Back on the water

September 19, 2017September 20, 2017Leave a comment

Sunday, September 17th

We hung out down on the cape until mid-afternoon and then headed home. There was still no AC in the house. But around 8pm, I settled in for a sweaty erg session. Today, painsled decided to cooperate.

The same session as Saturday. 4 x 15′ / 2′ rest with stretching in the rests. HR limited at 155.

        Workout Summary - media/20170917-2005310o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|14605|68:01.0|02:19.7|145.9|21.6|141.6|156.0|09.9
W-|13735|60:00.0|02:11.0|155.6|21.4|143.0|156.0|10.7
R-|00874|08:01.0|04:35.5|041.6|22.8|123.3|156.0|06.5
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|03481|15:00.0|02:09.3|161.5|21.3|132.8|142.0|10.9
01|03463|15:00.0|02:09.9|159.5|21.2|143.6|152.0|10.9
02|03412|15:00.0|02:11.9|152.7|21.3|146.1|155.0|10.7
03|03379|15:00.0|02:13.2|148.8|21.9|149.4|156.0|10.3

Monday, September 18th

Yet again I had to be home in the morning to let workmen in and get them setup. That killed any chance for a morning workout. I finally had a window around 5pm. I headed down to the fitness center. I’m worried about too much rowing, so I decided to start off on the treadmill with a 20 minute death march (15% grade, 3mph).

After that I was planning to jump on our brand new Model D indoor rowing machine. But someone beat me to it! While I waited, I jumped on a elliptical machine to get a few more aerobic minutes.

Now the rower was open and I hopped on. The PM5 picked up my HR monitor and linked with Painsled with no issues. I set up a time based interval session. 15 minute work and 2 minute rest. I intended to do 2 intervals.

        Workout Summary - media/20170918-1720320o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|07324|34:00.0|02:19.3|160.0|19.2|149.3|158.0|11.2
W-|06991|30:00.0|02:08.7|164.2|19.1|150.1|158.0|12.2
R-|00335|04:00.0|05:58.0|079.4|19.1|133.8|158.0|05.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|03562|15:00.0|02:06.3|172.6|19.5|151.0|158.0|12.2
01|03428|15:00.0|02:11.3|155.9|18.8|149.3|153.0|12.2

I was interested to see how it compared to the dynamic. Same stroke rate. I think about a 4 second pace differential, not as much as I would have thought going in.

Tuesday, September 19

I was so excited to get back on the water, I woke up before my alarm and just lay there imagining how awesome it would be.

Since this was my first early morning workout since my injury, I wanted to put in place my new protocol. I got up and went straight into my core routine (curl ups, side planks, bird dogs). Man, I am coming to loathe doing ab exercises. I stretched before and during and did some jumping jacks and stuff. Hopefully it was enough to squish some of the extra fluid out of my disks before I went rowing.

The drive to where I launch is about 30 minutes. I was on the water by 6:30. The weather was less than perfect. It was around 65F, with a fine misty drizzle and a bit of wind from the northeast, maybe about 7 mph. This was a headwind going downriver.

I was really happy that my balance wasn’t terrible. I felt comfortable almost immediately. The plan for the day was pretty simple:

steady state
r20
heart rate limit: 150. lower is better
no pace target
technique focus: keep knees together at the catch. rock hips over at the catch and keep spine straight. focus on isolating the back swing.

I was using the speed coach the whole workout but because I stopped right at the beginning to change what I looked at in one of the display fields, it stopped and I forgot to restart it. I didn’t realize what I had done until I went to upload the session and saw that it was for a total distance of 8 meters!

But, as an experienced speedcoach user, I have my backup. No heart rate, but at least I have the whole session on RIM.

