Monday: 75′ Endurance Session 1x

August 28, 20173 Comments

Weather: Stellar! Wonderful! Sunny. Almost chilly. Around 55F at the start, mid 60s when I finished. No wind at the beginning. A little headwind for the last trip up the river.

Plan:

2 laps of the river, roughly 75′
One water break halfway through. Otherwise, just turn and go.
stroke rate: r20 (to reduce the pressure on my lower back)
pace target: I would like to say I didn’t have a target, but I really like seeing the pace be faster than 2:30.
Heart Rate Limit: 155 max. Try to keep it around 150.
Technique: I watch effective length and tried to keep it in the upper 70s

        Workout Summary - media/20170828-145353-Greg Smith 20170828 0641amo.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|13983|74:31.0|02:39.9|141.8|20.0|145.4|156.0|09.4
W-|12631|63:30.0|02:30.8|151.7|20.1|146.0|155.0|09.9
R-|01357|11:01.0|04:03.9|088.6|19.8|142.1|155.0|07.3
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|00913|04:42.0|02:34.4|149.0|21.0|127.4|142.0|09.3 - to start
01|02944|14:33.0|02:28.3|156.3|20.2|146.2|150.0|10.0 - to dam
02|02823|14:15.0|02:31.4|151.6|19.8|147.3|153.0|10.0 - back to cut
03|02751|13:43.8|02:29.7|149.7|19.9|146.4|153.0|10.1 - back to dam
04|03200|16:16.8|02:32.6|150.1|20.1|149.8|155.0|09.8 - back past cut

The challenge of this workout was to balance three things at the same time. Keep my stroke long, keep my stroke rate up at r20 and keep my HR below 155. SInce I have been doing most of my endurance work at r18, or even lower, I am very used to rowing with a lot of stroke pressure. With a higher stroke rate, there are two things that could happen. I could row shorter with the same stroke pressure, or stay the same length and reduce the peak force. I wanted to do the latter.

Mission accomplished….

A few other parametrics.

consistent power
consistent length. A little shorter in the last 15 minutes or so
wash got worse as I went along.

Sunday: Same as Saturday 3 x 20′ / 1′ Dynamic

August 26, 2017August 28, 2017Leave a comment

We had house guests so I couldn’t work out until later in the day. I’m still struggling with the dynamic so I decided to just redo the saturday workout with similar targets to see what happened.

Plan:

3 x 20′ / 1′
stroke rate: r20
Heart Rate Limit: 155
Power target: ~160W (up 3W from yesterday, but I started higher than that yesterday and bled down as I went along. I wanted to be steadier in this session.

       Workout Summary - media/20170827-2245360o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|14300|63:00.0|02:12.2|156.2|21.1|145.7|159.0|10.8
W-|13918|60:00.0|02:09.3|161.2|20.7|145.7|158.0|11.2
R-|00386|03:00.0|03:53.2|060.1|28.8|144.4|158.0|05.3
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|04662|20:00.0|02:08.7|163.3|20.4|137.2|145.0|11.4
01|04640|20:00.0|02:09.3|161.6|20.5|147.5|152.0|11.3
02|04616|20:00.0|02:10.0|158.9|21.1|152.3|158.0|11.0

Comparison of Saturday to Sunday

Much more level power profile
Stroke rate wiggled around a bit in the last 20′ as I tried to max out power without blowing the HR limit.
HR climbed more slowly at the beginning, but was almost exactly the same for the last 2/3 of the workout.

Saturday: 3 x 20′ / 1′ dynamic

August 26, 2017August 27, 2017Leave a comment

HR limit at 155. Still struggling with this erg. Easily 20W to 30W lower power for equivalent HR. Rowing strictly to the HR limit.

I did concentrate on trying to keep my stroke lighter and stroke rate higher to try to reduce the stress on my lower back.

       Workout Summary - media/20170826-2215270o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|14107|63:00.0|02:14.0|155.5|20.3|147.3|157.0|11.0
W-|13842|60:00.0|02:10.0|159.2|20.1|147.4|157.0|11.5
R-|00268|03:00.0|05:35.7|047.5|26.6|141.7|157.0|04.4
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|04730|20:00.0|02:06.9|170.9|20.2|141.2|149.0|11.7
01|04570|20:00.0|02:11.3|154.8|19.8|147.4|154.0|11.6
02|04542|20:00.0|02:12.1|151.8|20.4|153.6|157.0|11.1

I am still perplexed about my performance on the dynamic. Here are very similar 3×20′ sessions. One done on the static about a month ago, and the one fro the dynamic done yesterday. I did a bunch of comparison charts, but I can’t draw any good conclusions.

