6:50.4…Not terrible, but not as good as I could have done. I had a little breakdown around 800 meters. I was fully prepared for “the wave”. When I do more speed work, I get used to the crisis moment that hits around then. Kind of a combination pain, chills, nausea, drowning feeling that passes over the course of about 10 strokes. Anyway, it hit me hard today and I paused before I really knew what was going on. I started going again almost immediately and finished without any more drama. Kind of a lame and it definitely cost me about 3 or 4 seconds off the time.
But as a marker for the start of the indoor season, it isn’t so bad. I ranked it for fun and it’s 18 out 778 in my age group (97th %-ile). I think with a month or so of base work, and then a couple months of sharpening, taking 3 seconds off my splits is entirely feasible. I’d like to build a plan to be within striking distance of my 2K PB by the crash-bs.
So, I know that I was supposed to do a light day today, but looking at my work schedule, it didn’t look so good for a power test tomorrow. I also felt pretty fresh. I didn’t need to dig all that terribly deep for the 2 speed test. Finally, thinking about the 2K test, the idea of keeping up the intensity seemed to more closely mimic the kind of taper I like to do.
The challenge was the PM on the erg. I was doing this at work and it is a older model C with an old style PM. The kind that you can’t hook up to rowpro. So, I pulled my PM3 off of my erg at home with the idea of swapping it onto the erg at work for the day. I was stymied by the fact that the mounting bracket has been changed between PM models and the new one would not fit on the old bracket. Bummer.
So, I ended up setting my iphone on a upturned trashcan, leaning against a small dumbell and aiming at the PM. Then I laboriously transcribed the power reading from each stroke into excel. If you want to watch some really boring videos, I posted them to youtube.
Why are there two, you ask? Well, there’s a story behind that. Not much of a story, but a story nonetheless.
I did a nice gentle 20 minute warmup, and then got myself psyched up for the test. Apparently I did not get myself psyched up nearly enough, because I blew up big time 32 seconds into the test. I took the go all out advice to heart and I just totally lost it round the 30 second mark. I was on slides, so I was cranking at close to 50 SPM. I was rowing mostly with my eyes closed, and then opened them after about 25 strokes. When I saw I had only made it halfway, I suffered a bout of acute despondency and dropped the handle. Pity, it would have been a good test if I had the guts to keep going. As it was, I set a new PR for peak power. 770W vs my old mark of 701W. I also maintained with 10% of that value for 25 seconds, which shows that my “Anaerobic alactic critical duration” is reasonable. “Rowing Faster” says you want to be able to hold that for longer than 20 seconds. Of course for the other measures, average power and “Anaerobic lactic critical duration” were not measurable from this failed test.
I took a few minutes to get my head together and tried again. This time, I made it less than 20 seconds into the test and I didn’t bother to transcribe the results.
I had a chat with myself, and decided to make yet another attempt, even though I knew that the test results would not be fully valid. At least I would be able to get a completed test to score. Maybe I’ll loop back to this in a week or so.
The last attempt was fine. I definitely paced myself too much. I certainly had a lot less power in the initial burst. This one peaked at 726W. AACD was 18 seconds. ALCD was 60 seconds. Average Power for the minute was 606W. Maybe I was dogging it, but I was fairly shattered after I finished and the long 20 minute cool down was a struggle even at a 2:10 pace.
To summarize:
Peak Power: Target – 837W to 1023W, Actual: 770W
Average Power: Target – 674W to 814W, Actual: 606W
So, basically horrible compared to the benchmarks. By the way, I don’t know too many guys my age with a low pull of 1:12. Frankly, I don’t that many guys with a low pull of 1:12, so I am not sure how realistic these targets are.
The important thing is that it gives me something to compare against in future tests. I will feel better if I redo the test in a week and get a complete first shot test done.
Here are my curves
Here’s the HR plot for the whole disaster.
Tomorrow: 40 minute steady state sometime during the day. Then 2K trial on Friday.
I had a work dinner last night, and got home after 10pm. I finally got to bed after midnight. I tried to get up at 5:15, but I felt awful and went back to bed and slept until after 8.
That meant that I didn’t have enough time for my planned sprinty session on the water. I finally found a bit of time around 5pm and used the erg on slides down in the gy at work.
I started off with the plan to do a 60 minute L4. I was going to do
10 x 6 minute sequences of (3′ @ 18, 2′ @ 20, 1′ @ 22) I was aiming at 180W, 200W and 220W respectively.
I did 4 of them and then I felt bored and a bit too worn out. So, I stopped after the fifth, changed my music to something a bit more upbeat, and decided to row out the rest of the session free rate and at 200W.
To pass the time, I tried to visualize progress through the Head of the Charles course. I tried to remember the distances between specific bridges and landmarks and translate that into numbers of strokes. I think this is a good way to memorize the sequence of landmarks and start to get into my head the proper way to steer between them.
I’ll try to go row the course tomorrow. It depends on the weather. There’s a chance of thunderstorms, so I might end up on the erg again.
splits from today.
Tomorrow: Steady State ~ 15km including rowing the HOCR course in both directions.
Intended to drop power to 185W, but settled at 187W. Tried to hold the rate at 18 for the first 20 minutes.
20′, r18, 186.9W, AvgHR: 142.9, Lactate: 1.6
No problems with those numbers. Pushed on at 187W and was fine through the next 2 20′ pieces. In the last piece, I kind of did a slow motion crash into the wall. My HR started to run away from me and I felt a much higher level of fatigue. So, after about 10 minutes of trying to hold 187, I slowed down to about 180W and essentially paddled it out. HR stayed stubbornly high though.
