Work wins!

January 26, 2020January 26, 20201 Comment

Well, I’ve lost a bit of momentum. The past couple of weeks, I’ve been focused pretty intently on work.

Here’s the damage

I’ve missed 3 training days in the past 8, and two of my workouts were less than stellar fitness center cross training sessions.

Sunday – 1/12/2020 – 4 x 30’/2′ Steady State

Glorious long steady state row on slides, listening to a good audio book.

       Workout Summary - media/20200112-1951170o.csv
--|Total|-Total----|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time-----|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|29536|02:07:59.9|02:10.0|167.4|18.4|139.6|154.0|12.6
W-|28579|01:59:50.8|02:05.8|176.0|18.3|140.3|153.0|13.0
R-|00960|00:08:00.0|04:10.0|041.2|19.5|129.9|153.0|09.1
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|07126|29:50.8|02:05.7|176.2|18.3|132.4|143.0|13.0
01|07147|30:00.0|02:05.9|175.5|18.3|138.2|144.0|13.0
02|07149|30:00.0|02:05.9|175.8|18.3|142.6|151.0|13.0
03|07156|30:00.0|02:05.8|176.5|18.3|147.9|153.0|13.1

Monday – 1/13/2020 – 4×1000/5′ L1

At workout. On a static erg. Feeling pretty good. Target pace 1:45.

Started with a quick warm up.

That was a bit over exuberant, so I paddled a 1000m

No avoiding it any longer.

Wow! That was great.

I am getting more comfortable at stroke rates around 30.

Tuesday – 1/14/2020 – 2×30’/2′ L4

Wednesday – 1/15/2020 – 5×1500/5′ L2

Pressed for time so I did the first 1500 as a warmup. My target was 1:48.

Leave off the warmup and that’s a 1:47.7 pace vs my 1:48 target. Tough work, but a big success.

Thursday – 1/16/2020 – No Training

Big day for quarterly business reviews. They started at 8am and I felt like should spend time prepping for the meetings.

Friday – 1/17/2020 – 15 x 3’/1′ L3

This is a very intense workout. Pretty grumpy that Painsled hung up on me. My target was 800m per interval, which I think is about a 1:52.5 pace.

Here’s the hear rate data from my apple watch (hooray for redundancy!)

And here are the old school monitor shots.

Actual: 1:50.7, and nearly a complete negative split. I certainly layed out a really strong last rep.

Saturday – 1/18/2020 – Ergsana

I went out to Worcester to row with my friends. There were two parts to the workout. First was an erg session, then about an hour of yoga. I have never done yoga before in my life and this was the seventh of eight sessions. I was definitely the slow learner of the session.

But the erg session was fun. I have never done any of the games that are built into the concept2 PM5. It was very fun doing them as a group because for each game you could compete both on points, and on other things like distance covered.

First up was the fish game. As far as I could tell, this game rewarded what I will charitably call unconventional technique. You needed to make constant adjustments to stroke rate and stroke power to eat little fishes and avoid big fishes. But, it definitely rewarded pushing yourself because the harder you go, the more of the screen you can cover to eat them fishies.

Each fish game is 4 minutes long and I found myself finishing each at about a 1:50 pace. Since there was a lot of speeding up and slowing down, this was more challenging that you might imagine. My scores ranged from 1170 to 1440. I pretty much stunk at the game play, but after 4 games, I was pretty bushed.

After that, we tried the darts game. This game was my jam. It rewarded consistency, and I have done an awful lot of steady state rowing. With the darts game, a “dart” comes on the screen at the left and at some point begins to drop down. You must judge the trajectory of the dart and decide when to pull and how hard. The drive sends the dart climbing and the rate of climb is rated to how hard you pull. If you get it right, the dart lands in the center of the dartboard and you get 50 points. A game is 300 darts, so a maximum of 15000 points.

You get 5 strokes to set a rhythm and I guess I was a bit amped up because I set out at a stroke rate of 24. But I was also in a groove. I was nailing the bullseye on most of my strokes. But I couldn’t ease up. If I did, then the darts started to go low. the game was incredibly reinforcing. I kept digging deeper and deeper, and finished with 1:52.2 average over 3225 meters. (13785 points in the game) I also finished with a heart rate of 182. Doing a 12 minute piece after the 4x4min was a pretty big ask.

Sunday – 1/19/2020 – No Training

I flew out to California in the afternoon and arrived quite late. I discovered there was a Furry Convention at my hotel.

Well, that was not what I expected!

Monday – 1/20/2020 – 2 x 30′ in the fitness center

30 minutes on the treadmill and 30 minutes on a recumbent stationary bike.

A cool thing is I discovered that the apple watch would link up magically to the exercise gear. There is a little note on the screen of the treadmill or bike that says “Connects to Apple Watch”, and you just put the watch close to the screen and a little bowtie symbol shows up.

After that, what ever the machine is recording shows up in the watch.

30 minutes at max incline on the treadmill at 3mph. Then rolling hills on the stationary bike.

I had meetings all day, and then a business dinner in the evening. Back at the hotel at a reasonable hour and right to bed.

Tuesday – 1/21/2020 – 9km run

I had a very important meeting in the morning and then a bunch of other meetings until mid afternoon. We headed back to our hotel, now entirely devoid of furries and I decided to go for a run.

I decided to follow Guadalupe Park, and discovered there are a LOT of homeless people in San Jose. There is so much wealth in silicon valley, but it has squeezed people on the margins out of their homes and into tents. Profoundly depressing.

It was also a lot of running for someone who doesn’t run. I was sore for days afterward.

After a shower, I headed to meet up with my work friends. We watched some basketball (and I drank a couple of beers), then we met some other work folks for an excellent greek dinner.

Another good night’s sleep.

Wednesday – 1/22/2020 – 2×30′ fitness center

Feeling quite sore and not quite motivated.

30 minutes on the elliptical and 30 minutes on the bike. Both magically connected to the apple watch!

Short intervals on the elliptical, Rolling hills on the bike

Pretty tame.

Meetings during the day and a business dinner that night with the unit of our company in San Jose. They had a fantastic year, beating all targets and launching an important new product. This was the dinner to congratulate them.

Thursday – 1/23/2020 – No Training

Up at 5am to drive to the airport. Arrived in Boston around 5pm.

Friday – 1/24/2020 – 3×20’/2′ L4

At work in the fitness center. HR a little high.

Saturday – 1/25/2020 – More Darts games and Boatcoach!