        Workout Summary - media/20170919-193028-95635o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|12766|70:59.0|02:46.8|000.0|20.0|0.0|000.0|09.0
W-|11801|58:39.0|02:29.1|000.0|20.3|000.0|000.0|09.9
R-|00973|12:20.0|06:20.4|000.0|17.5|000.0|000.0|03.6
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|00821|04:07.2|02:30.6|000.0|19.8|000.0|0.0|10.1 - To the cut
02|03019|15:10.2|02:30.7|000.0|20.0|000.0|0.0|09.9 - To the dam headwind
03|02865|14:00.0|02:26.6|000.0|20.4|000.0|0.0|10.0 - Back to the cut Tail
04|02013|10:25.2|02:35.3|000.0|20.4|000.0|0.0|09.5 - to the bridge
05|02178|10:34.8|02:25.7|000.0|20.5|000.0|0.0|10.0 - back to the cut
06|00905|04:22.2|02:24.8|000.0|20.7|000.0|0.0|10.0 - Back to the dock

I think the paces are overly optimistic. I can see the jaggies on the map

(map provided by rowsandall using the latest and greatest navionics overlay!)

It’s more obvious in a close up of the s-turn.

I was so happy to be back on the water, I can’t even begin to describe how much better the rest of my day was. I was just walking around grinning.

Even more rowing

September 17, 2017September 19, 20171 Comment

I arrived home from Vegas around 9pm on Sept 13th.

Sept 14th: I worked from home because we are having some work done around the house and I needed to be there while the various tradesmen did their things. Around 4 in the afternoon, they cleared out and I went for a quick run. My intent was to do an erg session afterwards, but my wife came home while I was out running, so that part never happened.

It wasn’t much of a run, about 5km. I ran the first 4.3km, then walked for about 5 inutes and then jogged home.

Screen Shot 2017-09-16 at 9.56.06 PM.png

September 15th: The various projects that were supposed to conclude on Thursday, did not, in fact conclude on Thursday, so I needed to be home in the morning to supervise. I needed to be at work in the afternoon, so I left them unattended. A big mistake as it turned out because the work that was done on our heating system was done badly and will need to be redone. Since I got to work late, I spent the rest of the day rushing around, and then in the evening my wife and I spent hours trying to track down the people responsible for messing up our heating system. Ultimately we gave up and drove down to the Cape. So, no training on Friday.

Saturday, September 16th.

On the way to the cape, we got a call from the heating system company. They would have a technician at our house between 10 and 11 on Saturday morning. Oh well, I was hoping for an easy coastal row on Saturday morning, but priorities must be maintained. I headed back first thing the morning. I was quite pleased to see that it was way to foggy to row anyway.

The technician showed up at 1:50pm, in other words, nearly 3 hours late. And the work they did was just as bad as the work done on Friday. It will all need to be done yet again on Monday. The highlight was a slow and sweaty session that I did on the dynamic.

I’m taking a bit of a different strategy with the dynamic. I have upped the drag a bit, setting it around 4 or so. (drag factor 120). and I am keeping the stroke rate above 20. I am also working very hard to keep my knees together at the catch, keep my chin up and limit the amount of layback. It leads to a very different feeling strong. Less long and smooth, but much easier on my lower back.

I was annoyed that I didn’t have my HR strap, so I just rowed to constant pace (2:10, ~160W). In another strategy to limit the back strain, I rowed 15 minute pieces and 2 minutes rests, and I got off the erg and stretched during the rests. This resulted in a reasonable intensity and a huge sweat fest in the humidity (Did I mention that the issues with the heating also effected the air conditioning?)

I was further annoyed when painsled hung up around 8 minutes into the second interval. The PM kept going, but stopped talking to painsled for some reason. It’s really a pretty unreliable connection.

Here’s the first 23 minutes of rowing.

9-16

        Workout Summary - media/20170916-2110320o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|05470|25:12.0|02:18.3|157.2|20.5|0.0|000.0|10.6
W-|05383|23:12.0|02:09.4|160.9|20.5|000.0|000.0|11.3
R-|00088|02:00.0|11:18.4|029.4|21.9|000.0|000.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|03484|15:00.0|02:09.1|161.5|20.2|000.0|0.0|11.5
01|01898|08:12.5|02:09.7|159.9|20.9|000.0|0.0|11.1

Here’s the rest of it on the PM

Tomorrow: I hope to go for a row in the morning. Nice and gentle. Focus on good form.

A little bit more rowing

September 13, 2017Leave a comment

So, I was delighted to find that my back was not hurting more than usual this morning. It might have even felt a little bit better.

