Friday: “The Hook” – 5.9km hard

September 30, 2016Leave a comment

Weather: A bit chilly, around 50F. Brisk wind from the NNE at 11mph with gusts to 20. Lots of chop. The water was a mess.

Plan:

Warmup to north end of the lake
Head Race Piece
- ~6km
- from north end of the lake, around two island near the south end and then back to the Narrows. The radius of the turn is nearly the same as the big eliot turn in the HOCR.
- Rate: r26
- Pace: <2:15
Cool down back to boathouse

|Start|Dist_|Time_|_Pace__|_SPM__|avg HR|DPS_|Remarks
|00008|02439|16:49|03:26.8| 17.7 | 130 |08.2|warmup
|02447|05900|26:40|02:15.6| 26.0 | 169 |08.5|Head Race Piece
|08347|01808|12:15|03:23.3| 19.6 | 142 |07.5|Cool down

500m splits
|02447|00501|02:10|02:09.7| 26.2 | 151 |08.8|
|02948|00502|02:14|02:13.5| 25.3 | 163 |08.9|
|03450|00500|02:14|02:14.0| 25.3 | 164 |08.9|
|03950|00498|02:13|02:13.5| 25.4 | 167 |08.9|
|04448|00499|02:12|02:12.3| 25.3 | 167 |09.0|
|04947|00501|02:14|02:13.7| 25.6 | 169 |08.8|
|05448|00499|02:15|02:15.3| 25.7 | 170 |08.6|
|05947|00500|02:16|02:16.0| 25.8 | 171 |08.6|
|06447|00503|02:16|02:15.2| 26.2 | 172 |08.5|
|06950|00494|02:20|02:21.7| 26.9 | 175 |07.9|
|07444|00503|02:25|02:24.1| 26.7 | 176 |07.8|
|07947|00400|01:51|02:18.7| 27.9 | 178 |07.7|

To make sense of the splits, here is a map, with the 500m chunks shown.

So, what’s going on?

0-500: 2:09.7 Nice water, tail wind, adrenaline = nice fast splits
500-1000: 2:13.5 water starts to get sloppy, we struggle to get in the groove with the tail wind
1000-1500: 2:14.0 water is worse, but the rowing is better
1500-2000: 2:13.5 water continues to degrade, I feel good enough to push a bit harder, my HR goes up from 164 to 167 in this section
2000-2500: 2:12.3 under the bridge, which kills the chop. we pick up speed and it feels pretty good
2500-3000: 2:13.7 There is enough lake between us and the bridge for the chop to pick back up. My energy is flagging a bit by this point. I start to dread the thought of the big turn.
3000-3500: 2:15.3 Just about the worst water of the row. Quite tough to get to full compression because the chop is screwing with the set of the boat.
3500-4000: 2:16.0. I have no idea why we are slow here. The water was better, and I was pushing very hard.
4000-4500: 2:15.2. Same story as the above. No idea what was slowing us down.
4500-5000: 2:21.7. The big turn. We did great along the south side of the island, but as we emerged from the lee of the island, we got hit by a big gust and a ton of chop coming down the channel between the islands. In an instant the boat slowed down to a 2:30 pace or slower. We got into the lee of the second island and actually picked up a bit of speed through the last half of the turn.
5000-5500: 2:24.1. We get out from behind the second island and turn into the teeth of the wind. The boat feels like it weighs a thousand pounds, but with the headwind, it is also set like a rock. The rowing feels very connected, and we pound up into the wind. It is pretty damn slow, but satisfying in a masochistic way.
5500-5900: 2:18.7. I brought the rate up and worked on trying to row as cleanly as I could. The pace came down and we slugged our way back to the narrows.

Final result was 2:15.6. I was hoping for better because of the tail wind, but I bet we would have been <2:15 in flat water and no wind.

One side note: Changed my pitch today. Was rigged with 4deg pitch inserts. Changed to 6 degree inserts. It might be placebo effect, but I felt like my oar depth was better and my finishes were crispier. I liked it! We checked the span, and it was 159 at stroke and 158 in bow. Joe is planning to move them both to 160.

So, I am off the water for a while. I am taking off to Asia for 11 days on Sunday. Bummer that it’s happening so close to the HOCR, but duty calls.

Wednesday:4 x 5 x 2′

September 28, 20161 Comment

Weather: Wind from the NE. Weather data says it was less than 5mph, but it felt stronger than that on the lake. Overcast, but no fog!

