First Coastal Row of the Season

June 7, 2020Leave a comment

Last post was on May 24th. Things have been pretty hectic since then.

Monday – May 25 – 6 Darts games

I love the dart game. It’s a great way to get good meters in at a low intensity and focus on something other than the measly watts I need to stick to in these workouts.

I also am always trying to beat the impossibly high scores that Sander manages to post. No luck yet. Todays scores were:

14510,14575,14525,14400,14375,14675

That last on was an all time high score for me. I was pretty pumped to keep all my scores above 14000.

I was also really happy with the Heart Rate drift, only 2.28%

Tuesday – May 26 – 2 x 30′ / 5′ with bumps (Coastal)

The weather report for Tuesday was looking really great, so I loaded up my boat the night before. The tide was a bit dicey. I needed to row before work and the tide was falling. Low tide was right around when I wanted to get back to the beach. I was hoping I would get stranded on my way back. (I didn’t)

To make things even more interesting, I decided to do the sprint workout from the Stuck At Home Rowing Club. I love this workout. Two 30 minute pieces at a nice lazy pace, but even 5 minutes, you do a hard minute at a higher rate. On the erg, I would aim for r30. In a coastal boat, I was going to play it by ear.

You can see the effect of the tidal currents in the pace map. The first three bumps were done on the way out to my favorite buoy. Then I turned north and rowed against the ebbing tide toward the inner harbor. Then I turned back south and rode the tide back toward the red buoy. Finally I turned and did 2 bumps going northeast, and then the last one heading back toward the beach.

That was really fun! Great conditions.

Wednesday – May 27 – Rest day

Busy work day, and I was due for a break. I had trained 10 days prior.

Sun: 3 x 30, Monday: 4 x 1000

November 4, 2019Leave a comment

Sunday – November 3 – 3 x 30′ / 2′

Down on the cape, on slides. But now with a fan! What a difference it made.

The plan was to row this at 165W, but as time rolled on, and my HR stayed nice and low, I was able to push it up and did the last 30 minutes at 175W. Nice to be able to push harder in one of these sessions for a change.

       Workout Summary - media/20191103-1816170o.csv
--|Total|-Total----|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time-----|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|21991|01:35:59.8|02:11.0|162.6|19.6|134.1|145.0|11.7
W-|21141|01:29:27.5|02:06.9|171.3|19.8|134.9|145.0|12.0
R-|00854|00:06:00.0|03:30.9|044.0|17.7|123.0|145.0|08.3
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|06936|29:38.8|02:08.2|166.5|19.1|128.9|136.0|12.2
01|07054|29:48.7|02:06.8|171.9|20.1|135.7|142.0|11.8
02|07151|30:00.0|02:05.9|175.5|20.1|140.1|145.0|11.9

Monday – November 4 – L1 – 4 x 1000 / 5′

The classic, soul crushing sprint workout.

I managed the 8×500/3’30” at a 1:44 pace. When I have been doing the Pete Plan, I saw a 2 to 3 second delta between the pace for 8×500 and 4×1000. I am also interested in building some success here, so I decided to set a reasonably soft target, 1:48.

First a fletcher warmup. Felt better than I have on an erg this entire season. Good rate control. Felt good at the paces.

       Workout Summary - media/20191104-1307140o.csv
--|Total|-Total----|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time-----|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|05048|00:20:19.0|02:00.7|204.7|20.2|141.1|163.0|12.3
W-|05052|00:20:19.0|02:00.7|204.7|20.2|141.1|163.0|12.5
R-|00000|00:00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|163.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|00984|04:19.0|02:11.6|166.8|16.9|110.8|130.0|13.5
01|00995|04:00.0|02:00.6|199.6|20.3|136.9|144.0|12.2
02|00764|03:00.0|01:57.8|213.5|22.2|146.0|148.0|11.5
03|00264|01:00.0|01:53.7|238.3|23.9|150.4|152.0|11.1
04|00137|00:30.0|01:49.2|264.1|25.8|153.7|156.0|10.6
05|00489|02:00.0|02:02.8|190.5|18.3|154.9|158.0|13.3
06|00283|01:00.0|01:46.2|290.0|27.8|153.8|158.0|10.2
07|00495|02:00.0|02:01.2|200.1|18.5|157.8|160.0|13.4
08|00149|00:30.0|01:40.6|332.9|30.1|156.1|159.0|09.9
09|00491|02:00.0|02:02.2|196.0|18.6|159.0|163.0|13.2

Then I set up for the intervals.

The first felt pretty easy, so I pushed a little to negative split the next one. That one was OK too, so I decided to try to beat 1:46 for the third. That worked out OK too, so I decided to try to beat 1:45 for the last one. That was a bit of a stretch. I started up at 30 spm and I was looking at 1:44s and 1:43s, but it took a very long time to get to halfway, and I was feeling the pain around then. I pulled tried to lighten up my stroke and focus on technique to distract myself. That got me to 250 to go, and then I just counted the strokes down. No problem.

That was good fun. Target for next time is a scary 1:46.

Tomorrow: Hopefully 4×20 if I have enough time in the morning. Again starting at 165 and adjusting up or down to stay below 145bpm.

