Tag: erg

Wednesday: 30′ L4 – Flying blind!

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I arrived home from Denver around 1AM, so I slept in to 7:30 instead of getting up to workout.  By the end of the day, I was a nervous wreck.  Lot’s of work tension these days.  So, I decided to do a quick 30 minute session to just calm myself down a little.

The session was 5 x 6′ L4 sequences (on slides)

2′ @ 22, 2′ @ 20, 2′ @ 18 at just under 10W x stroke rate, so 170W at r18, 190W at r20 and 210W at r22.

Everything was going fine until I was starting the 4th interval, when the batteries in the PM5 died in dramatic fashion.  By dramatic fashion, I mean that entirely theatrically.  It died and came back to life at least 3 times.  Each time it totally reset the session.  Ultimately with around 8 minutes to go, it died entirely and I was rowing completely blind.  As you can see from the HR plot, I seem to need the feedback because my HR went through the roof as I pushed harder and harder while counting strokes to try to hit the rate.

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I really needed this workout.  I felt much more relaxed afterwards.

 

Monday: 4×20 L4

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I decided to work from home today.  I caught a evening flight from Boston to Denver, and I wanted to get a bit of extra sleep and avoid driving.

I finished up my meetings in the early afternoon, and decided to do a nice easy endurance session.  I had a little extra time, so I thought 80 minutes of work time would be a good idea.

I started really easy

  • alternating 18 and 19 spm (10W x stroke rate) in 2 minute chunks for the first 20 minutes.
  • (18,19,20,19,18 in 2 minute chunks) x 2 for the second.
  • (4′ @ 18, 3′ @ 19, 2′ @20, 1’@ 21) x 2 for the third
  • (3′ @ 18, 3′ @ 19, 3′ @ 20, 1′ @ 21) x 2 for the fourth.

This worked out really well with me slowly pushing up the heart rate and hitting the top of the UT1 band in the last minute of the 80 minute session.  I felt very fresh after I was done.

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Tomorrow:  I have found a crossfit box about half a mile from my hotel.  I’m thinking that I might take another shot at the CTC.

 

 

Thursday: 8 x 2′ / 2′ rest

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On slides

Target pace 1:48 (I wish it could be faster, but I’m trying to be realistic)

Started off with a Fletcher warmup.  HR was a bit high.

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Then on to the main event.  I had a brief, little break down during the first rep.  Basically, it started to bite a little and I needed to do a gut check to decide if I was willing to “go there” today.  I was.

Annoying HR dropouts from the Wahoo TIKR again.  It only happens when I do short intervals.  I have no idea why.  I kind of enjoyed the last rep.

 

After that I did a 2K cool down.

Tomorrow:  3 x 20 / 1′ rest (static)

Wednesday: 3 x 20′ / 1′ rest

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I wanted to keep up my momentum, so instead of shortening the session, I got up extra early, so I could do the full hour, and still get to my 8am meeting on time.

The session was a carbon copy of yesterday’s.  Constant 20 spm, constant power, around 184W.  On slides.  HR was a little bit higher today, but only marginally.  In terms of RPE, it was exactly the same.

Tomorrow:  A bit of spice.  A short interval session.  8 x 500.

Tuesday: 3 x 20′ / 1′ rest r20

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The objective was an easy session.  Stay in UT2 and UT1 HR bands.

I decided to just stick to r20 and around 180W (on slides) and see what happened with my HR.  I hit the top of the UT1 band with about a minute to go in the session.

It was, all in all, very relaxed.

Tomorrow:  Shorter session.  I have an 8am meeting.  Probably a 10K (UT1) or something.

Monday: April CTC – 2/4/6/8

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The original plan for today was for another steady state session, but I felt like something with a bit more bite to it.  So, I decided to give this month’s Cross Team Challenge a try.

Here is the description…

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To say I had low expectations is an understatement.  Back in January, when I was in good form, I was able to crank out a 5K with a 1:46.4 pace.  From what I had read, this challenge was doable at faster than 5K pace.  But there are a number of mitigating factors that would cause me to set my sights considerably lower.

  1. My training has been intermittent and erratic since the end of January.  I’m accumulating meters at less than half the December/January rate in February, March and April.
  2. I have had 2 multiple day layoffs due to travel in the past three weeks.
  3. I am now working on slides, which kill me for middle distance pieces for some reason.

With all of that, I decided that I would be happy with a 1:50 pace.  It turned out to be a pretty accurate guess and a big ask in the final rep.

I started with a fletcher warmup.

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Then into the main event.

Then a 2K cool down

So, 5468m puts me in Free Spirits Boat #1 for the moment.  I should really be at least a couple seconds faster than this on pace, but I’m glad to at least have posted a score.

Tomorrow: 3 x 20′ steady state

Friday: 3 x 20′ / 1′ rest L4

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It feels good to have a couple of days back in my normal routine.  Today I did another low intensity endurance session.  I started very tame (18 SPM, 170W).  On slides.  The next 20 minutes I alternated 18 and 20 SPM.  Then for the last 20 minutes I added some 22 and 24 SPM bits.  HR was disappointingly high throughout, but at least I’m on the erg.

Tomorrow:  OTW on Quinsigamond.

Thursday: 3 x 20′ / 1′ on slides

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Sunday:  Red Eye to munich, arrived in the afternoon.  Straight into meetings.  No training

Monday:  Breakfast with customer, then prep meetings, then big customer meeting.  No training

Tuesday:  Unable to sleep Monday night due to jet lag.  Up at 4:30 to get to airport for flight home.  Arrived home at 1:30PM local time, straight to work.  Meetings until 6pm.  No Training

Wednesday:  Appointment for home inspection for place that we are buying on Cape Code first thing in the morning, then straight to work and meetings until 6pm.  No Training

Thursday:  Finally, a morning when I can train!  Up at 5:15, into the gym at 7.  Plan was to do an L4 session on slides and maintain a HR cap at the top of my UT1 zone.  I expected that my fitness would be negatively impacted by the lack of training.  The session fulfilled those expectations.  I needed to slow down continually to keep my HR from going way above the top of the UT1 zone.

One interesting feature in the graph is in the last 20 minute piece, I decided to consciously work on increasing my drive length.  I really reached at the catch and exaggerated my layback.  This was from about 10 minutes to 15 minutes in the piece.  No magic speed from it, but it is good to see the change reflected in the data because I was working on a changing the stroke.

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Same basic idea tomorrow morning.  I might tack on a little bit of power training at the end just to make it a little more interesting.  I’m basically just trying to keep plugging away as much as I can when can squeeze in the training.  The plan is pretty much out the window without a boat, I don’t really have a good objective to shoot for.