I ran out of energy in a big way Friday night and crashed around 10pm. I slept until almost 9am, and then started a day of chores and errands.
Around 3pm, I headed off to do an easy erg session.
Plan:
I measured lactate at the end…1.4mmol/l. Nice. Of course this was an afternoon session.
A bit stiff and sore from the race yesterday, but time to get on with life.
Plan:
I wanted to do an L4 session because there has been a lot of discussion over on the concept forum about that style of workout. But from my experience with L4 workouts, they tend to be too intense, so while this workout was in L4 format, it was not a “by the book” L4 workout. What do I mean by that? By L4 format, I mean that the workout has specific strokes rate and power defined in intervals and blocks. But I did not use the tables from the WP to define the paces, instead I used a constant power per stroke. I also constrained the stroke rates much more than a real L4. I went in steps of 1 stroke from 17 to 21 strokes per minute. The 2 spm jumps make the workout a lot more dynamic and tougher in my opinion.
The stroke sequence I did was
So, from a HR perspective, this was right on target. But from a lactate perspective, it was just a little bit too intense. I did a lactate test at 60′ and it was 2.6mmol/l. I repeated it at 80′ and it was 2.5mmol/l. From an RPE perspective, everything was feeling great, until I did the sequence at the beginning of the third section. As soon as I did the little chunk at r21 and 200W, I felt like I got behind and never caught up. Essentially, it felt like I flipped the switch that started to shut down the fat metabolism.
This provides an interesting data point to compare to a session where I start the same way, increasing my power during the first 10 minutes, but then settle on exactly 185 for the rest of the way. Then repeat the lactate tests. The theory would be that I would get a lower lactate reading by avoiding the higher powers.
This raises all kinds of interesting questions in my mind.
Thursday: As expected, no time to train. I took the redeye home from San Jose. I was not able to get any reasonable sleep on the plane. Highly unpleasant.
Friday: I arrived in Boston at 6am. Then drove home. Almost immediately, I turned around and drove my wife to the airport. She is off to visit my daughter in St. Louis. I was home again by around 11 am. My eyelids were drooping severely but I managed to stay awake to attend a work conference call at noon. After that, I took a 3 hour nap. My intent was to get up around 4, head out to Lake Quinsigamond and do a long and easy technique session. But, when I was packing my things, I got a text from a friend of mine telling me that there was a wakeboarding competition going on and the whole lake was a really treacherous place to be. Time to go with Plan B.
Plan B
It was massively hot and humid. Around 95F and 70% RH. Rowing at 190 watts felt pretty easy for the first 10 minutes. Then the room warmed up, I started sweating, and it started to feel like a lot of work. By the end of the first 20 minutes, my HR was still OK, only around 144, but my RPE was really high. I was breathing hard, and my first lactate reading was 3.3mmol/l. Way too high.
So, my intent was to dial it back to 170W from 190W and just take it easy. After the rest, and a big drink of water, I started again. It felt like really hard work, and I seriously considered just bagging the whole thing. I even coasted to a stop about 2 minutes into it, but I thought better of it and decided that I should at least finish this 20′ piece. I felt a lot more comfortable at 170W, but it was still a pretty sweaty affair. After this one, I tested out a 2.8mmol/l. Still too high. But my RPE was right on. My breathing was easy, and my ending HR was again around 145.
Well, I had come this far. I had another drink, and decided to just paddle through one more 20′ piece. This one I started off thinking I’d target 150W, but ended up pushing that up to 160. Still very slow. After this, my lactates were 2.6mmol/l. RPE right on target, but HR had climbed up to be close to 150 by the end.
The session seems to add some weight to a few thoughts that I have been pondering.
I think this is fascinating because it brings a physiological angle into a age old debate around how to do HR capped training. The question that I have seen asked over and over again is this…If you are training to a specific HR cap, is it better to start faster than what you think you can hold for the whole piece, and then start to bleed off pace once you are in the training HR zone and approaching the cap, or is it better to hold a constant training power and adjust that power so that you are around the cap at the very end of the workout?
I have seen recommendations about this from very credible people that are entirely opposite of each other. One conclusion that one might draw from that is doesn’t matter much in terms of training effect. But, on an individual basis, if you are trying to specifically train fat burning endurance, it probably makes a lot more sense to slowly build power, or hold it constant versus bleeding off pace. Anyway, its food for thought.
I had a blast in Provincetown on the 4th. I went for a walk in the morning to go collect some breakfast. Then we lazed around the rest of the morning. Around noontime, we wander over to a boat rental place and rented a 2 person kayak. We spent an hour paddling around the harbor, checking out the yachts and enjoying the sunny day. Then the walk back to the hotel, picking up some sandwiches on the way for lunch. Later in the afternoon, we headed out again and walked all the way across town to a favorite shop of ours. On the way back, we picked up some wine, cheese and crackers to enjoy during the fireworks. We settled in on the deck of the hotel, and watched the fireworks over the harbor. All together, it was over 7 miles of walking and a brilliant day.