I had a conference call from 7 to 8:30, and then I headed to the gym to squeeze in a workout before my flight home.

I am trying to keep in mind the warnings that I have read about injury risk first thing in the morning, and wanted to be careful about how much I do, so I decided to do a 15 minute treadmill death march as a warmup and then a 30 minute row.

As it turned out, after I finished my warmup, somebody else was actually using the rowing machine. :-O

I had to wait 7 minutes for them to finish flailing about ineffectually. I also had to resist the urge to go offer coaching tips 😉

So, my time window was closing, but I still had 20 minutes. I thought it might be good to do a toned down version of a Fletcher Warmup. I’d do it at a slower pace, and focus on keeping my knees together.

The 15 minute death march (15% grade, 3mph) was the usual UT2 slog. My HR was just hitting the top of the UT2 band as I was finishing up.

While I waited for the erg to free up, I puttered along on an elliptical trainer, trying to keep my HR in the UT2 zone. So, tack on another 7 minutes or so of warmup.

Then the machine freed up, and I settled in for my fletcher.

I was doing it strapless, and I was pretty focused on both keeping my knees together, avoiding over compression at the catch, and avoiding too much layback at the finish. Rowing that way really kind of limited how high a rate I could do to around 25 spm.

The other limiting factor was how hard it was! I was gassed after the initial ramp up. Way too gassed. I have lost a lot of fitness over the past few weeks. Oh well, it is what it is. I have to take it slow and try to come back cleanly.

        Workout Summary - media/20170913-1150310o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|04777|20:00.0|02:05.6|181.0|20.1|156.0|170.0|11.9
W-|04781|20:00.0|02:05.5|178.3|19.9|155.5|170.0|12.1
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|170.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|00935|04:00.0|02:08.4|163.3|17.8|134.0|146.0|13.1
01|00958|04:00.0|02:05.3|177.9|20.0|152.7|158.0|12.0
02|00739|03:00.0|02:01.8|194.0|21.8|161.6|164.0|11.3
03|00256|01:00.0|01:57.1|217.1|23.5|166.4|168.0|10.9
04|00134|00:30.0|01:51.9|246.9|25.2|168.6|169.0|10.6
05|00454|02:00.0|02:12.2|154.6|18.4|163.9|170.0|12.4
06|00263|01:00.0|01:54.0|236.4|24.3|165.3|169.0|10.8
07|00451|02:00.0|02:13.1|149.8|17.7|164.1|169.0|12.7
08|00131|00:30.0|01:54.4|225.8|23.2|161.5|162.0|11.3
09|00460|02:00.0|02:10.4|160.5|18.1|162.6|165.0|12.7

Tomorrow: I think I will try to do another hybrid workout. Probably a 30′ run/walk as a warmup and 30′ UT2 on the erg, keeping the stroke pressure low.

This sucks

September 13, 20179 Comments

So, my last post was on September 2nd. Ten days ago. At that time, my back was killing me and I decided that I needed to really lay off the rowing until I figured out what was going on. I bought the book “Back Mechanic”, read it cover to cover, and I’m trying to use the good advice contained within.

This advice can be boiled down to:

Avoid aggravating your injury by practicing good “back hygiene”. This means sitting up straight and avoiding positions that hurt.
Figure out the most likely cause of pain by doing some diagnostic tests. (For me this resulted in a likely diagnosis of a disk injury in the lumbar region. One fun fact that I learning is that disks are hydrophylic, which means that they absorb fluid over night and are “puffy” in the morning. So, if you have a disk impinging on a nerve it will probably hurt more in the morning and will feel better after the disks lose a bit of fluid over the first hour or two of the day. Interestingly, this makes you more susceptible to disk injury first thing in the morning too. So once I get back to rowing, I should do a non-rowing warmup before taking a stroke)
Start strengthening your core muscles with a set of defined exercises that utilize a limited range of motion, but help to work on the muscle balance in you back and abdomen
Don’t do any stretching to the limit of you motion until you are pain free. Stretching will essentially release chemicals that ease the pain immediately, but will continue the inflammation cycle and slow down recovery.

