I sure missed this. 14km 2x

August 6, 20171 Comment

I got home at 2:15am on Saturday morning. It was pure bliss getting back into my own bed. I slept like a log. I was stunned to see it was 11am when I finally woke up.

I spent the day just puttering around the house. I did some grocery shopping and laundry. I didn’t feel like training, so I didn’t. I got to bed around midnight. Even though I didn’t feel that sleepy, I fell asleep quickly and slept until 5. I woke up and I knew instantly that I was done sleeping. I tried to sleep a bit more, but a thought crept into my head. If I’m awake anyway, maybe I should head out to Worcester and go rowing. This seemed like a much better thing to do than to toss and turn in bed not sleeping.

So, I did. I got up, put my name on the sign up list, got my stuff together and headed out to Quinsigamond. When I got there, I was delighted to see Joe and Bob. Bob suggested we take out the Wintech. I thought that was a great idea. I haven’t been in a boat since July 16th. A nice stable double sounded perfect. I could let him steer and I could just focus on trying to remember how to row.

It came back quickly.

I didn’t have much of a plan. I ultimately decided that I should do some kind of an approximation of the L3 workout that was scheduled for Yesterday. But mostly, I was just really enjoying the feeling of being in the boat. The feeling of connection. The sound of the bubbles running along the hull.

We headed south and I fell into a groove at around 23 SPM. I just went with it. We had a bit of a tail wind and the pace was generally between 2:10 and 2:15. I was working pretty hard, and by the sound of Bob’s breathing, he was working pretty hard too. We got waked a couple of times by waterskiing boats, but generally it was just a nice hard row all the way down lake.

We turned to go north, and I suggested we take it down a bit and do some easy rate ladders. This plan didn’t last all that long though. As we were coming out of the cove at the south end of the lake, we saw the quad from our club going the other way, so we looped around the little island and followed them back into the cove.

We stopped and chatted for a few minutes and then we both started up again. Bob said he would feel ore comfortable ahead of them than behind them, and the rest, as they say, is history. I brought the rate back up to about a 24 and decided that we would “do the lake”. This is a nice 5+km piece. Basically a perfect head race distance.

Now I didn’t push it as hard as a full on head race simulation, but I wanted it to be a good threshold L3 training piece. Now the wind was ahead of us and it was building. We launched at about 7:10 and we would have started up lake around 7:40.

The row was close to uneventful. One or two wakings, but generally we just clicked along. The wind got a bit gusty once we were north of the Rt 9 bridge, but the water was flat. Bob asked for a hard twenty at the end, and then tacked on another 10 for fun. We were both puffing hard by the time we finished.

Then we turned around and took it easy almost all the way back. Bob asked for 50 hard strokes at the end. It was a good way to finish.

Today made it easy to remember why I really like this sport. Pushing hard is easy on a crisp, sunny morning like today.

Tomorrow: Schedule calls for a rest day, but I did that yesterday. I think I will try to do an L4 OTW in Newton.

Catching up and slowing down

June 25, 2017July 17, 20171 Comment

Wow. I haven’t posted since last Monday. It’s been a busy week.

If you recall, Monday’s workout was terrible.

6/20 – Tuesday: The plan called for a massive workout…

3 x 30′ / 3′

MP, 10KP, MP

90.0%

(167)

I was up late on Monday night and slept in instead of trying to go on the water. I thought I could do the workout on the erg later in the day when my schedule was freer. I was wrong.

It ended up that I didn’t have time to do the whole workout, so I thought I would change it to be 20′ @ MP, 30′ @ 10kp and 20′ @ MP.

I had hopes that my workout on Monday was just a fluke, so i set out with aggressive power targets. 200W for MP, and 230 for 10KP.

I didn’t last.

I did the first 20 minutes per plan, but my HR was too high and I was struggling. I backed off the 10KP to the bottom of the power range (210W), but I busted through the HR cap within about 8 minutes and was flailing around and struggling for breath. I handled down. I tried to start again, and HD’ed again. I decided to just paddle it out to 20 minutes and then pack it in for the day.

