Long and fast

February 11, 2019February 11, 2019Leave a comment

Not at the same time.

Sunday: 4 x 20′ / 2′ L4

Down on the Cape. We went down to see how things were holding up over the winter. The house looks to be a good shape, but the stairs that I built last spring have taken a serious beating.

The damage is much worse than last winter. It appears that pack ice must have entrapped the bottom of the stairs and when it broke free, carried the stairs with it. Next time I go down, I will see what I can salvage and once it warms up, I’ll rebuild.

The workout had a much better outcome. Sometimes, it just happens. You do a workout where you feel great. That’s how I felt on Sunday. I had pushed really hard on Saturday and for Sunday’s session, I just wanted to bank the meters. So, I set up to do the same L4 as I have been doing. But it just felt so easy. And my HR never really went up. I’ve been doing 3 x 20s lately, but 4×20 was no problem.

        Workout Summary - media/20190210-1840400o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|20119|87:59.0|02:11.2|167.1|19.2|132.4|151.0|11.9
W-|19165|79:25.0|02:04.3|181.0|19.5|133.6|150.0|12.4
R-|00957|08:00.0|04:10.8|038.9|16.3|122.3|150.0|08.8
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|04761|19:53.2|02:05.3|174.1|19.0|129.2|138.0|12.6
01|04766|19:46.4|02:04.5|179.1|19.2|133.6|144.0|12.5
02|04797|19:51.6|02:04.2|183.5|19.6|134.3|147.0|12.3
03|04842|19:53.9|02:03.3|187.1|20.1|137.0|150.0|12.1

Notice the summary is a bit ragged. I have seen this before and almost always on the erg down on the Cape. The reason it looks that way is it is missing lots of strokes. This is a quick graph to show what I mean. The captured data includes stroke number. This is just a graph of the stroke number minus the prior stroke number in the file. There are 9 times where more than 10 strokes are missing from the data.

The question is why? There are lots of possible suspects. The data is communicated from the PM5 to my iphone by bluetooth. At the same time, my iphone is streaming a podcast over wifi, and using a bluetooth connection to my earphones. My wifi on the cape is really bad (Thanks directTV!). It’s possible that the streaming is the cause. Someday, I might try to sort it out. Definitely if I am going to do an online challenge or ranked piece.

We headed home around 3 in the afternoon.

Monday – 8 x 500m / 3’30” – L1

I slept badly last night. It’s a Sunday night tradition. But I was up at 5:15 and in the office by 6:20. The planned session was an 8×500, and I was hopeful that I could hold a target pace faster than the 1:42 from the pyramid session last week.

I started with a 2k warmup. Pick drill, then 20 stroke bursts at target pace.

Then the main event.

        Workout Summary - media/20190211-1315390o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|08603|41:22.0|02:24.3|158.5|22.1|140.0|172.0|09.4
W-|04000|13:20.0|01:40.1|351.3|29.5|146.4|171.0|10.2
R-|04607|28:02.0|03:02.6|066.7|18.5|136.9|171.0|09.6
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|00500|01:39.7|01:39.7|339.7|29.0|130.2|158.0|10.4
01|00500|01:40.5|01:40.5|356.1|29.7|146.5|163.0|10.0
02|00500|01:40.6|01:40.6|342.9|29.1|145.6|163.0|10.2
03|00500|01:40.7|01:40.7|345.5|29.1|148.5|165.0|10.2
04|00500|01:40.3|01:40.3|349.3|29.3|147.3|166.0|10.2
05|00500|01:39.2|01:39.2|354.8|29.5|149.2|168.0|10.3
06|00500|01:40.5|01:40.5|352.0|29.4|150.7|168.0|10.1
07|00500|01:39.3|01:39.3|370.5|31.0|153.3|171.0|09.7

Nailed a 1:40 pace. Happy with that.

Tomorrow: 3 x 20′ / 2′ L4

Hard 10K and 4 x 2K

February 9, 2019February 9, 20193 Comments

Tuesday:

I already posted about my session on Tuesday morning, but on Tuesday night, I did something fun. My wife’s niece play Hockey for Northeastern. Northeastern is a legit women’s hockey powerhouse. They are ranked third in the NCAA division one. They have an olympian on the team. Anyway, we went to see her team play in the first round of the Women’s Beanpot, a hockey competition between the 4 powerhouse schools in Boston (BU, BC, Northeastern and Harvard). They were playing BU and it was an incredible game. The quality of play was very high and my niece in law played well getting an assist and a ton of shots. She was very bummed that she didn’t get any goals. The game ended in a tie and was settled in a shoot out, with BU coming out on top.

Here’s a picture of her right after she scored the winning goal in overtime against BC in a game earlier this year.

Wednesday: No Training

I had scheduled a plumber to come fix a problem with a sink Wed morning and he blew me off. Supposed to show up at 8:30 and didn’t. I called to follow up and found out he wouldn’t get to the house until at least 10. I gave up rescheduled and headed to work.

I hoped to find time during the day to workout, but no luck.

Thursday: Hard 10K – L3

I had limited time because I had an 8 am meeting. I was scheduled to do the 10K on Wednesday and then an L4 endurance session on Thursday. With the short window, the 10K fit in better, and is a higher training priority so I did that.

No time for a warmup, so I just settled right in and went for it. Last time I did a 10K, I fell apart at the end. The cause was butt pain, lack of fitness and lack of toughness. On Thursday, I was hoping to address the butt pain and the toughness. Fitness is what it is.

For the butt pain, I have made an investment. The Citius Remex. The world’s most expensive butt pad. Endorsed by Eskild Ebbesen. I imagine that elite rowers must treat their behinds with the care that a violinist lavishes upon their hands, or a dancer on their legs. My wife has heaped ridicule upon me for buying this gold plated butt pad, but it will all be worth it if it solves my problems.

There is actually a theory behind this butt pad and it make some sense to me. The seat on the C2 rower is basically flat and this puts all the stress on your Iscial Tuberosities (aka your sitz bones). Other butt pads attempt to mitigate this by either cutting out material where the sitz bones are, or by providing cushioning to spread the pressure over a larger area. But this has potential problems as well. The edge of the cutouts can cause pressure points (and they did for me) and this can lead to pain. And a squishy pad can cause problems with circulation on the back of your thighs. The Citius Remex has a different shape to it.

It is designed to spread the pressure between your perinium and your ITs. A bike seat basically puts all the pressure on your perinium, and the C2 puts all the pressure on your ITs. This butt pad basically tries to balance the pressure between the two. It also has three different insert for the middle part so you can “adjust” the balance between support on your perinium and sitz bones.

Anyway, it felt a bit weird at first, but I sat up straighter, was able to keep my knees down better, and my ass hurt a lot less at the end. So, I am happy to have bought my gold plated butt pad and recommend it for aging rowers with delicate buttocks.

