Off to China

July 24, 20175 Comments

Once every calendar quarter we have business reviews. As an engineering company, we are naturally enthralled with applying acronyms to everything, so the weeks of reviews is QBR week. I am in a position where I am the principle reviewer for a set of them, and then later in the week, I try to put together a summary review for my supervisors. At the same time, we have to prepare for board meetings, get ready for employee communications meetings, and also actually take care of business.

Tuesday, 18 July: No training

I managed to find a brief window to exercise on Monday, and I was hopeful that I would be able to do some OTW rowing on Tuesday morning, but that was spoiled by a bit of a stomach bug that hit me Monday night. I was up for a lot of the night and I needed to be at work for an 8am meeting. After that, I was in meetings until 8pm. After that, I worked until 10pm catching up on email. I got home around 11:00 and didn’t get to bed until nearly 1am.

Wednesday, 19 July: No training

I slept until 7am and hustled off to work for more business review meetings which started at 9am. These went straight through to 6pm. After that, I needed to prepare for meetings with my boss that were happening on Thursday. I was at work until 10pm again, and got to bed after midnight

Thursday, 20 July: No Training

I was up at 6am, and right out the door. Thursday was a bit less stressful, with only 7 hours of meetings, but 4 of those hours were with my boss, so I needed to be on my toes. I needed to get right out the door at 6pm to get to an appointment. The evening was filled with domestic chores because I’d be leaving right after work for Cape Cod. Again, it wasn’t until after midnight when I got to bed.

Friday, 21 July: No Training

Again up at 6am, and quickly out the door. Meetings from 9 to 4. At four, I bolted out the door and headed home. I picked up my stuff and continued on to the cape, arriving at about 8pm (having picked up pizza right near my destination). Needless to say, I was eager to get to bed early, and I slept a long time.

Saturday, 22 July: 3 x 20’/1′ on the erg.

My schedule wouldn’t work out for a coastal row today, so before breakfast, I snuck down to the basement for a easy endurance session. I purposely kept the power really low since it had been 4 days without training.

I did the first two 20′ sections at 180w. At the end of the second, I was seeing my HR going a bit high, so I decided to do the last 20 minutes as 2×10′ L4 rate ladders

4min / r17 / 160w
3min / r18 / 170w
2min / r19 / 180w
1min / r20 / 190W

This was very entertaining, and I didn’t much mind that my HR spiked up a bit with the rate restriction and ladders.

Workout Summary - media/20170722-1545410o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|14888|63:07.0|02:07.2|174.1|19.0|147.6|165.0|12.4
W-|14430|60:00.0|02:04.7|180.2|18.9|147.6|165.0|12.8
R-|00464|03:07.0|03:22.1|052.2|20.3|146.9|165.0|07.8
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|04847|20:00.0|02:03.8|184.0|18.8|137.3|148.0|12.9
01|04829|20:00.0|02:04.2|183.0|19.7|149.9|157.0|12.3
02|00932|04:00.0|02:08.7|161.2|17.1|145.6|152.0|13.6
03|00713|03:00.0|02:06.3|173.6|18.1|154.1|156.0|13.1
04|00485|02:00.0|02:03.8|184.3|19.3|158.5|160.0|12.6
05|00246|01:00.0|02:01.8|194.0|19.9|160.8|162.0|12.3
06|00932|04:00.0|02:08.7|164.5|17.1|158.6|162.0|13.6
07|00711|03:00.0|02:06.6|172.2|18.1|157.4|159.0|13.1
08|00485|02:00.0|02:03.7|185.1|19.2|160.8|163.0|12.7
09|00250|01:00.0|02:00.0|201.4|20.1|163.6|165.0|12.5

That was good fun. I think I’ll do some more of that.

Sunday, 22 July:

I was planning on a coastal row, but I was stymied by weather. It was grey and blustery when I got up, so again, I opted for an erg session. Today’s plan

80 minute L4
4×20’/1′
Same rate vs power as Saturday
Keep it nice and easy.

Nice low HR, easy row. The low rates started to bug my back by the end though.