Plan:

Warmup to north end of the lake
4 x ( 5 x 2′ / 30″ paddle)
3 ish minute rests between sets
- with a minute or so of square blade drills in each rest
rate pyramid in each set of 5: 24, 26, 28, 26, 24
pace: better than 2:15
Cool down with some feet out rowing to work on finishes

We did 2 power 10s and a 20 during the warmup and finished with a minute or so of alternating squared and feathered.

The first 2 sets were with a tail wind. It made us a bit sloppy. The r28 felt good though. The boat felt nice and light and I felt unhurried and like we in good sync.

We did about minute of square blade drills in the breaks between sets. Between sets 2 and 3, we did about 2 minutes of drills in the cove. The water was nice a flat, and frankly, I wanted a bit more rest for the last two sets.

When we headed up into the wind, we were a lot slower. Just about 10 seconds difference in pace between the downwind and upwind pieces. But even though the boat felt heavier, I felt like our technique was a bit more solid. At times in a couple of the intervals, we would lose the set of the boat for a few strokes. I would find myself dragging my starboard oar, dropping in the catch early because the boat felt unstable, or basking my right thumb on the opposite oar toward the end of the stroke. The good news is that we seemed to be able to get back on track within the interval.

| Tstart_ | Dist_ | Time_ | _Pace_ | SPM_ | avgHR | _DPS___ | Remarks
| 00:00.0 | 02498 | 16:30 | 3:18.2 | 18.3 | 122.6 | 08.3 | warming up
| 16:30.0 | 00469 | 02:00 | 2:07.9 | 24.0 | 151.8 | 09.8 |
| 18:30.0 | 00096 | 00:30 | 2:36.3 | 22.8 | 156.3 | 08.4 |
| 19:00.0 | 00466 | 01:59 | 2:07.7 | 26.0 | 160.8 | 09.0 |
| 20:59.0 | 00097 | 00:31 | 2:39.8 | 23.8 | 162.1 | 07.9 |
| 21:30.0 | 00477 | 02:00 | 2:05.8 | 27.3 | 164.8 | 08.7 |
| 23:30.0 | 00092 | 00:30 | 2:43.0 | 23.3 | 165.1 | 07.9 |
| 24:00.0 | 00459 | 02:00 | 2:10.7 | 25.6 | 165.5 | 09.0 |
| 26:00.0 | 00080 | 00:30 | 3:07.5 | 23.2 | 165.1 | 06.9 |
| 26:30.0 | 00470 | 02:00 | 2:07.7 | 24.4 | 166.4 | 09.6 |
| 28:30.0 | 00331 | 02:30 | 3:46.6 | 21.1 | 141.8 | 06.3 |
| 31:00.0 | 00443 | 02:00 | 2:15.4 | 23.9 | 153.3 | 09.3 |
| 33:00.0 | 00075 | 00:30 | 3:20.0 | 23.7 | 156.9 | 06.3 |
| 33:30.0 | 00450 | 01:59 | 2:12.2 | 26.2 | 162.1 | 08.7 |
| 35:29.0 | 00097 | 00:31 | 2:39.8 | 24.7 | 166.1 | 07.6 |
| 36:00.0 | 00462 | 02:00 | 2:09.9 | 28.3 | 169.0 | 08.2 |
| 38:00.0 | 00086 | 00:30 | 2:54.4 | 24.8 | 170.1 | 06.9 |
| 38:30.0 | 00448 | 02:00 | 2:13.9 | 27.0 | 170.7 | 08.3 |
| 40:30.0 | 00091 | 00:30 | 2:44.8 | 24.8 | 172.0 | 07.3 |
| 41:00.0 | 00439 | 02:00 | 2:16.7 | 25.5 | 171.8 | 08.6 |
| 43:00.0 | 00627 | 06:59 | 5:34.1 | 23.3 | 127.7 | 03.8 |
| 49:59.0 | 00429 | 02:01 | 2:21.0 | 24.2 | 153.2 | 08.8 |
| 52:00.0 | 00080 | 00:30 | 3:07.5 | 22.7 | 158.8 | 07.0 |
| 52:30.0 | 00425 | 02:00 | 2:21.2 | 26.4 | 162.9 | 08.1 |
| 54:30.0 | 00088 | 00:30 | 2:50.5 | 24.9 | 166.8 | 07.1 |
| 55:00.0 | 00445 | 02:00 | 2:14.8 | 28.3 | 168.7 | 07.9 |
| 57:00.0 | 00085 | 00:30 | 2:56.5 | 24.9 | 170.1 | 06.8 |
| 57:30.0 | 00420 | 01:59 | 2:21.7 | 26.4 | 170.1 | 08.0 |
| 59:29.0 | 00082 | 00:31 | 3:09.0 | 23.9 | 169.2 | 06.6 |
| 00:00.0 | 00424 | 02:00 | 2:21.5 | 24.7 | 167.5 | 08.6 |
| 02:00.0 | 00252 | 03:00 | 5:57.1 | 19.9 | 140.1 | 04.2 |
| 05:00.0 | 00413 | 02:00 | 2:25.3 | 24.3 | 153.0 | 08.5 |
| 07:00.0 | 00079 | 00:30 | 3:09.9 | 23.7 | 162.7 | 06.7 |
| 07:30.0 | 00432 | 02:00 | 2:18.9 | 26.2 | 164.4 | 08.3 |
| 09:30.0 | 00078 | 00:30 | 3:12.3 | 24.3 | 165.4 | 06.4 |
| 10:00.0 | 00426 | 02:00 | 2:20.8 | 27.5 | 166.8 | 07.7 |
| 12:00.0 | 00073 | 00:29 | 3:18.6 | 24.3 | 168.7 | 06.2 |
| 12:29.0 | 00426 | 02:01 | 2:22.0 | 26.4 | 168.7 | 08.0 |
| 14:30.0 | 00078 | 00:30 | 3:12.3 | 23.8 | 170.9 | 06.6 |
| 15:00.0 | 00429 | 02:00 | 2:19.9 | 25.3 | 169.8 | 08.5 |
| 17:00.0 | 00297 | 01:20 | 2:14.7 | 28.9 | 175.7 | 07.7 |
| 18:20.0 | 02439 | 16:34 | 3:23.8 | 20.0 | 136.7 | 07.4 |