Back to the 10K. Last time I averaged 1:57.2, but I was holding around 1:56 before I wimped out. So I decided to try to target 1:56. I ended up feeling a bit better at 1:55, so I hung in with that. Around the 7K mark, I began to feel like that might have been a real problem, but I eased up the pace, counted out the strokes from 7k to 8k and held on.

It was a max effort. I was above 95% of HRR for almost the last 2000m, about 7:30. A very long time to be on the ragged edge. So, I am simultaneously happy with the effort that I put in, and sad that it wasn’t faster. I finished with 38:25.7, a 1:55.2 pace. I ranked it and it’s 89th percentile. Trained, I have the potential for 95th percentile performance. And it’s a long way off of my best 10K (36:33, 1:49.6 pace). I guess it’s something to shoot for.

        Workout Summary - media/20190207-1245380o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|10000|38:24.0|01:55.2|228.5|24.0|167.5|184.0|10.8
W-|10000|38:24.0|01:55.2|228.5|24.0|167.5|184.0|10.8
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|184.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|01000|03:50.2|01:55.1|226.8|23.7|132.9|151.0|11.0
01|01000|03:49.3|01:54.7|232.0|24.1|154.9|159.0|10.9
02|01000|03:48.6|01:54.3|234.2|24.0|161.6|164.0|10.9
03|01000|03:49.1|01:54.6|232.9|24.0|165.8|169.0|10.9
04|01000|03:49.1|01:54.5|233.0|24.1|171.5|174.0|10.8
05|01000|03:50.0|01:55.0|230.0|24.0|174.2|175.0|10.9
06|01000|03:52.0|01:56.0|224.1|23.8|176.6|177.0|10.8
07|01000|03:53.9|01:57.0|218.9|23.8|177.4|178.0|10.8 - crisis!
08|01000|03:55.0|01:57.5|215.8|23.8|178.9|179.0|10.7
09|01000|03:47.6|01:53.8|237.5|24.8|180.9|184.0|10.6

I logged this as an entry for the rowsandall “Tough Ten” regatta. And it puts me firmly in ….last place. bummer.

Friday: No Training

Today was the make up appointment with the Plumber. He showed up on time, but took my workout window. I was booked the rest of the day. In the evening, we headed down to the Cape for the weekend.

Saturday: 4 x 2000m / 5′ on slides – L2

I am trying hard to do the three “hard” workout per week, even if I miss sessions. Today was the right day to do the L2. Last week I did the waterfall for an average pace of 1:52.4. This was on a static erg. Trying to figure out a target pace, there was a lot to consider.

4 x 2000 is usually a bit faster than waterfall
slides are usually a bit slower for me than static
I was not feeling super aggressive, but I didn’t want to fail at the workout

So, I decided to start around 1:54 and see what happened. What happened was that I was able to do a bit better than that. I did the first 2000 as warmup, then ended up with the first rep coming in right under 7:30 (1:52.3). I felt pretty good so I pushed the second rep a bit more (1:51.5). I had a problem in the rest after the second rep. Somehow I nudged the back of the erg on the slide and it was scraping. I only noticed when I started the 3rd rep and the slides were massively misbehaving. I stopped, worked it out and started up a fresh 2000. It gave me an extra 1:30 of rest. The third rep was challenging. Fatigue was starting to set in, but I wanted to keep it under 7:30, so I pushed hard and finished at 1:51.5 again. I was worried about the fourth rep. My legs were feeling a bit empty. In the first 3 reps, I was aiming at a rate around 27 and trying to pull right on 10 meters per stroke. I was essentially trying to start the drive right as the distance clicked down to a “0”. In the last rep, I found that I was having trouble maintaining that and holding the rate around 27. I struggled through the first 1500m, and then just buckled down to attack the last 500. I was happy to finish, and even happier that I managed a slight negative split (1:50.9).

I am happy to be back at the wolverine plan. I just have to keep the targets reasonable and I think this is a good plan to take me into the spring.

Tomorrow: 4 x 20′ / 2′ L4

500m race

December 17, 2018December 17, 2018Leave a comment

New plan for today. I was a bit short on time, and I honestly didn’t want to do a long interval session either. So, I decided that it would be a good chance for me to get a result in to the rowsandall racing series “Give it a try 500“.

I am a happy member (and tester) for rowsandall, and one of cool features is the ability to define online races. This started last summer with OTW races over specific course, but this winter, it has been expanded to support indoor races on ergs. You can either upload a result from the c2 logbook, painsled or boatcoach, or you can plug in a result manually. There are already a slew of races defined, and every user has the ability to through down a challenge.

This first race is just for people to get the idea of how it works. And it works great!

I am a painsled user. I use it because it captures all the cool metrics that the PM5 provides for later analysis. I always send my results from painsled to rowsandall by email, which is quick and painless. To enter my result in the race, I just have to click a button and it’s there.

So, for today’s session, I started with a Fletcher warmup.

Looks like I’m having some issues with the PM talking to my phone.

Then I did the 500m. I decided to try to rate around 40, and keep the pace around 1:30. It turns out that this was hard to do. I was feeling the struggle but halfway and I just closed my eyes and counted out strokes, and it was so many strokes! At 40 spm, I had time to cram in about 65 strokes. The last 20 were…were…painful.

The following charts tell the story. I started at the right stroke rate and immediately slowed down too much. I am just not used to rating up, even on slides. With the rate down below 40, I was having trouble holding a sub 1:30 pace. As I passed the halfway point, I decided to get the rate up where it belonged and the splits obliged by dropping to the right side of the target. I could feel the power leaking out of my legs, so I just kept pushing the rate up. With about 50 meters to go, I started to really gasp for air and my legs were starting to cease functioning, but by then I was just counting down the last few strokes.

The end result was a 1:29.4. That’s a second off of my PB, and on slides to boot. So, I am not as fast as I was in 2014, but back then I was in tip top sprinting form. I’m OK with this result.

This puts me in the lead for the online race so far, but there is still some time for someone to come along and beat me. One of the cool things about racing on rowsandall is being able to compare racers. Here’s a little taste. This is a plot of everyone’s stroke rate through the race. My line is the minty green one. You can see how being on slides helped me rate up through the last half of the piece, compared to the static racers.

Saturday: 10K Threshold on slides

December 16, 2018Leave a comment

Down on the cape.

I had two things on my list of things to to today. The first was to play around some more with the Quiske pod on the erg. I needed to redo an example I am used in a blog post over on the rowsandall analytics site. I had the pod mounted backwards and the plots were inverted, so I wanted to update it with the right data.

That ended up being about 18 minutes of reasonably hard rowing, but it was in short intervals of 1 to 5 minutes. I ended up sweaty but not tired.

After that, I got myself settled to do my hard distance workout for the week. 10K on slides. It’s always a mystery to me how to pace stuff on slides. I am not as fast on slides as on static, but a bit faster than on the dynamic. I decided to try to 1:58. It worked out fine. It was hard, but I was able to hold the pace throughout.

