really boosted my confidence. I was extra careful to try to avoid chasing the same split on the upwind interval. As it worked out I matched my avg power pretty well between upwind and downwind intervals.

Each interval got harder, but I always felt in control. It was a really good session. Good physiologically, and mentally to get it done per plan.

        Workout Summary - media/20190507-1405480o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|12258|72:17.0|02:56.9|124.6|23.6|145.3|177.0|07.2
W-|08104|37:30.0|02:18.9|177.1|26.3|164.3|177.0|08.2
R-|04160|34:47.0|04:10.8|068.1|20.7|124.7|177.0|07.2
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|00238|01:04.0|02:14.4|157.6|22.4|139.1|145.0|09.9
02|01985|08:33.7|02:09.4|179.4|25.8|158.2|171.0|09.0
03|01962|09:33.9|02:26.3|181.7|26.2|167.9|177.0|07.8
04|01960|08:33.8|02:11.0|171.6|26.8|164.8|175.0|08.5
05|01958|09:45.2|02:29.4|177.5|26.8|168.7|177.0|07.5

Note: the pace shown here appears to be the GPS based pace, so the downstream intervals are unnaturally fast and the upstream ones are slow. Calculating pace for them using the excel data yields 2:12.8, 2:17.9, 2:14.5, 2:19.9.

So, I was interested to see if this focus on clean releases has any effect. So, I compared a 4x2k from the very beginning of the season to today. My guess is that my aerobic fitness was a bit better and my form more ragged. First comparison…

Power: I was 4.5 watts higher power last time. 2.5% lower power today.

Now boat speed: Whoa! 1% faster today, on 2.5% lower power.

So, what changed in my stroke. Since I was working on finishes, let’s look at finish angle. I was finishing about 4 degrees shorter today.

Was that impacting effective length?

Oh yeah. I was more than 5 degrees shorter today.

I wonder what was going on with my peak force angle. I was specifically trying to hold body position and row lightly today. Would I see any difference with that?

Yep! My peak force angle move more to stern and was more consistent.

Here is a statistical summary for each workout. The standard deviation for the peak force angle changed from 3.3 deg to 2.6 deg.

So, this certainly taught me a lesson. The speedcoach is a tool, it doesn’t make sense to just focus singlemindedly on improving one parameter. In my mind I had equated more length, with more power and therefore more speed. Today’s results mean that I should have to be very careful to measure the change in boat speed with technique changes iin addition to just using the oarlock to provide data on the stroke mechanics.

Drills on the Fives

October 8, 2018Leave a comment

We came back from the cape last night, and I had a choice to make this morning.

I needed to be at work, showered and ready for a 8 am meeting, so I could either head straight to work and do a 60 to 80 minute steady state session on the erg, or I could do an shorter session on the water.

I decided to row on the water. Here’s why.

With a race this weekend, I want to taper down volume a bit anyway
Also because of the race, getting in a technique session this week would be good reinforcement for good mechanics
It’s too late to do much to improve my aerobic fitness, so doing just enough to maintain what I have is enough.

It was dark when I got to the boathouse. Very dark. And cool, around 55F. And there was a noticeable breeze blowing as a headwind when going down stream. Did I mention it was dark! With the overcast and the later sunrise, I couldn’t see across the lagoon when I arrived.

By the time I had swept the goose poop off the dock, and got my boat rigged and in the water, the sky was starting to lighten up. I felt irresponsible that I don’t have working lights though and I was glad that there was no one else on the river today. I’ve ordered a new pair of lights, hopefully they will be delivered today.

Today’s session was drills on the fives. 4 minutes of steady state, and then 1 minute of a drill. The drills were

Half slide: working on clean releases and blades off the water
delayed feather: Working on releasing on the square, and then feathering without touching water
Pause at body over: Working on keeping my knees downwith my body over and arms extended.
Open hands on recovery: Working on outward pressure against the oarlocks on recovery and clean catches after regripping the oars.

As usual, with this session, I felt like I was rowing better at the end than the beginning. Today, it was even more the case because the wind seemed to be dying down a during the session and the water was a bit flatter at the end.