I notched up one stroke per minute after 30 minutes to make it a bit harder.

Workout Summary - media/20170723-1435180o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|19158|84:08.0|02:11.8|168.8|18.0|132.0|150.0|12.7
W-|18866|80:00.0|02:07.2|171.1|17.9|131.7|150.0|13.2
R-|00306|04:08.0|06:45.7|086.2|20.1|127.8|150.0|07.4
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|00917|04:00.0|02:10.8|154.2|16.0|106.3|119.0|14.3
01|00701|03:00.0|02:08.5|164.9|17.3|121.0|123.0|13.5
02|00475|02:00.0|02:06.2|174.0|18.1|124.3|126.0|13.1
03|00242|01:00.0|02:04.0|183.0|19.1|125.5|127.0|12.7
04|00917|04:00.0|02:10.9|156.4|16.4|124.4|129.0|14.0
05|00701|03:00.0|02:08.4|165.5|17.2|123.1|125.0|13.5
06|00476|02:00.0|02:06.0|175.0|18.2|124.1|127.0|13.1
07|00244|01:00.0|02:02.8|185.6|19.1|129.5|131.0|12.8
08|00916|04:00.0|02:11.0|156.4|16.1|116.8|124.0|14.2
09|00700|03:00.0|02:08.6|164.4|17.3|125.7|129.0|13.5
10|00480|02:00.0|02:05.1|178.7|18.2|129.8|132.0|13.2
11|00242|01:00.0|02:03.8|184.7|19.1|134.8|137.0|12.7
12|00933|04:00.0|02:08.6|164.8|17.4|131.5|137.0|13.4
13|00715|03:00.0|02:05.8|175.6|18.1|134.1|136.0|13.2
14|00486|02:00.0|02:03.4|186.2|18.9|138.5|142.0|12.9
15|00246|01:00.0|02:01.7|193.6|19.9|140.4|141.0|12.4
16|00900|04:00.0|02:13.4|168.2|17.0|126.0|134.0|13.2
17|00714|03:00.0|02:06.0|175.1|18.2|137.2|139.0|13.1
18|00484|02:00.0|02:03.9|183.7|19.2|140.3|143.0|12.6
19|00246|01:00.0|02:01.9|193.6|20.1|141.6|142.0|12.2
20|00936|04:00.0|02:08.3|166.5|17.4|137.9|142.0|13.4
21|00714|03:00.0|02:06.0|174.5|18.2|136.1|139.0|13.1
22|00483|02:00.0|02:04.1|183.3|19.3|140.5|143.0|12.5
23|00246|01:00.0|02:01.8|193.6|20.2|142.5|143.0|12.2
24|00932|04:00.0|02:08.8|161.5|17.4|131.9|139.0|13.4
25|00712|03:00.0|02:06.4|173.4|18.3|140.2|142.0|13.0
26|00483|02:00.0|02:04.1|182.8|19.4|142.6|144.0|12.4
27|00248|01:00.0|02:01.1|196.2|20.2|144.7|147.0|12.2
28|00247|01:00.0|02:01.5|195.5|20.3|149.4|150.0|12.2
29|00480|02:00.0|02:04.9|179.7|19.3|148.3|150.0|12.4
30|00712|03:00.0|02:06.5|172.8|18.4|144.0|147.0|12.9
31|00936|04:00.0|02:08.2|166.5|17.4|142.3|145.0|13.4

Now I’m off to Shanghai, the first stop on a two week trip with 4 different destinations.

Monday: Totally blind 40 minutes

July 17, 20172 Comments

Well, sometimes you just have to improvise. I went to the gym at lunch and settled in on the one erg. I found the batteries dead in the PM5, so I replaced them. Then I got all set up and started pulling. The PM would not register any strokes. I reset everything, and the PM would dutifully show me my HR, but not the pace, meters or stroke rate.

I was losing time, so I decided to just set up my iphone to show me my heart rate, and then I counted strokes per minute using the elapsed time there. I tried to hold about 20spm and I pushed hard enough to do most of the row as UT1. I backed off the pressure a bit as my HR passed 157.