Workout Summary - media/20170620-183745-sled_2017-06-20T13-28-55ZEDT.strokes.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|09995|42:07.0|02:06.4|192.6|21.7|154.9|168.0|10.9
W-|09633|39:07.0|02:01.8|198.3|21.7|155.5|168.0|11.4
R-|00365|03:00.0|04:06.3|068.2|21.2|137.4|168.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|05008|20:00.0|01:59.8|203.0|21.4|151.5|162.0|11.7
01|01791|07:00.0|01:57.3|218.1|23.5|158.6|168.0|10.9 -HD
02|02834|12:07.4|02:08.3|179.2|21.1|160.4|166.0|11.1 - paddle it out

Very Frustrating.

6/21 – Wednesday: Tuesday night I was up late yet again. Again, I decided that missing sleep to row was a bad call. But on Wednesday, in an attempt to find my bliss, I left work a bit early, blew off the training plan and just went rowing. The goal to keep my HR under 150 and just enjoy being out in the sunshine.

It was glorious. It was quite windy, and there was a lot of kayaks and canoes out on the river. I haven’t had a chance to upload the speedcoach data, all I have handy is the RIM data, without HR.

It was slow, both because of the breeze, and also because of the HR cap. I am still getting used to the new oars. This was a very nice, easy way to get some strokes in.

Workout Summary - media/20170625-222721-89865o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|14324|77:10.0|02:41.6|000.0|17.5|0.0|000.0|10.6
W-|14325|77:10.0|02:41.6|000.0|17.5|000.0|000.0|10.6

6/22 – Thursday: I was up until 1:30AM on Wednesday night, getting my car packed. We are getting the house down on the cape ready for visitors. I slept until 7 and rushed off to work. I was going to take Thursday as a rest day. I was due for a rest day. I worked until around 4 and then headed off to the cape. The traffic was horrifying. I didn’t get there until 7:30!

6/23 – Friday: Open water rowing seems to be a probabilistic endeavor. The tides are really big right now, so I wanted to avoid low tide, which was just before am.

So, I slept in and I thought I would go in the early afternoon. That’s when the wind changed my plans.

Around noon, the wind just started building, and building. By seven pm the sustained wind speed was over 40 mph with gusts nearing 50.

Instead, I got busy with a bunch of work around the house. The most involved of these chores was repairing the bottom 8 steps of the stairs down to the beach. The bottom 3 or 4 steps are actually submerged at high tide and they take a terrific beating during the winter. On Friday, I jacked up and braced the stairs, fixed the handrails, and fixed 4 steps. The steps I’m talking about are the ones below that final platform you can see at the end of stairs in this picture.

There was a bit of aerobic benefit from going up and down the stairs about 6 times, but beyond that, there was no training on Friday.

6/24 – Saturday:

Again, I was hoping for a late morning row. But again, the weather did not cooperate.

In the morning, when I got up, the wind was blowing and the sky was grey and angry. It got steadily worse. The weather log tells the story.

The wind howled overnight, with gusts up to 50mph. The wind stayed up above 30 mph all morning and there was intermittent rain. Right around 11:00, dark storm clouds rolled in across the water and the sky opened up. It rained hard for about an hour. During that hour I decided to erg. When I came back upstairs, the sky was clearing, the wind was dropping, and I had other stuff that needed to get done.

The session was an easy one.

3 x 20′ / 1′ rest @ 180.

This went better than the workouts earlier in the week, but was still a sweaty slog. I guess the 90% humidity took a bit of a toll. I had to back off in the last interval to keep my HR below 155.

Workout Summary - media/20170624-1825210o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|14693|63:00.0|02:08.6|176.2|20.4|147.6|156.0|11.4
W-|14420|60:00.0|02:04.8|179.7|20.4|147.6|156.0|11.8
R-|00276|03:00.0|05:26.6|052.3|21.1|144.1|156.0|07.1
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|04834|20:00.0|02:04.1|182.5|20.0|140.2|148.0|12.1
01|04813|20:00.0|02:04.7|180.1|20.4|150.1|155.0|11.8
02|04774|20:00.0|02:05.7|176.6|20.7|152.6|156.0|11.5

6/25 – Sunday: This morning I was up early-ish because I wanted to get a quick session in before I headed off to the airport.