        Workout Summary - media/20181215-2135330o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|10000|39:02.0|01:57.1|214.8|24.9|166.1|180.0|10.3
W-|10000|39:02.0|01:57.1|214.8|24.9|166.1|180.0|10.3
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|180.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|01000|03:43.5|01:51.7|217.0|24.4|141.3|154.0|11.0
01|01000|03:54.9|01:57.4|216.0|24.8|157.5|159.0|10.3
02|01000|03:55.5|01:57.8|214.6|24.6|161.8|164.0|10.4
03|01000|03:55.8|01:57.9|213.4|24.5|164.6|167.0|10.4
04|01000|03:55.9|01:57.9|213.3|24.8|166.8|168.0|10.2
05|01000|03:55.9|01:57.9|213.6|25.0|169.2|171.0|10.2
06|01000|03:55.7|01:57.9|214.0|25.0|171.5|175.0|10.2
07|01000|03:56.6|01:58.3|211.1|25.1|173.7|176.0|10.1
08|01000|03:57.1|01:58.6|209.8|24.8|175.5|177.0|10.2
09|01000|03:52.0|01:56.0|225.1|25.6|178.1|180.0|10.1

Pretty consistent pacing through the middle section. I struggled a bit with 2000m to go, but rated up a little in the last 1000 and I was fine.

Tomorrow: The plan calls for a long interval session. I will try to do a 3k/2.5k/2k waterfall before we head home. I might substitute a endurance session if I am feeling tired from today’s session.

On the road

November 11, 2018Leave a comment

Monday: No Training

Since I was flying out in the evening, I needed to go to town hall and get an absentee ballot for the elections on Tuesday. Mission accomplished, but no time for training.

I flew to the airport on Monday afternoon. Arriving in LA around 8pm.

Tuesday: Quick cross training in the hotel gym

Core:

head shoulder raises: 10x10sec
arm leg extensions: 10 x 10 sec each side
plank on swiss ball: 4 x 30 sec
side plank: each side 3 x 30 sec
push ups: 2 x 12, 1 x 8 (pooped out)

plus 30 minutes on the elliptical (all the treadmills were taken.

Wednesday: Core / strength / inclined march

Core: same as Tuesday

Strength:

Goblet squats with 40 lb DB: 3 x 20
lat pull down: 3 x 12
one leg squats: body weight 3 x 12
one arm rows, 40lb DB: each arm: 3 x 12

30 minute inclined march on treadmill.

Then a busy day of meetings, followed by a real treat. We went to see the LA Lakers play the Timberwolves. I got to see LeBron James play basketball live. It was quite a show.

Got back to the hotel around midnight.

Thursday: No Training

Up at 4am. Out the door at 4:30 to get to the airport for my 6:30am flight. Very tired. Flew home, got to the airport around 3pm.

Friday: Core / 3 x 20′ / 2′

I had hoped to catch up on my sleep, but I didn’t get to bed until about midnight, so only about 5 hours. Up at 5:15 and off to work.

Same core routine plus swiss ball side rotations (10 x 5 sec both sides)

I felt very tired during this piece. HR was crazy high. I needed to slow down a lot to keep it under the cap.

Saturday: Core / 3 x 20’/2′

By the plan, I should have don a hard distance piece, but I decided that with all the disruption and travel that I’d take it easier and just work on some aerobic base.

I started with my basic core routine:

head shoulder raises: 10x10sec
arm/leg raises: 10 x 10 sec both sides
front plank: 4 x 30sec
side planks: 3 x 30sec each side
push ups: 3 x 13 (ooh, I added a rep!)

Then I headed to the basement and did the session on slides. I wasn’t any faster but it sure felt nice and smooth to be on the slides.

Tomorrow: Maybe I will do a HM with a bit of tempo to it.

I just got word that the fires in California have come very close to our facility in Agoura Hills. Like right across the road from it.

Here’s the extent of the fire. The scale bar at the bottom, is 4 miles long, so the fire is basically 20 miles across.

Our facility in in the yellow rectangle. Here is the zoomed view of the box. Our building is in the red oval.

I was just there! I hope everyone stays safe out there.

The rest of my testing

October 28, 20182 Comments

Sunday – Oct 21: 10″ peak power test

Started with a Fletcher warm up, as one does.

Then I got myself ready for a wild ride. Damper up to 10, feet strapped in tight, crank some good tunes and get ready for action.

I set the erg for 1′ work and 2 minute rest intervals. I only rowed hard for the first 10 to 15 seconds of each interval.

Well, that’s not very satisfying. Here’s the pace, power and rate as different charts

The point of a peak power test is to see the maximum power (or lowest split) that you can get over a 10 second blast. The test protocol is defined here.

I did 5 sprints with the erg on the floor, which is the test standard, and then 2 sprints with the erg on slides, which is a f&*^ing blast!

I discovered something interesting with this test. Under some circumstances, painsled does not log every single stroke. Here’s the data…

The last column is the stroke count and there is no data for stroke 1,2,3,4,7,9. So that means that the data that I have is somewhat unreliable.

What I saw on the monitor was a minimum split of 1:18 on most of the static reps. I saw one pull with a 1:17. That is 1 split off my all time best low pull. I took the highest wattage of any of the recorded strokes and that was 1:17.8 or 742W.

On slides, I saw 1:12 on the monitor in both reps, that’s a whopping 923W. Of course I could rate up to about 60 spm on slides which helped out a bit. Needless to say, the static results are the ones that will be used for planning training.

Monday, Oct 22 – 1K test

I hate Monday’s. I never get enough sleep, and I am working out first thing in the morning, usually after working out in the afternoon the day before. This Monday was no exception. But I really wanted to get this set of fitness tests behind me.

What was left? The 1K test. The soul of simplicity. Row 1000m as fast as I can. Use the average power as a proxy for my VO2max wattage.

To begin, the ritual fletcher warmup must be completed.

Apparently, Monday morning’s don’t suck. I was a bit faster, with much better HR response than on Sunday. Buoyed with new confidence, a strapped in for 3 minutes of hell (the first 15 seconds aren’t really so bad).

Actually, the first 250m was just fine. I set out with a goal of matching my test from last year. This was an average split of 1:39.4. I guess I was pretty juiced because my average pace was a 1:37.6 over the first 250. In the second 250, I started to really feel the burn and I dialed it back, just a hint to 1:38.6. When I crossed the 500m mark, I was in respiratory distress, but I found I could tweak the rate up just a little and calm my breathing down.

Around 700m, my legs were burning, but with only 30 or so strokes to go, I closed my eyes and counted to 10. I opened my eyes and I there was about 210m to go. I did it again. 120m to go. And the splits were getting better, not worse. I counted down the last ten, and then there were two strokes to go. Done. 3:15.2. Boom. Fastest 1k that Ive done since my 3:10.5 PB back in 2014.

I did a slow 2k to cool down. I had a nasty erg cough the rest of the day, but it was totally worth it. I ranked it on the C2 logbook. 19th out of 403 for the men’s 50-59 heavies. 3rd best for USA.