The drive home was unpleasant. We set out for home around 11am on Tuesday morning. Apparently, so did everyone else on Cape Cod. We fought through 4 hours of traffic to get off the cape, and even then, the traffic pretty heavy the rest of the way. We didn’t get home until well after 5pm. I had a snack, and drink, and then went off to do a light 60 minute session.
Plan:
It was hot and humid. After I finished, the temperature was 80F, and the humidity was 80%. It was a very sweaty, and hot enough that it compromised the power I could hold with reasonable lactate levels.
The first 20 minutes was fine. Lactate at the end was 1.9mmol/l. I missed the start for the second interval because I was running to get a water bottle. So, I was chasing the target power a bit. The power for the full interval read 182W, but I missed about 15 seconds of rowing at the beginning, so I was rowing >185W for the whole interval. I also was starting to sweat up a storm and feeling a bit overheated. At the end of the second interval, I read 3.2mmol/l. I suspect it might have been a bad reading, but I decided to back off the power to 180W for the last 20 minutes, and push the stroke rate up to 20 to keep things under control. It did the trick. My HR stabilized and my lactate level dropped back to 2.2mmol/l. by the end of 60 minutes.
My wife and I went to see Weezer outdoors at the Xfinity Center last night. Aside from a terrible warmup band, and a massive thunderstorm that pushed through right before they went on stage, it was a very fun night. We didn’t get home until nearly midnight, so I opted for sleep instead of rowing this morning.
I slept like a log and woke up around 9:30. After various chores and errands, I decided to keep things ticking over with another easy erg session. I’ll hit the time trial hard tomorrow on Quinsig.
Today, I wanted to turn down the power a bit to see if I could hit the endurance sweet spot. Very little HR drift, end HR below 155, and a lactate below 2.0mmol/l. I set up my meter, wet and dry towels and test strips. As Eminem would say…”It’s back to the lab again”.
Plan:
Lactate test results were:
So that is the difference that 6 watts makes.
Tomorrow: 1k TT, plus starts, plus some other sprint pieces.
From Jan Olbrecht’s book.
And this quote:
The swimmers with the best competition results over 400 m achieve the fastest times at low concentrations of lactate (2-Speed test, see Standard Lactate Test). Exceptions to this principle are possible if the swimmer can compensate for his lack of endurance by reaching higher levels of lactate (fig. 24). This compensation, however, is limited.
I have a lot on my mind right now for work, and I was not very focused on today’s session. I’m not sure if that is all it was, or if there is something else going on, but it was a very difficult row.
I was planning a 4×20′ session, but high HR and very high lactate after 60 minutes (2.9mmol/l), so I aborted at that point.
In the first 20 minute section, I had two interruptions due to technical issues with the podcast I was listening to. There is an intermittent connection to my headphones that is being interpreted by the iphone as a button press which summons up Siri. Very annoying, probably time for a new set of headphones. Amazing how quickly sweat corrodes things!
The workout plan was:
Here’s the view from Strava. You can see the two stops in the first 20 minutes.
And the PM summary.
Tomorrow: 4 x 8′ / 4′ rest
A few aches and pains from yesterday’s exertions, but nothing too impressive. Around 2:30 in the afternoon I sat down for run of the mill steady state session. Another in a long series of 4 x 20′ L4 sessions.
It was almost 60F outside and raining. In my erg room, with the windows open and the fan going, it was 72F and 85% humidity. I left a sizable puddle under the erg today.
The workout was close to standard. I planned to do 195 stroke sequences all the way through, but I felt a bit over matched in the third 20′ piece and backed off to 192 stroke sets. This exchanged a minute at 21spm for a minute at 18spm. It is surprising how much of a difference that can make in how things feel, even though it was less than a half a stroke difference over 20 minutes and only 2.5 watts different output.
Here is the stroke plan:
And the HR plots
I measured lactates at 60 minutes and the reading was 1.6 mmol/l. Which is good to see. I need to work a lot harder to get a 2.0mmol/l reading now than at the end of the OTW season. Anyway, after seeing that nice reading, I reverted back to the 195 sequences for the last 20 minutes.