After Painsled betrayed me for my 15×3 workout, I decided that I wanted to check out boatcoach. For rowing apps , there are three serious choices. Ergdata, which is cheap and reliable, but it does a terrible job handling interval based workouts. It doesn’t record the rest times reliably and that messes up analysis in rowsandall. Painsled is proving to be more and more annoying because of dropped strokes and workout hangups. And then there is boatcoach. Every one that uses boatcoach raves about it. The only problem is that it runs only on Android, and until today, I was an iOS only kinda guy. I broke down and bought a small Android Tablet. A Samsung Tab (Model A).

I went and downloaded boatcoach. That was easy. Then I tried to get it hooked up to the erg. This required a bit of fumbling around, but eventually I mastered that. Then I took my inaugural row. A “Just Row” of 501 meters.

That out of the way, I was thinking that the darts game would be an excellent way to pass the time for steady state workouts. 300 strokes at 20spm would be a 15 minute piece and the game definitely rewarded good steady rowing. So, I set it up and off I went. My goal was 14000 points, and to keep my HR below 150. I had time for 4 games.

       Workout Summary - media/20200125-2122030o.csv
--|Total|-Total----|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time-----|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|15131|01:04:40.2|02:08.2|182.3|19.6|139.4|152.0|12.0
W-|15131|01:04:40.4|02:08.2|182.3|19.6|139.4|152.0|11.9
R-|00000|00:00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|152.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|03739|15:01.2|02:00.5|201.0|20.3|137.2|152.0|12.2
01|00211|01:37.5|03:51.0|091.7|11.8|131.8|151.0|11.0 - abort!
02|03724|15:25.7|02:04.3|187.5|19.8|143.2|149.0|12.2
03|00281|02:36.3|04:38.1|076.9|09.6|110.1|131.0|11.2 - abort!
04|03634|15:05.6|02:04.6|184.8|20.3|141.7|147.0|11.9
05|03542|14:54.1|02:06.2|183.8|20.4|141.1|149.0|11.6

I got worse at the game each time! First time, I score 14485, 515 away from a perfect score. The second try was close at 14335, but then I seemed to lose the hang of it at the start of the third and it took almost 10 strokes to get into a consistent groove. The same thing happened in the last game.

It was a fun and absolutely “in the zone” steady state workout.

Oh, and boatcoach worked perfectly! One cool feature of boatcoach and rowsandall. You can look at your force curves!

For a workout like this, it could be useful to look at how tight you can get the q25 to q75 band.

Tomorrow – I think I will do a long, slow steady state session.

Shanghai Diversion

November 24, 2019November 24, 2019Leave a comment

Monday – Nov 18 – No Training

Flew to Shanghai via Montreal, arrived Tuesday evening

Tuesday – Nov 19 – No Training

Got to my hotel around 6:30 pm. I was asleep by 7:00.

Wednesday – Nov 20 – 3 x 30′ Fitness Center

Slept hard until 1:30 in the morning when I popped awake. After trying to get back to sleep for a while, I gave up and did some email and other work. I headed to the gym around 5:30. I had a lot of time on my hands, so I did 30′ treadmill (15% grade, 3mph), 30′ stationary bike, 30′ elliptical.

I had a bunch of meetings during the day and a customer dinner that night. I learned all about Moutai, a chinese spirit made from Sorghum. At 53% alcohol, it packs quite a kick.

Shanghai Thursday – Nov 20 – 2 x 30′ Fitness Center

I woke up with my alarm at 5:30 and after checking email, I headed back to the fitness center. 30′ treadmill (varying grade, 5 mph), 30′ bike. I started a third 30′ piece, but decided I had had enough for the day and quit about 5 minutes in.

I headed to the airport to catch a 12:35 departure. This flight was awesome. A Boeing 787 direct from Shanghai to Boston. Just under 15 hours and no connections. It was fantastic. I arrived at 1:30pm on Thursday.

Hopkinton Thursday – Nov 21 – 2 x 30′ / 2′

Not a typo. Because of the flight back, I had an extra long Thursday and a window to do another workout. This on on slides in my basement, Steady state at 175W. Heart Rate a bit elevated, probably because of the long flight.

        Workout Summary - media/20191121-2111150o.csv
--|Total|-Total----|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time-----|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|14478|01:02:10.2|02:08.8|169.7|19.8|144.9|155.0|11.7
W-|14239|00:59:55.1|02:06.2|175.0|19.8|145.4|155.0|12.0
R-|00242|00:31:37.8|65:29.2|042.6|21.2|153.6|155.0|00.1
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|07155|29:45.0|02:04.7|176.6|19.7|140.3|153.0|12.2
01|07084|30:10.1|02:07.8|173.4|19.8|150.4|155.0|11.8

Friday – Nov 22 – 15 x 3′ / 1′

At work in the fitness center on a static erg. Because of the 6K that I did at 1:51.7, I decided that I could use 1:51 as a target for this workout. And then I pushed faster than that for the first few reps and totally burned myself out. I massively struggled through the rest of the workout. So, 6 good ones, then a HD in the 7th, a good 8th, more trouble in the ninth, a couple good ones, then trouble in 12th, two more good ones and the last was a shambles. Best to forget all about this one.

I think next time, I use a target of 1:54 or so.

Saturday – Nov 23 – 2 x 40’/2′ L4

There has been a thread going on Facebook about the Wolverine Plan, so I was inspired to go back to one of my favorite L4 workouts. Back in the good old days, I would do this on a static erg with the watts target equal to the SPM x 10 (r16 = 160W, r18 = 180W). On slides, I move the stroke rate up by 2, so r18 = 160W, r20 = 180W.