So that concluded the fitness tests. The results…

Compared to a year ago.

Peak power: +21W
1000m: +20W
20′ test: +15W
75′ test: +13W

I’ll be trying to figure out what that means for winter training with Marlene over the next couple of weeks, but looking at the numbers, my strongest performance was at 1000m. Since my focus is head racing, I will need to work on aerobic capacity, and lactate threshold.

Another week on the Head Race training plan

October 1, 2018Leave a comment

Last post was Sept 25th. Since then I’ve been consistently training, but struggled with insomnia for much of the week.

I was very sleep deprived when I got home on Saturday morning (9/22). I slept a few hours that morning. Then a solid block of 10 hours on Saturday night. But on Monday night, I fell asleep around 10:30, and woke up at 1:00am. I was unable to fall back asleep. Tuesday, a little better. I slept from 10:30 to 2:00am. Wednesday, I got maybe 5 hours. Thursday, I headed down to the cape in the evening, arriving there around 11. I had some things to do around the house, so I didn’t get to sleep until 12:30. My daughter and one of my son’s arrived at 3:00am. I took some work to get back to sleep and I got maybe 3 hours of sleep before I needed to get up for my first meeting. Finally, Friday night and Saturday night I seemed to get back to more normal sleep patterns. It sure effects mood and stamina when you don’t get enough sleep.

Despite the sleep issues, I was on the water Tues/Wed/Thur. I took a rest day on Friday. And then trained Sat/Sun/Mon.

Wednesday, Sept 26: 60′ Steady State

The plan was to row at about r20 and keep my HR below 150.

         Workout Summary - media/20180926-1900310o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|12157|65:34.0|02:41.8|116.0|19.0|144.9|158.0|09.7
W-|11571|58:23.0|02:31.4|123.0|19.0|146.5|158.0|10.5
R-|00590|07:11.0|06:05.5|058.6|19.5|132.3|158.0|05.7
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|00008|00:01.5|01:32.6|131.6|18.5|091.0|91.0|17.5 --?
02|00009|00:01.5|01:19.8|149.0|19.0|091.0|91.0|19.8 --? 
03|01100|05:21.3|02:26.0|128.6|19.4|135.4|147.0|10.6 - blocked by boats
04|02754|13:05.3|02:22.6|127.1|19.3|147.7|153.0|10.9
05|02729|14:19.6|02:37.5|121.0|18.1|145.4|154.0|10.5
06|01942|09:26.1|02:25.8|120.8|18.4|146.9|155.0|11.2 - cut short for time
07|02615|13:54.7|02:39.6|123.0|19.5|150.5|158.0|09.7
08|00413|02:13.4|02:41.4|109.0|20.7|148.0|156.0|09.0

Thursday, Sept 27: 4 x (5 x 2′ / 1′)/2′ Short Intervals

Plan for Thursday was to use these short intervals to practice working at rates higher than head race rate. Try to keep my stroke light and work on the release.

Ran out of river in the last interval of the first set. I really torched the whole first set. A fair current behind me and a bit of a tail wind. It looks like I dialed back the power a bit on the upriver trip. Otherwise, pretty uneventful.

         Workout Summary - media/20180927-1230310o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|13891|80:10.0|02:53.1|116.6|24.1|147.6|174.0|07.2
W-|08479|37:42.0|02:13.4|171.7|27.3|157.2|174.0|08.2
R-|05430|42:29.0|03:54.8|067.6|21.3|139.0|174.0|06.4
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|00460|01:58.5|02:08.7|167.9|26.3|140.2|154.0|08.9
02|00475|02:01.9|02:08.2|183.0|27.5|149.5|159.0|08.5
03|00490|02:04.9|02:07.5|163.7|27.4|155.4|166.0|08.6
04|00476|02:01.3|02:07.3|176.4|27.3|154.7|163.0|08.6
05|00267|01:07.4|02:06.4|194.7|28.4|153.9|161.0|08.4
06|00440|01:58.3|02:14.4|165.7|27.8|150.0|163.0|08.0
07|00428|01:56.1|02:15.5|168.9|27.8|158.4|170.0|08.0
08|00433|01:59.8|02:18.5|189.0|27.0|160.8|169.0|08.0
09|00425|01:55.5|02:15.9|170.5|27.5|163.1|172.0|08.0
10|00439|01:56.7|02:13.0|175.4|27.8|164.3|174.0|08.1
11|00437|01:59.9|02:17.2|168.7|26.5|152.1|168.0|08.3
12|00457|01:59.2|02:10.4|175.7|27.2|160.5|169.0|08.5
13|00427|01:54.9|02:14.5|148.9|27.1|160.7|170.0|08.2
14|00428|01:55.5|02:14.9|179.0|27.0|164.0|172.0|08.2
15|00454|01:55.9|02:07.8|186.5|28.4|162.8|172.0|08.3
16|00430|01:58.0|02:17.1|160.9|27.5|149.9|167.0|08.0
17|00423|01:56.4|02:17.7|161.0|27.2|159.8|169.0|08.0
18|00266|01:13.9|02:19.2|170.1|26.8|158.2|165.0|08.0
19|00420|01:55.8|02:17.8|158.3|27.4|162.5|172.0|08.0
20|00405|01:52.4|02:18.7|178.6|26.7|164.6|173.0|08.1

I was pretty happy with the result.

Friday, 28 Sept: No Training

Saturday, 29 Sept: 10km threshold on slides

On Saturday, I wanted to hand with the family. We got ourselves organized and went on a day trip down to Chatham. While we were there, we had a big lunch. I was still feeling kind of full when we got back to the house, but I figured that I better go do my thing on the erg in the basement.

The plan was for 40′ of threshold, so another 10K. It would be useful to compare to the one on slides to the one on the dynamic last weekend.

I started with a 2K warmup. It felt hard and I felt bloated.

Then I got going. Target pace was 1:59.

That was brutal. But frankly more pleasant than the dynamic.

Splits are pretty darned consistent. I got a bit scared of blowing up around 7k.

         Workout Summary - media/20180929-2250290o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|10000|39:31.0|01:58.6|209.6|25.5|165.9|183.0|09.9
W-|10000|39:31.0|01:58.6|209.6|25.5|165.9|183.0|09.9
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|183.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|01000|03:53.5|01:56.7|214.5|25.3|137.1|154.0|10.2
01|01000|03:56.1|01:58.0|213.1|25.2|157.0|159.0|10.1
02|01000|03:56.8|01:58.4|211.0|25.4|160.9|162.0|10.0
03|01000|03:57.5|01:58.8|209.1|25.1|163.6|165.0|10.1
04|01000|03:57.6|01:58.8|209.0|25.3|166.1|167.0|10.0
05|01000|03:57.3|01:58.7|209.2|25.1|169.2|171.0|10.1
06|01000|03:57.6|01:58.8|208.6|26.0|172.2|174.0|09.7
07|01000|03:59.5|01:59.7|204.0|25.2|175.1|177.0|09.9
08|01000|04:00.7|02:00.4|200.7|25.1|177.0|178.0|10.0
09|01000|03:55.1|01:57.5|217.6|27.4|179.8|183.0|09.3

So, a very similar row to the dynamic. Weird how I prefer the feeling of slides so much more, but the performance is not that different. Here are a few different parameters compared between the two rows.