The next phase

November 3, 2019November 3, 20191 Comment

Sunday – October 26 – Slow roll

I felt like rowing on Sunday, so I headed into the basement to do an easy session. I wanted to long and slow, so I plugged in a HM and off I went.

Something went badly with Painsled, and it only recorded the first 400m of the row. But I didn’t know that at the time.

Monday – 28 October – 8 x 500/3:30

Not sure what to do for a training plan, but when in doubt I might as well just follow my own version of the Pete plan. So, time for a sprint session.

Started with a fletcher warmup

Then into the session. I aimed at 1:45 split.

Not bad.

Tuesday – 29 October – Fartek on Quinsig in a double

I saw that the weather forecast for Tuesday morning was looking pretty good. Misty, calm and warm. I met Joe at 5:30 and we headed out with no particular plan.

We warmed up headed down to the south end of the lake. Then started north. After we passed the islands, I told Joe that I was game for anything, and he suggested that we do a pyramid up to the bridge. Once we were there, we dropped into a 2k piece at a sub-threshold pace. On the way back to the dock, we were side by side with a women’s eight and we wanted to stay there, so we worked a bit harder than we would have.

All in all, a very pleasant morning.

Wednesday – October 30 – Waterfall

Target was a 1:55 pace.

The first 2000 was the warmup. I ended up an average pace of 1:53.6.

Hard but doable. I’m liking this.

Thursday – 31 October – 4 x 20’/2′

The plan was to row at 165W and that’s what I did. I think that’s my training power for now, until I earn the right to go faster.

This was interesting. My heart rate started nice and low, but it did not plateau the way it should. It just kept rising. I think that means that my aerobic base is not as good as it should be. Basically that my easy sessions have been too hard and I have not been building ability to metabolize fat. I need to be careful and limit intensity of my endurance sessions

       Workout Summary - media/20191031-1246090o.csv
--|Total|-Total----|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time-----|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|19386|01:28:00.0|02:16.2|152.1|17.5|133.4|150.0|12.6
W-|18668|01:20:00.0|02:08.6|164.9|17.9|134.2|150.0|13.0
R-|00723|00:08:00.0|05:31.8|024.1|12.9|125.4|150.0|16.2
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|04637|20:00.0|02:09.4|161.3|17.9|123.2|133.0|13.0
01|04680|20:00.0|02:08.2|166.6|18.1|132.6|138.0|12.9
02|04679|20:00.0|02:08.2|166.3|17.9|137.4|145.0|13.0
03|04673|20:00.0|02:08.4|165.6|17.8|143.6|150.0|13.1

Friday – 1 November – No Training

Scheduled rest day

Saturday – 2 November – 10K threshold

On slides. Started with a 2k warmup.

Then into the 10K piece, target pace 1:58.

I’d say that was pretty consistent. I was reasonably comfortable through the first 30 minutes and it was pretty tough going from there to the end. I never felt in distress though.

        Workout Summary - media/20191102-1906560o.csv
--|Total|-Total----|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time-----|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|10000|00:39:03.0|01:57.2|216.0|24.7|162.0|180.0|10.4
W-|10000|00:39:03.5|01:57.2|216.0|24.7|162.0|180.0|10.4
R-|00000|00:00:00.0|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|03:49.6|01:54.8|215.0|24.0|134.8|148.0|10.9
01|01000|03:55.0|01:57.5|215.9|24.3|151.4|154.0|10.5
02|01000|03:55.3|01:57.7|215.1|24.1|155.5|158.0|10.6
03|01000|03:55.2|01:57.6|215.2|23.9|159.0|161.0|10.7
04|01000|03:54.8|01:57.4|216.1|24.6|162.4|165.0|10.4
05|01000|03:54.9|01:57.4|216.2|24.7|165.3|167.0|10.3
06|01000|03:55.7|01:57.8|214.1|24.6|167.8|171.0|10.4
07|01000|03:55.7|01:57.8|213.9|24.9|171.7|175.0|10.2
08|01000|03:56.0|01:58.0|213.1|25.2|174.1|175.0|10.1
09|01000|03:51.5|01:55.8|225.8|26.7|177.5|180.0|09.7

Look at those even splits. Nice.

Here’s a comparison of today’s row with the one that I did on 12 October.

3 more watts today
Slightly lower HR
half an spm higher rate (which is good)

So, I’m happy with that. A little bit of progress over the past month.

Tomorrow: 4 x 20 at 165W

13km Coastal Row

September 2, 2019Leave a comment

Another really beautiful, sunny, late summer day. On Sunday the breeze was blowing from the East, which meant generally flat water, as long as I hung out close to the eastern shore.

As usual, I picked the windiest time of day to go rowing. I swear that Zeus watches for me to walk out of my house in my rowing shorts, and turns up the wind dial. The highest gust of the day was at 12:19. I launched at 12:12.

So, I was slow going into the wind, and fast going away from the wind, but because of the direction, I was rarely dealing with much chop. There was a fair amount of power boat traffic and that was definitely a factor up near the inner harbor.

I launched 90 minutes before high tide (1:38pm), and when I launched there was still a noticeable current flowing into Loagy Bay. By the time I got up to the inner harbor, there was no noticeable current.