2 x 40’/1′ rest @ 180.

Workout Summary - media/20170625-1255220o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|09872|42:00.0|02:07.7|179.2|20.2|139.7|152.0|11.6
W-|09657|40:00.0|02:04.3|182.4|20.1|139.8|152.0|12.0
R-|00216|02:00.0|04:39.9|074.1|22.8|129.4|152.0|08.1
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|04835|20:00.0|02:04.1|182.7|20.0|134.3|144.0|12.1
01|04822|20:00.0|02:04.4|182.1|20.2|145.3|152.0|11.9

So now I am on a plane to Tokyo, then connecting to Korea. I’ll be there through Thursday. It’s a challenge to maintain a training plan with summer vacations and work travel. I just have to play it by ear, be flexible and try to focus on having some fun with it.

Comparing Oars – My post over on Analytics

June 18, 2017June 18, 2017Leave a comment

Comparing Oars Using RIM EmPower and rowsandall

Friday: 3 x 20′ (7′ @ 5kp, 13′ @ mp)

June 16, 2017June 17, 2017Leave a comment

Weather: Cloudy, mid 60s, light wind, 2-5mph from the south. There were some stronger gusts towards the end of the workout. This was a headwind going up river.

Plan:

3 x 20′ / 5′

7′ @ 5KP, 13′ @ MP

92.5%

(172)

Target power:
- 5kp: 197-210W
- mp: 158-171
modifications:
- 20′ intervals are 6 minutes too long for the river, so I planned to just turn where required. I didn’t add any additional time to the intervals since my HR really doesn’t go down much in the turn

I felt a bit tired when I got up. This was the fourth session in a row, although one day was only 40 minutes.

I decided to stick with the plan and just ease up if necessary. It ended up not being necessary.

Workout Summary - media/20170616-145439-Greg Smith 20170616 0629amo.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|14395|77:26.0|02:41.4|165.2|21.4|157.9|173.0|08.7
W-|12031|57:43.0|02:24.0|182.6|21.6|162.5|173.0|09.7
R-|02372|19:42.0|04:09.3|094.7|19.8|138.5|173.0|03.1
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|01613|07:00.0|02:10.2|213.4|24.9|158.8|167.0|09.2 -5kp
02|01169|05:30.0|02:21.1|176.8|19.9|158.4|166.0|10.7 -mp->turn
03|01363|06:49.8|02:30.4|167.3|19.6|157.3|162.0|10.2 -mp
04|01057|04:60.0|02:22.0|215.4|24.3|160.4|168.0|08.7 -5kp->turn
05|00349|01:31.8|02:11.6|199.3|23.9|165.1|168.0|09.5 -5kp
06|02353|11:16.2|02:23.7|165.6|19.6|162.3|168.0|10.6 -mp->turn
07|00192|00:54.0|02:20.4|181.1|21.3|161.8|164.0|10.0 -mp
08|01461|07:00.0|02:23.8|200.5|24.2|165.7|173.0|08.6 -5kp
09|02475|12:42.0|02:34.0|166.6|20.7|167.9|173.0|09.4 -mp

This was my first row with a new pair of oars. I bought a pair of smoothie2, vortex edge skinnies so that I could leave my fat2s down at the cape with my open water boat.

Here are a few metrics plots from this workout.

Drive length and effective length consistent and a bit longer than prior workouts
Lots of variation in WPS and power. Does that mean I need to work on consistency?
Power and WPS for the r24 (5kp) chunk of the row. (plotted by excluding all strokes lower than r22 and all strokes with WPS below 450)
Power and WPS for the r20 part of the row. (plotted by excluding all strokes higher than r22, and rest strokes, and all strokes with WPS below 450)

I was very pleased with the workout, and the new oars. More about that later.

Today I am taking a rest day. Tomorrow, I am planning a long open water row, weather permitting.

Thursday: 14km steady state

June 15, 2017June 15, 2017Leave a comment

Weather: The kind of day that makes you think that rowing is the finest sport ever created. Temp was about 60F when I started and in the high 60s when I finished.