Workout Summary – Jan 10, 2016
–_|_Total_|_-Total-_|_–Avg–_|_-Avg-_|_Avg-_|_-Max-_|_–Max–_|_-Avg_|_-Avg
–_|_Dist-_|_-Time–_|_-Pace–_|_Watts_|_SPM-_|_-HR–_|_-%HRR–_|_-DPS_|_-SPI
–_|_19798_|_80:00.0_|_02:01.2_|_196.5_|_19.6_|_153.0_|_ 77.3% _|_12.7_|_10.0
Workout Details
#-_|_SDist_|_-Split-_|_-SPace-_|_Watts_|_SPM-_|_MaxHR_|_Max%HRR_|_DPS-_|_-SPI
01_|_02479_|_10:00.0_|_02:01.0_|_197.4_|_19.6_|_138.0_|_ 66.7% _|_12.6_|_10.1
02_|_02479_|_10:00.0_|_02:01.0_|_197.4_|_19.8_|_144.0_|_ 70.9% _|_12.5_|_10.0
03_|_02480_|_10:00.0_|_02:01.0_|_197.8_|_19.7_|_147.0_|_ 73.0% _|_12.6_|_10.0
04_|_02478_|_10:00.0_|_02:01.1_|_197.2_|_19.6_|_152.0_|_ 76.6% _|_12.6_|_10.1
05_|_02467_|_10:00.0_|_02:01.6_|_194.7_|_19.2_|_147.0_|_ 73.0% _|_12.9_|_10.1
06_|_02463_|_10:00.0_|_02:01.8_|_193.7_|_19.3_|_150.0_|_ 75.2% _|_12.8_|_10.0_|_1.6
07_|_02475_|_10:00.0_|_02:01.2_|_196.6_|_19.7_|_150.0_|_ 75.2% _|_12.6_|_10.0
08_|_02477_|_10:00.0_|_02:01.1_|_197.0_|_19.6_|_153.0_|_ 77.3% _|_12.6_|_10.1
Not a bad workout. I overstroked by 11 strokes across the whole workout and ended up 125 ahead. I noticed during the row that it was work to try to keep my rate down, and I rarely saw my rate below target.
Target_____________Actual_____________delta____________
Strokes____Meters______Strokes____Meters______Strokes__meters___EndHR
0195___|___02460___|___0196___|___02479___|___01___|___19___|___132
0195___|___02460___|___0198___|___02479___|___03___|___18___|___136
0195___|___02460___|___0197___|___02480___|___02___|___20___|___140
0195___|___02460___|___0196___|___02478___|___01___|___18___|___140
0192___|___02456___|___0192___|___02467___|___00___|___11___|___142
0192___|___02456___|___0193___|___02463___|___01___|___07___|___141
0195___|___02460___|___0197___|___02475___|___02___|___15___|___144
0195___|___02460___|___0196___|___02477___|___01___|___17___|___148
1554___|___19673___|___1565___|___19798___|___11___|___125___|___000
Tomorrow morning: Same thing. With the PM5 and painsled!
I struggle on the morning after a day when I do an afternoon session, apparently even when the session is short and easy like last nights 30′ L4.
I started with a plan to do repeats of a fun 20′ “mountain”.
This is a lower intensity than the sessions that I did on Sunday and Monday, but today it was too much for me and I could see it my HR and RPE at the end of the first mountain.
I pushed on and tried to stick to the plan through the second 20′ mountain, and it was pretty miserable. I started the third mountain, and after a few minutes, I decided to ease up. I just shifted to a steady state 180W at 20 spm, which is a lighter, easier stroke. This brought my HR down to about 70% HRR and I felt a lot more comfortable. At the end of this 20 minute piece, I measured lactates and it was 1.3 mmol/l. So, I could push a bit harder.
For the last 20 minutes, I did just that. I brought up the wattage to 190W and the rate down to r19. It was pretty hard work, and I was curious how hard. By the end of 20′, my HR had gone up to around 155 (80% HRR) and my lactate was up to 4.0mmol/l.
So the take away for me is that even though there is no firm correlation between HR and lactate, if my HR is high and my RPE is high, I should dial back the watts, in most cases 10W dial back should be enough.
Tomorrow: 4 x 2K / 5′ rest. Pace target 1:48.0 (same as the avg for last time)
That was a rude shock. Over the Christmas holidays, I was sleeping in to 9 or 10 every morning and lazying about most of the day. Then in the afternoon (or evening), I’d go hop on the erg for a workout. That all changed today. Back to my normal weekly schedule. Alarm went off at 5:15am, and I rolled out of bed bleary eyed. I was in the gym by 7.
Since I was rowing with less than 12 hours of recovery, I decided to keep it to an hour. My training plan called for a rest today, but I took that one early on New Year’s Eve, so I was just subbing in a low intensity session.
The schedule change was too much for me. I did two of the same 195 stroke sequences as last night for the first 20 minutes, then I dropped back to a 192 stroke sequence for the next 10. A couple of minutes into the 4th 10 minute sequence, I just stopped rowing. I wasn’t feeling that bad, but I wasn’t feeling that great either. I just sat there for a couple minutes and decided what to do. I debated just walking away, but instead decided to just dial it back a bit and finish the hour. So I rowed out the rest of that 10 minute sequence at 19spm and around 190W.
Then for the last 20 minutes I did a couple of 188 strokes sequences. These are 2 minutes each at 18/19/20/19/18. This was just about right for my mental state this morning. At the end of this, I took a lactate reading and it was 1.8 mmol/l. So, I the adjustment put me right in the correct range.
One other note. Since I am getting ready for indoor competitions, I am going to be rowing off slides for the next couple months.
In addition to lack of sleep and short recovery, I also had thermal differences to contend with. The gym is almost 10 degrees (F) higher than my erg room at home. Modesty also required me to wear a shirt, which I don’t do at home either. I think this makes a difference. Not huge, but noticeable.
Tomorrow: Back to distance based intervals. The Waterfall 3K/2.5K/2K. Last time I did it with an avg pace of 1:47.8. I’ll try to hold that for the first interval and see where I end up after that.
Quantified Rowing 