HR: A bit higher on slides. Basically I was willing to take a bit more pain.
Power: 5W more on slides
Stroke rate: nearly identical
Drive length: 3 cm longer on slides. Feels about right.
Peak force: Higher on slides. I was a bit surprised by this. Since the dynamic feels so much heavier, I expected higher peak force.
Avg force: As expected, about proportional to the watts difference

Sunday, September 30: 90′ bike ride.

My daughter and I went for a bike ride. The intent was to explore some of the sand roads, but as it turned out, the sand was too loose to make any progress on, so we headed to the roads and went north. It was just a nice easy ride.

Monday, 1 October: 5 x 1500 / 5′

Plan was to work on stroke rate around 26, and beat my last 5×1500 pace and power (2:16, 154W).

The downstream intervals were a blast. The river was flowing reasonably fast, and there was the lightest of tail winds. Anyway, after I went through the s-turn, and I had about 300 or 400 meters to go, I was rating up and pushing the pace. On the third and fifth interval, I was seeing the splits drop below 2:00 for the last 5 or so strokes. It turns out that I was working a little harder on the upstream segments, as measured by power. I struggle to use power in the boat because of the big turn in the middle.

          Workout Summary - media/20181001-1310300o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|13634|80:28.0|02:57.1|113.7|22.9|139.8|178.0|07.4
W-|07578|33:51.0|02:14.1|165.0|26.3|158.8|177.0|08.5
R-|06061|46:37.0|03:50.8|076.5|20.4|126.0|177.0|07.6
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|00158|00:44.0|02:18.9|117.9|19.2|124.5|129.0|11.3- wu
02|01490|06:31.6|02:11.4|154.4|25.2|153.8|166.0|09.1
03|01438|06:40.9|02:19.4|170.5|26.4|160.0|172.0|08.1
04|01486|06:24.1|02:09.3|167.6|27.0|159.1|175.0|08.6
05|01440|06:45.0|02:20.6|170.1|26.9|163.0|173.0|07.9
06|01565|06:46.1|02:09.7|167.7|26.7|161.7|177.0|08.7

Tomorrow: 80′ of steady state. Drills on the 5s.

A solid week of training (It’s a Miracle!)

September 10, 20188 Comments

My last post updated things to Tuesday, 4 September. Since then, things have been going great! I knew I had some travel coming up this week, so I skipped rest days and just alternated hard and easy sessions. Here’s an overview.

You can see that I slid some sessions around. I was scheduled for my 5 x 1500 on Monday 9/3, but I couldn’t get on the water. Instead I did an easy steady state session on the dynamic, and moved the hard sessions out by a day. I am also taking liberties with the easy sessions. My coach suggested that I use these sessions to continue to work on drills and also to include some speed work because it has value in head races for overtaking and at the finish. It also pushes me to work technique at high rates, which is a good thing.

I’ll have a bit more to say about training progress overall, but first, the sessions.

Wednesday, 5 Sept: 75′ of drills on the 5s.

Another great morning to row. This session is all about technique. It’s 4 minutes of steady state and then a minute of drills. The drills were

half slide
delayed feather
pause at body over
open hands on recovery

As you can see it was a low intensity session.

Thursday: 6 Sept: 12 x 3’/1′

With the nice easy workout on Tuesday, I should have been well rested and ready for action on Wednesday. These short interval / short rest sessions are supposed to give me a chance to get lots of minutes in at close to head race intensity, but include enough rest so that fatigue does not become a big factor until deep into the workout.

That’s not how it worked out in this session. I decided that I would take a little extra time at the ends of the river, so it was really broken up into sets of 3 reps. I managed through the first three, but when I turned and confronted the head wind, I overcooked the fourth rep. I started the fifth, as I was approaching the s-turn, and I felt kind funny, a little woozy maybe. Anyway, I pulled the plug and paddled through the turn. I lined up and did the 6th interval per plan, but it was a nasty experience. Notice that my HR is not extremely high, but my RPE was through the roof. I was gasping for breath and shaking.

I took a good long rest and a drink, then I turned around to do another set, now with a tail wind. I was a bit more conservative on pace for these and made it through the set of three. Another turn and another longer than proper rest and I steeled myself for the up wind set. I pounded out 2 reps, which took me up to the turn. I decided to paddle through the turn and take a longer rest. Then I did the 12th rep and finished strong.

The plan called for another set of three, but I was completely toasted. In really hard workouts, my right glute will start to hurt at the end of a session and it was really bad this time. I took my feet out of the shoes and gingerly paddled home. I stopped and stretched every couple minutes because I just couldn’t get comfortable in the seat.

Stunningly, no red in the plot.

          Workout Summary - media/20180906-1215320o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|12579|79:38.0|03:09.9|092.8|21.6|144.0|178.0|07.3
W-|07379|33:52.0|02:17.7|150.5|24.7|159.6|178.0|08.8
R-|05211|45:47.0|04:23.6|050.1|19.4|132.4|178.0|06.2
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|00694|03:03.9|02:12.5|151.4|24.2|145.9|160.0|09.4 - dwn
02|00676|03:02.1|02:14.6|148.9|25.4|155.6|166.0|08.8 - dwn
03|00691|03:03.2|02:12.5|159.0|23.9|161.5|172.0|09.5 - dwn
04|00637|02:57.3|02:19.3|156.0|25.7|159.5|171.0|08.4 - up
05|00252|01:10.6|02:20.4|157.8|24.6|157.9|163.0|08.7 - up (fail)
06|00630|02:57.0|02:20.5|146.3|23.6|160.1|173.0|09.0 - up
07|00681|03:03.4|02:14.7|150.1|25.2|154.6|168.0|08.8 - dwn
08|00663|03:02.2|02:17.4|134.6|24.7|164.9|174.0|08.9 - dwn
09|00641|02:54.3|02:15.9|149.3|24.4|168.1|177.0|09.1 - dwn
10|00597|02:52.4|02:24.4|146.8|25.1|158.7|171.0|08.3 - up
11|00586|02:47.6|02:23.0|155.2|25.1|167.1|178.0|08.4 - up
12|00631|02:58.1|02:21.1|155.8|24.9|160.7|175.0|08.5 - up

Friday, 7 Sept: 70′ steady state with bumps

In this session, I wanted to keep the overall intensity low to moderate, but I wanted to do 20 stroke bursts at as high of a stroke as I could while maintaining reasonably clean stroke work.

As I went along, I found it easier to get the rate up into the mid thirties. In one rep, I was really feeling it. I was finishing so clean that I was keeping my blades off the water on the very brief recoveries. I could feel the boat settle in the drive and pop in the recovery. I loved it! It’s fun to go fast.