I had time for one lap down to the dam and back. I was pretty surprised at how low my heart rate was today. My RPE felt like it was in line with this session, but my HR was a good 10 beats lower.

Here is a summary of the steady state bits. It cuts out the drills and the turns.

          Workout Summary - media/20181008-1700310o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|08689|46:43.0|02:41.3|116.3|20.0|130.7|143.0|09.3
W-|05153|25:33.0|02:28.8|131.8|20.6|134.5|143.0|09.8
R-|03548|21:11.0|02:59.2|097.6|19.4|126.1|143.0|10.6
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|00365|01:51.0|02:32.1|129.4|18.9|119.8|126.0|10.4
02|00270|01:15.9|02:20.8|134.9|19.7|126.9|131.0|10.8
03|00529|02:39.0|02:30.3|117.0|20.4|135.1|141.0|09.8
04|00887|04:23.3|02:28.4|130.3|21.0|139.2|142.0|09.6
05|00782|03:49.9|02:27.1|136.6|20.4|138.1|143.0|10.0
06|00129|00:38.2|02:27.7|148.6|20.4|134.9|137.0|10.0
07|00256|01:17.2|02:31.1|121.2|20.2|130.0|135.0|09.8
08|00680|03:23.8|02:29.9|132.4|20.9|136.4|142.0|09.6
09|00744|03:44.2|02:30.7|127.1|21.1|137.4|141.0|09.4
10|00179|00:51.6|02:24.1|144.1|19.8|129.7|136.0|10.5
11|00098|00:29.2|02:28.8|142.7|20.4|127.1|131.0|09.9
12|00236|01:10.0|02:28.4|157.3|23.1|131.1|139.0|08.8

Tomorrow: Last hard workout…5 x 1500 / 5′ target pace 2:15.

Drills on the fives

October 2, 2018Leave a comment

Misty and cool, very little wind. The river is still very high and there is a fair amount of flow.

The plan for this morning was a low intensity session, working on technique. I almost rolled over and went back to sleep. I felt very tired both muscle fatigue and just sleepy. The session felt like it was a lot of work.

The drills were:

delayed feather
half slide
pause at body over
open hands on recovery

          Workout Summary - media/Greg Smith 20181002 0639AM.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|-Avg--|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|-SPM--|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|13802|75:38.9|02:44.4|128.0| 19.5 |135.0|154.0|10.1

It’s getting more and more dark when I launch. There were a bunch of boats out today, my head was on a swivel to make sure that I didn’t run into anyone. They were pretty much cleared out by the second lap.

I love this session. I feel like my balance in the boat is so much better at the end than when I start. The time also goes by really quickly.

And we’re back to a regular progamming

September 24, 2018Leave a comment

Let’s see, where were we. Friday morning, I went for a run on sore legs. The rest of the day, I was mocked mercilessly by my coworkers because I was hobbling around like a very old man.

Around 3pm I left for the airport. I was supposed to hop on a 5:40 flight to Toronto, and then connect to Boston, getting me home by around 8pm eastern time on Friday night. Things did not work out that way. We left the gate about an hour late, and then once we got out to the runway, the pilot came on and announced that there was a maintenance problem and we were heading back to the gate. They unloaded us and gave us dinner vouchers, and gave us no clue about when we would leave.

I started working the phones. Given that I had already missed my connection and I had no idea when I would take off, I decided that I should start working on options. I found a flight that would leave at 10:50 to LAX and allow me to connect to the red eye to Boston, getting in around 8am. This seemed like a better option that getting stuck overnight in Tokyo or Toronto, so I reserved a seat and waited to hear what happened with my flight.

Around 8:30, they came on the PA and announced that the new boarding time for my flight was 10:30pm. Since that was so far away, I figured there had to be some uncertainty in it and I decided to go for the LA option. I got on board (last row in coach!), and settled in for a long and bumpy flight. My original flight ended up taking off at 12:44am. It arrived at 11:01 pm on Friday night. The next flight to Boston left at 2pm the next day, so I guess I made the right call. It was still 30 hours of travel and I felt totally destroyed when by the time I got home.