        Workout Summary - media/20191123-2201170o.csv
--|Total|-Total----|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time-----|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|19709|01:24:00.2|02:07.9|171.1|19.6|136.9|158.0|12.0
W-|19090|01:20:00.0|02:05.7|176.2|19.4|136.9|157.0|12.3
R-|00635|00:04:00.6|03:09.6|069.1|23.9|137.1|157.0|07.4
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|00472|02:00.0|02:07.1|164.3|18.1|095.2|117.0|13.1
01|00482|02:00.0|02:04.6|180.8|19.9|121.8|124.0|12.1
02|00464|02:00.0|02:09.4|161.9|18.4|123.7|126.0|12.6
03|00482|02:00.0|02:04.4|178.0|19.1|127.2|129.0|12.6
04|00466|02:00.0|02:08.7|166.6|17.7|127.9|131.0|13.2
05|00482|02:00.0|02:04.5|180.6|19.9|129.5|134.0|12.1
06|00466|02:00.0|02:08.9|164.2|18.3|130.7|134.0|12.7
07|00483|02:00.0|02:04.2|182.2|19.8|131.7|134.0|12.2
08|00437|01:52.1|02:08.4|165.6|18.1|131.9|133.0|12.9
09|00514|02:07.9|02:04.4|182.4|19.9|133.3|136.0|12.1
10|00466|02:00.0|02:08.6|164.7|18.1|132.8|135.0|12.9
11|00483|02:00.0|02:04.2|182.1|19.9|133.8|135.0|12.1
12|00499|02:00.0|02:00.2|201.3|22.0|139.4|142.0|11.3
13|00483|02:00.0|02:04.3|179.5|20.0|140.4|142.0|12.1
14|00465|02:00.0|02:09.1|163.6|18.2|136.5|138.0|12.8
15|00925|04:00.0|02:09.7|160.6|18.0|132.6|135.0|12.8
16|00724|03:00.0|02:04.4|181.4|20.1|135.1|144.0|12.0
17|00501|02:00.0|01:59.7|206.5|21.2|143.0|145.0|11.8
18|00258|01:00.0|01:56.3|223.4|23.8|148.3|150.0|10.9
19|00464|02:00.0|02:09.2|160.9|17.8|125.2|132.0|13.0
20|00483|02:00.0|02:04.3|181.6|19.9|135.3|138.0|12.1
21|00466|02:00.0|02:08.7|164.5|18.5|139.4|141.0|12.6
22|00482|02:00.0|02:04.5|180.8|20.0|139.5|143.0|12.0
23|00464|02:00.0|02:09.3|163.4|18.3|140.8|143.0|12.7
24|00483|02:00.0|02:04.2|182.3|20.0|140.6|144.0|12.1
25|00464|02:00.0|02:09.3|163.4|18.2|141.8|144.0|12.8
26|00312|01:17.3|02:04.0|183.0|20.4|140.7|144.0|11.8
27|00634|02:42.7|02:08.2|163.7|18.4|143.6|146.0|12.7
28|00481|02:00.0|02:04.7|180.5|20.1|143.0|145.0|12.0
29|00463|02:00.0|02:09.5|161.3|18.1|141.4|145.0|12.8
30|00344|01:25.5|02:04.3|181.4|20.1|142.4|145.0|12.0
31|00637|02:34.5|02:01.2|195.7|21.7|147.8|152.0|11.4
32|00389|01:36.7|02:04.3|182.6|20.0|149.5|152.0|12.1
33|00558|02:23.3|02:08.4|165.4|18.7|146.3|150.0|12.5
34|00928|04:00.0|02:09.3|161.4|18.1|142.6|144.0|12.8
35|00726|03:00.0|02:03.9|183.5|20.1|146.7|150.0|12.0
36|00501|02:00.0|01:59.7|203.3|22.1|150.9|154.0|11.4
37|00258|01:00.0|01:56.5|222.2|23.9|155.9|157.0|10.8

Not quite flat on the work per stroke.

Today: Planning to do a long and slow 3×30.

Erg Based Training is so simple!

November 17, 2019Leave a comment

I last posted on November 11th, right after I struggled with the Pyramid workout. Since then, I’ve had some OK workouts, some good workouts, but the main thing I’ve had is consistency. I been able to follow my plan at just about 100% conformance for the past three weeks.

Just in time for three weeks of travel and holidays! Let’s see how well I can maintain momentum through this.

Tuesday – November 12 – 4 x 20′ / 2′

At work, static erg. Nothing fancy. Just doing the meters. Working with a HR cap of 150.

       Workout Summary - media/20191112-1401180o.csv
--|Total|-Total----|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time-----|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|20011|01:27:59.9|02:11.9|160.6|19.7|137.7|150.0|11.6
W-|18981|01:19:52.4|02:06.2|173.5|20.2|139.1|150.0|11.8
R-|01034|00:08:00.0|03:52.1|033.7|14.6|124.7|150.0|11.3
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|04773|20:00.0|02:05.7|174.0|19.9|129.7|138.0|12.0
01|04742|20:00.0|02:06.5|173.2|20.2|138.6|146.0|11.7
02|04747|20:00.0|02:06.4|173.2|20.2|143.4|149.0|11.8
03|04719|19:52.4|02:06.4|173.5|20.5|144.6|150.0|11.6

Good session.

Wednesday – 13 November – 5 x 1500/5′ L2

Always my favorite of the L2 workouts. Pace target was 1:51.0.

Started with a 2k warmup.

Then the main session. I chickened out about the 1:51 target and decided 1:52 would be better.

        Workout Summary - media/20191113-1341120o.csv
--|Total|-Total----|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time-----|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|10974|00:52:45.7|02:24.2|157.6|22.0|143.0|176.0|09.5
W-|07500|00:27:44.4|01:51.0|256.1|26.7|155.5|176.0|10.1
R-|03476|00:25:01.6|03:36.0|048.4|16.7|129.1|176.0|08.9
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|01500|05:32.4|01:50.8|254.4|26.2|149.6|164.0|10.3
01|01500|05:35.5|01:51.8|253.5|26.6|154.6|167.0|10.1
02|01500|05:33.3|01:51.1|254.4|26.9|156.5|170.0|10.0
03|01500|05:33.1|01:51.0|255.9|26.9|158.1|172.0|10.1
04|01500|05:30.1|01:50.0|262.7|27.2|158.7|176.0|10.0

As it turned out, with a bit of a fast last, I was able to make the target after all.

Later Wednesday morning, I headed down to Washington DC to do a presentation at a conference.

Thursday – 14 November – steady state cross training in Washington

30′ inclined walk

10′ stationary bike (I was not enjoying it)

20′ on an ellipitcal

Friday – 15 November – 3 x 20′ / 1′

I was pressed for time, so I cut back from an 80 minuter session to 60′. I pushed the power target up a bit, mainly just to see what would happen. I was very happy with the result. My HR was higher, but plateaued pretty well.

        Workout Summary - media/20191115-1331160o.csv
--|Total|-Total----|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time-----|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|14840|01:03:00.4|02:07.4|175.2|19.9|142.0|157.0|11.8
W-|14481|00:60:00.0|02:04.3|182.0|20.0|141.9|157.0|12.0
R-|00363|00:03:00.5|04:08.7|038.8|17.5|143.6|157.0|07.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|04829|20:00.0|02:04.2|181.7|20.1|131.1|144.0|12.0
01|04825|20:00.0|02:04.3|182.1|20.0|144.0|150.0|12.0
02|04826|20:00.0|02:04.3|182.2|20.0|150.5|157.0|12.1

That was really gratifying. I feel like my base fitness is starting to return.

Saturday – 16 November – 6K Threshold

I was nervous about this session all day. I was originally going to do it with company at the lake with some clubmates, but we ended up locked out of the storeroom where the ergs are kept. So I was able to procrastinate a bit longer. I finally got up the nerve to go do it. First, a 2K warmup.