         Workout Summary - media/20180907-1225290o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|13765|75:57.0|02:45.5|109.3|20.2|141.9|170.0|09.0
W-|01801|07:23.0|02:03.2|212.8|32.5|153.8|166.0|07.5
R-|11973|68:34.0|02:51.8|098.2|18.9|140.6|166.0|08.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|00149|00:37.4|02:05.8|206.9|28.8|146.9|155.0|08.3
02|00156|00:41.3|02:12.2|203.3|28.9|150.7|158.0|07.8
03|00156|00:38.4|02:03.4|228.1|31.2|156.9|164.0|07.8
04|00167|00:40.7|02:02.1|205.3|30.8|150.8|157.0|08.0
05|00151|00:37.4|02:04.2|215.5|32.3|156.9|162.0|07.5
06|00137|00:33.5|02:02.5|242.6|34.3|154.6|162.0|07.1
07|00151|00:38.3|02:06.7|206.0|31.4|152.7|158.0|07.5
08|00136|00:33.4|02:03.0|185.8|34.1|156.5|163.0|07.1
09|00142|00:34.4|02:01.0|226.4|35.0|159.1|166.0|07.1
10|00136|00:31.4|01:55.4|237.2|36.3|148.5|158.0|07.2
11|00157|00:38.2|02:01.4|190.5|33.1|153.7|163.0|07.5
12|00165|00:39.6|02:00.1|212.7|34.8|158.1|166.0|07.2

Saturday: Attempted 10K Threshold

Down on the Cape. I was hoping to do my threshold session as a coastal row, but the weather was a bit windy, forcing me inside to do it on the erg (on slides). The plan wanted a 40′ threshold piece, so I decided on a 10K.

I started with the a 2K warm up.

Then into the main event. I thought I should be able to do it at a split of 1:58, so of course I set off at 1:57. Turns out, 2:00 would have been a better choice. I blew up just after 6K.

I took a few paddle strokes and then got going again at about a 2:02 pace. I sped up a bit towards the end, but it was a pretty ugly showing.

          Workout Summary - media/20180908-2250280o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|10000|39:36.0|01:58.8|209.3|25.7|167.7|182.0|09.8
W-|10000|39:37.0|01:58.9|209.3|25.7|167.7|182.0|09.8
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|182.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|01000|03:51.4|01:55.7|221.1|25.4|142.2|154.0|10.2
01|01000|03:53.6|01:56.8|219.8|25.7|160.0|162.0|10.0
02|01000|03:55.3|01:57.6|215.0|25.4|163.6|166.0|10.0
03|01000|03:55.2|01:57.6|215.5|25.6|167.0|169.0|10.0
04|01000|03:55.5|01:57.7|214.5|25.6|170.3|172.0|10.0
05|01000|03:56.8|01:58.4|211.2|25.9|172.6|174.0|09.8
06|01000|04:11.3|02:05.6|185.1|24.9|168.6|174.0|09.6 - boom!
07|01000|04:01.3|02:00.6|199.4|24.9|174.0|177.0|10.0
08|01000|04:02.4|02:01.2|196.7|25.1|177.2|179.0|09.9
09|01000|03:54.5|01:57.3|217.3|28.3|180.6|182.0|09.0

Good training effect anyway. I’m interested to see how this piece goes on a static erg to get an idea of how much I suffer on slides.

Sunday, 9 September: 3 x 20’/2′ dynamic

So nice and cool! I decided to observe a strict 150 bpm max HR because I wanted to recover from the nasty 10k attempt the day before. It turned out to be a really nice session. Unfortunately, the painsled session data got blown away somehow. But in any case, it was about a 2:08 pace, which is pretty good for a low HR cap on the dynamic.

It was one of those sessions where I felt better after I finished than when I started.

Monday, 10 September: 4 x 2k OTW

This is the real pinnacle of the weekly training plan. The long intervals. They end up being very close to head race pace and by the last one you are feeling the effects.

Today the weather was cool again, and there was a bit of a breeze. A headwind heading down river.

My plan for the session was to aim at 25 or 26 strokes per minute and try to work on smooth strokes and clean finishes. I am trying to lighten up the first part of the drive. I feel like it went very well today.

         Workout Summary - media/20180910-1255340o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|12201|71:36.0|02:56.1|111.7|23.6|140.5|174.0|07.2
W-|07930|35:55.0|02:15.9|164.8|26.0|160.4|174.0|08.5
R-|04276|35:40.0|04:10.3|058.3|21.2|120.5|174.0|06.8
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|01966|09:02.4|02:18.0|164.8|25.5|156.5|167.0|08.5 - up
02|01987|08:54.2|02:14.4|166.3|26.0|160.6|171.0|08.6 - dwn
03|01969|08:59.0|02:16.9|163.3|26.7|162.0|174.0|08.2 - up
04|02008|08:59.9|02:14.4|164.8|25.9|162.5|173.0|08.6 - dwn

Notice the consistency of power between up and down wind pieces. That’s what I was hoping to do. As for the low HR, that’s pretty cool. It still felt really hard.

Comparing the stroke profiles to the last time I did this session. There isn’t a lot of difference, but the peak angle did move later by a couple of degrees.

After my row this morning, I drove straight to the airport. I showered at the Admiral’s Club and made my 10:30 flight with time to spare.

Now I am on a plane out to San Diego. I am planning to do a steady state session at DelMar crossfit tomorrow morning. Then I think my streak gets broken. I fly early morning up to San Jose and I have meetings all day, and a business dinner at night. I’m not sure if I will have time on Thursday before I fly home.

I track my overall training load in Strava and it was pretty depressing looking at it recently. But with the string of sessions I’ve put together, things are definitely picking up. I’m nearly to the level I was last January.

I should probably do a 20 minute test on a static erg to see where I stand.

It’s a pity that I have a trip to the Philippines and Japan coming up next week. That should screw things up pretty well.

Friday: Steady State, Saturday: Threshold

September 2, 2018Leave a comment

Friday: 3 x 20′ / 2′ on slides

I flew out of San Jose at about 9pm and arrived in Boston at 5:15am Friday morning. I got an hour or two of sleep on the plane. Once I got to Boston, I got to my car and drove home to Hopkinton, grabbed a few things I needed for the long weekend and headed to the Cape. I ultimately arrived around 9am. I went to bed for a couple of hours and woke up feeling kind of groggy. I felt a bit better as the day went on.

I toyed with the idea of going for a coastal row, but it was a bit windy and I didn’t feel like the hassle of loading the boat. Instead I just popped down to the basement for a steady state session on slides.

It was a pretty lousy session. I needed to slow way down to keep my HR below the caps.