This workout is one of the wolverine plan classics. Also included in the Pete Plan. Pacing for me is usually a bit slower than the other long interval sessions. I figured that since I did a 6K at 1:48 pace last Saturday, that 1:48 would be a safe pick for pacing on this workout. Turns out it was a bit more of a stretch than I expected.
I started out with a 20′ steady state piece, to warmup and take a lactate reading. I was aiming at 185W but the first half got away from me a little bit and I found myself aat an avg of 190W with 10 minutes to go, so I stuck to 185W like glue the rest of the way. So, the lactate is probably more in line with 185W than the average shown here.
Then into the real workout. I was feeling a bit uncomfortable since I forgot my seat pad at home. Now that I am doing a better job at rocking my hips over on recovery, I have a very annoying, and sometime painful bump as I rotate over my sitz bones. The pad takes care of it well, but without the pad it is like walking with a pebble in your shoe.
Nevertheless, there were intervals to be done and I was just the guy to do them. My general strategy in these long intervals is to count strokes the strokes in each 1000m portion of the interval. Off slides, this is usually just under 100 strokes. On slides, my distance per stroke is a bit under 10, and the number of strokes per 1000m is usually between 104 and 110, depending on pace and fatigue.
The first interval went just fine. Start fast, bleed off pace during the first 500m, then try to hold 1:48 through the next 500m, allow things to drift to 1:49 during the middle 1000m, and then try to pull it back a touch during the last 1000m. I felt OK, but my HR was a bit higher than I would have hoped.
I did a slow 750m during the 5 minute rest, had a drink and setup for the 2500m. This was really hard. I was deeply into the red by halfway through and I was rowing with my eyes closed and trying to hang on to 1:49s. My average had climbed up to about 1:48.3 or 4. Then I lucked out. With less than 1000m to go, Seven Nations Army, by the White Stripes started up in my head phones. Turns out, the beat is nearly perfect for about 30 or 31 SPM. By hitting the down beats hard, I started pulling 1:47s, then 1:46s. The average pace clicked over from 1:48.0 to 1:47.9 just as I was pulling my last stroke.
The 750 during the rest felt very short and I was not looking forward to the 2K. Turns out it went fine. No crisis. HR was pretty much railed with 1 or 2 beats of my MaxHR, but I was able to stick to 1:48s through the middle 1000m, and push a little bit harder in the last 500m to get a faster last.
Avg pace; 1:47.8 – Happy with that.
Last year, I did this one at an avg pace of 1:46.4, so I have a ways to go before I am back to that kind of shape.
On Thursday and Friday of last week, I was seeing elevated heart rates, and I felt terrible during my steady state sessions. On Saturday, I busted out a season best 6K. On Sunday I had a nice rest day.
Then today, it was back to more steady state. I sit down, and 190W watts feels easy, and I cruise through the first 20 minutes with very low perceived exertion and a nice low HR. I struggled with getting a good sample for a lactate test. My first prick didn’t yield, so I did a second, and with the xtra time and fumbling around, who knows if it was a good test or not. But the reading was 2.5mmol/l. Whaaat?
So, I did another 20 minutes at 190W and tested again. Good sample this time and I read 2.4mmol/l. Arghhh. I still felt mighty fresh and my HR was still nice and low, so I did the next 2 pieces at 190W. I have to say that I am mightily confused about why my lactates were so high today.
I will drop back to 185W tomorrow to see what happens.
Despite yesterday’s bad workout, I decided to stay the course and pretend it never happened. I did drop the power a simdge, down to 190W from 193W. After 20 minutes, my HR was really high (151), but the lactate reading was an entirely reasonable 1.7.
So, I went into the second piece at the same power and then blew out the lactates at 3.4. This was way too high, so, I decided to drop the power by 10 watts to 180W for the third 20′ piece, which yielded a drop down to 2.7. Still, too high. So, another drop in power to 170W for the fourth piece, and this one seemed to do the trick. HR was a bit better and lactates were down to 1.9 by the end. For the lazy, here it is in table form.
Here’s the HR graph.
So, what do I conclude?
1. I just opened pandora’s box by looking at lactates in the second through fourth pieces. I think that this will end up causing higher spending on strips and more holes in my finger. I’m not sure how much I like that.
2. I should probably aim at keeping it below 1.7 for the reading at 20 minutes.
Elevated HR, Lactate reading too high. Felt really tired. Quit after 3 20′ intervals instead doing the full four. Even dropping my training power by 10 watts in the third piece was not enough to bring my HR down into the UT1 zone.
The past 7 session before today, I was able to hold >190W and measured <2.0 in every session. Yesterday, at 193W, my HR was way high, like 10BPM higher than normal, but the lactates were OK (1.9). Today, holding 192W, HR was just as far off and my lactates were 2.3. I dropped down to 190W and measured 2.8 after another 20 minutes, and my HR was at least 5BPM above the top of my aerobic band.
So, here’s my recent history:
I’m struggling to come up with theories for what is going on.
– A little bit of acute over-training. I did a pretty hard 6×750 session yesterday morning
– Early warning of coming down with something (I am otherwise symptom free
– Reading error (I doubt it, I felt like I was working a lot harder today)
I’m also trying to figure out if I should make any adjustments. I am scheduled for another 4×20 tomorrow morning. Things I am thinking about are:
– Pretend today never happened and do a normal session at 190W
– drop back 5W and build back up again
– start to use the BTLS (Boris Theory of Lactate Supression) and do the first 20′ slowing ramping up to 190W
Current routine is 4 steady state sessions per week, 1 hard distance row, and 1 interval session. (plus 10K on my rest day to keep up with Mud Season Madness).
Today was interval day. It went very well. I started with a pace target of 1:43 and found I could hold on at a faster pace.
after another 20 minutes, and my HR was at least 5BPM above the top of my aerobic band.
Quantified Rowing 