Pushed it a bit harder today. HR was higher, but lactate was lower. I think I will stick with 192W for now.
Tag: slides
Monday: 4×20’/1′
On slides. Still at 190.
5×1500/3’r
Back to a classic. On slides.
Warmup: 20′ at r20 and 190W. Tested lactate: 1.7mmol/l (perfect)
Main set: 5×1500 / 3′ rest
Pace Target: 1:50
Felt like hard work, but in each rep except for the last, I was running ahead of target and allowed myself to bleed off a little pace in the last 500. I managed to negative split each rep. When I got to the last rep, I decided to see what I had left in the tank. I rated up, and saw that I was OK holding about a 1:44 through the first 500. So I decided to try to hang on at that pace. HR was reasonably low for the last rep of one of these workouts, but I was really working hard to try to hold on through the last 500m. Desperately counting strokes and trying to sit up straight.
Finished off with a 2K happy ending cool down, starting at 2:00 and dropping 0:05 slower each 500.
Tomorrow: 4×20′ at 190W
Another 10K Threshold Workout
Pressed for time today and in the mood for something a bit spicier than the normal steady state. So, I thought doing another 10K at about a 200W pace and working on keeping the stroke rate up around 25 and using half decent form.
As it turned out, I felt more comfortable up at about 220W and I decided to just go with it. Rowing up at 25 on slides felt nice and smooth and I was able to maintain pretty good posture. My HR got pretty high at the end, but I didn’t feel like I was in trouble at any point.
A very satisfying row. Based on the high heart rate at the end, it appears I am not yet as efficient on slides for longer rows.
Tomorrow: Tonight I am heading out toe Phoenix. I’ll see if I can find myself a nice crossfit box to row in tomorrow morning. 4×20 would be the plan.
3×20’/1’r – tired today
At 184W. Lactate after 20 minutes was 2.2mmol/l. I suspect that was related to forgetting to turn on the fan, but even after that, my HR kept climbing and it felt like it was much harder work than yesterday.
Anyway, I was out of time and tired out after 3 pieces, so I blew off the last planned 20 minute piece. I hit a HR at 156 BPM with about 5 minutes left in the l3rd piece, so I backed off from 184 to 180w from there to the end to stop the HR drift.
A good solid 60 minutes of rowing though. Feeling very comfortable on slides, with better recoveries than before.
I’ll do Monday’s row at 184 and retest. If it’s still above 2.2, I’ll drop back a couple of watts.
Tomorrow: 10K @ 1:55
Climbing the lactate ladder – 4×20’/1’r
Yesterday’s test was 1.1mmol/l after 20 minutes at 180W. It was so low I thought it might just be a bad reading. Today, I had intended to stick at 180W and retest, but the pace got away from me and I was above 182W at the 10 minute mark and I didn’t want to slow way down to try to bring the average in line.
Test result after 20′ at 182W was 1.3mmol/l. This validates yesterday’s low reading and indicates I can push the power even a bit more. So I did. the next 3 pieces were done at 184W.
My HR monitor decided to not work today, so no pretty graph. I bet i was pushing the top of UT1 by the end. I was pretty tired.
Tomorrow: same thing…4×20/1’r at 184W
March CTC Attempt #2
20 minute warmup:
On slides, 180W, r20. Forgot to turn on the fan, so a sweatier than usual.
Lactate –> 1.1mol/l (weirdly low, I think I’ll ignore it and stick with 180W for tomorrow)
Then a 1K with 3 power 10s, trying to push the pace below 1:25 and rate up above 45.
Then into the big event, the CTC. 3×250/2’r
Last time I botched the start of the first rep and ended up with 43.4, 42.8, 42.8 for a total of 2:09.0. This is a 1:26.0 pace (550W).
Today, I hit the first start reasonably well, and pushed each rep as hard as I could. This resulted in all reps faster than last time and an improvement to 2:06.3, for an average pace of 1:24.2 (586W). I felt pretty wobbly afterwards. And I scrubbed plans to another couple sets of sprints in favor of a long cool down, some of which was done hard enough to try to effectively clear some of the lactate in my legs. I felt better afterwards, but I’m still remarkably tired for 750m and 2 minutes of hard work.
Tomorrow: 4×20’/1’r at 180W
4×20’/1’r with lactate
On slides.
Continuing to work on better posture and proper sequencing.
Tomorrow: Probably a harder 6K, target pace around 1:50.
March CTC – 3×250 / 2′ rest (plus additional 250s and lactate test)
First order of business today was to get a GOOD baseline power level for steady state training. So, I reset my training power down to 176 and did a 20′ lactate test. It finally did the trick. Average HR for the last 5 minutes was 134 (64% HRR), and the lactate measurement was 1.5mmol/l. And it felt very easy. Now, I can start the process of climbing the lactate ladder a watt at a time, keeping my levels below 2.0.
After that I did the March Concept2 Cross Team Challenge. This month’s challenge is 3×250/2′ rest. I increased the drag factor to 150, and did with the erg on slides. I really botched the start of the first interval, which probably cost me a second or two, but all the reps were pretty close to all out efforts. End result was 2:09.0 total time, or a 1:26.0 pace. Looking at the names around me, it looks like about what I should have expected. With practice, I think I can shave a second or so off the average pace.
To turn it into something more closely resembling training, I did 2 more sets of 3×250/2’rest, albeit at a slower pace. This was good practice for rowing at higher rates. I think this might be a good pick for short interval training this month, maybe increasing the number of reps even further.
Tomorrow: Steady State at 177W, with lactate test at 20′
Comparison of before and after rowing styles
Here is a frame grab from the video I posted on Wednesday. I am mid recovery. At this point, my arms are extended, my back should be in the catch position and I am starting to roll up the slide. I have drawn a line from my knee to my hip, then to my mid back, and then to the back of my shoulder joint. You can see the shallow angle that my hip is making. Essentially, my hips are rocked back in the same position through the whole stroke.
Compare that to the video I uploaded after figured out what was going on. I am consciously trying to sit up and hinge at my hips during the recovery. It is the same moment in the stroke. The yellow lines are from the picture above. The blue lines are the connecting to the same points in my mid back and shoulder as the first picture. So, this is about a 25 degree change in the angle that my hips are making with my back.
The good news is that this conforms more closely with what a stroke should look like and enables a great deal more back swing. The bad news is that trying to make this change after rowing 16 million meters on the erg is horrifyingly hard. It’s like walking with a stone my shoe. The other thing is that by hinging on my hips, I am rolling over my sitz bones every stroke. Today I tried a C2 seat pad with sitz bones holes and that helped a bit, but I am still sore in those spots.
This is a very hard thing to do. I hope it helps in the long run.
Quantified Rowing 