Very unsatisfying, but at least I rowed.

Tomorrow: Back to Fluid in Newton. I think I will do an easy rate ladder session to get re-acclimated to the flat water rowing. I’m not entirely sure, but I don’t think I have been in my Fluid since June 21! :-O

Sunday: 15km towards Eastham

July 17, 2017Leave a comment

Our guests left around 10am, and we set about cleaning the house. I had such a good time walking the sand flats that I dragged my wife out for a walk around noon to explore around the north end of the island.

Things we well under control around 3 in the afternoon, so I decided to go for a row. Just about all of my rows have gone north into Wellfleet Harbor, generally to ge some shelter from the prevailing SW winds. Today, with very light winds, I decided to go south along the Eastham shore.

It was a very enjoyable trip. I wanted to row for about 90 minutes, which at my plodding pace in the Aero would take me about 15km. I was just going to row south for 7.5km and turn around and come home.

The trip was in about 6 legs.

From the beach to Red Buoy #10 (across the incoming tide)
Southeast from the red buoy to the Eastham shore (incoming tide on the starboard bow)
South along the shore until 7.5km (straight into the tide)
NNE along the shore until I got to the southern edge of Lt Island (with the tide)
Follow the shore around to the northwest corner of the island (not much tidal current)
Back to the beach, with a little bonus distance to get to 15km. (with the tide, this was fun!)

As I rowed, I kept track of distance and time. You can see the HR climbing as I approached 5K. I wanted to be sure I did that in less than 30 minutes. Then I eased off a little bit, until I was getting close to 7.5km, which I wanted to get done in under 45m.

I finished that about a minute and a half ahead of the pace plan, and took about that amount of time to drink some water and turn the boat.

Coming back with the tide, I got way ahead of the plan, but I was having fun pushing a bit harder, so I went with it. Then when I passed the northwest corner, and saw the pace getting faster from the tide, I wanted even more, so I kicked up the rate a bit and tried to hold about a 2:15 pace.

I saw that I would be short of 15km, so I headed a bit north toward the indian head shore line. I turned back when I reached the floats marking the corners of the commercial oyster beds. Then I just rowed until the speedcoach clicked over 15km.

I coasted to a stop had a drink and paddle back to the beach.

Fantastic!

I took a quick look at the iphone versus speedcoach GPS data on the charting SW. Generally it lines up very well.

If you zoom in you can see some differences. The most noticeable difference was the turn at 7.5km. The error there is 40m.

We left the cape around 8:30 and it took us nearly 3 hours to get home. I slept in instead of rowing this morning. I’m going to go do a quick 10K on the erg at lunch instead.

Sunday: 15km in Wellfleet

July 9, 2017July 9, 2017Leave a comment

Weather: nearly perfect. Temp in the low 70s, sparkling sunshine, wind from the NW at about 5-10mph with gusts to 15. This made the water lumpy, especially on the eastern side of the bay.

I launched from the northeast beach, my plan was another UT2/UT1 outing, about 90 minutes or so.

I headed up to Wellfleet inner harbor figuring that I would have less chop to contend with if I was closer to the north. As it turned out, the wind swung a bit to the west so I don’t think it helped all that much.

The row north was not that pleasant. I was bashing into the waves and not making very rapid progress. I was glad when I finally passed the breakwater and turned east. I was glad until 3 big cabin cruisers passed me at close range and high speed, stopping me dead in my tracks. After that, it was a smooth coast into the harbor, past the commercial dock and along the town jetty. I turned around the end and behind my boat, I saw a curious seal pop up his head to see what the hell I was doing.

I turned around behind the jetty and had a quick drink of water. A fishing boat pulled out ahead of me as I started to go back the way I came, and because of the “no wake” 5 mph speed limit in the inner harbor, I passed him. Later, as e passed the buoy marking the end of the speed limit, he returned the favor, complete with a monumental wake.