There was very little wind when I started, just enough to barely ripple the surface of the water. In the last 30 minutes or so, the wind built to a steady 3-5mph from the Southwest. This was a headwind that slowed me down in the last segment.

The sun was shining and sparkling in reflections off the water and the birds were singing. It was just a glorious morning to be out.

The plan for today was:

2 x 40′ / 4′

MP or slower

80.0%

(149)

To do this OTW, I changed it to

2 x 35′ / 2′
In each 35′ section there is a turn which takes about 30 seconds. Goal is to do it quick enough so my HR doesn’t go down.
HR cap at 155, since I can’t seem to stick to anything lower.
target power: MP (158-171W)

Workout Summary - media/20170615-161158-Greg Smith 20170615 0635amo.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|13889|72:21.0|02:36.3|153.4|18.7|149.1|159.0|10.2
W-|13673|68:25.0|02:30.1|160.0|18.7|149.2|159.0|10.7
R-|00221|03:55.0|08:53.5|036.7|18.4|143.4|159.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|04029|19:16.2|02:23.5|170.8|19.0|143.9|152.0|11.0
01|02847|14:25.8|02:32.0|162.7|18.5|150.3|155.0|10.7
02|02820|13:46.8|02:26.6|161.7|18.3|148.6|155.0|11.2
03|03977|20:57.0|02:38.0|147.0|18.9|153.8|159.0|10.1

Today, I was really trying to focus on two things

Keep my HR below 155
Keep my effective length above 83 degrees, especially as I got more tired.

I also wanted to maintain power and WPS through the workout.

I can’t complain about that workout.

Tomorrow:

3 x 20′ / 5′

7′ @ 5KP, 13′ @ MP

92.5%

(172)

This is kind of tough, because I will need to turn in the middle of the 13′ segments.

Tuesday: 4×15’/4′ (7′ @ 5kp, 8′ @ mp)

June 13, 20171 Comment

Monday: I was tired and sore in the morning after my 3 hour row on Sunday. I took an unplanned rest day.

Tuesday: Hot! 75F at 6am. Humid. Light breeze, which increased from nothing to about 5mph over the course of the workout. This was a cross/head wind coming up river.

Plan:

4 x 15′ intervals
- 7′ at 5kp
- 8′ at mp
4 minute rests
Target power
- 5kp: 197-210W
- mp: 158-171W
Modifications:
- To fit river length, shorten the 8′ intervals as needed

This was a good workout. I was on the edge of failure in the last interval and the interval power came down in each rep, but I maintained good effective length throughout.

So, I should have spent 28 minutes at or above 5kp. Total was 26:20.

Interval detail shows that I missed the power targets (barely) in the last interval. I think these are a bit harsh because the power is dramatically under reported in the turns to port. (toward the oarlock side) The power is over reported on turns to starboard, but I don’t think it’s as drastic. At least that’s what I’m telling myself.

Workout Summary - media/20170613-135530-Greg Smith 20170613 0639amo.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|14312|82:38.0|02:53.2|158.2|21.8|156.3|177.0|07.9
W-|11105|53:28.0|02:24.5|186.2|22.1|164.5|177.0|09.5
R-|03213|29:10.0|04:32.4|073.4|20.1|136.4|177.0|06.1
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|01598|07:00.0|02:11.4|210.1|25.0|158.7|167.0|09.1
02|01184|05:36.0|02:21.9|177.4|19.2|158.4|166.0|11.0
03|01467|07:00.0|02:23.1|209.9|24.5|163.5|172.0|08.6
04|01382|07:07.8|02:34.8|166.1|19.4|164.1|172.0|10.0
05|01545|07:00.0|02:16.0|202.5|24.5|168.2|175.0|09.0
06|01190|05:42.0|02:23.7|167.0|19.6|168.4|174.0|10.7
07|01427|07:00.0|02:27.2|194.8|24.3|168.1|177.0|08.4
08|01312|07:03.0|02:41.2|156.9|19.6|166.4|177.0|09.5

After the last 7 minute piece at 5kp, I “handled down” for a moment and then started back up again. I kinda pushed the end of that bit really hard.

A few metrics for fun.