          Workout Summary - media/20180831-2030270o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|14499|65:59.0|02:16.6|144.3|19.5|147.1|162.0|11.3
W-|13795|59:53.0|02:10.3|155.1|19.4|148.4|162.0|11.9
R-|00707|06:00.0|04:14.6|038.1|20.4|134.8|162.0|06.9
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|04712|20:00.0|02:07.3|163.7|19.8|140.6|148.0|11.9
01|04547|20:00.0|02:12.0|152.5|19.1|150.0|155.0|11.9
02|04536|19:53.8|02:11.6|149.1|19.3|154.5|162.0|11.8

Someday, I’m gonna figure out how to improve the accuracy of the summaries.

Saturday – Sept 1: 36′ Minute Threshold Piece in a coastal row.

It was gorgeous today! Sunny, about 75F, light to moderate breeze from the East. That’s the best direction for the wind because it provides the best water conditions since the wind is coming off the land.

I launched from the north beach and turned to head into Loagy Bay. I wanted to get as long of a straightish run as I could get. I hate turning around in long threshold pieces. I figured I could run up along Indian Neck, and then turn West and head toward Chequessett Neck and finish by the outlet of the Herring River. This would be running with the incoming tide, but there wouldn’t be much current close to shore, and the chop should be minimized except as I crossed to Great Island, and then it would be generally behind me.

          Workout Summary - media/20180901-2110280o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|14550|83:37.0|02:52.4|000.0|22.7|158.3|182.0|07.7
W-|14551|83:37.0|02:52.4|000.0|22.7|158.3|182.0|07.7
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|182.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|01658|09:00.0|02:42.8|000.0|20.1|140.0|152.0|09.2 - warmup
01|06827|36:00.0|02:38.2|000.0|24.4|171.4|182.0|07.8 - Main piece
02|06066|38:37.5|03:11.0|000.0|21.7|150.4|181.0|07.2 - Long row home!

The row went very well. I just counted strokes. Every hundred was another 4 minutes down. I wasn’t sure how many minutes I would get out of the course. It turned out to be about 36′. I had two slow downs. The first was a massive waking that seemed to get me from two directions, and then soon after that, I needed to turn to avoid the shoal as I got to the Herring River inlet.

I was really pleased with the workout. I was able to settle in to a groove with my HR in the 170s and just keep cranking. I’d like to get the stroke rate up over the next month, but for now, I am just pleased to have unbroken sessions and good efforts.

After I finished, I realized just how far away I was from home. And I also realized that a lot of it would be into the wind and tide. I decided to just take it easy and focus on rowing with reasonably good form. I was really tired for the first 10 minutes or so after I finished the hard piece, but by the time I got close to the end, I was feeling good and pushed a little harder.

Now, a few hours later, I am starting to feel very stiff and tired. And I have a couple of really big blisters. I guess it was a pretty hard workout after all.

Training Log – Aug 15 to Aug 27

August 28, 20182 Comments

Wednesday, August 15 – Brief HIIT session in the fitness center

I arrived in San Jose Tuesday afternoon, and headed straight to my meeting. I spent the rest of the afternoon in our office and than had a business dinner that night.

In the morning I had a window to do a quick workout in the hotel fitness center.

I did a brief warmup and then I did a HIIT session on the treadmill. It was 30 seconds of hard running on a 15% incline and then 4:30 of walking on the incline. I did 6 intervals. For some reason the data from the session did not get captured right. It was very hard work when it was going on, but not a whole lot of it.

Thursday, August 16 – Easy 50 minutes in the fitness center

I flew from San Jose to Austin on Wednesday morning, then had meetings in our office there in the afternoon. That evening we had a customer dinner. In the morning, I got up and went to the fitness center of the hotel.

First, I did 30 minutes of incline walking (15% grade, ~3mph) on the treadmill. Then I moved over to the stationary bike and did some rolling hills for another 20 minutes.

Not very impressive, and extremely boring. The rest of the day was a blur of meetings. I caught an evening flight back to Boston, arriving around midnight.

Friday, August 17 – No Training

I decided to get a some sleep on Friday morning instead of trying to squeeze a row in. I brought my workout clothes to work hoping that I could sneak off for a quick session during the day sometime. But all my time slots got booked up as the day went along.

Saturday, August 18 – 15 x 3′ / 1′

Saturday morning we had made arrangements for a tree service to come in and work on a bunch of trees that were damaged over the winter. These guys were amazing. They trimmed everything, stabilized some badly bent trees and even reshaped our shrubs. They got it all done by the middle of the day.

My wife and I were planning to go down to the cape later in the day, so I had time for an erg session on the dreaded dynamic. Today’s assignment was a 15 x 3’/1′.

This is a favorite session of mine, but I didn’t know how to pace it on the dynamic. I was guessing somewhere between 1:55 and 2:00. I decided to start at 2:00 and try to negative split until things got dicey.

Things got dicey after about the 5th rep. Then things got really dicey at the end and I blew up in the 14th rep. But, judging by the HR stats, it was a pretty tough session.

Too bad the paces were so slow.

         Workout Summary - media/20180818-1750260o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|13453|60:05.0|02:14.0|168.0|25.9|164.4|181.0|08.6
W-|11266|45:00.0|01:59.8|207.7|26.7|163.1|181.0|09.5
R-|02203|15:05.0|03:25.5|049.7|23.7|168.3|181.0|05.5
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|00761|03:00.0|01:58.2|207.8|24.4|125.9|150.0|10.4
01|00762|03:00.0|01:58.1|213.3|25.4|148.2|158.0|10.0
02|00779|03:00.0|01:55.5|218.1|26.6|155.2|163.0|09.7
03|00780|03:00.0|01:55.4|227.3|26.8|159.2|168.0|09.7
04|00780|03:00.0|01:55.3|230.2|25.5|163.7|171.0|10.2
05|00746|03:00.0|02:00.7|208.0|24.5|161.9|169.0|10.2
06|00762|03:00.0|01:58.1|212.9|24.7|165.6|175.0|10.3
07|00756|03:00.0|01:59.0|218.1|26.7|169.1|177.0|09.4
08|00779|03:00.0|01:55.5|227.5|28.8|172.8|180.0|09.0
09|00751|03:00.0|01:59.8|203.9|26.4|170.9|179.0|09.5
10|00755|03:00.0|01:59.3|203.2|24.6|173.1|181.0|10.2
11|00711|03:00.0|02:06.5|184.7|29.9|173.6|181.0|07.9
12|00746|03:00.0|02:00.6|202.1|26.0|169.8|181.0|09.6
13|00666|03:00.0|02:15.2|159.0|30.5|173.0|179.0|07.3
14|00732|03:00.0|02:03.0|199.2|29.0|164.3|178.0|08.4

Sunday, August 19 – 3 x 20′ / 2′

I had hopes of going for an open water row, but it was a bit too windy. I settled for an easy steady state session. I had planned to do 4 x 20′, but my HR was high and I was having trouble holding a reasonable pace. I decided to cut it off after 3 intervals.