Then there wasn’t anything else to do but to give it a try. I had put my 10K and my 30 minute sessions into the Free Spirits pace predictor and it spit out a 1:51.4 target. Holy hell, that felt fast. But nothing ventured, nothing gained. So, off I went trying to keep 1:51’s on the screen. That worked out OK through the first 2000, but I was starting to really feel it. My HR was well in control, but I had that vaguely drowning feeling you get when you’re on the edge. I played with pace and rate a bit to see if anything felt better and counted out blocks of 100 strokes. The section from 4000 to 5000 was the worst. I managed to get some control of myself by really trying to concentrate on stroke technique. Keeping my knees down during the first part of the recovery and limiting my layback. Then into the last 100 strokes, and it was just a matter of getting through it. I managed a small sprint in the last 500 meters.

Then a happy ending cool down.

I am very happy with that. I ranked it and for it’s currently 38th for the 50-59 heavies. Roughly the 90th percentile. It’s a full minute off my best 6K time, so lots of room for improvement, but a good hard row.

Sunday – 17 November – 3 x 30’/2′

Long and easy. Perfect for a sunday afternoon.

        Workout Summary - media/20191117-1926120o.csv
--|Total|-Total----|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time-----|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|22004|01:36:00.0|02:10.9|167.2|19.8|136.9|147.0|11.6
W-|21455|01:30:00.0|02:05.8|175.3|19.9|137.9|147.0|12.0
R-|00553|00:06:00.0|05:25.7|046.4|18.1|121.5|147.0|08.6
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|07137|30:00.0|02:06.1|173.3|19.5|134.3|141.0|12.2
01|07135|30:00.0|02:06.1|174.9|20.0|138.7|144.0|11.9
02|07183|30:00.0|02:05.3|177.8|20.3|140.7|147.0|11.8

I wanted to stay below a HR cap of 150, and started with a power target of 173W. I nudged it up in each 30′ segment by a couple of watts. More signs of progress.

Tomorrow: I fly out to Shanghai at 9am.

Race week prep

November 2, 2019November 2, 2019Leave a comment

Monday – Oct 21 – 5 x 1000 / 5′

My original thought was to do a 4 x 2000, but I didn’t think I had the oomph for that workout. I decided to go easy on myself and swapped in a 5 x 1000. It was still a reasonably tough session. I ran out of lake for the 4th interval.

Looking at the paces, all I can hope is that there was a nasty headwind for the first 4 reps!

       Workout Summary - media/20191021-1156050o.csv
--|Total|-Total----|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time-----|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|11506|01:07:10.1|02:55.1|125.2|22.7|148.1|177.0|07.5
W-|08049|00:39:35.4|02:27.6|164.7|24.3|157.3|177.0|08.5
R-|03462|00:27:35.4|03:59.0|068.6|20.5|135.0|177.0|06.4
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|02669|13:32.1|02:32.1|139.3|20.0|145.3|158.0|09.9
02|01272|06:11.8|02:26.1|179.9|25.5|161.7|174.0|08.1 - 1
03|01011|04:49.1|02:22.9|187.5|26.8|167.2|177.0|07.8 - 2
04|00972|04:51.8|02:30.1|177.1|26.1|167.7|177.0|07.7 - 3
05|00805|03:56.0|02:26.6|184.6|27.5|167.1|177.0|07.5 - 4
06|00292|01:31.3|02:36.6|124.5|22.3|135.4|145.0|08.6 
07|01027|04:43.3|02:17.9|177.8|28.4|164.3|173.0|07.7 - 5

I like rowing out in Worcester a lot. But it adds about 40 minutes of driving to my morning.

Tuesday – 22 Oct – San Diego

Early flight to San Diego. I had a spare hour after I checked into my hotel, so I went to the fitness center. 20 minutes on the treadmill and 20 minutes on the recumbent bike.

Wednesday – 23 October – No Training

I had early conference calls and then a 9:45 am flight back to Boston. No chance to get to the gym.

Thursday – 24 October – The turn

The race that I did on Saturday features a big sweeping 180 degree turn around two islands. I know the lake reasonably well, but I have never really taken this turn in a single. I wanted to fix that on Thursday morning.

It was a nice morning to row. Of course, it was totally dark when I launched, but there is enough light along the shores to pick out your course, and there is pretty good discipline among the rowers to use a bow light and stern light. I was counting on this on Thursday morning because the turn cuts across the preferred uplake travel lane. I really didn’t want to run into anyone.

My plan was to basically to do 2 x 1500, but do them around the islands to practice the turn.

        Workout Summary - media/20191025-1236080o.csv
--|Total|-Total----|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time-----|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|08103|00:45:25.7|02:48.2|128.1|22.1|143.1|168.0|08.1
W-|05586|00:26:23.2|02:21.7|167.2|23.6|153.7|168.0|09.1
R-|02523|00:19:02.8|03:46.4|073.9|20.1|128.4|168.0|06.3
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|01316|06:35.1|02:30.1|149.8|18.6|144.3|154.0|10.7
02|01205|05:31.4|02:17.5|171.1|24.9|158.4|168.0|08.7 - turn 1
03|01450|06:37.5|02:17.1|173.8|26.7|160.5|168.0|08.2 - turn 2
04|00208|01:03.0|02:31.4|148.8|21.9|125.7|140.0|09.1 
05|01407|06:36.2|02:20.8|177.7|24.5|156.8|168.0|08.7 - the 4+

Here’s the whole row. The turn is down at the south end.

Here’s the view of the whole turn. The start of the race is by the beach in the upper left corner. Then you row down past the first small island, turn around the second, and then around the outside of the third. You row up past a projecting point, and then up to the narrows. Fun thin I learned about the point in this row. They put a big white buoy off of it. My plan had been to hug up really close to it to try to minimize distance. I just missed it on my first go round, and got it caught on my oar the second time around. I didn’t do that in the race, so I guess the practice paid off.

Here’s a close up of the turn, The key thing I was trying to figure out was how to minimize the distance rowed without unnecessarily slowing down. The key was how to handle the southern tip of the bigger island. Starting the turn too late at that point results in swinging wide. That’s what happened in my second go. In the first one, I felt like I was too far away from the first island and western point of the second when I started my turn. So, on try number two, I hugged the first island, and hit the western point just right, but I took one stroke too many at the south point and swung wide.

I’m very glad I tried out the turn.

I finished my turns, and took a bit of a breather for a drink. A coxed four came up lake and we ended up nearly side by side. I increased pressure to stay ahead of them through the narrows, and then basically matched them for pace up through the bridge. It was good sub-threshold rowing.

What a blast!

Friday – 25 – No Training

I was planning to do just a 20 minute warmup on the erg, but a busy schedule a work messed that up for me.