Power in the MP intervals. Reasonably consistent, except for the handle down at the beginning of the fourth one.
Power in the 5kp intervals, shows a slow fade as I fatigue
Power and WPS vs stroke rate. Shows a consistent WPS between r20 and r24. Also shows a bit tighter grouping of stroke rate at the higher rate too.
Drive length and effective length are both reasonably consistent across the whole row. I was really focused on that today and I think it was a good thing to do.

I was really spent after the last piece. I consumed an entire 1 liter bottle of water during the row. For the cool down, I rowed with feet out about 1km back to the dock. Maybe it was just fatigue and oxygen deprivation, but I felt like my finishes were beautiful!

Tomorrow: I have an appointment at 7 tomorrow morning, so i will have try to squeeze in an erg session sometime during the day.

4 x 20′ / 2′

MP, 10KP, HMP, MP

90.0%

(167)

Friday: 14km steady state

June 2, 2017Leave a comment

Weather: Amazing. 60F, sunny, dry. Light wind (head wind heading up stream) Flat water.

There were 5 other singles out while I was rowing. I think that’s the highest number I’ve ever seen. It was nice to have company.

The plan:

The training plan called for 2×30′ mp with a HR cap below 70%HRR. I’ve never been able to respect a 70% HR cap, ever. So I decided 150 was OK (75%)
30 minute intervals are a pain on my stubby little river, so I did 20’/15’/15’/20′

The challenge for me today was to figure out how to row with marathon power at r20 and good length. Why is this a challenge? Well, because that combination requires me to row with a lighter stroke than I am used to. I tend to naturally row at a higher than mp power at r20, and that makes my HR shoot up too high. When I try to lighten up, instead I tend to shorten up, which, in theory, reduces how efficient I am.

I pronounce the session today to be useful and productive, even though it was a pretty constant struggle. It was an exercise in “mindful training” I was consciously thinking about every stroke, and the speedcoach was basically grading me on every stroke. I would finish and glance down during recovery and see stroke rate, effective length and stroke power. And then I would adjust for the next stroke. One of the things that I really noticed is that if I concentrated on trying to get a little more layback than I am used to doing, and kept my elbows nice and wide at the finish, I was getting about 5 extra degrees of effective length, and my finishes were cleaner.

The result of the struggle was that I ended up pushing up against the HR cap, and I was getting pretty tired. Bearing in mind that I have a long row planned for tomorrow, I decided to focus on technique for the last 20 minutes of the row by alternating 2 minutes of r20 and 2 minutes of SBR. This allowed me to focus on practicing strokes with more layback and getting the blades out of the water as cleanly as possible.

Tomorrow: Hopefully, a 26km open water long row

Thursday: 4 x 15′ / 4′ (6′ @ 5kp, ~9′ @ mp)

June 1, 20172 Comments

Wednesday: Rest Day

Thursday:

Weather: Beautiful. We had a line of thunderstorms blow through last night and this morning was cool and dry. There was a little bit of a breeze, which was generally a headwind heading up stream.

Plan:

4 x 15′ / 4′

6′ @ 5KP, 9′ @ MP

92.5%

(172)

Power Targets:

5kp: 197 – 210
mp: 158 – 171

This session needed to be modified slightly. From end to end, the river takes 13 to 14 minutes to row. I had two alternatives. One was to turn and finish. The other was to cut the mp section short when I ran out of river. I decided to just cut them short.

Workout Summary - media/20170601-134451-Greg Smith 20170601 0644amo.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|14243|82:31.0|02:53.8|161.4|22.2|148.5|175.0|07.8
W-|11306|54:07.0|02:23.6|191.4|22.1|162.2|175.0|09.6
R-|02945|28:24.0|04:49.4|068.0|20.3|118.2|175.0|07.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|01407|06:00.0|02:07.9|239.5|26.8|160.4|168.0|08.7 - w/ curr & wind
02|01386|06:43.2|02:25.4|171.9|18.6|153.9|168.0|11.1 - w/ curr & wind
03|01317|06:00.0|02:16.7|223.5|25.8|166.7|173.0|08.5 - against
04|01509|07:52.8|02:36.7|160.8|19.0|159.6|172.0|10.1 - against
05|01345|06:00.0|02:13.8|226.9|25.7|166.7|172.0|08.7 - with
06|01467|07:13.2|02:27.7|154.6|18.9|159.9|172.0|10.7 - with
07|01277|06:00.0|02:21.0|211.8|25.7|167.2|175.0|08.3 - against
08|01598|08:18.0|02:35.8|169.7|19.5|164.3|175.0|09.9 - against