Sorry for the long story. Anyway, I didn’t feel like working out of Saturday.

Sunday – Sept 23: 10K Threshold on the dreaded Dynamic

Gotta back to it. First, a 2k warmup. Held 2:00-ish pace for 1000m, then paddled 500, then another 500 around 2:00.

I had failed last week with a target pace of 2:00. I had actually started a bit faster, at 1:58 and I decided that I could again try for 2:00, but be a bit more careful about staying on target. It was also a lot cooler. The piece went much better. I got a bit desperate with 2k to get and rated up a couple of pips which got me through the worst of it.

          Workout Summary - media/20180923-2055320o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|10000|39:48.0|01:59.4|205.3|25.3|164.5|180.0|09.9
W-|10000|39:48.0|01:59.4|205.3|25.3|164.5|180.0|09.9
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|180.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|01000|03:57.2|01:58.6|206.8|24.8|139.7|153.0|10.2
01|01000|03:59.2|01:59.6|204.6|25.0|155.4|158.0|10.0
02|01000|03:59.1|01:59.5|205.2|25.1|159.1|161.0|10.0
03|01000|03:59.3|01:59.7|204.1|25.1|162.5|163.0|10.0
04|01000|03:59.6|01:59.8|203.5|25.1|164.7|166.0|10.0
05|01000|03:59.8|01:59.9|203.1|25.1|167.1|169.0|10.0
06|01000|03:59.3|01:59.7|204.3|25.1|171.1|174.0|10.0
07|01000|04:00.3|02:00.2|201.8|25.2|172.6|174.0|09.9
08|01000|04:00.2|02:00.1|201.6|26.3|174.6|176.0|09.5
09|01000|03:54.5|01:57.3|218.1|26.4|177.8|180.0|09.7

So, mission accomplished. I will have to try this on a static erg soon to see what the pace difference is to the dynamic. I think it’s nearly 5 splits.

Monday – Sept 24: Drills on the fives

Back on the water after 9 days. Felt wobbly and awkward at first. And it was windy and choppy (Wind 10-15mph NE). Not ideal for drills, but really useful nonetheless.

Looks like the batteries on my oarlock died about 50 minutes into the session. The paces were pretty slow with a head wind going downstream and abnormally high flow going upstream.

By the end of the session, I felt much better. I was tapping down well and getting myself over the oars

Tomorrow: 4 x 2000 / 5′ (target pace: 2:16)

A solid week of training (It’s a Miracle!)

September 10, 20188 Comments

My last post updated things to Tuesday, 4 September. Since then, things have been going great! I knew I had some travel coming up this week, so I skipped rest days and just alternated hard and easy sessions. Here’s an overview.

You can see that I slid some sessions around. I was scheduled for my 5 x 1500 on Monday 9/3, but I couldn’t get on the water. Instead I did an easy steady state session on the dynamic, and moved the hard sessions out by a day. I am also taking liberties with the easy sessions. My coach suggested that I use these sessions to continue to work on drills and also to include some speed work because it has value in head races for overtaking and at the finish. It also pushes me to work technique at high rates, which is a good thing.

I’ll have a bit more to say about training progress overall, but first, the sessions.

Wednesday, 5 Sept: 75′ of drills on the 5s.

Another great morning to row. This session is all about technique. It’s 4 minutes of steady state and then a minute of drills. The drills were

half slide
delayed feather
pause at body over
open hands on recovery

As you can see it was a low intensity session.

Thursday: 6 Sept: 12 x 3’/1′

With the nice easy workout on Tuesday, I should have been well rested and ready for action on Wednesday. These short interval / short rest sessions are supposed to give me a chance to get lots of minutes in at close to head race intensity, but include enough rest so that fatigue does not become a big factor until deep into the workout.

That’s not how it worked out in this session. I decided that I would take a little extra time at the ends of the river, so it was really broken up into sets of 3 reps. I managed through the first three, but when I turned and confronted the head wind, I overcooked the fourth rep. I started the fifth, as I was approaching the s-turn, and I felt kind funny, a little woozy maybe. Anyway, I pulled the plug and paddled through the turn. I lined up and did the 6th interval per plan, but it was a nasty experience. Notice that my HR is not extremely high, but my RPE was through the roof. I was gasping for breath and shaking.