As soon as I launched, I headed up into the wind and then turned at a floating oyster shack to head up into Loagy Bay. I rowed up to the bridge and did a quick turn around. I rowed back north until I was almost to the beach on Indian Neck. I turned and skirted the shore. This turned out to be a bit stressful because there were a bunch of boats moored along the beach, some swamped and barely visible above the water.

As I rowed along the shore, I noticed my splits getting faster. I was coming out of the current into Loagy Bay and into the main stream heading up to the harbor. But at the same time, it was getting closer to high tide.

As always, I was waked mercilessly as I rounded the breakwater to the inner harbor, and that continued until I was almost to the pier. As you get into the inner harbor, there are speed limits that make it much better. This detail map shows a bit more. I was on the southerly track on the way in and you can see the jogs in the path as I worked my way through the wakes.

I really enjoyed the last bit behind the jetty. Flat water, tail wind and the end in sight.

For whatever reason, the trip out of the harbor was less eventful. I swung wide around the breakwater because there was a bunch of traffic. I got hit by a monumental interference pattern of wakes between two power boats going in opposite directions on either side of me. I took on a boat full of water, which I drained through the bailer.

One thing about the Aero. Even when this happened, I felt completely stable.

The row home was enjoyable, but felt a bit heavier than the outbound leg. The wind was on my port bow. The headwind and the flat water made it easy to focus on blade work. It was a bit like bungee rowing. After I got free of the wake zone, I just started counting strokes and three hundred strokes later, I was just off the beach.

The long break around the 47 minute mark was when I turned around behind the jetty. I got into a conversation with a couple of guys in motor boat. One their sons rowed for Penn, and they were asking about the boat and where I row and stuff like that.

Now it’s Monday and a holiday here. I have some errands and some prep work for the coming week. I think I will try to do an erg session later today. Probably something a bit more intense, but I’m not sure I have the motivation to dig really deep.

5 beds in 5 nights

September 1, 2019September 1, 2019Leave a comment

Monday – 8/26: 30′ Stationary cycle

I hadn’t planned on a workout on Monday, but I arrived at my hotel and had a appropriate gap in my schedule to squeeze in a quick workout. I headed down to the gym and hopped on a stationary bike.

Why the bike? Well, when I was packing on Sunday night I managed to give myself a nasty scratch on the top of my foot and it hurt to walk or run. The bike pedals were OK though.

I programmed a 1 minute on / 1 minute off interval workout.

Good fun. I slept in Orange County on Monday night.

Tuesday – 8/27: 50 minute steady state stationary bike

First thing in the morning when I woke up.

After this, I showered, hopped in the car and drove to San Diego, about 90 minutes away. I had breakfast with our team there, and had a couple of meetings. Then I drove to Agoura Hills which is north of LA. It was a very pleasant 3 hour drive.

Once I got to Agoura Hills, I had a meeting with some of our engineering team there. I had dinner alone and fell asleep around 9, in the hotel in Agoura Hills.

Wednesday – 8/28: 40 minute stationary bike

Again, first thing in the morning. Today was a medium intensity rolling hills workout.

Then back to our facility for more meetings. I headed out to the airport around noon and flew to Chicago, arriving at 9pm. I got to the hotel around 10pm and promptly fell asleep.

Thursday – 8/29: 30′ Stationary bike

Tired this morning. Took it easy. HR was high nonetheless.

After that, I headed to our office north of Chicago and had a few meetings. I headed out to the airport around 4pm. I caught a 7pm flight home and arrived back at my house around 11pm. I slept in Hopkinton that night.

Friday – 8/30 : No training

I slept hard until 9am, when my wife helpfully woke me up so I could dash off and get onto my first call of the day.. The morning was a blur of calls. Then we got our stuff packed and around 1:30 we headed off to the cape, arriving around 4:00pm. I had another work call, and the we chilled out, had some dinner and crashed around 10:30.

That was my fifth bed of the week.

Saturday – 8/31: 11k coastal row

A glorious beautiful day! I relaxed all morning. In the early after noon, I loaded up the boat, and headed off for a row. There was a brisk 10-15mph breeze from the north, so I decided to row the marshes where I would be protected from the chop. It was a good call. At the very end, I came out into the bay a little bit and I was bashed around. That bit was not fun, but it only lasted a few minutes and I was back on the beach.

The tide was flowing out during the whole row, and the stream was quite strong at times.

        Workout Summary - media/20190831-2041020o.csv
--|Total|-Total----|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time-----|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|11661|01:11:55.0|03:05.0|000.0|20.5|146.2|163.0|07.9
W-|11138|01:05:24.4|02:56.2|000.0|20.0|146.7|163.0|08.5
R-|00530|00:06:31.2|06:09.0|000.0|25.1|140.5|163.0|04.1
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|02673|16:15.2|03:02.4|000.0|18.9|136.4|156.0|08.7 against tide
02|01404|08:02.8|02:51.9|000.0|20.4|149.3|155.0|08.5 with tide
03|01915|12:12.5|03:11.2|000.0|19.7|148.0|158.0|07.9 against tide
04|03345|19:28.5|02:54.7|000.0|20.4|150.8|163.0|08.4 bit of both
05|00070|00:27.4|03:16.8|000.0|19.7|159.6|161.0|07.7 against tide
06|01671|08:33.4|02:33.6|000.0|21.2|152.1|161.0|09.2 with tide
07|00060|00:24.6|03:25.0|000.0|19.5|149.6|154.0|07.5 last little bit

Man, I love rowing! The time just flew by, sun was shining, the water was nice and flat (mostly), and was able to focus on trying to row clean.