The rest of my trip

June 28, 2019July 6, 2019Leave a comment

After my adventure on Sunday, I rushed back to my hotel, took a quick shower, packed up my stuff and headed to the train station. We took a train from Shanghai to the city of Hefei, about two and a half hours away by high speed rail.

Once we arrive, we had a nice dinner with some of the team leaders there, and I called it a night.

Monday, June 24 – Treadmill

There was a well equipped fitness center in the hotel in Hefei, but alas no rowing machines. I grabbed a treadmill and started to hike. Going gradually to see how well I could coax my smo2% up in a warmup. I definitely didn’t give it enough time and it peaked out much lower than other sessions.

Basically what I did was start walking slow and level. Then I increased the pace to about 3 mph. Then I increased the incline every minute to get me to 15%. Around the 5 minute mark, I did a 1 minute run on the incline, that’s the dip. Then I slowed it way back down, and had a drink. In retrospect, I should have done that a couple more times to open things up.

Then I just hiked up the 15% incline at about 3 mph. I saw orange, so I back off to 2.8 soon after starting. That worked fine until about 20 minutes in, where I needed to drop the pace a bit more. The last minute or two was in the orange, but my HR was still quite low.

When I got back to my room, it was sunny, clear and beautiful outside. My room had a great view.

I had a busy day at our design center in Hefei. I great group of engineers. In the afternoon, we headed to the train station and headed back in the direction of Shanghai, stopping in the city of Wuxi. I was schedule to have a business dinner with a customer. We went to a really good Japanese restaurant and had lots of beer and Sushi.

Tuesday, June 25 – Stationary Bike intervals with Humon

The fitness center was hot, and I was feeling pretty tired, and just a little hungover. I hopped on a stationary bike, and started pedaling. I did about 20 minutes of warmup, including a couple of sprinty bits. This warmup increased my smo2 from 63% to 70.9%.

Then I programmed in one of the preset “interval sessions”. I set it for a 40 minute session. This turned out to be another 10 minutes of warming up and then a one minute on / one minute off routine with 4 levels of intensity for a total of 14 reps.

As it turned out, I had not set the intensity high enough for this session, as you can see I was not getting into the red in most of the sprints.

But, it was interesting following my progress on the app. I met my colleague in the lobby and we grabbed a “didi” (basically the same as an Uber) to drive us to Shanghai, which was about a 90 minute ride.

When we got to Shanghai, I went straight to a lunch time meeting with one of our teams there, then headed over to another office and had another set of meetings. In the evening, I had a business dinner with a customer at an extremely good, very small Chinese restaurant. Then it was back to the Kerry hotel.

Wednesday, June 26 – 3 x 20′ Endurance Session on the erg

I grabbed the good erg, and set myself up to do a nice gentle warmup. I started with a pick drill, and then just gentle rowing. I was alarmed by the early appearance of some orange. I decided to experiment with a set of moderate power bursts. I did 10, 20, 30, and 40 strokes The 40 strokes I did a noticeably lower power. You can see the corresponding dips and recoveries in the SMO2%. I finished very close to where I started, 72% vs 69%. I’d have to say that this was not an entirely successful warmup. I suspect that it would have recovered to a much higher umber, but not in the 2 minute rest that I had programmed.

The rest of the session was pretty much terrible. I had a lot of trouble staying in the green and ended up just alternating r18 and r20 at 160W and 180W. Even with that light load, my SMO2% was low, and my HR was a bit high. I was a bit grumpy so I sprinted out the last 2 minutes, taking my SMO2% way down to a 61%.

It’s interesting that the Humon color algorithm is a much more sensitive indicator than HR. If my theory that I am not making good progress because I had been overcooking my steady state stuff, this will certainly put that theory to the test.

I went straight from my workout into some work calls, took a quick shower, and headed into the office for a couple of last meetings.

After lunch, I headed to the airport to fly to Taiwan, the last stop on my, way too long trip. I arrived at my Hotel, the Sheraton in Hsinchu around 8, had some dinner, and then I was on the phone in conferences until about 11pm.

Thursday, June 27 – Inclined walk

I was up at 5:30 and in the fitness center before 6. I headed to the treadmills and settled in for another boring slog.

The plan was the same as the last one, but I was going to try to take the warmup more slowly. Again, I got up to a healthy walking speed and then boosted the inline, but only a degree or two every minute. It was good to see my SMO2 climbing as I went. After twenty minutes I was at the right incline and then stopped to grab a drink and towel off. It was remarkably hot and humid. My SMO2 climbed really well in that rest period. From 63% at the start to over 72% after recovery.

In the session itself, I found that I was pretty tired and the time was going very slowly. Kept popping over into orange, and I would slow down a tenth or drop the incline by a degree each time. But you can see how many times that happened. It was not my best work.

After my workout, I started my business day. A couple of quick calls in my room. It was a misty morning, and the mountains near Hsinchu looked like classic asian landscape art to me.

To our office for prep meetings, then to a customer reception at lunch, then to another customer meeting, then back for another internal meeting, and finally a dinner meeting with a few of the managers. Around 8 I headed to airport and got on a work teleconference. This lasted my whole trip to the airport. I checked in, got settled in the China Airlines lounge and got on another work call. This lasted until it was almost time to board my 11:35 flight. This flight took me from Taipei to San Francisco. I arrived at 8pm, shuffled off to the Delta terminal and caught the 10:42pm red eye to Boston. I am currently over Nebraska with another 2:37 to go.

Once I get to Logan Airport, I am going to drive straight to the Cape. Hopefully arriving before 11 on Friday.

It’s been quite a trip. I had a rowing experience I will never forget. Visited places I have never been, and worked out every day that I was on the ground. I’m pretty happy with that.

3/18 – 3/23: A week in China

March 24, 2019Leave a comment

Monday – 3/18: No Training

My Birthday. I got up at 5:15 to catch a 8am flight from Boston to Newark. Then a flight from Newark to Shanghai. Might be the least enjoyable way to spend a birthday. The most entertaining thing about my birthday was almost flying over the north pole.

Our highest latitude was 82.39deg, which put us about 525 miles from the north pole.

The direction of travel also meant that this was my shortest birthday ever. By my estimate, since we were flying east, my birthday was about 18 hours long when I crossed over the time zone into Tuesday.

So, that’ my excuse for not training. The day was too short.

Tuesday – 19 March: No Training

I arrived in Shanghai at 2pm on Tuesday afternoon. I went to the hotel, took a nap for an hour, and then went to dinner.

Wednesday – 20 March: 3 x 20’/2′ L4 – Static

I love this Hotel! They have good restaurants. It is adjacent to a mall. You can walk to the exhibition site where the conference was, and since they have a microbrewery, they leave a couple of personalized beers for you in your room.