The row out of the harbor over to the great spit was another slog. I was going into to teeth of the wind but the waves were considerably smaller. I took on a lot less water and made good progress. I reached the shallows by the spit at around 8000m and turned SW to row in the lee of the spit. This bit was good fun. Flat water, wind on my starboard beam. I counted out strokes until I hit 11000m. In my fluid, on flat water, I do about 10m/stroke steady state. In the Aero, which is shorter and slower, and with a slightly higher stroke rate, I do between 7-8m/stroke. So it takes 120 to 130 strokes to cover a kilometer.

When I hit 11km on the speedcoach, I had a quick drink, and turned for home. This was bouncy fun. I was going nearly dead down wind and the waves built as I went across to the east side of the bay. It wasn’t particularly fast, but it was a blast.

As I passed the northwest point of the island I started a slow turn back to the beach, finishing just past the 15km point.

After I got my boat loaded, I went for a quick and refreshing swim.

Workout Summary - media/20170709-163411-Greg Smith 20170709 0901amo.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|15095|95:39.0|03:10.1|000.0|21.5|139.7|155.0|07.4
W-|14814|92:33.0|03:07.4|000.0|21.5|139.9|155.0|07.5
R-|00284|03:06.0|05:27.8|000.0|20.4|124.0|155.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|05172|34:18.0|03:19.0|000.0|21.8|139.0|155.0|06.9
01|05702|35:36.0|03:07.3|000.0|21.5|141.5|149.0|07.5
02|03940|22:39.1|02:52.5|000.0|21.0|138.7|147.0|08.3

Tomorrow: I catch a 8am flight to San Francisco. I’ll be out there for a few days, returning on the Wednesday red eye.

Saturday: Choppy 10k in Wellfleet

July 8, 20172 Comments

Weather: Sparkling sunshine. mid 70s. Breezy, about 10-15mph with gusts to 20mph from the SSW.

I launched at about 1:45pm, from the Northeast beach. I wanted to go for about an hour. Since the wind was from the SW, I decided to go south for a change so that I would finish by coming downwind. I also have not explored that side of the island at all.

I hugged the shoreline of Lieutenant Island as it wraps around to the south, then south east, and I skirted along the edge of the salt marsh. The initial part to the south was quite choppy and I managed to fill the foot well a few times. I am having trouble with the self bailer. It does not want to stay deployed. I think there is a spring that is supposed to hold it in position, but it is not working. So, ultimately, I gave up and just rowed with the foot well full of water. On the plus side, it’s a small foot well.

Once I turned the southern corner of the island and headed along the salt marsh, I was headed more across the wind and it took some work to get used to the waves on my beam. I didn’t realize how much the wind had built up until I turned around to head west. The wind was whistling past my ears and I was pounding into the waves. But the water was warm and the sun was out and I felt pretty confident in my boat. I just tried to keep track of my heart rate and basically ignore the pace. I kept track of the distance and I decided that I could turn north after I hit 6000m.

After I turned north, I got a better appreciation of how big the waves were since they were coming at me from the stern. Since my vantage point is so low, the waves looked huge, but I bet they were not much bigger than a foot. But at times, my bow would be completely buried. Other times, the stern would be buried for two or three feet, and most impressively, there were some waves that submerged the shafts of my oars while I was recovering. That was new experience for me.

Generally, I was able to handle the waves well, but a couple of times, I was pushed broadside to the waves and pushed around. But the boat has a ton of natural stability and I never felt like I was going to go over.

I turned the corner at the northwestern tip of the island and headed over to indian head. The waves were smaller and more regular here and much easier to judge. Finally I turned for home, heading back into the waves one last time.

I tried to draw the wind and tidal flows on the chart. The key thing was the tide was against the wind, which I think help pile up the water a bit more.

Screen Shot 2017-07-08 at 5.14.42 PM

You can see the effect of wind and tide on the summary chart.

to 800m: flat water in the lee of the island
800m to 3500m: rowing south along the shore with the wind and waves abeam, slowly turning to the east following the shore.
3500m to 4400m: rowing south east across the waves
4400m to 6000m: bashing my way to the west basically right into the wind and waves. The transients to very slow pace are essentially when a big enough wave totally stopped my and filled to footwell.
6000m to 8100m: Wind and waves on my port stern. This was the wildest bit. Again the slow downs were swampings.
8100m to 8900m: easy and fun surfing dead down wind.
8900m to 9500m: back into the wind for the last bit back to the beach.