| Tstart_ | Dist_ | Time_ | _Pace_ | SPM_ | avgHR | _DPS___ | Remarks
| 00:00.0 | 02498 | 16:30 | 3:18.2 | 18.3 | 122.6 | 08.3 | warm up
| 00:00.0 | 02567 | 20:31 | 3:59.8 | 22.8 | 146.0 | 05.5 | rests
| 00:00.0 | 02439 | 16:34 | 3:23.8 | 20.0 | 136.7 | 07.4 | cool down
| 00:00.0 | 01821 | 08:00 | 2:11.8 | 24.5 | 160.8 | 09.3 | r24 downwind
| 00:00.0 | 01823 | 07:58 | 2:11.1 | 26.2 | 164.8 | 08.7 | r26 downwind
| 00:00.0 | 00939 | 04:00 | 2:07.8 | 27.8 | 166.9 | 08.4 | r28 downwind
| 00:00.0 | 01695 | 08:01 | 2:21.9 | 24.6 | 160.8 | 08.6 | r24 upwind
| 00:00.0 | 01703 | 08:00 | 2:20.9 | 26.3 | 166.5 | 08.1 | r26 upwind
| 00:00.0 | 01168 | 05:20 | 2:17.0 | 28.1 | 169.7 | 07.8 | r28 upwind

Put it all together and you get an average pace for all intervals of 2:15.5. This is a bit slower than the last time we did this workout. That time we did it in 2:14.1 in perfect water. Today I also had a bit higher heart rate, so more effort to go slower.

My assumption is that the difference is down to wind. I would guess that the tail wind was giving us about 3 seconds of pace, and the head wind was costing us about 7, that would yield about 2 seconds of pace degradation.

Tomorrow: Back in my single for an easy r20 session.

Friday: 5km Threshold in 2x

September 9, 20162 Comments

Weather: light and variable wind ~2mph from the south. This was a minor head wind for the main piece.

We boated at about 5:45. It was just starting to get light out. Dawn was at 6:21. This was the first prep session for Joe and I in the double. We have our first race on Sept 17, and the HOCR on October 22. The objective for today was to get a baseline for where are now, and to work on timing and technique at head race rates. Not too concerned about pace yet. We also have to figure out which boat to use.

Plan:

~2km warmup to the North end of the lake.
5km from north end of the lake to the south cove.
- 2km at 22
- 2km at 24
- 1km at 26
Additional short pressure pieces at 26 from south end of the lake to the boathouse.