So, I’ve been dutifully doing my core exercises nearly every day. They are boring and a pain in the ass, but I have to put in the effort. Over the ten days, the amount of pain I feel in the mornings has been steadily decreasing, but is not going away.

Yesterday I went to the doctor for my annual physical. I asked him about my back issues and he diagnosed me as having a problem with my SI Joint. This is the joint between the Sacrum and the Ilium. I am less than completely convinced he is right.

So, he has set me up for x-rays next week, and referred me for physical therapy. I need to find myself a PT that understands rowing.

I also discovered to my horror that I have gained 12 pounds over the past couple of months. I guess my eating hasn’t changed even though I’m burning a thousand less calories a day. Another thing I have to fix.

In terms of training, here’s a quick synopsis of the past 10 days.

9/3 – Another walk around the island.

9/4 – Another walk around the island.

9/5 – Fly off to California – no training. Used a lumbar cushion on the airline seat and that seemed to help reduce pain.

9/6 – 60 minutes in the fitness center. 30 minutes on the treadmill set to max incline at 3 mph, a fast walk. Then 30 minutes on an elliptical machine.

9/7 – 48 minutes in the fitness center. 30 minutes on the treadmill same deal, max incline, fast walk. Then I moved over to the elliptical for another 30 minutes. 18 minutes into that, I got a call from the guy I was meeting saying that he was in the lobby. I thought I had another 45 minutes before he was arriving. Dashed off to the shower. Long day of meetings. Caught the red eye home.

9/8 – Got home around 7am and slept for a couple of hours. Then worked from home. Late in the day, I decided to go for a short run to see if my back would tolerate that. It did. I ran for 30 minutes and then walked another 15.

9/9 – We headed back to the Cape on Friday evening and I’m glad we did. Saturday morning, it was incredibly beautiful out. I went for another walk around the island. I was feeling a lot of stiffness from the run on Friday, but my back was not significantly worse. The tide was low so I could get out on the sand flats a bit more and watch the birds.

9/10 – Same thing as the day before. Another glorious day, another walk. Still sore from Friday’s run, but less so.

9/11 – Monday. I had my doctors appointment, then a few hours of meetings and then headed off to the airport. I flew out to Las Vegas for a conference, arriving around 8 pm. Got to the hotel, grabbed dinner and went to bed. No training.

9/12 – Tuesday. I slept in a bit longer than I should have, so by the time I did my core exercises, I only had enough time for a 30 minute death march on the treadmill. I did that, showered and went to the conference. This finished around 5, and so I headed back to the gym. Now this hotel (The Wynn Hotel) has a fantastic fitness center. Lots of treadmills, stationary bikes, and a nearly new Concept2 Model E rowing machine with PM5. I managed to ignore it this morning, but it’s siren song was way too tempting for me this afternoon. I melted under the pressure and before I knew it I was sitting on the seat, linking my phone to the PM and firing up painsled.

Part of me thought this was pretty stupid. But part of me thought that a session done at lighter pressure would be a gentle test to see if I might be ready to resume some light rowing specific training. I decided to do 30 minutes and to up the stroke rate by 2 from my more normal stroke pressures. So 18 SPM would yield 160w and 20 SPM would yield 180W.

I also wanted to really focus on trying to limit my over reach at the catch. I’ve been dropping my legs apart to get more length and I suspect that this new aspect of my style is what is putting more stress on my back. So the goal for the day was to row with my knees together, even at the catch. I caught myself slipping a few times, but generally it was OK.

        Workout Summary - media/20170912-2040320o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|07278|31:07.0|02:08.3|169.9|18.9|145.0|157.0|12.4
W-|07280|31:07.0|02:08.3|169.1|18.8|145.4|157.0|12.4
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|157.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|02417|10:00.0|02:04.1|182.4|19.9|132.3|148.0|12.1
01|02364|10:00.0|02:06.9|173.6|18.7|150.1|155.0|12.6
02|02322|10:00.0|02:09.2|162.8|18.0|153.5|157.0|12.9
03|00176|01:07.8|03:12.2|068.3|17.7|148.3|157.0|08.8

Not very impressive, but I was glad to have done it. My back is letting me know that it’s a little unhappy, but the true test will be how it feels in the morning.