I will do another session like this on Sunday.

Friday: Easy hour on the water

August 25, 2017August 27, 2017Leave a comment

This was a busy week at work, and I my lower back continued to give me trouble. I had business dinners on Tuesday night and Thursday night, and I was preparing for an important meeting on Friday morning. I was hoping that I could help out both situations by taking a few days off rowing.

I last rowed on Tuesday morning. A tough interval session. My back was killing me afterward. Tuesday I had a full day of meetings with a group from a customer, and we had dinner Tuesday night with them. Wednesday we had a group from a different customer visiting first thing in the morning, plus a big internal meeting that I was hosting. I ended up working quite late. On Thursday, more meetings and then a business dinner that kept me out until almost 11. On Friday, I was presenting in an important meeting at 9am, so I want to get to work early to dry run my materials a couple of times before I was up. It paid off, the meeting went well, and I felt a huge sense of relief after it was over. I finished up what I needed to get done by about 3:30 and decided to go for a nice easy row on my way to relax a little.

The plan:

60 minutes
Heart rate limit: 150
Stroke rate target: 20 (This is a significant shift for me. I have been rowing with much higher stroke power and lower rate)
No pace target.

        Workout Summary - media/20170827-150206-Greg Smith 20170825 0437pmo.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|10795|58:28.0|02:42.5|136.5|18.6|140.7|152.0|09.9
W-|10315|55:25.0|02:41.2|139.0|18.2|140.7|152.0|10.2
R-|00485|03:03.0|03:09.1|111.8|22.8|141.6|152.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|00908|05:00.0|02:45.2|144.2|18.7|127.1|141.0|09.7 - to start
01|03047|15:58.2|02:37.2|152.2|18.2|142.8|148.0|10.5 - to dam
02|02780|14:22.8|02:35.2|140.9|17.7|139.5|147.0|10.9 - back to start
03|01122|06:31.8|02:54.6|128.8|17.6|142.6|148.0|09.8 - 7 min out 
04|01333|07:25.2|02:47.0|128.3|18.1|144.4|152.0|09.9 - 7 min back
05|01125|06:07.1|02:43.1|119.5|19.8|142.7|150.0|09.3 - back to dock

The summary looks a bit weird for the pace on intervals 3 and 4. The eyeball average for the pace looks a bit faster than the summary.

I got distracted during the row and I completely forgot to keep my rate up, so I reverted to my normal r18 kind of rowing. But I did row a bit slower than a similar session from Monday. I was also rowing a lot shorter (as measured by effective length). I dug into the metrics

You can see that everything is a bit smaller for Friday’s row. That’s me being careful with my back.

Monday: Exactly one hour

August 21, 2017Leave a comment

Well, vacation is over. This morning at 5:15, my alarm went off. The alarm was loud enough to wake up my wife, but not me, so she nudged me awake. I was so tired that I felt nauseous, so I just shut it off and rolled over to go back to sleep.

But my brain had other ideas. There were so many different voices in my head. “Get up, do the session” “You need more sleep” “When’s my first meeting” “Do I have any free time blocks to go catch a quick workout on the erg?” “Should I even be rowing with my sore back?” After 9 minutes of this jabbering, I gave up, got up, and stumbled through my morning routine. The bathroom phase of the routine took a bit longer than normal. There is nothing worse than trying to row when you need to poop (sorry, but it’s true)

By the time I got on the road, I knew that my workout would be time limited. Luckily, traffic wasn’t too bad and i was on the water by 7:03am. I knew I needed to be on the road by 8:15 to my 9:00am meeting on time (allowing a generous 12 minutes to shower and change). So, that provided a window exactly one hour long for my row.

The plan:

60 minute recovery / endurance session
stroke rate target: 18 spm
target effective length: 80deg
target WPS: >450
HR limit: 150

My plan was to row until the elapsed time was 29:30, then turn around and retrace my path. This ended up being about 1/3 of the way back to the start from the dam in Waltham, right before the s-turn.

My heart rate was stubbornly low today. I’m coming to think that this is related to very hard efforts the day before. After about 15 minutes, I got up into the UT2 range, and I was able to hold my heart rate right at the top of the ut2 range with very small changes in stroke pressure. It was only in the last quarter when I felt a bit of time pressure did I push hard enough to get into the meat of the ut1 range.