It was a very enjoyable outing. I really like rowing with Joe. He seems to like being in bow, and I LOVE being able to ignore everything else and focus on rowing hard. I’m not sure about Joe, but I was wiped out when we were done.

The heart rate indicates that I was working pretty hard at the end. The pace indicates that we have a fair amount of work to do.

As soon as we started rowing with pressure, it was clear to me that we wanted to rate higher than 22. We were at 23 or 24 through the first 2k. Next we shifted up to about a 25 and this felt pretty good, and got better as we went along. I tried to push the last 1k up above 26 and we probably were closer to 27 on average. This was a little ragged, but I think it is the right rate target for us to work on.

On the way back up the lake we did 3 sets of 10 strokes and 4 sets of 20 strokes at rates between 26 and 28. We tried to work on synchronization by rowing very lightly, but at the same rates during the “off” parts of that.

I used RIM for the session and a spent a couple minutes looking at the boat acceleration curves.

For reference, here is an annotated view of the parts of the stroke on an acceleration curve.

It comes from Rowing Biomechanics newsletter (Kleshnev).

Here is a view of a single stroke from the r24 chunk of the row with the same features noted.

Looking at the curves and metrics, I think it backs up a couple things I noticed in the boat. I am not really used to looking at these curves for a double, so I’m not all that sure of my conclusions.

The positive bump right at the finish, right after the #7 is way more pronounced than what I see in the single. I think this is my fault. I felt like we were hanging up a bit at the finish. I was not comfortable with my foot position today. I was crowded at the finish and so I was pushing down early and hard. I think an inch more to the bow and I would have been fine.
The peak of the drive bump is quite late in the stroke. I think that might be a sign that one or both of us is “shooting the slide” a little bit. I probably need to sit up a bit taller at the catch and really engage early in the stroke.

Next time we row, I think it might be a good idea to use the live display of acceleration and do some 10 stroke bursts with minor changes to technique to see if we can see the change in acceleration.

Tonight: I’m heading down to the cape. It looks like the weather will be nice for an open water row. If it doesn’t pan out that way, I’ll go for a bike ride. In either case, it will be long and slow.

Sunday: 15K of Technique

July 17, 2016July 17, 20162 Comments

Well, more like 13K of technique and 2K of slogging through nasty chop.

Weather: Weird. It started out just fine. Little or no wind. Overcast. About 70F and more humid than yesterday, about 80% RH. We launched at about 6:45 and the weather stayed that way until about 8am. Just when we had hit the south end of the lake. We turned around and all of the sudden there was a pretty considerable headwind from the North. It was a slog up to the narrows, and it got worse from there. The chop on the north side of the narrows was awful, and it made me feel like all the good drill work that I had been doing had gone to waste.

Don’t take my word for it. Take a look at the plot from Weather Underground.

Anyway, back to the rowing.

Today’s Plan:

2K of rowing with a bungee. Trying to work on relaxing my arms and shoulders through the drive and getting my arms out straight. Work on sequencing the drive better and holding a forward position through the leg drive.
(500m of SBR, 500m of alternating SBR and feathered, 500m of feathered) repeated over and over again. Working on trying to maintain the same back position at the finish when feathered of square. Try to correct my habit of laying back too much. Also try to get way out at the catch and challenge my balance at the catch.

We launched and headed north. I had a bungee around the boat about where the footplate was. I was working on getting my arms straight and my shoulders relaxed. At first, I was really hammering the catch and opening up my back too early. I was also rowing at a very low rate. As I continued up lake, I was doing better getting to full compression, easing into the drive, and holding my body forward longer. This was a much smoother stroke and my speed and rate both picked up. Very satisfying at the end seeing the water flying everywhere off of the bungee.

At the north end of the lake, I had a quick drink and took off the bungee. Then I started my 500s with my blades square. My balance was pretty good and I was able to get out to full compression reasonably well. I was having some trouble keeping my finishes clean. On about 1/3 of the strokes, I could feel myself getting hung up as I extracted the oars. My best strokes, the finish was much smoother, essentially maintaining the pace of the stroke at the finish and just lifting the blades clear of the water. On the bad strokes, I would reach the end of the stroke with the blades still buried and I could feel the pressure on the blades from the boat velocity. It got a bit better as I continued to work on it.