Most importantly they have an amazing fitness center, complete with two rowing machines. Unfortunately, they have neglected the maintenance on the rowing machines since I was last at the hotel. One of the machines had chain slip, that’s where the chain slips over a couple of teeth on the gear during some pulls. And both machines had a drag factor under 90 with the damper at 10, they must have been really dirty inside the fan assembly.

The erg with chain slip was unusable, but the other one was perfectly fine. I just had to get used to rowing with extremely low drag. I think it was probably good for a change. I found it a bit more work to hit my splits at such lower drag, but it was doable.

I knew the hotel had the rowing machines, so I even brought my luxurious butt pad!

I was working with a PM4, so no fancy stroke data, but thanks to the apple watch, I get HR data. Thanks to RunGap, that data can get to Strava. And thanks to rowsandall, I can import that data.

Thursday – 8 x 500 / 3’30” L1 – Static

I was not sure how well an L1 workout would go with such a low drag factor, add in jet lag and a few drinks the night before and you have a recipe for underperformance. I set a conservative 1:43 target and off I went.

I started with a 2000m warmup. It was a challenge to get down below 1:40 in the bursts.

The actual 8×500 was pretty fun. The first 20 strokes are always fun. The next 10 start to bite. Then you have only about 22 strokes to the finish.

The apple watch struggled a bit more with the higher stroke rates

I was happy with the last rep.

Friday – March 22: 3 x 20’/2′ L4 – static

More of the same. Higher HR than I like to see, but not a big deal.

Saturday – March 23: 5 x 1500’/5′ L2 – Static

He’s quick summary of my Friday night.

There were four of us, and it was all in support of a good cause.

I felt a little dehydrated on Saturday morning, but after a bottle of water, none the worse for wear. The schedule demanded an L2 workout, but between my less than stellar nutrition plan, and the slickest erg in the east, I wasn’t sure how well it would go. I opted for the 5×1500, since it’s the easiest of the L2s. I took the first 1500 rep as a warmup and added some more warmup strokes in the 5 minute rest after that.

I decided anything faster than 1:55 would do. Getting into the first rep, I felt like I could go a bit faster, so I did. I ended up with an average pace of 1:49.5, which I was delighted with.

After my workout, I enjoyed a heart breakfast and headed off to the airport. At noon, I flew to Narita, and then caught the direct from there to Boston, arriving at 6pm local time.

That might be my best set of on the road training sessions.

Later today: 3 or 4 x 20′ L4

Tomorrow: Hopefully my first OTW session of the season.

Working hard – 2/28 to 3/9

March 10, 2019March 12, 2019Leave a comment

Thursday – Feb 28 – Inclined march / recumbent cycle

30 minutes each

Treadmill on 15% grade. 3.2 mph

Recumbent cycle. Random on level 15.

Friday – March 1 – 3 x 20′ / 2′ L4 on slides

I love doing these on slides.

       Workout Summary - media/20190301-1855360o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|15349|65:59.0|02:09.0|166.8|18.9|142.4|164.0|12.3
W-|14321|59:21.0|02:04.3|179.2|19.3|143.3|163.0|12.5
R-|01033|06:00.0|02:54.3|057.1|16.2|135.0|163.0|09.4
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|02355|09:44.7|02:04.2|175.0|18.8|126.4|137.0|12.8
01|02302|09:36.7|02:05.3|178.0|19.0|140.1|145.0|12.6
02|02423|10:00.0|02:03.8|177.9|19.1|140.9|147.0|12.7
03|02407|10:00.0|02:04.6|180.6|19.5|151.0|156.0|12.3
04|02410|10:00.0|02:04.5|181.7|19.5|147.8|157.0|12.4
05|02423|10:00.0|02:03.8|181.8|19.5|153.3|163.0|12.4

Saturday – March 2 – 4 x 18 / 2′ L4 on Slides

Even more fun. 6′ ladders. 18/20/22.

       Workout Summary - media/20190302-2045370o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|18333|79:59.0|02:10.9|165.9|19.3|139.4|158.0|11.8
W-|17193|71:51.0|02:05.4|178.9|19.3|140.1|158.0|12.4
R-|01147|08:00.0|03:29.3|051.1|19.4|133.1|158.0|08.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|01450|06:00.0|02:04.1|180.9|19.0|119.0|134.0|12.7
01|01422|06:00.0|02:06.6|180.9|19.2|133.1|140.0|12.3
02|01440|06:00.0|02:05.0|179.4|19.3|140.0|144.0|12.5
03|01432|06:00.0|02:05.7|179.1|19.4|130.8|141.0|12.3
04|01407|05:52.4|02:05.2|178.7|19.3|141.1|148.0|12.4
05|01470|06:07.6|02:05.0|178.8|19.4|145.3|151.0|12.3
06|01432|06:00.0|02:05.7|179.7|19.6|136.9|150.0|12.2
07|01437|06:00.0|02:05.2|178.3|19.4|146.5|150.0|12.4
08|01400|05:51.6|02:05.6|177.0|19.3|147.6|153.0|12.4
09|01429|06:00.0|02:05.9|177.5|19.3|139.1|151.0|12.3
10|01436|06:00.0|02:05.3|177.8|19.3|149.6|156.0|12.4
11|01436|06:00.0|02:05.3|178.3|19.5|152.0|158.0|12.3

Sunday – March 3 – No Training

I flew out to San Jose (again) for another customer meeting on Monday.

Monday – March 4 – Fitness Center

30 minutes inclined march. Felt tired. Needed to slow it to 2.8 mph (from 3.0) and HR was still quite high.

Recumbent cycle. random. level 15

Tuesday – March 5 – No Training

I caught a flight at 6 am, got home around 7pm.

Wednesday – March 6 – 3 x 20′ / 2′ L4 (static)

Not as lovely as doing it on slide, but still pretty relaxed.

       Workout Summary - media/20190306-1345400o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|15207|66:00.0|02:10.2|169.4|17.0|139.1|159.0|13.6
W-|14468|60:00.0|02:04.4|181.9|17.4|139.9|159.0|13.9
R-|00744|06:00.0|04:02.0|044.7|12.9|131.1|159.0|09.6
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|02395|10:00.0|02:05.3|177.3|16.8|124.1|136.0|14.2
01|02404|10:00.0|02:04.8|180.4|17.1|138.6|142.0|14.1
02|02401|10:00.0|02:04.9|179.1|17.2|136.3|144.0|14.0
03|02419|10:00.0|02:04.0|184.0|17.6|147.8|153.0|13.7
04|02416|10:00.0|02:04.2|183.6|17.4|144.2|152.0|13.9
05|02433|10:00.0|02:03.3|187.3|18.2|148.4|159.0|13.4

Thursday – March 7 – 4 x 1000m / 5′ L1 (static)

Back to the real workouts. Here’s my L1 History

30 Jan – 4 x 1k – 1:47.7 (static)
4 Feb – Pyramid – 1:42.0 (static)
11 Feb – 8 x 500 – 1:39.7 (static)

So, there’s a 4 week gap in doing an L1 because of vacation and business travel. That’s not very good. So, what should I aim for on the 4x1k? It’s the hardest of the L1 workouts, and I am usually slower on it. I decided to aim for 1:45 and see if I could push it faster as I went.