After that, I had reached my 30 minute limit for rowing, so I moved over to the treadmill and did 20 minute death march.

Tomorrow, I head home. I might have time for a quick workout in the morning before I leave, but I will only go if I’m not paralyzed with pain.

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.

Wednesday: 40′ L4

August 16, 2017August 18, 2017Leave a comment

Tuesday: Rest Day. I was in some pain. I have a pinched nerve in my lower left back / hip. I’ve had this injury before. I can row with it, but it is very painful to get up to a standing position, and doing something like bending over slowly to touch my toes is really painful.

Wednesday: My hip was still quite sore. Late in the day, I decided that a short L4 session might help loosen it up.

40′ L4 format
168 / 172 / 176 / 180
rate / power
- 16 / 155
- 18 / 175
- 20 / 195
- 22 / 215

       Workout Summary - media/20170817-0055250o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|09513|40:00.0|02:06.1|176.0|17.7|129.7|147.0|13.5
W-|09523|40:00.0|02:06.0|174.9|17.6|129.3|147.0|13.6
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|147.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|00469|02:00.0|02:07.9|162.4|15.6|096.3|118.0|15.0
01|00478|02:00.0|02:05.5|177.0|17.8|121.1|123.0|13.4
02|00463|02:00.0|02:09.6|161.5|16.2|122.5|124.0|14.3
03|00479|02:00.0|02:05.2|177.9|18.1|125.1|128.0|13.3
04|00465|02:00.0|02:09.1|160.6|16.3|125.8|129.0|14.3
05|00477|02:00.0|02:05.8|178.3|17.9|127.9|131.0|13.4
06|00462|02:00.0|02:09.8|159.9|16.3|128.4|131.0|14.2
07|00479|02:00.0|02:05.4|177.6|18.1|128.8|131.0|13.3
08|00463|02:00.0|02:09.7|160.4|16.2|128.9|131.0|14.2
09|00484|02:00.0|02:03.9|179.3|18.0|129.9|134.0|13.4
10|00459|02:00.0|02:10.6|161.6|16.2|130.5|134.0|14.1
11|00480|02:00.0|02:05.1|178.4|18.2|130.7|134.0|13.2
12|00498|02:00.0|02:00.4|200.4|19.9|137.8|140.0|12.5
13|00479|02:00.0|02:05.2|178.9|17.9|137.9|140.0|13.4
14|00466|02:00.0|02:08.8|163.0|16.2|133.5|135.0|14.4
15|00692|03:00.0|02:10.1|159.9|16.0|130.5|132.0|14.4
16|00724|03:00.0|02:04.4|181.4|18.1|133.6|140.0|13.4
17|00745|03:00.0|02:00.7|198.6|20.1|141.5|144.0|12.4
18|00261|01:00.0|01:54.9|220.8|21.7|145.4|147.0|12.0

My plan worked. I felt a lot looser after the session. Nice low HR too.

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.

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.

L3 – 10K

August 1, 2017Leave a comment

Restarting on the WP has certainly been a humbling experience. I did my best 10K ever in 2014. It was a 36:33, which is a 1:49.7 pace.

Now today was not intended to be a time trial, but still, it is a little daunting how much work it will take to get back to that level of fitness.

I was pressed for time, so I skipped the warmup.

I set my target pace for this session at 1:57. But I could tell by the time I got to 3000m that I wasn’t going to be able to hold it. My legs and lungs were both complaining and I found myself playing with stroke rate to futilely try to find a groove. I told myself that if I could stick it out to 5K, then it would be OK to slow down to a 2:00 pace.

This took off enough pressure that I could get through the piece, but even at a 2:00 pace, my HR plateaued and then started rising again. It was a struggle, counting strokes all the way to the end. It was 460 strokes by the way.

I skipped the cool down too.

But the session got done, and now I have a marker for next time. That’s the magic of the WP. There is no mystery about your goals for the next work. Just try to do a little better than how you did today. I need that simplicity right now.