The alternating SBR and feathered is a great drill (in my opinion anyway). I have noticed that I tend to layback too much, especially as I get tired and leave the oars in the water too long. Then I feather and extract the oars in one movement. By doing alternating strokes, I can try to match the exact body position at the finish for both SBR and feathered. An early finish on SBR leads to a smooth extraction, going late leads to a hang up. The feeling is much more pronounced than when rowing feathered and the turn of the oar handle avoids the hangup. The alternating strokes reinforces the right moment in the drive to push the handles down.

It’s always a relief to do the 500m of feathered rowing, but also a chance to really try to reinforce the body position that I was holding at the finish. I caught myself with too much layback a bunch of times, but the good thing was that I really noticed it and corrected it.

The 500m chunks are a good length because it’s enough time to really work on stuff, but not so long that you lose concentration.

I did about 11K of this drill, so maybe 7 complete sets or so. the last couple sets were into the newly developed head wind. I could really feel it pushing back on square blades. I bailed out on the drill at the narrows because the water was too nasty to row n the square productively. I slogged along until I was nearly at the bridge and then pumped up the rate a couple notches and tried to finish with a bit more effort.

Workout Summary - media/20160717-165231-2016-07-17-0647o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|15370|86:10.0|02:48.2|17.8|146.0|169.0|10.0

Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|15370|86:09.0|02:48.2|17.8|146.0|169.0|10.0

Tomorrow: Probably a rest day. I am picking my wife up at the airport at 11:30pm. I doubt I’ll want to get up at 5am after going to bed around 1am.

Week #1: Plan vs Actual

Date	Day	Workout Type	mode	Planned Workout	*Actual*
Meso Cycle #1 – Endurance
7/11/16	Mon	Rest	rest		40′ UT2 cross training
7/12/16	Tue	Hard Distance	erg	60′ @ 1:57	60′ Threshold on treadmill
7/13/16	Wed	Steady State	erg	4 x 20′ / 1′ (hr cap at 150)	80′ UT2 on elliptical, bike, treadmill
7/14/16	Thu	Hard Distance	erg	60′ @ 1:57	rest day
7/15/16	Fri	Technique UT2/UT1	otw	Bungee Row first half, Steady state r20 second half	3×20′ UT2/UT1 on erg
7/16/16	Sat	Hard Distance	otw	2 x 5.5K r26	1×5.5k hard distance, plus 60′ LIT
7/17/16	Sun	Technique UT2/UT1	otw	Square Blades / Slow Roll Up / r20 2 minutes each, repeated	90′ OTW Technique work
Summary				240′ LIT SS 110′ Threshold distance work	330′ LIT SS 85′ Threshold

Happy enough with that. Priority is on lots of SS minutes now.

Saturday: Hard Distance – 5.5K

July 16, 20163 Comments

Weather: Stunningly beautiful. Clear skies. mid 70s. Nearly flat calm when we started. At the very end, during the row back to the dock, the wind picked up from the North. By the time we were off the water, it was about 7mph.

Plan:

2 x 5.5K
5′ rest
rate target: 24
pace target: 2:15 to 2:20

There is a big waterskiing competition at the lake today and tomorrow, so we started a half hour earlier to try to avoid the traffic. I headed north on the lake first and slowly built a bit of pace. About halfway up the lake someone in a single turned in behind me. They kept looking over their shoulder and slowly ratcheting up the rate. I wasn’t sure what they were intending, but but it seemed like he had put a target on me. Of course, I wanted to stay ahead of them, so I ended up being very warmed up by the time I got to the end of the lake.

I had a drink of water and hung out for a little while, getting myself psyched up for a good hard row. This would be the first head race simulation of the season and would help set a marker for me to use for training over the next month or so. It couldn’t have been a better day for it. The wind and water would be giving me no excuses and the power boats were not out yet in any kind of numbers.

During head racing season, I will be doing these pieces at about 28 spm. But I need to work my way up to that. Today, I was looking to hold about 24 spm. As it turned out, even that was a tough ask. I was finding myself settling at a 23 and my HR was pretty high. I think I have to row a bit lighter if I want to get efficient at a higher rate.

