Tag: marathon

Wednesday: 3×30’/3′ (mp,10kp,mp) – A whole lotta rowing

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Weather:  Overcast, 55F, no wind, humid (The Dew Point was 54F!).  Nearly perfect for rowing.

Plan:

M2 3 x 30′ / 3′ MP, 10KP, MP 90.0% (167)

OTW Power Targets:

  • MP: 155 to 165W
  • 10KP: 180W to 190W

The main problem of this session is doing 30 minute intervals on a stretch of river that is about 15 minutes long.  Each of the intervals had one or two turns in it.  I tried to do these turns as quickly as I could.  I was generally back to full pressure strokes within 40-50 seconds of my last stroke in the other direction.  And the turn itself was reasonably aerobic (or stressful), so my HR stayed high through it.  I tried to extend each of the 30 minute intervals to account for the time lost in the turns, but it seems I shaved a little time off of each of them, based on the collected data.

It was basically 3 complete laps of the river.

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The first interval took me down to the damn and most of the way back.  I paddled the 3 minute rest upstream and then turned about 500m from the start.

The second interval took me downstream.  This interval was at higher stroke rate (22) and higher power.  I turned at about 12 minutes, then rowed upstream for 14 minutes, turned again and finished the last 5 minutes or so going downstream again.  I finished in the middle of the s-turn.  I doubled back to before the s-turn during the rest and spun to go back downstream.  The turns were hard to pull off when I was going faster and breathing harder.

The third interval took me down to the dam in about 9 minutes.  Then I turned and rowed all the way back up past the boat house for another 20 minutes.

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Workout Summary - media/20170524-145648-SpdCoach 2182533 20170524 0639amo.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|18927|94:58.0|02:30.5|174.1|21.3|153.0|169.0|09.4
W-|18001|88:03.0|02:26.7|178.5|21.0|153.7|169.0|09.8
R-|00932|06:55.0|03:43.1|109.1|23.9|140.2|169.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|03838|18:30.0|02:24.6|177.0|20.4|142.2|148.0|10.2
02|02290|11:30.0|02:30.7|167.9|19.9|148.3|152.0|10.0
03|02444|11:25.2|02:20.2|191.9|22.4|155.8|161.0|09.5
04|02545|12:15.0|02:24.4|188.6|22.6|162.7|169.0|09.2
05|00962|04:30.0|02:20.3|206.5|22.5|163.6|166.0|09.5
06|01784|08:40.2|02:25.8|171.1|20.1|152.5|158.0|10.2
07|04138|21:12.7|02:33.8|169.4|20.3|158.7|166.0|09.6

I think that I should decrease my OTW slack factor.  Right now I have it at 15% and in today’s session, I was consistently above the band.  The middle interval was 100% above 10kp, evenly split between 5kp and 2kp.  The two mp intervals were similarly above the target zone.  I think that today’s power should be in the middle of the zones.

Todays powers:

  • 10kp : 191.9, 188.6,206.5 –> 192.8W (weighted avg)
  • mp : 177,167.9,171.1,169.4 –> 171.7W (weighted avg)

Changing my slack to 13% brings the 10kp roughly in line.  I am still overachieving a bit on mp.

Screen Shot 2017-05-24 at 1.55.35 PM

The power pie chart was generated with the 13% slack number.

Here’s a collection of stroke metric plots.

  • Power is noisy but pretty consistent through the session.  Pace is all over the place.
  • Drive Length and Effective length is consistent over time and stroke rate

And here are box plot of my sessions so far this spring.  I excluded all open water and technique sessions.  The main thing that jumps out at me is how little change over time I have seen.

Tomorrow:  On the water.  Another long session.  This one a bit easier.

M3 2 x 45′ / 4’30” MP or slower 80.0% (149)

 

Power target: 160W to 170W.

Tuesday: 4 x 15’/4′ (9’@5kp,6’@mp)

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Monday:  I felt very tired Sunday night and I decided that I would benefit from a rest day, so I took on.  I slept in instead.

Tuesday:  I was on my way to row.  The sky was grey and it was cool and drizzly.  I have gotten into the habit of stopping at a highway rest stop that is near where I launch to go to the bathroom.  Before doing this routinely, I have had a number of sessions ruined by a urgent need to go to the bathroom.  This morning was one of those mornings, I could just tell.  I made an executive decision.  I drove right past the boathouse and continued on to work.  I would do the session on the erg instead in the fitness center at work.

This worked out just fine.  I was able to go to the bathroom and  then exercise with a clear conscience (and empty…).

The plan

  • 4 – 15 minute intervals with 4 minute rests
  • Each interval
    • 9 minutes at 5k power (225 to 240W)
    • 6 minutes at marathon power (180-195W)
  • Heart rate limit at 172

It was another great workout.  These rest days are kind of magic!

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Compare this workout to the same one done at the end of January.  The HR response today was crazy low.  The first chart is power and you can see I used a higher Marathon Power, and even pushed the 5k power in the last rep.

Tomorrow is a monster session.

M2 3 x 30′ / 3′ MP, 10KP, MP 90.0% (167)

Hopefully, I can do this one on the water.

  • Power Targets:  MP -> 155 to 165W, 10KP –> 180 to 190W
  • Adaptations.  The first 30 minutes I will start right off the dock and it will take me down to the dam and halfway back to the start.  Then I will paddle the rest of the way to the start of the good rowing section, then I will do down and back.  Then a 3 minute paddle downstream, then back to the dam and back home.  About 2 hours on the water.

 

2 x 30′ / 2′ rest at Crossfit Del Mar

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I’m in San Diego.  I went over to Crossfit Del Mar, paid my drop in fee and grabbed an erg.

Plan: 2 x 30′ @ MP HR cap at 155

I ended up busting the cap in the last third of the 2nd piece.

2-8a

I’m on the red eye tonight back to Boston.  Hopefully, I will get in.  There is snow in the forecast.  Lot’s of snow.

 

Wednesday : Aborted Marathon

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It was not meant to be.  I’m on Christmas vacation and for once, I had enough time.  I felt pretty good and I wanted to be able to grab the 100 bonus points in the Nonathlon.  But things just didn’t work out to plan.

I looked up my PB and it was a 1:59.1 pace. Ouch.  That seemed hard, but I was game.  I took off at 1:59 and within 5K I realized it was too fast for me.  I pushed on to my first water break, at 12192m. I guzzled down some water and got going again, but this time I held it to about a 2:03 pace.  This was much better.  My HR stayed in better control and I was a lot more comfortable.  At least I was for the next 12 minutes or so.  At that point I got a call from my car insurance people.  It’s a long story, but I needed to handle a problem right away with a few phone calls.  It all took about 15 minutes.

I just left the clock running on the marathon.  When I pulled again, it showed a projected time of 3:00:00, and an average pace of about 2:30.  What a depressing sight.  But I pushed on.  For about 5 minutes.  That’s when my iphone spontaneously stopped playing music.  I played around a bit and determined that it was the headphones, ran and got another pair, and got back on the erg.

Now the projected finish was above 3:08:00.  And I just started to lose interest.  At this point, I had rowed 17 or 18km.  I rowed to 20km, had a quick drink and continued.  When I got to 25km, I decided that I’d had enough.  I had some Christmas shopping to do and some other errands, and the thought of grinding away for another hour was not at all interesting to me.

Maybe, I’ll give it a go in a couple weeks if I have a marathon sized hole in my schedule.

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I guess it’s really just another steady state training day.