Tomorrow: I hope I can do it all over again.

Work comes first

August 26, 2019Leave a comment

I love my job. It is challenging and rewarding. I’m an engineer and my company is involved in the semiconductor industry. We supply equipment that is used to test semiconductor devices before they are put into the products that everyone uses every day. Mobile Phones, computers, cars, trucks, robots, pacemakers, hearing aids, cell phone base stations, network routers. The electronic guts of all of those products go across machines that make sure that they will work right.

Having a hard job, that I love means that I have to be realistic about my training objectives and plans. My job got a lot harder a couple of years ago, and as a result, I have raced a lot less and my training load has gone down.

This chart from the Concept2 Online Logbook tells the tale.

My total training meters have been about 25% lower in the past 3 seasons than it was for the prior 6. In a sport where “Miles make champions”, and generally “more is more”, that makes a big difference in terms of performance.

Even more impactful than the reduction in volume is irregular training. If I was able to guarantee 6 sessions a week, but had limits of time per session, I could design a plan and make good progress. But the way my life works right now, that is not possible. This past week was an excellent example of what I mean.

Last Sunday, I had, what turned out to be an epic row. I had planned it as a normal endurance session. A coastal row exploring the salt marshes in Wellfleet. And the first half was like that. But in the second half, I was confronted by choppy water, and then a head wind that piled on a bit more intensity. I was really worn out by the time I finished.

I was OK with that because I knew what kind of week I was going to have.

Monday: First day back from vacation. During vacation, I adjusted to waking up around 8 to 9am every day. I didn’t think I could rewind all the way to 5:15 on my first day back. I elected to sleep in. Looking at my schedule, I could have probably squeezed in a workout, but I was tired and sore from the Sunday row.

Tuesday: Up at 4:00AM to catch a 6:00AM flight to Austin Texas for a customer meeting. We got ready in the office in the morning and through lunch. The meeting was in the afternoon, with a dinner that followed. I got to my hotel at 9:30PM and fell asleep almost instantly.

Wednesday: Up at 4:00AM to catch a 6:00AM flight home. Went straight to the office on arrival in Boston. Had meetings all day, a team dinner after work, and then headed back to the office to host a “Global Town Meeting”. We have employees all around the world and we are experimenting with using audio and video technology to enable live meetings for the whole organization. The meeting was at 9pm so that our team in Asia could attend in work hours. I got home around 11pm, and I was honestly pretty amped up from the meeting.

Thursday: I slept until 7:00AM and then headed to work. I had meetings scheduled from 9:30 to 5:00pm, and then I had a business dinner that lasted until around 9:30PM. On Thursday night, I managed to get to bed by around 11:00.

Friday: I had a very important internal review meeting at 9:00 where I was the primary presenter. I really needed to practice my presentation, so I got up at 5:15AM, headed to work and spent the time from around 6:30am to 9:00 working on speaker notes and dry running my stuff. The meeting went well, and was over by 11:30. I felt a lot more relaxed and worked through my other meetings in the afternoon. I left around 6pm.

So there’s five days. Every day but Monday was more than 12 hours of work and no time for training. Missing a day or two is no big deal, but 5 days probably erases multiple weeks of gains.

I need to do some research to figure out the best way to deal with this kind of thing. Maybe some extremely short, HIIT sessions for days when I can’t afford a full workout? Since I’m on the road again this week. I guess I’ll give it a try.

As I rolled into the weekend, I was very eager to get back into some training. I really missed it. I knew I would be disappointed by my performance, but I tried to be matyure about it. Just do a couple of nice endurance sessions, get back in the groove.

Saturday – 8/24/2019: 3 x 20’/2′ Endurance with Humon.

I felt great at first, but my HR climbed and I felt really tired by the middle. I did really enjoy the 1 minute bumps I did during my first 20 minutes though.

        Workout Summary - media/20190824-2045570o.csv
--|Total|-Total----|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time-----|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|14837|01:06:01.5|02:13.5|155.1|19.0|142.0|155.0|11.8
W-|13986|00:60:00.0|02:08.7|165.5|19.0|142.7|155.0|12.3
R-|00854|00:06:01.5|03:31.6|051.8|19.7|134.4|155.0|08.4
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|04711|20:00.0|02:07.4|171.7|20.2|131.3|152.0|11.7
01|04671|20:00.0|02:08.5|165.2|18.2|145.9|154.0|12.8
02|04605|20:00.0|02:10.3|159.7|18.5|151.1|155.0|12.4

Sunday – 8/25/2019 – 3 x 20′ / 2′ with 1′ bumps at r24

I had fun with the bumps, so I decided to do it again. Today, I tried to hit r24 and 220W for each of the bursts. I was really feeling the strain by the last 20′ piece, but I was having a good time with it.