The row was entirely uneventful. I passed three or four singles as I made my way down lake. I wore a hat with a mirror today and although it wasn’t hugely useful, it wasn’t terribly distracting either. That is another project for me this summer. To get used to using a mirror for head races. I counted strokes. 100 strokes would take me about 900m or so. So I figured that 600 strokes would take me the 5500m. I was kind of worried after the first 100 strokes. I felt pretty tired and I wasn’t sure I’d be able to complete the piece. Luckily, during the second 100 I had a single in my sights and chased him down. That was distracting enough that I was able to manage my breathing and ease up just enough to be sustainable. The third block of 100 strokes took me through the route 9 bridge, and coming out that, I spotted another single, which helped keep me on task as I passed him. The fourth set of 100 got me just about to the narrows. I was really feeling it at this point, but the end was getting a lot closer. I got past the islands, and into the part that always feels incredibly long. There is a stretch of open water from the last island to the mouth of the south cove. I hit 500 strokes about at the island, just another 100 to go. This stretch gave me a good chance to use the mirror to aim at the point at the entrance of the cove. I have to get used to using this thing when I am tired. This was my first chance and it worked out. I nailed the line and passed nice and close to the point

I had 30 strokes to go when I passed and it was time to push a little bit harder to the end. There wasn’t much to draw on though, I was tapped out. It felt great to see Crewnerd count up past 5500m, and I coasted to stop. There was no way that I had another piece like that in me today. I decided to just do some easy technical rowing to finish out the day. I had a bit of wait before some of the other folks arrived in the cove, and I was happy enough to just sit in the sun drink my water. I ultimately paddled up lake to intercept them and came back down lake with them. I paddled up lake with Bob. As we came out of the cove, the wind picked up pretty suddenly and made it a bit of a slog to get back to the dock.

If I want to do 2 of these pieces, which I do during this endurance block, then I have to use a more conservative pace target, like 2:20 to 2:25.

Workout Summary - media/20160716-161035-2016-07-16-0635.CSV
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|13065|70:04.0|02:40.1|19.7|151.0|169.3|09.3
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|02265| 12:38 |02:47.3|16.8|141.0|163.0|10.7
02|05533| 25:21 |02:17.4|23.3|170.0|183.0|09.4
03|05267| 32:05 |03:02.3|19.0|142.0|162.0|08.7

So, a 2:17 pace at 23 spm. I’m OK with that. Last year, my best head race was a 2:13.9 pace at 27 spm. I think with some decent training and losing some weight, I’m be at that pace or better by race time.

Tomorrow: Technical session on Quinsig. Start with some bungee rowing, then 500m blocks of SBR, alternating SBR/feathered and feathered.

Tuesday: Rate Ladders in a 2x

June 28, 20162 Comments

I had an appointment to have my car serviced this morning and the dealership is out near Lake Quinsigamond in Shrewsbury. I dropped my friend Joe a note yesterday to find out if he would be interested in taking out a double this morning for a row before I dropped off my car. He was. So we met at the lake around 5:45 and took out a nice Vespoli double that we have.

Joe is recovering from a surgical repair of a torn biceps tendon. He missed all of last season, but this season he is starting to get back to his old form. We put our names in the draw for the masters double event at the HOCR. Today was the first time we’ve been out in a double for about 2 years. We decided to do some rate ladders to work on our timing and try to match up our techniques a bit.

Plan:

Rate Ladders: 4′ @ 18, 3′ @ 20, 2′ @ 22, 1′ @ 24
Short rests at the south and north ends of the lake.

Weather: Cloudy, some light rain, warm around 70F. Wind was from the south at 3 to 5 mph. (1.8 to 2.2 m/s) The boat felt a lot heavier rowing south than it did rowing north.

We started out from just north of the rt 9 bridge and headed south. The first ladder started at 2 minutes. We hit the south end of the lake at the end of the r20 section of the second ladder and turned around to finish the r22 and r24 sections. Rowing north was a treat. The boat felt light and I felt like our timing was working better. One challenge we have to work on is that Joe and I seem to want the boat to lean in slightly different directions. I always feel like the boat is leaning a bit to port. Another thing to work on is finishes. I noticed that my finishes were sloppier in a double than in the single, I imagine because the stroke is a bit quicker.

We finished the 3rd ladder about 1000m south of the route 9 bridge and continued into the fourth. By the time we got to the r24 part of the fourth interval, I felt like we were rowing pretty well together and I called that we would go keep pushing the rate up. I heard the reaction, I was hoping for from Joe in the bow…”Alright!”. So, a minute at 26 felt great. Then up to 28. This started to be a bit more ragged, but still good fun. Then finally to 30. This was pretty nasty rowing, and not really any faster than the r28 bit. I don’t know about Joe, but I was feeling pretty winded by the time we were into the r30. We finished the r30 section right before we got to the I290 bridge and paddled it out to the north end of the lake.