You can see how rowing downwind in this amount of chop is more technical than aerobic. My HR was much lower.

myimage (84)

It turned out to be a pretty close to perfect 60 minute aerobic session (and a hell of a lot of fun)

myimage (85)

Its hard to describe rowing in waves. The gopro point of view doesn’t seem to show what it’s like. Here’s a picture of the waves after I got back to the house, from about 40 feet above the water.

2017-07-08 15.34.52

When I was out, there were more white caps and the waves were a bit bigger. They certainly seemed a lot more confused than they look from here.

This has nothing to do with rowing, but last Sunday, I went for a walk as the tide was falling. I skirted the edge of a salt marsh and I ran into what looked like the kingdom of the hermit crabs.

Tomorrow is the last day of my vacation. I’m flying out to California on Monday morning for a conference. I hope to wake up reasonably early and get my last row in.

Back from Korea – some training (and some eating)

July 2, 2017Leave a comment

Thursday, June 29: I posted about my workout in the morning. I had the morning in the office, and then headed to the airport at 2pm Korea time. I took off at 5:30pm, arrived in Dallas, around 4:30pm. Connected to Boston, taking off at 6:25pm and arrived in Boston around 11pm. I got my car and pulled around to a different terminal to meet my daughter who was flying in from St. Louis.

She took over driving duties and we headed off to Cape Cod, arriving at 1:30AM. My total travel time 24 hours and 30 minutes. I was surprised to see my sons when I got to the house. I guess they keep late hours.

Friday, June 30: Honestly, I don’t remember much about Friday. I was tired. It was very windy. The highlight of the day was my quest to make great lobster rolls. First stop, great bread from this amazing french bakery near us (PB Boulangerie in Wellfleet). The traditional lobster roll is on a buttered split top hot dog bun. I prefer a fresh Croissant. Still buttery, but also flakey and light. Next stop, Mac’s fish market on the pier to buy some cooked lobster. Finally, the Wellfleet market for celery, since lobster salad needs a little crunch.

Lobster Salad (serves 2) (I quadrupled the recipe)

Two big flakey, fresh croissants
1/2 pound cooked lobster, cut into biggish chunks
1 stalk celery, diced
Hellman’s Mayonaisse to taste
dash of salt
dash of ground black pepper
dash of italian seasoning
1/4 lemon squeezed

Warm up the croissants in the oven while you make the salad. mix the lobster, celery, salt, pepper and italian seasoning in a bowl. Add a tbsp of mayo and mix, and then add a tsp at a time until the salad just barely clings together. Squeeze a bit of lemon juice over the top

Slice the croissants, add the lobster salad and enjoy.

Ummmm. No training

Saturday, July 1: More hanging around. More wind. It was above 40mph sustained winds for a while. I did an erg session.

3 x 20′ / 2′

I just wanted to keep it easy so I set off at 2:08 pace and held it for the first 2 pieces. I got bored so I did the last 20 minutes L4 style

Workout Summary - media/20170701-2315210o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|14515|65:12.0|02:14.8|162.9|18.9|138.5|154.0|11.8
W-|13640|58:00.0|02:07.6|168.7|18.9|138.6|154.0|12.5
R-|00880|07:12.0|04:05.7|082.0|19.0|129.7|154.0|10.9
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|04697|20:00.0|02:07.8|167.4|18.7|129.0|138.0|12.5
01|04696|20:00.0|02:07.8|168.4|18.9|140.3|146.0|12.4
02|00925|04:00.0|02:09.7|160.1|17.8|136.4|145.0|13.0
03|00707|03:00.0|02:07.4|169.3|19.0|147.2|148.0|12.4
04|00478|02:00.0|02:05.5|176.6|19.9|150.4|152.0|12.0
05|00486|02:00.0|02:03.3|186.5|20.6|153.2|154.0|11.8
06|00714|03:00.0|02:06.0|175.3|19.7|152.5|153.0|12.1
07|00937|04:00.0|02:08.0|166.8|18.6|150.3|152.0|12.6

Later in the day, I went and gathered some oysters from the sand bars in front of the house. Then it was my first attempt at solo shucking. I got a quick lesson last summer, and I managed to shuck a dozen or so oysters without impaling myself.