        Workout Summary - media/20190825-2125560o.csv
--|Total|-Total----|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time-----|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|15121|01:06:00.0|02:10.9|163.4|19.8|141.4|164.0|11.6
W-|14227|00:60:00.0|02:06.5|174.2|19.7|141.6|163.0|12.0
R-|00896|00:06:00.0|03:20.8|055.2|20.6|139.1|163.0|09.1
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|04704|20:00.0|02:07.5|170.4|20.5|130.2|146.0|11.5
01|04762|20:00.0|02:06.0|175.7|19.3|141.6|155.0|12.3
02|04760|20:00.0|02:06.0|176.6|19.5|153.0|163.0|12.2

Now it’s Monday morning, and guess where I am? I was up at 4:00AM to get to airport for a 6:00AM flight to LA. I am in Orange County today. San Diego tomorrow morning. Driving up to north of LA Tuesday afternoon. Flying to Chicago on Wednesday night, and then flying home to Boston on Thursday night. I guess I’ll put that HIIT theory to the test this week!

90′ Hot and Tired Coastal Row

August 19, 2019Leave a comment

Sunday was the last day of my vacation, and I have to say that the weather has been pretty amazing. I was able to train outdoors 7 of the past 8 days.

On Sunday, there wasn’t too much wind, but it was really hot and humid. I launched around 12:30.

I really enjoyed rowing around the salt marsh on Saturday, so I started off doing the same thing today, but explored a new nook and cranny behind Indian Neck. The chart is a bit deceiving. The part that is shown as blue behind indian neck is actually pretty heavily channeled salt marsh. I turned around when the channel got a bit narrow to easily turn around.

When I rowed out from behind Feld Pt, the rowing actually got pretty annoying. The westerly wind was building up a bit of chop, but there were also a ton of criss crossing boat wakes. Rowing with this mess on the beam was really challenging. Trying to take clean strokes and get my blades consistently buried was a constant struggle.

I was pretty miserable by the time I got up the inner harbor and I wasn’t looking forward to the long slog home. Because of the angle of the wind, the row home was a bit harder, but a lot less annoying. I was really tired, my legs were empty and my heart rate was abnormally high. I think the humidity and the total training load of the past few days just got to me.

As I came into the Lee of the island, the water flattened out and I decided to push the last bit harder. I kept the rate reasonably low and pushed the pressure.

        Workout Summary - media/20190818-1826050o.csv
--|Total|-Total----|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time-----|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|15655|01:47:52.0|03:26.7|000.0|19.7|144.6|177.0|07.4
W-|14215|01:23:09.0|02:55.5|000.0|20.4|148.1|177.0|08.5
R-|01449|00:24:43.0|08:31.8|000.0|17.5|133.2|177.0|02.4
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|01616|08:19.0|02:34.4|000.0|18.3|131.4|147.0|10.6 to bridge
02|02813|15:57.0|02:50.1|000.0|18.4|144.5|155.0|09.6 behind indian neck
03|01809|11:28.0|03:10.2|000.0|18.9|149.7|155.0|08.3 halfway to harbor, got waked
04|00540|03:20.0|03:05.4|000.0|21.0|149.0|155.0|07.7 waked again
05|02636|15:21.0|02:54.7|000.0|21.3|151.9|162.0|08.1 rest of the in harbor
06|00283|01:39.0|02:54.7|000.0|20.8|144.1|149.0|08.3 
07|01464|09:18.0|03:10.6|000.0|21.8|146.6|155.0|07.2
08|00134|00:51.0|03:09.9|000.0|21.5|137.3|140.0|07.4 
09|02920|16:56.0|02:54.0|000.0|22.3|156.5|177.0|07.7 back to beach

By the time I got back to the beach, I was feeling a little woozy and it was a challenge to get everything loaded on the car. I drove back to the house and got the boat put away, and took a shower. I laid down for about 30 minutes and started to feel much better.

I decided to take a rest day on Monday.

90′ Easy Coastal Row

August 17, 2019Leave a comment

Nice sunny day with a light breeze from the ESE. I launched around 2:15. High Tide was at 1:40, so the tide was going out during the row.

I wanted to get about 90 minutes of nice endurance building low intensity rowing in today. Since I was rowing at high tide, I decided to go do a little exploring. First, I rowed through the marsh to bridge, then I rowed back up into blackfish creek. On the way out, I did a loop through drummer cove. Finally, I rowed up along the outside of Indian Neck to the harbor entrance. After the nice smooth water of the first part of the row, the wakes and chop of this part was a not entirely welcome. The slog back to the beach was right into the wind, chop and for the last part, right into the tide as well. I had to keep reminding myself to just take it easy. But I get frustrated when the split drops slower than 3:00/500.

Tomorrow: Probably more endurance rowing. I think it’s supposed to be a nice day. Then it will be back to the grind.

14k coastal row

August 12, 2019Leave a comment

It was pretty windy, but warm and sunny. I decided to go bounce around. I launched at 11:30. Here’s the weather. It was blowing 15-20mph from the WNW.

The bounciest part was right after launching. I was rowing right into the teeth of the wind and the waves had a long fetch from the north end of the harbor really build up. Most of the waves were around a foot, but every minute or so, there would be group of 2 or 3 two foot waves that totally swamped me. I basically had the bailer open all the way up to Wellfleet inner harbor.