There is just about 3K from the north end of the lake to the boathouse. We decided to do 20 strokes on / 20 strokes off until we had about 500m to go and then finish hard…just in case there was anyone at the boathouse to impress :-).

With about 700m to go, I brought up the rate and with 500m to go we went to full pressure at r28 and I started counting strokes to the finish.

I really enjoyed that. From a pure training effectiveness perspective, I probably should have kept the intensity a little lower, but I think it was good to work on technique at higher rates, and it was fun.

Looking at the biorow data, the wind would have slowed the pace down about 9 seconds going south and sped us up about 7 seconds going north.

Tomorrow: Back in the single. Race prep. Standing starts, 15 strokes, 1′ rests over and over.

Side Video of Rowing Drills

November 1, 20152 Comments

Square Blade rowing

Flaws to fix:

Touching water
Slightly feathered from square

Square at pause: Feather at the finish normally, then pause at half slide, then square the blades, then continue to catch.

Flaws to fix:

Pausing too early. I am pausing at 1/4 slide, right when my hands go over my knees.
Touching water. This is mainly caused by a sloppy finish leaving me slightly off balance

Alternating Strokes: This video starts with a few strokes of slow roll ups, then goes into a 3 stroke alternating sequence. First is a stroke on the square, then a stroke with a slow roll up, then a normal stroke. The idea is to extract the blades the same way for each, and then change what is done on the recovery. I find that the norma strokes feel so good when I do this drill

Side View Video – R24, r26, r28

November 1, 2015November 1, 20153 Comments

Yesterday, I did a hard 5k on Lake Quinsigamond. I mounted a gpro camera on a backstay attached the end of to my starboard rigger, just forward of the oarlock.

In the 5K piece, I did the first 2K at r24, the second 2k at r26, and the final 1200 meters at r28.

r24 on fresh legs.

Looking at the video, I am having trouble finding a lot to criticize. The things that I notice are:

More blade clearance off the water
Extract blades a bit more square before feathering
Try to bury the blades a bit sooner. Some strokes, I am missing a little water at the catch.
Sit up a bit taller

The other thing I am wondering is if it would be a good idea to lower my shoes a little bit, I might be able to get a little more reach.

Last thing that I noticed was how absolutely beautiful it was yesterday morning. Isn’t it a pretty lake!

And here is the boat acceleration from RIM.

Comparing this to “world class” curves, the obvious difference is in the height of the positive acceleration peak. There is also a bit of trash at the finish. The catch seems to have a little double hump thing going on, which I have to assume is me bouncing a bit at the forestop.

Just to follow up on the discussion from Sander’s blog post. I decided to look at the same set of strokes, but over a single stroke, 4 strokes, and 8 strokes to see how the curves and numbers change.

There is a remarkable change in the curve from 4 strokes to 8 strokes, and the numbers change too. I think that if you are using RIM to provide feedback, that you might do best to either stick to single strokes, or at least make sure that you are always looking at the same number of strokes averaged.

r26 – This was after 2K of hard rowing, so I am feeling a bit more fatigued.

On this one, the primary flaw that I see is that my blades are getting shallower as the drive moves from catch to finish. By the time I extract the blades, about the top 1/3 of the blade is above the surface of the water. I need to work on keeping my hands level through the drive and finish a bit higher on my torso. The other thing that could be causing this is allowing myself to lay back too much at the end of the stroke. I would probably be faster if I finish a bit earlier with less layback.

Here are the RIM curves for r26

The negative acceleration at the catch is larger, which probably means that I am now rushing the slide a bit. You can see a little positive acceleration on the last third of the recovery. Some strokes show a pronounced double hump, some do not. There is still a bit of noise at the finish.

r28

This video is the last 4 minutes of r26 and then about 5 minutes at r28. From 1:30 to about 2:00 into the video, I am going underneath the brand new bridge across our lake. Isn’t it beautiful? Now we have two broad arches, on for up lake traffic and one for down lake traffic.

The r28 stuff starts at about 4:30 into the video.

The stroke mechanics, unsurpisingly look a lot like r26 mechanics. Same basic strengths and weaknesses.