Sunday, July 2nd: Too much stuff going on all day. We dropped our daughter off at the ferry in Provincetown, and I went for a nice walk around the island, but no training.

There was a very nice sunset on Sunday though.

And later that night the next town had their fireworks. They were pretty far off in the distance, but it was fun to be able to see them from our porch. They were down in Rock Harbor, which is 10.7km SSE from where we are. The fireworks plainly visible, but not very impressive from that distance.

Catching up and slowing down

June 25, 2017July 17, 20171 Comment

Wow. I haven’t posted since last Monday. It’s been a busy week.

If you recall, Monday’s workout was terrible.

6/20 – Tuesday: The plan called for a massive workout…

3 x 30′ / 3′

MP, 10KP, MP

90.0%

(167)

I was up late on Monday night and slept in instead of trying to go on the water. I thought I could do the workout on the erg later in the day when my schedule was freer. I was wrong.

It ended up that I didn’t have time to do the whole workout, so I thought I would change it to be 20′ @ MP, 30′ @ 10kp and 20′ @ MP.

I had hopes that my workout on Monday was just a fluke, so i set out with aggressive power targets. 200W for MP, and 230 for 10KP.

I didn’t last.

I did the first 20 minutes per plan, but my HR was too high and I was struggling. I backed off the 10KP to the bottom of the power range (210W), but I busted through the HR cap within about 8 minutes and was flailing around and struggling for breath. I handled down. I tried to start again, and HD’ed again. I decided to just paddle it out to 20 minutes and then pack it in for the day.

Workout Summary - media/20170620-183745-sled_2017-06-20T13-28-55ZEDT.strokes.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|09995|42:07.0|02:06.4|192.6|21.7|154.9|168.0|10.9
W-|09633|39:07.0|02:01.8|198.3|21.7|155.5|168.0|11.4
R-|00365|03:00.0|04:06.3|068.2|21.2|137.4|168.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|05008|20:00.0|01:59.8|203.0|21.4|151.5|162.0|11.7
01|01791|07:00.0|01:57.3|218.1|23.5|158.6|168.0|10.9 -HD
02|02834|12:07.4|02:08.3|179.2|21.1|160.4|166.0|11.1 - paddle it out

Very Frustrating.

6/21 – Wednesday: Tuesday night I was up late yet again. Again, I decided that missing sleep to row was a bad call. But on Wednesday, in an attempt to find my bliss, I left work a bit early, blew off the training plan and just went rowing. The goal to keep my HR under 150 and just enjoy being out in the sunshine.

It was glorious. It was quite windy, and there was a lot of kayaks and canoes out on the river. I haven’t had a chance to upload the speedcoach data, all I have handy is the RIM data, without HR.

It was slow, both because of the breeze, and also because of the HR cap. I am still getting used to the new oars. This was a very nice, easy way to get some strokes in.

Workout Summary - media/20170625-222721-89865o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|14324|77:10.0|02:41.6|000.0|17.5|0.0|000.0|10.6
W-|14325|77:10.0|02:41.6|000.0|17.5|000.0|000.0|10.6

6/22 – Thursday: I was up until 1:30AM on Wednesday night, getting my car packed. We are getting the house down on the cape ready for visitors. I slept until 7 and rushed off to work. I was going to take Thursday as a rest day. I was due for a rest day. I worked until around 4 and then headed off to the cape. The traffic was horrifying. I didn’t get there until 7:30!

6/23 – Friday: Open water rowing seems to be a probabilistic endeavor. The tides are really big right now, so I wanted to avoid low tide, which was just before am.