Of course, I wish the splits were faster, but this was a good workout. It was nice to be on glassy flat water, and I felt like I could take long, smooth strokes. I am not enjoying the back issues though. Most strokes felt fine, but some strokes, especially when I was turning, or not well balanced at the catch provided not very subtle form feedback through my frayed nerve endings. I’m worried that this could get worse before it gets better.

        Workout Summary - media/20170821-193402-Greg Smith 20170821 0703amo.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|11157|59:12.0|02:39.2|142.1|17.8|139.0|152.0|10.6
W-|10839|56:02.0|02:35.1|145.8|17.7|138.8|152.0|10.9
R-|00322|03:10.0|04:55.8|080.6|20.9|137.3|152.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|01095|06:00.0|02:44.3|128.9|16.9|112.7|124.0|10.8 - slow turny bit
01|02932|14:47.2|02:31.3|149.7|17.7|136.1|144.0|11.2 - down to dam
02|01393|07:12.0|02:35.0|151.1|17.7|141.8|146.0|10.9 - back to 29:30
03|01395|06:52.8|02:28.0|157.6|17.5|141.2|146.0|11.6 - back to dam
04|03078|16:04.8|02:36.7|146.6|17.8|145.4|151.0|10.7 - back to start
05|00946|05:05.5|02:41.5|128.5|18.6|149.0|152.0|10.0 - slow turny bit

So, how much difference does nice flat water make? Here is a comparison of the stroke profile for work strokes yesterday and today.

So, with slick flat water I get higher peak and average force, an extra degree on the catch, a degree on slip, 3 degrees on the finish. Together it ends up increasing my effective length by about 7 or 8 degrees. That’s about 10% more length! The peak force angle also moved about 4 degrees to the bow. I guess more work in choppy water would be a good idea!

Here are some more stroke metrics. Nothing really weird in the data. The averages here do not exactly match the stroke profile because I pruned all strokes with WPS below 350J to get the turning strokes out.

Tomorrow: The plan calls for an L1 session. The Pyramid! OTW in my fluid. Stroke rate target is 30 SPM.

90 minute bike ride

August 13, 2017Leave a comment

I was planning on a L3 open water session, but when I woke up this morning, I saw my daughter’s fiancee dressed up in his bike riding gear. I asked how far he was going to ride. 20 miles. I asked if he wouldn’t mind some company. He didn’t. So off we went.

We live about 2 and a half miles off of the Cape Cod Rail Trail. The first mile is loose sand, sharp gravel and washboard dirt road. After that, you cross the salt marsh, cross a rickety wooden bridge and then you’re on a real road.

This video gives you an idea of what it’s like

It was grey out again this morning, but the forecast called for it to clear up. That did eventually happen, but before that we had mist, drizzle, and light rain.

The Rail Trail is beautiful. Wide, smooth and flat. Originally, we were just planning to ride until we hit 10 miles, and then turn and come home, but about 6 miles in, I remembered that the ride to Rock Harbor in Orleans was about 20 miles round trip, so now we had a real destination.

I took the lead on the way down. I don’t ride much, and I hardly even ride with another person, so I’m not really sure what the etiquette is in terms of pace. I would keep an eye out, an if I saw that I was dropping him, I’d slow down, and if I saw him up close, I’d pop it up a gear and speed up a bit. Then we swapped and he led on the way home.

Despite the rain, it was a really nice ride.

Tomorrow: I was supposed to do an L3 today. I’ll do it tomorrow.

An easy 90 minutes on a grey morning.

August 12, 20171 Comment

Weather: Overnight a front came through. You can see the sharp change in the dew point around 4:30am, and then the spike in the wind around 6:30am. Since this is vacation, I was blissfully asleep while this was going on. I got up around 8:30. It was really cloudy, but the rain seemed to have stopped. I debated just doing an erg session, but it seemed so nice and flat out on the water. I decided on heading out for a nice long easy row.

Of course, it started raining again as soon I was outside loading my boat. But I hung in and it stopped by the time I had driven over to the beach. It was close to low tide, but there was maybe 6 inches more water today than yesterday, so no trouble finding a channel out to deep water.

The plan was to do a nice easy row. I wanted to do most of it as UT2, and it turned out that way. It was one of those mornings where my HR was pretty stubbornly low. I can never really figure out whether that’s because I don’t feel like working hard, or if it’s some kind of after effect of a hard session the day before.

I went out without a firm plan about where to go. I ultimately decided to head out to Billingsgate Island, and then back up to Wellfleet inner harbor. All together, it was about 16km. I took one break, about 2 minutes when I got up to the harbor. Other than that, I just rowed.