Once I got used to the dousing and shortened up my stroke, I was able to relax and just work my way through the waves. By the time I got to the green can, the water smoothed out and I glided into the inner harbor. It felt a lot like getting onto a paved road after you’ve driven on a rough dirt road.

I wanted to row at least 90 minutes, so I did a lazy lap around the inner harbor, up into the cove, dodging moored boats and the shallows. Then I headed out the main channel into the wind again. The wind was blowing, but the water was reasonably flat and I wasn’t taking on a much water. I decided to row over to Great Island and then come diagonally back to the beach.

You can see that I skirted the edge of the shoals (the green) along the north edge of the harbor. These are marked by big yellow floats because the shoals are leased as shell fish beds. Basically followed the outer buoy line.

I planned to row almost all the way to beach on the shore of Great Island, but as I was approaching, I rowed right over a gigantic rock, submerged about a foot under the waves. It really freaked me out. I’d spent some time looking at the charts and this rock never really registered. But when I looked afterwards, I found the asterix. You can see it in the included chart. In previous rows, I had only come over this way when it was much closer to high tide and the rock would have been much deeper. I also thing that I am usually a bit closer to the north shore, because I go in the cove by the Herring River.

At any rate, if the tide had been 6 inches lower, or the waves had been a bit bigger, I could have ripped a big hole in my boat and that would have been a bad ending to this row. I’ll have to avoid that area in the future.

Since I was spooked, I just decided to row home. I got most of the way to the main channel and realized that I would get back a bit too soon. So, I turned and followed the main channel out to my favorite buoy. As I rowed along out here, the waves were getting bigger as there was a longer fetch for them to build.

I really started to feel the waves again, once I turned and headed to the beach. I needed to keep the bailer open again. The wave heights changed quite dramatically as I rowed. I assume it was due to the depth of the water. My impression was as I got closest to the green shoals, I would get much steeper and nastier waves. At this time, though I was rowing with them, so I would go surfing down the face of the waves and the bow of my boat would bury in the trough, sending solid water into the cockpit. Over the next 10 strokes, the bailer would do its job and slowly empty the footwell.

I go back to the beach after around 95 minutes. From the summary chart, it looks like it was an appropriate intensity and it was a lot of fun, not counting the close encounter with the rock.

Tomorrow: Hopefully a coastal 4 x 10’/5′ at r25

A week of mostly vacation

July 7, 2019Leave a comment

Friday – June 28 – On the cape – No Training

I arrived at Logan at about 7:30AM. I was in my car and on the way to the cape by 8:00AM. The traffic leaving the city was pretty heavy, but by the time I was down to Weymouth, things were moving better. I got to the house around 11, with donuts!

I had a couple of work calls and hung out. I was massively tired and didn’t feel like working out.

Saturday – June 29 – 3 x 20′ / 2′ (Humon)

Down on the cape, in the basement. Feeling tired from travel.

Humon kept me honest.

I saw that I was dipping into the orange with r20, 180 stuff, so I kept away from any higher power segments.

We headed out late to go home on Saturday night.

Sunday – June 30 – No training

I was feeling lazy, but I managed to head outside and do a few hours of yard work. After that, I wasn’t in the mood for any training.

Monday – July 1 – Steady State with a few higher rate bursts.

I’m not getting to do a lot of rowing in my single these days, so this session was a treat. I decided to do an extensive warmup, all the way to the dam at Waltham center. I did a Rojabo style warmup, with stroke sets of increasing intensity.

I’m thinking that a more intense warmup, even when doing an endurance session “opens up” the circulation in the muscles and raises the smO2.

This certainly seemed to be the case today.

After the warmup, I rowed, focusing on technique. If I dipped into orange, I would ease off the pressure and focus on really easing into the drive from the catch. At the end of the trip back up the river, I saw a guy I knew, so I did a quick segment at higher rate to go say hello. After a quick chat, I did another twenty strokes or so of harder rowing, and then after navigating a set of booms across the cove, I settled back into normal endurance rowing. Something I am noticing is that I am tending to overload at the start of these intervals, notice the sliver of red. I slowed down to fix that , and again focused on form. The rest of the row was unremarkable, but I did another couple of quicker bits right at the end.

It was a really nice session and I managed to find a bit of boat speed in some of the harder bursts.