I started with a 2k warmup. Hitting sub-1:45 felt really good. I was aiming at r28 and the strokes felt nice and light.

Then the fun began.

Boom! I was thrilled. Negative splits. An average of 1:43.8 and a nice faster last. I felt in control in every rep. I got a bit of a lactate rush after each interval, kind of a wave of nausea and shiver, but I felt OK after about a minute of the rest. I walked around in a happy haze all day after this.

Friday – March 8 – 3 x 18′ / 2′ L4 (static)

A little pressed for time because I had an 8:30 meeting to get to.

6′ rate ladders. 16/18/20.

An absolute joy.

Saturday – March 9 – Waterfall L2 (slides)

My L2 History:

1 Feb – Waterfall – 1:52.4 (static)
9 Feb – 4 x 2k – 1:51.6 (slides)
15 Feb – 5 x 1500 – 1:49.2 (static)

So another gap of almost a month. Today, I was doing the waterfall on slides. I decided to try for the ambitious target of 1:50. The waterfall tends to be a bit slower than the 4 x 2k, and the slides tends to be slower than static for me, but I guess I was feeling a bit cocky after the 4x1k. It didn’t go that great, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

The warmup. 2k with bursts at sub-1:50 trying to get the feel for 1:50 and r28 on slides. It felt a bit heavy.

Then the main event. I managed to hold the target split for the first rep, but it was massively hard. I got about 500m into the second rep and I knew I was cooked. I broke form for a stroke and retargetted at about 1:54 for a little bit to get back in control, then through the last 500m, I sped up a little. The last rep was another struggle, but I managed to hold on to a 1:52 split and managed a tiny sprint at the end. It was hard fought and it was not as fast as I wanted, but it was a good, tough session.

Not horrible, I ended up with a 1:51.9 pace. And every single rep ended with my HR above 95% of HRR.

Tomorrow: I owe myself an L3. I’ll see how I feel, and maybe I’ll do a 15×3’/1′

On the road

November 11, 2018Leave a comment

Monday: No Training

Since I was flying out in the evening, I needed to go to town hall and get an absentee ballot for the elections on Tuesday. Mission accomplished, but no time for training.

I flew to the airport on Monday afternoon. Arriving in LA around 8pm.

Tuesday: Quick cross training in the hotel gym

Core:

head shoulder raises: 10x10sec
arm leg extensions: 10 x 10 sec each side
plank on swiss ball: 4 x 30 sec
side plank: each side 3 x 30 sec
push ups: 2 x 12, 1 x 8 (pooped out)

plus 30 minutes on the elliptical (all the treadmills were taken.

Wednesday: Core / strength / inclined march

Core: same as Tuesday

Strength:

Goblet squats with 40 lb DB: 3 x 20
lat pull down: 3 x 12
one leg squats: body weight 3 x 12
one arm rows, 40lb DB: each arm: 3 x 12

30 minute inclined march on treadmill.

Then a busy day of meetings, followed by a real treat. We went to see the LA Lakers play the Timberwolves. I got to see LeBron James play basketball live. It was quite a show.

Got back to the hotel around midnight.

Thursday: No Training

Up at 4am. Out the door at 4:30 to get to the airport for my 6:30am flight. Very tired. Flew home, got to the airport around 3pm.

Friday: Core / 3 x 20′ / 2′

I had hoped to catch up on my sleep, but I didn’t get to bed until about midnight, so only about 5 hours. Up at 5:15 and off to work.

Same core routine plus swiss ball side rotations (10 x 5 sec both sides)

I felt very tired during this piece. HR was crazy high. I needed to slow down a lot to keep it under the cap.

Saturday: Core / 3 x 20’/2′

By the plan, I should have don a hard distance piece, but I decided that with all the disruption and travel that I’d take it easier and just work on some aerobic base.

I started with my basic core routine:

head shoulder raises: 10x10sec
arm/leg raises: 10 x 10 sec both sides
front plank: 4 x 30sec
side planks: 3 x 30sec each side
push ups: 3 x 13 (ooh, I added a rep!)

Then I headed to the basement and did the session on slides. I wasn’t any faster but it sure felt nice and smooth to be on the slides.

Tomorrow: Maybe I will do a HM with a bit of tempo to it.

I just got word that the fires in California have come very close to our facility in Agoura Hills. Like right across the road from it.

Here’s the extent of the fire. The scale bar at the bottom, is 4 miles long, so the fire is basically 20 miles across.

Our facility in in the yellow rectangle. Here is the zoomed view of the box. Our building is in the red oval.

I was just there! I hope everyone stays safe out there.

Saturday: 75′ Test

October 21, 20182 Comments

Friday: I needed to get ready for an important meeting in the morning, so I skipped my workout.

After work we headed down to the Cape and settled in. It was a blustery stormy night, but I slept like a baby

Saturday:

I worked a bit around the house and put the outside furniture in the basement for the winter. In the mid-afternoon, I headed to the basement to do my 75′ test.

I’ve done this test twice before. In October of last year, I pulled 207w (1:59.2). In December, I pulled 214w (1:57.8). I decided to try to use 1:58 as my target and see how it went.

It went great. I was able to hold 1:58 comfortably at 22spm and I just counted out sets of 110 strokes to mark 5 minute periods. I would push a little and then coast a little. Things started to get a bit more serious in the last 30 minutes. By 15 minutes to go, I felt like I had the session well in hand and I started to push a bit more seriously. My heart rate started pushing up into the mid-170s and I eased the rate up to 24. Then in the last 5 minutes I nudged it further to 26 spm and tried to count out the last 130 strokes.

Results, 220W (1:56.7).

That was fantastic!

          Workout Summary - media/20181020-1820320o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|19278|75:00.0|01:56.7|220.1|22.6|160.7|183.0|11.4
W-|19281|75:00.0|01:56.7|220.1|22.6|160.7|183.0|11.4
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|183.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|03831|15:00.0|01:57.5|215.0|21.6|142.2|152.0|11.8
01|03824|15:00.0|01:57.7|214.7|22.2|153.8|160.0|11.5
02|03853|15:00.0|01:56.8|219.5|22.2|162.7|165.0|11.6
03|03848|15:00.0|01:57.0|218.8|22.4|168.3|171.0|11.4
04|03925|15:00.0|01:54.6|232.7|24.8|176.3|183.0|10.6

Tomorrow: 1′ and 1000m tests.