I took a good long rest and a drink, then I turned around to do another set, now with a tail wind. I was a bit more conservative on pace for these and made it through the set of three. Another turn and another longer than proper rest and I steeled myself for the up wind set. I pounded out 2 reps, which took me up to the turn. I decided to paddle through the turn and take a longer rest. Then I did the 12th rep and finished strong.

The plan called for another set of three, but I was completely toasted. In really hard workouts, my right glute will start to hurt at the end of a session and it was really bad this time. I took my feet out of the shoes and gingerly paddled home. I stopped and stretched every couple minutes because I just couldn’t get comfortable in the seat.

Stunningly, no red in the plot.

          Workout Summary - media/20180906-1215320o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|12579|79:38.0|03:09.9|092.8|21.6|144.0|178.0|07.3
W-|07379|33:52.0|02:17.7|150.5|24.7|159.6|178.0|08.8
R-|05211|45:47.0|04:23.6|050.1|19.4|132.4|178.0|06.2
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|00694|03:03.9|02:12.5|151.4|24.2|145.9|160.0|09.4 - dwn
02|00676|03:02.1|02:14.6|148.9|25.4|155.6|166.0|08.8 - dwn
03|00691|03:03.2|02:12.5|159.0|23.9|161.5|172.0|09.5 - dwn
04|00637|02:57.3|02:19.3|156.0|25.7|159.5|171.0|08.4 - up
05|00252|01:10.6|02:20.4|157.8|24.6|157.9|163.0|08.7 - up (fail)
06|00630|02:57.0|02:20.5|146.3|23.6|160.1|173.0|09.0 - up
07|00681|03:03.4|02:14.7|150.1|25.2|154.6|168.0|08.8 - dwn
08|00663|03:02.2|02:17.4|134.6|24.7|164.9|174.0|08.9 - dwn
09|00641|02:54.3|02:15.9|149.3|24.4|168.1|177.0|09.1 - dwn
10|00597|02:52.4|02:24.4|146.8|25.1|158.7|171.0|08.3 - up
11|00586|02:47.6|02:23.0|155.2|25.1|167.1|178.0|08.4 - up
12|00631|02:58.1|02:21.1|155.8|24.9|160.7|175.0|08.5 - up

Friday, 7 Sept: 70′ steady state with bumps

In this session, I wanted to keep the overall intensity low to moderate, but I wanted to do 20 stroke bursts at as high of a stroke as I could while maintaining reasonably clean stroke work.

As I went along, I found it easier to get the rate up into the mid thirties. In one rep, I was really feeling it. I was finishing so clean that I was keeping my blades off the water on the very brief recoveries. I could feel the boat settle in the drive and pop in the recovery. I loved it! It’s fun to go fast.

         Workout Summary - media/20180907-1225290o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|13765|75:57.0|02:45.5|109.3|20.2|141.9|170.0|09.0
W-|01801|07:23.0|02:03.2|212.8|32.5|153.8|166.0|07.5
R-|11973|68:34.0|02:51.8|098.2|18.9|140.6|166.0|08.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|00149|00:37.4|02:05.8|206.9|28.8|146.9|155.0|08.3
02|00156|00:41.3|02:12.2|203.3|28.9|150.7|158.0|07.8
03|00156|00:38.4|02:03.4|228.1|31.2|156.9|164.0|07.8
04|00167|00:40.7|02:02.1|205.3|30.8|150.8|157.0|08.0
05|00151|00:37.4|02:04.2|215.5|32.3|156.9|162.0|07.5
06|00137|00:33.5|02:02.5|242.6|34.3|154.6|162.0|07.1
07|00151|00:38.3|02:06.7|206.0|31.4|152.7|158.0|07.5
08|00136|00:33.4|02:03.0|185.8|34.1|156.5|163.0|07.1
09|00142|00:34.4|02:01.0|226.4|35.0|159.1|166.0|07.1
10|00136|00:31.4|01:55.4|237.2|36.3|148.5|158.0|07.2
11|00157|00:38.2|02:01.4|190.5|33.1|153.7|163.0|07.5
12|00165|00:39.6|02:00.1|212.7|34.8|158.1|166.0|07.2

Saturday: Attempted 10K Threshold

Down on the Cape. I was hoping to do my threshold session as a coastal row, but the weather was a bit windy, forcing me inside to do it on the erg (on slides). The plan wanted a 40′ threshold piece, so I decided on a 10K.