So, the average power for the 5kp sections was 225W vs the 197-210 range, so a bit on the high side. And the mp sections average was 164.25W vs the 158 to 171W, right in the band. You can see at the end of the last interval where I started trying to chase the split going into the head wind and the narrowest part of the river with the most current.

Ideally, the power pie would be 24 minutes in 5kp, 36 minutes in mp. You can see that basically all the 5kp target was rowed in a higher band. The mp rowing was all over the map.

The stroke metrics were somewhat illuminating (to me).

Tomorrow: steady state, technique focused, HR cap at 150.

Tuesday: 3 x 20′ (MP,10KP,HMP)

May 30, 2017May 31, 20174 Comments

Weather: Overcast, cool, humid. Light wind, headwind going upstream.

Felt very low energy in the morning. Got up anyway.

Plan:

3 x 20′ / 2′

MP, 10KP, HMP

90.0%

(167)

Power targets:

MP: 158-171
HMP: 171-184
10KP: 184-197

So, I had two different thoughts in my head. One was the memory of the awesome workout I did on Saturday where I pegged the watts above the top end of the band. The other was the empty legs feeling from the aborted workout Monday night.

For the first interval, aggressive Greg was dominant. I rowed it at an average power of 176W (including the s-turn, but not the spin). Or 6 watts above the top end of the power band.

Same thing in the second interval. I rowed the first five and a half minutes at 196W watts avg, spun the boat, rowed another 3 minutes at about the same power, hit the HR cap, tried to slow down, and then bailed on the interval. I rowed the rest of it out at sub marathon power.

Chastened, I rowed the final interval smack in the middle of the power band, but it was massively hard to do.

I annotated the summary plot with the turns, rests and failures.

The pie charts show elevated HR, and overly ambitious power.

There should be no 2kp and very little 5kp, basically just from starboard turning strokes. There should be around 20 minutes of 10kp, 20 minutes of hmp, and 20 minutes of MP. And then the balance sub-MP, about 15 minutes. Lousy pace discipline.

I’m finding it hard to row to a target power. It seems to bounce around a lot from stroke to stroke. Perhaps that is an indication that my rowing is inconsistent. Perhaps, it is a characteristic of the measurement method. I wonder if there is a way to have the speed coach show a running avg of the power over a few strokes?

Alternatively, I could try to row to a specific work per stroke and stroke rate. That seems to be a bit let noisy on the display.

Workout Summary - media/20170530-172024-Greg Smith 20170530 0643amo.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|13813|74:21.0|02:41.5|163.9|21.4|152.8|172.0|08.7
W-|11824|57:49.0|02:26.7|175.8|21.6|155.9|171.0|09.5
R-|01997|16:31.0|04:08.4|104.8|19.4|135.3|171.0|04.4
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|02771|13:13.8|02:23.2|179.0|20.5|149.4|156.0|10.2 -1st mp
02|01431|07:04.8|02:28.4|172.5|20.3|155.2|159.0|10.0 -1st mp
03|01162|05:31.8|02:22.8|194.5|23.6|160.2|168.0|08.9 -2nd 10kp
04|00607|02:52.2|02:21.9|192.2|24.3|161.6|167.0|08.7 -2nd 10kp
05|00262|01:15.0|02:23.1|174.3|23.3|154.5|157.0|09.0 -2nd ease up
06|01664|08:13.2|02:28.2|154.9|19.2|147.5|160.0|10.6 -2nd post bail
07|03927|19:39.0|02:30.1|176.1|22.8|162.0|171.0|08.8 -3rd

I was wondering what the heck was wrong. Why was I so tired. I decided to do an experiment. My HR monitor didn’t work on my long row on Sunday. But, my guess was that I averaged about 150 for the 2 active hours of the row. I manually doctors the CSV file for the row to insert 150 for the active part of the row and reimported it to Stravistix. Turns out that a 2 hour workout at 150bpm is a TRIMP of 256. It pushed me into overload.