        Workout Summary - media/20190701-1335500o.csv
--|Total|-Total----|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time-----|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|14790|01:23:57.4|02:50.3|119.5|20.2|136.1|167.0|08.7
W-|12254|00:59:17.2|02:25.1|135.8|20.1|140.6|165.0|10.4
R-|02546|00:24:41.3|04:50.9|080.2|20.4|125.2|165.0|03.8
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|00324|01:37.2|02:29.8|135.0|17.8|127.1|135.0|11.2
02|00791|03:46.9|02:23.4|130.5|19.5|134.1|149.0|10.7
03|00853|04:01.0|02:21.2|145.9|22.1|146.7|157.0|09.6
04|00227|00:59.6|02:11.2|190.2|25.1|151.3|162.0|09.1 - 1' at r24
05|00314|01:23.4|02:12.7|182.1|24.2|142.3|164.0|09.3 - 30 strokes @ r24
06|00162|00:36.8|01:53.9|289.7|34.2|150.0|165.0|07.7 - 20 strokes @ max
07|02932|14:25.9|02:27.7|125.3|18.3|144.3|152.0|11.1 - back upriver
08|00165|00:41.7|02:06.1|216.3|27.3|140.2|151.0|08.7 - 20 strokes @ r27
09|00134|00:36.2|02:15.0|194.3|24.9|126.7|140.0|08.9 - 20 strokes @ r25
10|00136|00:37.0|02:15.9|185.6|26.0|114.8|128.0|08.5 - 20 strokes @ r26
11|02583|12:57.1|02:30.4|129.0|19.3|139.6|156.0|10.3 - back down river
12|01508|07:29.2|02:29.0|118.0|18.5|135.8|141.0|10.9 - back upriver
13|01484|07:18.0|02:27.6|124.2|20.0|142.6|154.0|10.2 - part 2
14|00234|00:55.6|01:58.6|241.4|30.3|147.4|163.0|08.4 - cut to turn
15|00406|01:51.6|02:17.6|140.5|24.7|142.6|160.0|08.8 - across lagoon

Tuesday – July 2 – 12 x 3’/1′

I got up early, mainly because I couldn’t sleep. It seems like trips to Asia mess me up for about a week. We were going to be heading down to the cape later in the day, and I wanted to get a session in. I also wanted to get back to some semblance of a training plan, so I decided to make this session a bit more intense.

I used to do this session as 15×3’/1′ Today, since I was pressed for time, I decided to take the first few intervals as warmup.

I wore the Humon, to see what these kind of intervals look like from an smO2 perspective.

So, they look kinda cool! You can see the quick trip into the red in each interval. You can also see the recovery. I was generally flipping from blue to green right when I was starting the next interval. You can also see the effect of cumulative fatigue in the lower peak smO2 as I get deeper into the session. I also slowed down. I was really having issues. I trust the power in the summary more than the pace.

        Workout Summary - media/20190702-1250500o.csv
--|Total|-Total----|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time-----|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|14244|01:04:09.9|02:15.1|168.3|23.4|150.5|178.0|09.5
W-|09284|00:35:53.1|01:56.0|228.5|24.8|156.3|178.0|10.4
R-|04970|00:27:10.0|02:44.0|091.9|21.6|142.6|178.0|11.4
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|00791|03:00.0|01:53.8|237.1|25.1|143.2|156.0|10.5
02|00797|03:00.0|01:52.9|240.2|25.1|148.1|160.0|10.6
03|00762|02:53.1|01:53.5|236.7|24.6|148.8|162.0|10.8
04|00794|03:00.0|01:53.4|237.6|24.6|153.8|165.0|10.7
05|00791|03:00.0|01:53.8|238.9|25.3|157.2|168.0|10.4
06|00778|03:00.0|01:55.7|233.0|24.7|157.1|170.0|10.5
07|00768|03:00.0|01:57.2|229.7|25.4|159.3|171.0|10.1
08|00754|03:00.0|01:59.4|217.4|24.6|158.7|170.0|10.2
09|00762|03:00.0|01:58.0|213.9|23.5|159.5|171.0|10.8
10|00766|03:00.0|01:57.5|219.1|24.8|162.2|172.0|10.3
11|00756|03:00.0|01:59.1|213.6|24.8|163.0|172.0|10.2
12|00765|03:00.0|01:57.6|225.0|24.8|164.7|178.0|10.3

I guess that’s why I need a training plan.

Wednesday – July 3 – 16km Coastal

A beautiful, sunny day. Not a lot of wind. A great day for a nice long row. I launched from the beach by Loagy Bay, and headed out to the red buoy. For a change, I decided to row down south a bit along the shore of Lt Island. There are a couple of big rock that are visible almost until high tide, and I could see them clearly, so I rowed down to the big rock to the south of the island. Then I doubled back and rowed on the inside of the other big rock back to the red buoy. Then I set a course for the harbor, basically due north. I threaded my way into the inner harbor and dodged a few power boats. On the way back to the beach, I hugged the shore of Indian Head, mainly to avoid the wakes from the boats in the channel out of the harbor.

It was a nice, low intensity session. No Humon today, but I kept the HR below 150. The pace varied all over the place because of tide (it was coming in) and breeze.

Thursday – 4 July – 4 x 10′ hard rate ladders

In the morning, I went for a low tide walk. I love doing this. I walked a little more than 3 km, and explored the sand flats going south from our house.

I didn’t feel ready to take on full power long intervals, especially in coastal conditions. It was another beautiful sunny day. A bit more wind, and with the holiday, every power boat was on the water and throwing up wakes. To make the session a bit more tolerable, I decided to make them rate ladders.

4′ @ r24
3′ @ r26
2′ @ r28
1′ @ r30

Why I do these intervals in the 1x, I usually aim between 26 and 28. But I usually am doing a 4 x 2K which is a lot closer to 9 minutes. I also have a lot less navigating to do and it’s a lot less choppy.