Workout Summary - media/20170812-164441-Greg Smith 20170812 0922amo.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|16524|94:39.0|02:51.9|000.0|20.7|137.3|145.0|08.4
W-|16025|90:43.0|02:49.8|000.0|20.6|137.6|145.0|08.6
R-|00500|03:56.0|03:56.6|000.0|19.2|107.5|145.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|02600|14:57.7|02:52.6|000.0|18.5|123.6|138.0|09.4 - beach to buoy10
02|02700|15:24.7|02:51.2|000.0|19.5|139.3|143.0|09.0 - buoy10 to buoy8
03|03800|21:24.3|02:49.0|000.0|21.5|140.6|145.0|08.3 - buoy8 to buoy10
04|03100|17:26.6|02:48.8|000.0|21.3|139.6|145.0|08.3 - buoy8 to wellfleet
05|02365|13:35.2|02:52.3|000.0|21.6|140.7|144.0|08.0 - wellfleet to buoy11
06|01460|07:54.7|02:42.6|000.0|21.4|143.0|145.0|08.6 - buoy11 to beach

It was a bit choppy out between buoy10 and buoy8, but other than that, it was just tasty smooth water. The tide was slack at the beginning, but by the time I did the last leg back from wellfleet, it was pretty strongly against me.

Tomorrow: L3. Probably open water. I think I will do a row from the wellfleet breakwater out to buoy 8. That will be 1.87+3.17+2.98 = 8.02km. Roughly 40 minutes. I will aim at a stroke rate of 24/25.

Flying blind – 44 minutes doing something on the erg

August 10, 20172 Comments

I had an 8am meeting at work today, so not enough time to do an OTW session. I decided to do a short recovery session at the fitness center at work.

I discovered that the erg at work is still non-functional. You can pull the handle. The fan still spins smooth as silk, but the PM5 is blissfully unaware that that fan is spinning.

So, a rational person would have stood up, walked over to the elliptical trainer and worked out. I, however, am not a rational person. I decided to do a recovery session.

The plan.

40 minutes (I decided to add on 4 more minutes while I was working out)
Stroke rate 18 (by counting strokes per minute)
Heart rate cap at 150. Adjust stroke pressure to stay at cap.

Well, it all worked out just fine. I had a lovely time and around the 30 minute mark, I decided to add 4 minutes at 20spm at the end with no HR cap.

Tonight I’m driving down to the cape.

Tomorrow: L2 – 4x2k / 5′ rest. This will be an adventure. I’m going to do it in my Maas. So the pace will be slow, and the intervals will be long.

Tuesday: 80′ L4 1x

August 8, 2017August 9, 2017Leave a comment

It was so nice getting back in my fluid that I stayed out extra long. I did over 18km in the session including warmup and cool down.

The plan was to do an L4 session, adapted for OTW

L4 format
10′ sections
- 4′ at 16 spm
- 3′ at 18 spm
- 2′ at 20 spm
- 1′ at 22 spm
Take 1′ breaks when I needed to turn, roughly every 14 minutes or so.
No HR limit
No target pace or power to just set a marker for future sessions.