Just deal with it

September 19, 2018Leave a comment

So, last report was back on Sept 11th when I had a lovely row at Crossfit Del Mar in San Diego.

Wed, Sept 12 – No training:

Early start to fly up to San Jose. Meetings all day, business dinner. No time to train

Thursday, Sept 13 – No Training:

Up early to catch my flight home

Friday, Sept 14 – 20 x 2′ OTW 1x:

In Newton, in my fluid. Very light tailwind going down river. I was able to fit in 5 intervals over the rowable part of the river (just barely).

I pushed the first set a bit too hard and struggled the rest of the workout, but it was pretty good fun.

          Workout Summary - media/20180914-1500310o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|14103|84:15.0|02:59.2|109.8|23.3|150.0|177.0|07.2
W-|08686|38:53.0|02:14.3|170.0|26.2|160.4|176.0|08.5
R-|05437|45:23.0|04:10.5|058.2|20.7|141.0|176.0|06.6
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|00107|00:30.2|02:21.1|135.4|19.9|127.1|131.0|10.7 - wu
02|00473|02:02.4|02:09.3|166.1|24.9|140.3|159.0|09.3
03|00492|02:07.3|02:09.4|181.4|25.4|155.7|165.0|09.1
04|00467|02:00.0|02:08.5|159.3|27.0|161.9|169.0|08.6
05|00471|02:02.2|02:09.8|178.8|25.5|162.2|170.0|09.1
06|00242|01:00.4|02:04.9|208.0|28.8|157.0|166.0|08.3 - cut short
07|00447|01:59.2|02:13.3|178.8|26.6|154.5|170.0|08.5
08|00434|02:00.7|02:19.0|162.1|26.3|165.1|171.0|08.2
09|00434|01:58.5|02:16.4|196.6|26.8|166.9|175.0|08.2
10|00435|01:57.9|02:15.5|171.2|27.5|168.6|176.0|08.1
11|00413|01:52.7|02:16.3|177.8|27.1|168.5|174.0|08.1
12|00426|01:54.4|02:14.3|152.3|26.1|152.0|168.0|08.5
13|00449|02:00.0|02:13.6|170.1|26.0|162.6|170.0|08.6
14|00446|02:00.6|02:15.2|137.0|26.9|164.9|171.0|08.2
15|00440|01:58.6|02:14.9|169.5|26.3|165.1|173.0|08.5
16|00416|01:51.3|02:13.7|173.9|25.8|164.5|172.0|08.7
17|00424|01:56.8|02:17.9|156.8|25.6|151.2|167.0|08.5
18|00438|01:59.1|02:16.0|159.4|26.1|162.6|171.0|08.4
19|00406|01:54.0|02:20.3|184.9|25.7|162.7|171.0|08.3
20|00412|01:53.9|02:18.2|157.9|25.8|164.6|172.0|08.4
21|00414|01:52.9|02:16.4|187.0|27.1|165.7|174.0|08.1

Saturday, Sept 15: Failed 10K Dynamic:

I was a it worried about back to back hard workouts, but since I was flying out Sunday morning to Asia, I felt like I had no other option. I was also stuck with doing it on the dynamic erg. But, I figured if I just picked an easy target, I’d be OK. I was wrong.

I started with a 2k warmup. I included some arms and body only and some legs only to see what they felt like on the dynamic. They felt vaguely boat like.

Then into the main event. I made it to 6K and when the going got tough, I gave up. I think it was lack of motivation, but I felt pretty lousy at the time. When I hit 6K, I knew that I had another 16 minutes to go and I didn’t feel like I would be able to deal with the discomfort for that much longer. I tried to get back on track, gave up again, then paddled along at a slower pace until there was 1k to go and then I pulled it back to target. It was ugly.

-|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|10000|40:38.0|02:01.9|193.5|25.5|165.2|184.0|09.7
W-|10000|40:38.0|02:01.9|193.5|25.5|165.2|184.0|09.7
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|184.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|01000|03:55.6|01:57.8|210.4|24.6|140.0|153.0|10.3
01|01000|03:58.3|01:59.1|206.8|25.1|156.9|159.0|10.0
02|01000|03:59.0|01:59.5|205.3|25.2|161.0|162.0|10.0
03|01000|03:59.8|01:59.9|203.2|25.2|164.6|166.0|09.9
04|01000|04:01.1|02:00.6|199.7|25.7|167.8|170.0|09.7
05|01000|04:03.1|02:01.6|194.7|26.0|170.8|172.0|09.5
06|01000|04:14.5|02:07.2|171.5|25.3|167.9|171.0|09.3 - hd
07|01000|04:17.3|02:08.7|165.5|24.2|167.6|172.0|09.6 - hd
08|01000|04:11.6|02:05.8|175.5|24.4|174.5|176.0|09.8 - paddle
09|01000|03:58.5|01:59.2|207.3|29.2|179.7|184.0|08.6 - rate up

That left me pretty much destroyed.

Sunday, September 16: No Training

Monday, September 17: No Training

I took off at 10:30AM to fly to Cebu in the Philippines. The route was BOS–>YYZ–>ICN–>CEB. Total travel time door to door was 26 hours. I got to my hotel at 12:15am Tuesday morning local time. So effectively, Monday just didn’t exist. I managed to get about 2 hours of sleep on the long leg to ICN, and another 5 hours on the flight to CEB.

Tuesday, September 18th: ~50′ in the fitness center.

I managed to get another 3 hours of sleep at my hotel (after a couple of conference calls) and then got up at 5:30. I was at the fitness center when it opened at 6 am. I felt a bit ragged from the travel, so I didn’t want to do anything too ambitious.

I started with 20 minutes inclined march on the treadmill. The time crawled by painfully slowly. Then I bopped over to the elliptical. I intended to program a 20 minute workout, but somehow ended up with 28 minutes. That actually turned out to be a good thing because it gave me enough time to call home, shower and grab a quick bite to eat before I headed to our facility.

The place I’m staying is very nice. Cebu is quite the vacation destination for Koreans these days.

Wednesday, September 19: It’s a mystery!

I flew out of Cebu at 9 this morning and now I am sitting in the airport in Osaka. I get to Haneda around 7pm tonight and I might try to work out when I get to my hotel, or I might blow that off and get a beer.

Quantified Rowing

Measure – Adjust – Improve

Tag: fitness center