I rowed out to the red buoy as my warmup. I threw in a couple of hard 20s to get used to the idea. Then I had a drink and got ready. When I was within a minute of starting, I was swamped by a wake, so a quick flip of the autobailer was needed. Then I was off and rowing.

I focused on keeping my stroke light and hitting the rate. This was made challenging by the fact that I was doing the piece close to and parallel to the main channel. Someboats were nice to me and either steered wide, or slowed down a bit to minimize the wake. Others did neither of those things and I ended up with a cockpit full of water. As I got to the r28 and r30 sections, the boat traffic became a bit thicker and the wakes were pretty constant.

The second interval, I decided to row away from the channel. This was a good idea, but didn’t help entirely. I made it through 3 minutes of the first 4′ section and was totally swamped by a huge wake. I dropped a couple strokes and opened the bailer. I rowed the rest of the piece with the bailer open, which slowed me down a bit and made the boat feel a bit heavier, but it was better than sliding the seat through water, since I was flooded all the way to cover the seat deck.

I rowed the rest continuing toward Loagy Bay, and turned the boat in time to start the third interval. I did the usual bargaining with myself, that if I did a good job with this one, I’d stop the workout there. It was a fine interval. Less wakes, but I got swamped again near the end of the r26 section. I flipped the bailer on again and finished it out.

I felt a bit better than I feared I would, so I decided to do the last interval. I needed to get back to the beach anyway. This one went right to plan. No interruptions, no swampings, and no stops for the bailer. I just didn;t have much power left in my legs.

Good workout.

Tough to get a lot of metrics on this one because of the wind, current and waves, but the HR shows pretty consistent effort.

Friday – 5 July – 3 x 20’/2′ on slides

Another walk in the morning. This time going to the north side of the island. This time, about 4km.

Then in the afternoon, my wife and I kayaked around the island. This was huge fun, we saw a bunch of cool birds. We stopped at the bridge and I jumped off into the water. This activity is a summer tradition, as illustrated on the webpage for our residents association.

after that, we paddled back along the south edge of the island, this was a bit of slog into the freshening breeze. Fantastic.

Later in the afternoon, the wind had freshened some more, and I didn’t feel adventurous, so I went and did a 3×20 endurance session in the basement.

The first twenty minutes, I did in warmup format. Again trying to maximize smO2. I was pretty tired after the long walk and kayak adventure. It was interesting watching it climb even through the second 20 minute piece. Heart rate was quite low, but I felt taxed throughout.

Saturday – 6 July – 10K threshold

Another beautiful morning, another walk on the sand flats. I hit it right at low tide and it was a particularly low tide today, so I was able to walk all the way out to the big rock that I rowed around on Thursday.

From out there, the island looks very small.

I was able to walk around both of the rocks that I had rowed around on Thursday.

I lazed around for most of the day, and finally got up the oomph to go erg in the late afternoon. I definitely was not feeling too sharp, and I had a limited time window. I dove into a hard 10K without any real warmup and boy did I struggle at the start. I was having trouble getting into any rhythm and my breathing was all messed up. I stopped a couple times in the first 500m, and then rowed well below target power through 1000m. Then I tried to ramp up the power to target and bailed out again. I sat there for a few seconds and then I just started paddling.

My smO2 started rising. And I started to feel a lot better. I started pulling 200W and it was OK. Then as I went along, I pushed a little harder, and then a bit more. When I first targeted 200W, my projected finish was around 40:30. Then I pulled it down to 40:20. With 3000m to go, I pushed a bit more and saw a projected finish hovering around 40:00. With 1000m to go, I rated up and pushed the power up to around 230W which enabled me to finish in about 39:50.

        Workout Summary - media/20190706-2055480o.csv
--|Total|-Total----|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time-----|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|09997|00:39:48.7|01:59.5|213.2|24.9|153.2|174.0|10.1
W-|10000|00:39:49.2|01:59.5|213.2|24.9|153.2|174.0|10.1
R-|00000|00:00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|174.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|01000|04:15.1|02:07.5|196.7|23.5|123.2|140.0|10.0
01|00973|04:12.9|02:09.9|196.5|24.1|138.4|146.0|09.6
02|01027|04:05.1|01:59.4|206.0|24.3|149.2|151.0|10.3
03|01000|03:57.0|01:58.5|210.5|24.7|152.3|154.0|10.3
04|01000|03:55.8|01:57.9|213.5|24.9|154.1|156.0|10.2
05|01000|03:55.4|01:57.7|214.5|25.0|157.7|159.0|10.2
06|00964|03:46.8|01:57.6|215.1|25.0|159.8|162.0|10.2
07|01036|04:01.9|01:56.8|220.0|25.2|163.4|165.0|10.2
08|00967|03:45.8|01:56.8|220.2|25.4|166.5|168.0|10.1
09|01033|03:53.5|01:53.0|242.9|27.3|172.0|174.0|09.7

The smO2 shows the struggle with lack of a warmup. Once I was past the 10 minute mark and my muscles were actually working well, things were pretty good.

Good lesson to learn about how a warmup affects things.

Today is our last day down on the cape. Hopefully I will get to do another coastal row. Then tomorrow I have an early flight out to San Francisco for a big conference.

Quantified Rowing

Measure – Adjust – Improve

Tag: endurance