Here is one r28 stroke and one r30 stroke. Basically the same shape. A bit less of the double hump on the r30 stroke. One change this year is that I have a smaller positive acceleration during the recovery, which I think is basically a good thing since it means that my speed on the slide is more constant and I am not rushing into the catch. But I am not expert enough to be sure.

Later today, I will post some video of the drills that I did yesterday. Someone may find them useful, or if nothing else, you can smirk about how bad they look.

I am very fortunate to have had Sander give me some feedback by marking up my video. He was illustrating two flaws in my rowing. The first is not having relaxed and straight arms at the catch.

The other flaw was not maintaining constant handle height through the drive.

Thanks Sander!

Saturday: 5K hard on Lake Quinsigamond

October 31, 20152 Comments

Weather: below 30F, but bright sunshine and nice flat water. A slight breeze from the NW, which was a cross/head wind for the hard piece

Plan:

5km
Rate: First 2k at 24, then 2k at 26, then the rest at 28
Pace: Faster than 2:15
Video from the side to record the state of things at the end of this season and figure out what to work on next year.

Start_|_Dist_|_Split_|_Pace_|_Strks__|_Rate_|_DPS_|_AvgHR_|_Remarks
00020_|_3980_|_21:16_|_2:40.4_|_385___|_18.1_|_10.3_|_135___|_w
04000_|_5200_|_23:06_|_2:13.2_|_604___|_26.2_|_08.6_|_171___|_5K hard
09200_|_3180_|_17:48_|_2:47.9_|_348___|_19.6_|_09.1_|_145___|_c

Very hard work. At first, I was doing great, even at r24. But after about 1K, I started to feel it bite. I was working hard when I did the rate shift to 26 spm and didn’t get much pace out of it. By the tie I rate shifted to 28, I was in survival mode and couldn’t really squeeze much more out.

Videos coming in a while, as soon as they finish loading and I figure out what they say.

Tomorrow: 4 x 20′ / 1′ rest

Saturday: 5700m Threshold on Lake Quinsigamond

August 23, 2015August 23, 2015Leave a comment

Cloudy, nice temp, mid 60s. Wind from the North at 8 to 10 mph. I rowed the main piece with this as a tail wind. Water conditions were nice for the first 1000m, then choppy for the next 3000m, then it smoothed out at the south end of the lake. It was rough enough that I had some trouble maintaining stroke length.

Start_|_Dist_|_Split_|_Pace_|_Strks__|_Rate_|_DPS_|_AvgHR_|_Remarks
00020_|_2980_|_16:41_|_2:48.0_|_316___|_18.9_|_09.4_|_133___|_warmup
03000_|_5700_|_25:11_|_2:12.6_|_645___|_25.6_|_08.8_|_171___|_5.7km threshold
08700_|_3780_|_21:51_|_2:53.4_|_432___|_19.8_|_08.8_|_144___|_sbr, sru, r20

12460_|_03:43_|_2:33.4_|_1393___|_21.9_|_08.9_|_152___|_Total

I went out with great exuberance and with the tail wind I had no trouble holding under 2:10 over the first 2k or so. By then the chop had built up and I was struggling to keep my oars off the water on recovery. After I passed the bridge I was waked pretty hard by a waterskiing boat that was pulling someone on a wake board slowly enough that the boat wasn’t even planing. The wake was huge and stopped me cold. I recovered from that and went another 700m or so, and got waked by another waterskier, but this time it was a bit further away and a bit easier to row through.

From there, I was down around the islands and the water was getting better. I tried to push the pace a bit more, but I was pretty tired out. I had enough lake to get 5700m done. Final split was 2:12.6, which is the fastest I’ve done the lake, but it was quite a tail wind. I would have hoped with that kind of a boost, I could have held it down around 2:10, but I guess I’m not quite that fit.

Tomorrow: Rest day.

Quantified Rowing

Measure – Adjust – Improve

Tag: Lake Quinsigamond

Friday: “The Hook” – 5.9km hard

Wednesday:4 x 5 x 2′

Friday: 5km Threshold in 2x

Sunday: 15K of Technique

Saturday: Hard Distance – 5.5K

Tuesday: Rate Ladders in a 2x

Side Video of Rowing Drills

Side View Video – R24, r26, r28

Saturday: 5K hard on Lake Quinsigamond

Saturday: 5700m Threshold on Lake Quinsigamond