Workout Summary - media/20170808-154104-Greg Smith 20170808 0642amo.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|18347|102:15.0|02:47.2|134.2|18.6|151.8|173.0|09.6
W-|15585|80:00.0|02:34.0|148.6|18.2|156.1|172.0|10.8
R-|02780|22:16.0|04:00.3|075.5|19.4|135.0|172.0|06.7
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|00769|04:00.0|02:36.1|147.3|15.9|143.4|148.0|12.1
02|00592|03:00.0|02:32.2|170.2|17.6|150.6|154.0|11.2
03|00413|02:00.0|02:25.2|143.0|19.9|156.2|159.0|10.4
04|00218|01:00.0|02:17.3|202.4|21.7|161.7|163.0|10.1
05|00782|04:00.0|02:33.4|152.2|16.4|156.7|165.0|11.9
06|00592|03:00.0|02:32.1|152.6|17.8|150.0|156.0|11.1
07|00410|02:00.0|02:26.5|155.3|19.3|158.4|160.0|10.6
08|00209|01:00.0|02:23.3|172.1|21.4|162.7|164.0|09.8
09|00734|04:00.0|02:43.4|136.1|16.3|154.3|165.0|11.3
10|00383|02:00.0|02:36.8|154.6|17.3|155.2|158.0|11.0
11|00414|01:60.0|02:24.9|170.3|19.8|152.9|161.0|10.5
12|00211|01:00.0|02:22.0|183.1|21.5|161.6|164.0|09.8
13|00758|04:00.0|02:38.3|130.0|16.4|156.0|165.0|11.6
14|00590|03:00.0|02:32.4|148.5|17.5|155.7|158.0|11.2
15|00407|02:00.0|02:27.4|168.4|20.2|161.4|164.0|10.1
16|00214|01:00.0|02:20.4|191.6|21.9|139.1|156.0|09.8
17|00570|03:00.0|02:37.9|133.7|16.3|157.3|162.0|11.6
18|00572|03:00.0|02:37.4|138.4|17.9|156.2|158.0|10.6
19|00389|02:00.0|02:34.4|157.3|19.9|158.2|162.0|09.8
20|00204|01:00.0|02:27.0|160.7|21.6|164.0|166.0|09.4
21|00735|04:00.0|02:43.4|133.8|16.5|158.9|166.0|11.1
22|00587|03:00.0|02:33.3|138.9|18.3|151.3|158.0|10.7
23|00396|02:00.0|02:31.6|159.8|20.1|158.6|162.0|09.9
24|00202|01:00.0|02:28.6|179.2|21.6|162.7|164.0|09.3
25|00740|04:00.0|02:42.1|118.9|16.7|156.9|164.0|11.1
26|00582|03:00.0|02:34.6|141.1|17.9|157.8|160.0|10.8
27|00198|01:00.0|02:31.3|153.2|20.3|160.0|162.0|09.8
28|00198|01:00.0|02:31.5|153.9|19.6|146.5|152.0|10.1
29|00206|01:00.0|02:25.3|167.2|21.7|159.9|164.0|09.5
30|00730|04:00.0|02:44.5|117.8|16.4|155.6|165.0|11.1
31|00563|03:00.0|02:39.8|144.9|18.2|155.7|158.0|10.3
32|00398|02:00.0|02:30.8|151.8|19.8|162.1|166.0|10.1
33|00619|03:00.0|02:25.4|185.1|22.0|169.7|172.0|09.4

Average by stroke rate:

16: 2:39.8, 134W
18: 2:34.7, 149W
20: 2:28.8, 157W
22: 2:24.6, 179W

A few fun charts. The only insights I got from this was a gradual reduction of effective length as I got more tired. This was caused by my wash getting bigger.

Ugh. Jet Lag. 40′ L4 plus some junk meters

August 4, 2017Leave a comment

What day is it? Oh yeah, Friday.

So, let’s back up. I got to Tokyo on Wednesday afternoon, and had a very nice dinner with a customer on Wednesday night. I entertained notions of working out on Thursday morning, but decided to sleep instead. I headed off to the office at 8am, had a bunch of meetings until about 3 in the afternoon.

At 3, I headed off to the airport. I caught a 7 pm flight to LAX. The flight was flawless. Left on time, arrived on time, and the food was good. I even got about 6 hours of sleep. I arrived at 1:30 Thursday afternoon, five and half hours before I left (I am endlessly fascinated by flying east and getting in before I leave). At LAX, I grabbed a rental car and drove 3 hours south to San Diego.

I checked into my hotel and made it to a conference call with about 1 minute to spare. Total travel time from office in Yokohama to Hotel in San Diego… 16 hours.

I went to bed around 9 and slept great. Until 1:00. Then I didn’t sleep any more. Not even a little bit. I didn’t even doze. I was WIDE AWAKE. The time from 1:00 to 5:00 was the longest 4 hours of my life!

At 5, I got up and headed off to Cross Fit Del Mar. They were accommodating as usual. I was rowing by 5:30.

The plan was for an 80 minute L4 as 2 40′ chunks. It all seemed to be going OK until I got about 25 minutes into it. I was doing my usual 168/172/176/180 routine. I was in the middle of the 176 and I shifted up to the 20spm section. It just felt so hard. It took a long time to recover as I came back down to 18 and then 16 spm. Then when I did the 180, my HR started blasting off as I shifted up to 18, and it felt very hard. I stuck to it knowing that I was going finish the forty minutes.

I had some water and decided to just do 168/172/168/172 for the second 40′. But it was tough even rowing at 16 spm. I was just out of energy. I basically just piddled along trying to keep my HR below 155 for 20 minutes and then called it a day.

Oh well. Chalk it up to travel related fatigue, lack of sleep or whatever. I’m still glad I went and rowed.

Quantified Rowing

Measure – Adjust – Improve

Tag: endurance