So, I slept in and I thought I would go in the early afternoon. That’s when the wind changed my plans.

Around noon, the wind just started building, and building. By seven pm the sustained wind speed was over 40 mph with gusts nearing 50.

Instead, I got busy with a bunch of work around the house. The most involved of these chores was repairing the bottom 8 steps of the stairs down to the beach. The bottom 3 or 4 steps are actually submerged at high tide and they take a terrific beating during the winter. On Friday, I jacked up and braced the stairs, fixed the handrails, and fixed 4 steps. The steps I’m talking about are the ones below that final platform you can see at the end of stairs in this picture.

There was a bit of aerobic benefit from going up and down the stairs about 6 times, but beyond that, there was no training on Friday.

6/24 – Saturday:

Again, I was hoping for a late morning row. But again, the weather did not cooperate.

In the morning, when I got up, the wind was blowing and the sky was grey and angry. It got steadily worse. The weather log tells the story.

The wind howled overnight, with gusts up to 50mph. The wind stayed up above 30 mph all morning and there was intermittent rain. Right around 11:00, dark storm clouds rolled in across the water and the sky opened up. It rained hard for about an hour. During that hour I decided to erg. When I came back upstairs, the sky was clearing, the wind was dropping, and I had other stuff that needed to get done.

The session was an easy one.

3 x 20′ / 1′ rest @ 180.

This went better than the workouts earlier in the week, but was still a sweaty slog. I guess the 90% humidity took a bit of a toll. I had to back off in the last interval to keep my HR below 155.

Workout Summary - media/20170624-1825210o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|14693|63:00.0|02:08.6|176.2|20.4|147.6|156.0|11.4
W-|14420|60:00.0|02:04.8|179.7|20.4|147.6|156.0|11.8
R-|00276|03:00.0|05:26.6|052.3|21.1|144.1|156.0|07.1
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|04834|20:00.0|02:04.1|182.5|20.0|140.2|148.0|12.1
01|04813|20:00.0|02:04.7|180.1|20.4|150.1|155.0|11.8
02|04774|20:00.0|02:05.7|176.6|20.7|152.6|156.0|11.5

6/25 – Sunday: This morning I was up early-ish because I wanted to get a quick session in before I headed off to the airport.

2 x 40’/1′ rest @ 180.

Workout Summary - media/20170625-1255220o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|09872|42:00.0|02:07.7|179.2|20.2|139.7|152.0|11.6
W-|09657|40:00.0|02:04.3|182.4|20.1|139.8|152.0|12.0
R-|00216|02:00.0|04:39.9|074.1|22.8|129.4|152.0|08.1
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|04835|20:00.0|02:04.1|182.7|20.0|134.3|144.0|12.1
01|04822|20:00.0|02:04.4|182.1|20.2|145.3|152.0|11.9

So now I am on a plane to Tokyo, then connecting to Korea. I’ll be there through Thursday. It’s a challenge to maintain a training plan with summer vacations and work travel. I just have to play it by ear, be flexible and try to focus on having some fun with it.

2 x 40 / 2′ (mp)

June 18, 2017Leave a comment

The wind was blowing hard today. Around 20mph with gusts to 25 in the morning and 35 with gusts to 40 in the afternoon. The water looked very angry.

I decided to erg. 😦

The plan:

2 x 40′ / 4′

MP or slower

75.0%

(140)

I decided to row to a HR cap of 155 instead of 140.

Workout Summary - media/20170618-1950210o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|20007|84:00.0|02:06.0|180.6|20.1|142.1|152.0|11.9
W-|19349|80:00.0|02:04.0|183.3|20.0|142.1|152.0|12.1
R-|00660|04:00.0|03:01.8|110.7|22.2|139.9|152.0|09.3
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|09677|40:00.0|02:04.0|183.3|19.9|136.8|147.0|12.2
01|09672|40:00.0|02:04.1|183.3|20.1|147.5|152.0|12.0

Felt very easy.