I started with the a 2K warm up.

Then into the main event. I thought I should be able to do it at a split of 1:58, so of course I set off at 1:57. Turns out, 2:00 would have been a better choice. I blew up just after 6K.

I took a few paddle strokes and then got going again at about a 2:02 pace. I sped up a bit towards the end, but it was a pretty ugly showing.

          Workout Summary - media/20180908-2250280o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|10000|39:36.0|01:58.8|209.3|25.7|167.7|182.0|09.8
W-|10000|39:37.0|01:58.9|209.3|25.7|167.7|182.0|09.8
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|182.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|01000|03:51.4|01:55.7|221.1|25.4|142.2|154.0|10.2
01|01000|03:53.6|01:56.8|219.8|25.7|160.0|162.0|10.0
02|01000|03:55.3|01:57.6|215.0|25.4|163.6|166.0|10.0
03|01000|03:55.2|01:57.6|215.5|25.6|167.0|169.0|10.0
04|01000|03:55.5|01:57.7|214.5|25.6|170.3|172.0|10.0
05|01000|03:56.8|01:58.4|211.2|25.9|172.6|174.0|09.8
06|01000|04:11.3|02:05.6|185.1|24.9|168.6|174.0|09.6 - boom!
07|01000|04:01.3|02:00.6|199.4|24.9|174.0|177.0|10.0
08|01000|04:02.4|02:01.2|196.7|25.1|177.2|179.0|09.9
09|01000|03:54.5|01:57.3|217.3|28.3|180.6|182.0|09.0

Good training effect anyway. I’m interested to see how this piece goes on a static erg to get an idea of how much I suffer on slides.

Sunday, 9 September: 3 x 20’/2′ dynamic

So nice and cool! I decided to observe a strict 150 bpm max HR because I wanted to recover from the nasty 10k attempt the day before. It turned out to be a really nice session. Unfortunately, the painsled session data got blown away somehow. But in any case, it was about a 2:08 pace, which is pretty good for a low HR cap on the dynamic.

It was one of those sessions where I felt better after I finished than when I started.

Monday, 10 September: 4 x 2k OTW

This is the real pinnacle of the weekly training plan. The long intervals. They end up being very close to head race pace and by the last one you are feeling the effects.

Today the weather was cool again, and there was a bit of a breeze. A headwind heading down river.

My plan for the session was to aim at 25 or 26 strokes per minute and try to work on smooth strokes and clean finishes. I am trying to lighten up the first part of the drive. I feel like it went very well today.

         Workout Summary - media/20180910-1255340o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|12201|71:36.0|02:56.1|111.7|23.6|140.5|174.0|07.2
W-|07930|35:55.0|02:15.9|164.8|26.0|160.4|174.0|08.5
R-|04276|35:40.0|04:10.3|058.3|21.2|120.5|174.0|06.8
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|01966|09:02.4|02:18.0|164.8|25.5|156.5|167.0|08.5 - up
02|01987|08:54.2|02:14.4|166.3|26.0|160.6|171.0|08.6 - dwn
03|01969|08:59.0|02:16.9|163.3|26.7|162.0|174.0|08.2 - up
04|02008|08:59.9|02:14.4|164.8|25.9|162.5|173.0|08.6 - dwn

Notice the consistency of power between up and down wind pieces. That’s what I was hoping to do. As for the low HR, that’s pretty cool. It still felt really hard.

Comparing the stroke profiles to the last time I did this session. There isn’t a lot of difference, but the peak angle did move later by a couple of degrees.

After my row this morning, I drove straight to the airport. I showered at the Admiral’s Club and made my 10:30 flight with time to spare.