Then my aborted session and the Tuesday session kept me right on that line. I’m not sure that this is exactly right, but I do think that rest will do me more good than working out right now, so I decided to sleep instead of rowing on Wednesday morning.

In the Eddie Fletcher Marathon Plan, he says that you may need extra rest days and you should not hesitate to take them. Despite the fact that it I still have trouble believing that I can make more progress by doing nothing than by doing something, I should let the evidence and data guide my actions. The important thing to me right now is to be able to do quality sessions, and especially to be ready and eager for the open water long rows that I do about once a week. Those are the pinnacle sessions.

Wednesday: Rest Day

Thursday:

On the water

4 x 15′ / 4′

6′ @ 5KP, 9′ @ MP

92.5%

(172)

Power Targets:

5KP: 184-197
MP: 158-171

2 x 45’/4’30” (sub-mp)

May 25, 2017May 25, 2017Leave a comment

Weather: 55F, light rain, wind started about 2-5mph from the south and building to 5-10mph from the east by the time I finished.

Plan:

2 x 45′ / 4’30”

MP or slower

80.0%

(149)

Target power was ~160W, more important was the HR cap at 149.

I felt very tired this morning. The long and hard sessions on Tuesday and Wednesday have taken their toll. The marathon plan calls for 2 rest days a week, and I think you really need them. It’s a ton of volume in the heavy weeks.

So, I had limited aspirations in terms of how well or fast I would row. It was a good thing. My rowing was sloppy and slow. There was a bit of chop, but that did not entirely explain why my effective length was a good 5 degrees shorter today than yesterday.

In the end, between my inability to generate power, and the depressingly slow splits on the screen, I pushed a little bit beyond the HR limit. Not enough to ruin the training effect of the session, but I wish I could be more mature about it.

Doing 45 minute intervals involved a lot of turns. 2 in the first one and 3 in the second one. There was also a lot of twisty turny stuff at the beginning of the first and the end of the last interval. I tried to make the turns as quick as possible. I managed to keep all of them below a minute, except for the first one. I need to spend a little extra time to do some “masculine rearrangement”. Which turned out to be a bit of a challenge to do with one hand, in a sitting position. (Sorry, TMI, I know)

Workout Summary - media/20170525-152322-SpdCoach 2182533 20170525 0634amo.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|18107|98:10.0|02:42.7|144.7|18.3|146.0|162.0|10.1
W-|17013|87:56.0|02:35.1|153.9|18.3|147.0|162.0|10.6
R-|01101|10:14.0|04:39.0|063.4|18.7|135.1|162.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|03906|19:55.2|02:33.0|163.7|18.2|139.0|148.0|10.8 - #1
02|02833|14:27.0|02:33.0|157.2|18.2|145.9|156.0|10.8 - #1
03|01829|09:30.0|02:35.8|154.9|18.2|148.8|155.0|10.6 - #1
04|00427|02:13.8|02:36.7|167.6|18.2|137.4|149.0|10.5 - #2
05|02871|14:48.0|02:34.6|149.4|18.0|149.5|154.0|10.7 - #2
06|02009|10:31.8|02:37.3|152.0|18.7|150.7|156.0|10.2 - #2
07|03137|16:31.1|02:38.0|141.7|18.3|153.3|162.0|10.4 - #2

The summary here include all the weaker turning strokes. When I prune strokes with a WPS below 400J, the session avg was 161W, right on target.

The usual collection of metrics.

You can see me lightening up in terms of power and WPS in the second interval as I tried to stick to the cap. Finish and wash were much worse today than at 22 and 22 yesterday. I think part of that was rowing at 18 spm. Part of it was being really tired.

You can get a better idea of how bad my form was today by comparing it to other sessions.

stroke rate, lower than recent sessions.
Drive length a little bit shorter
Eff Drive Length shorter
Work per stroke, shockingly consistent
Finish. Terrible
Wash: a smidge worse
Catch: consistent
Slip: slightly worse (I suspect both slip and wash are strongly related to stroke rate)