Tomorrow:

4 x 15′ / 4′

9′ @ 5KP, 6′ @ MP

92.5%

(172)

OTW

Sunday: 2 x 30′ / 2′

June 4, 20171 Comment

I hate the dynamic erg. I never have a good workout on it. It is unpleasant to row and very noisy. I think it’s time to sell it and buy a model D.

You might guess that todays workout was not so good. You’d be right.

The plan was

2 x 30′ at mp or slower
2 minutes rest
HR cap at 150

Just and easy session. On a static erg, I would probably crank the first interval out at 180W and the second at 175W and it would be nice and easy. On the dynamic, it was awful. It felt like I was rowing through weeds the whole time. I cranked the drag down to 1 (DF = 82 for the purists) and it still felt heavy. I’m done with it.

Workout Summary - media/Import_29874956.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|14297|62:45.0|02:11.7|151.4|20.8|149.2|160.0|11.0
W-|13870|60:00.0|02:09.8|158.6|20.5|149.9|160.0|11.3
R-|00429|02:45.0|03:12.2|047.8|23.6|134.6|160.0|05.8
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|07092|30:00.0|02:06.9|168.7|19.3|145.9|154.0|12.2
01|06777|30:00.0|02:12.8|148.6|21.7|154.0|160.0|10.4

Tomorrow:

4 x 15′ / 4′

6′ @ 5KP, 9′ @ MP

92.5%

(172)

I’ll do the usual shortening of the 9′ segments.

power targets

5kp: 197-210
mp: 158-171

Today I registered for my first coastal race. The Provincetown Regatta, next Saturday. It’s a little race. 8k long, two laps of an M shaped 4k long course.

I am training through this race. I am doing it mainly to get an event under my belt before the Blackburn and to meet some Cape Cod based rowers.

You can check out the race on regatta central

Provincetown Regatta

Saturday: 20km on Quinsig

June 3, 20172 Comments

One must be adaptable. My original plan was to do a long open water row this morning, but we decided to stay home instead of going to the cape this weekend. So, I texted Joe and asked him if he wanted to do a long row in the double this morning at 6.

He was willing, so that was the plan. The weather this morning was beautiful. A bit chilly, in the upper 40s. There was no wind when we arrived, but a light breeze picked up by the time we launched. It was shifty, coming sometimes from the NE, sometimes from the SE, and sometimes it was non-existent. This was mostly a cross wind. It was sunny and clear and the water was nice and flat.

We took out the Wintech double that we bought from Saugatuck. I really like the boat. It’s easy to set and much lighter than the old Vespoli we had been rowing last year.

I didn’t have much of a plan, beyond 90 minutes of UT1. We rowed to the south end of the lake. That was mostly just us getting in sync and watching the scenery. I stepped up the stroke rate over the last 1500m or so to spice things up.

Once we spun the boat, I asked if Joe was up for some easy rate ladders. He was, and off we went. The plan was 6 minute ladders. 3 minutes at r20, 2 minutes at r22, and 1 minute at r24. Repeat until you run out of lake.

It took us 4 and half ladders to get to the north end of the lake. I checked if we had the time and energy to go all the way back to the south end of the lake. We did 🙂

Going back south, it took almost 5 complete ladders. We got waked right at the end, which was a bummer. By then we were getting short on time so we spun the boat and headed back north to the boat house. We did two more ladders, which brought us to about 1k south of the bridge. Joe said we should row past the docks since there was a crowd gathering for learn to row day. The plan would be to row at r20 until we got to the bridge, and then I would bring the rate up to 28 or so and we would demonstrate the beauty and grace of our rowing to assembled throng.

That was the plan. I’m not sure how beautiful or graceful it was, but there was a lot of water in the footwell and Joe looked very wet by the time we finished. :-O I guess I really need work on my catches to reduce my backsplash!

After that we helped out with our humble part of National Learn To Row Day. We had a couple dozen folks show up. So we taught the basics of the stroke on a dozen ergs, got the to sign away all their rights, and then took them out in a couple of eights for a quick row.

All in all, a fantastic morning.

Tomorrow: rest day.

Quantified Rowing

Measure – Adjust – Improve

Tag: endurance