Now I am on a plane out to San Diego. I am planning to do a steady state session at DelMar crossfit tomorrow morning. Then I think my streak gets broken. I fly early morning up to San Jose and I have meetings all day, and a business dinner at night. I’m not sure if I will have time on Thursday before I fly home.

I track my overall training load in Strava and it was pretty depressing looking at it recently. But with the string of sessions I’ve put together, things are definitely picking up. I’m nearly to the level I was last January.

I should probably do a 20 minute test on a static erg to see where I stand.

It’s a pity that I have a trip to the Philippines and Japan coming up next week. That should screw things up pretty well.

Side Video

July 23, 20182 Comments

These are video snippets from a session done on July 11, 2018.

Things I know

I’m overweight
My aerobic fitness isn’t as good as I want it to be.
I still break my knees too early

The first 5 videos are of drills that I did:

Delayed Feather:

King of the Mountain:

Half Slide:

Open Hands on Recovery

Pause at Body over

Then a couple of steady state rowing

3 minutes of r20

A quick rate ladder from r18 to r24

Gentle comments welcome!

6/4 – 6/6: Finally back rowing!

June 11, 2018June 11, 2018Leave a comment

Monday – 6/4 – Drills and Steady State

By Monday morning, I had normal range of movement and very little pain in my back. I decided to do an easy session to test it out a little bit.

I have a new workout plan, but based on the long layoff that I had, I decided to take a week and focus mostly on steady state and drills to get back into the program and avoid risking injury or disappointment.

Today, the plan was to row for an hour and at each turn, stop and do about 10 reps of the King of the Mountain drill. The longer than normal breaks between segments is me doing the drills. Weird HR dropout during the second interval.

It was a grey and windy morning. I was slow and my power values were really low. I am wondering (hoping) if I have a calibration issue.

Workout Summary - media/20180604-1615230o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|12342|72:16.0|02:55.7|115.3|18.7|128.4|162.0|09.1
W-|11692|59:12.0|02:31.9|124.9|18.3|134.5|162.0|10.8
R-|00657|13:04.0|09:56.8|071.9|20.3|100.5|162.0|02.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|00782|03:58.0|02:32.2|120.0|18.6|109.6|139.0|10.6
02|02900|14:39.0|02:31.5|126.9|18.0|144.8|150.0|11.0
03|02780|14:23.0|02:35.2|118.0|17.3|105.0|152.0|11.2
04|02067|10:27.0|02:31.7|124.3|17.7|143.2|152.0|11.2
05|03163|15:45.0|02:29.4|130.8|19.8|152.4|162.0|10.1

Told you it was slow!

Tuesday – 6/5: Steady state and drills

Basically the same session as monday. Pushed the pace a little bit harder. Same deal, 10 reps of the KOM drill x 4 sets. They are getting a bit easier as I do more of them. The wind sprung up a bit in the last rep. Headwind, of course!

          Workout Summary - media/20180605-1425220o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|13918|77:24.0|02:46.9|118.7|18.9|143.7|165.0|09.5
W-|13421|67:18.0|02:30.4|128.9|18.5|148.9|163.0|10.8
R-|00501|10:06.0|10:05.7|051.1|21.7|109.4|163.0|07.8
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|03825|18:41.0|02:26.5|128.0|18.0|141.3|152.0|11.4
02|02889|14:49.0|02:33.8|128.4|17.6|147.6|155.0|11.1
03|02837|13:47.0|02:25.7|128.5|18.4|150.5|157.0|11.2
04|03869|20:01.0|02:35.2|130.4|19.7|155.7|163.0|09.8

Wednesday – 6/6: Starts

I had a 9:30 flight to San Diego, so I had a short time window for a row. I decided to do a quick session just to start working on my starts. I started with 5 stroke sets, and then as I got more comfortable, and my “hit rate” improved, I extended them to 10 strokes.

There was a bit of wind and a little bit of chop, but on my sheltered river, I can’t say it caused any of my problems.

The last start was pretty good. 15 strokes at 1:48 pace and 37 spm.

I made my flight with plenty of time.

Quantified Rowing

Measure – Adjust – Improve

Tag: drills