          Workout Summary - media/20180819-1745260o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|14696|66:00.0|02:14.7|151.1|20.2|144.8|157.0|11.0
W-|13912|60:00.0|02:09.4|161.5|20.0|145.8|157.0|11.6
R-|00788|06:00.0|03:48.7|046.6|22.5|135.2|157.0|07.3
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|04724|20:00.0|02:07.0|170.3|20.1|137.2|148.0|11.7
01|04624|20:00.0|02:09.8|160.2|20.0|148.3|153.0|11.6
02|04564|20:00.0|02:11.4|154.1|19.8|151.8|157.0|11.5

Monday, August 20 – 4 x 2000 / 4′

We stayed down on the cape on Sunday night and I got up at 5 to make my way to work. It takes somewhere between 2:30 and 3:30 depending on traffic.

On this particular monday, the traffic wasn’t so bad, and I made it to work with enough time for a workout in the fitness center.

I am trying to organize my training a bit more and start focusing on a few potential head races, so I wanted to increase the intensity of my training weeks. Today’s session is basically my goto head racing training session. On the static erg, and my very best, I could do this session with an average pace around 1:45. I am not at my best. In fact, judging by my steady state pace, I would say that I am about 8 to 10 splits off my best form. So I decided to target 1:55 for this session and see how it went.

This was a really good session. I felt like the pace target was good and I was able to stick to it. It was pretty motivating.

Tuesday, August 21 – 70′ Drills on the fives – OTW 1x

Hooray! Back in my boat. Since it had been a while, I decided to do a technical session.

The session is really simple. 4 minutes of rowing, and then 1 minute of drills, rotating between these four

1/2 slide
delayed feather
pause at body over
open hands on recovery

It’s an engaging, challenging session that goes by really quickly.

Wednesday, August 22 – 12 x 3′ / 1′

The plan was for 15 x 3′, but I ran out of time, and frankly energy. This session is hard work! But, then again, it’s supposed to be. The whole point of this session is to put in a lot of strokes at head race pace and pressure. Right now that’s awfully slow, but that will change with a but of focused work.

The pace on these is a bit deceptive because a lot of the intervals happen through the big s-turn, which slows me down a bit.

          Workout Summary - media/20180827-2250260o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|11919|65:02.0|02:43.7|117.9|23.7|156.9|177.0|07.7
W-|07790|35:39.0|02:17.3|155.9|25.3|163.8|177.0|08.6
R-|04142|29:24.0|03:33.0|071.9|21.8|148.4|177.0|07.3
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|00167|00:47.4|02:22.3|123.0|20.3|143.0|147.0|10.4 - warmup burst
02|00663|02:59.6|02:15.4|147.2|25.0|154.9|163.0|08.8
03|00546|02:29.8|02:17.1|149.5|25.6|161.1|166.0|08.5 - downriver turn
04|00648|02:52.4|02:12.9|166.1|26.8|163.3|170.0|08.4
05|00644|02:58.4|02:18.5|154.1|26.5|165.8|172.0|08.2
06|00599|02:49.6|02:21.5|155.9|24.3|161.9|172.0|08.7 - upriver turn
07|00607|02:50.4|02:20.3|161.2|24.6|165.6|174.0|08.7
08|00644|02:54.4|02:15.4|152.2|25.1|167.0|176.0|08.8
09|00656|03:00.3|02:17.4|145.1|24.6|167.0|175.0|08.9 - down river turn
10|00648|02:54.8|02:14.8|163.8|24.7|168.0|177.0|09.0
11|00092|00:25.8|02:20.4|153.1|25.4|159.1|160.0|08.4 - hit the weeds!
12|00622|02:49.3|02:16.0|158.9|25.8|161.1|175.0|08.5
13|00636|02:55.9|02:18.4|161.0|26.9|166.8|174.0|08.1 - upriver turn
14|00616|02:51.7|02:19.3|165.2|25.5|169.6|177.0|08.5

The low point of the workout was interval number 10. I finished #9 going under the stone bridge and into the channel leading to the basin. With a one minute rest, it’s barely enough time to get the boat turned around. On this turn, I managed to get my point wrong for the next interval, and within 30 seconds, I managed to get way to close to the weeds along the bank and really entangled my starboard oar. It took me a couple of minutes to back my way out of the situation. I was lucky I didn’t flip.

The last three intervals passed without any additional drama. Well, except it started raining on interval 10, and by the time I finished it was pouring!

Thursday, August 23 – 70′ Steady State

One of the great things about doing a good job on a high intensity session is that you really feel like you’ve earned your right to a low intensity session for the next day. That’s the way I felt on Thursday. I just wanted to work on clean finishes and take it easy.

          Workout Summary - media/20180827-2251030o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|13708|77:51.0|02:50.4|108.1|18.7|134.0|148.0|09.4
W-|13013|66:14.0|02:32.7|117.0|18.3|138.2|148.0|10.7
R-|00700|11:37.0|08:17.9|056.9|20.6|109.6|148.0|07.7
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|03895|19:42.4|02:31.8|114.9|17.9|135.2|147.0|11.0
02|02753|14:10.1|02:34.4|117.1|17.7|139.6|148.0|11.0
03|02735|13:34.9|02:29.0|120.8|18.8|140.8|147.0|10.7
04|02800|14:21.1|02:33.8|118.4|18.6|139.8|146.0|10.5
05|00830|04:26.2|02:40.4|110.4|19.8|134.3|145.0|09.4

Easy peasy. delightfully low heart rate.

Friday, August 24 – no training

Well, isn’t that remarkable. Taking a rest day after 6 consecutive training days! Also, I had an extremely important meeting at 8am, so I got up at my normal 5:15 am, but headed straight to the office to do a little bit of last minute prep work.

Saturday, August 25 – remarkably crappy 10K

We stayed in Hopkinton this weekend. There was some yard work and other stuff that needed to get done. I wasn’t really in the mood to get on the dynamic, but I didn’t want to lose the little bit of momentum that I had built up. I was due for a more intense session, so I decided to try to do a threshold 10k. Again, I wasn’t sure what pace I could hold on the dynamic, so I started out at about a 1:57. That didn’t last long.

After multiple HDs, and some might slow rowing, I got a little motivated with about 4k to go. God, I hate the dynamic erg.

Sunday, August 26 – 16K steady state on the Charles River

On Friday, one of my friends from out in Worcester let me know that 4 of them were going to take 2 doubles down and launch them from Community Rowing so that they could row the course for the CRI Fall Classic before the event. He asked if I wanted to come along. I thought that was a great idea, and it was lucky for me that I was around this weekend. I picked up my boat in Newton and met them at 7:30.

We launched and headed downriver. It’s really a pretty magical place to row. There are lots of turns, but none of them are too sharp. Lots of bridges, but none of them are too narrow. Lots of traffic, but at that time of the morning, it is almost all scullers and everyone knows the traffic pattern.

We rowed from CRI down to the BU boat house, about 8000m. We had a couple of short stops on the way down as needed to stay together as a group. We got ourselves organized and headed back upriver. This is the first time I’ve been on the course since my lousy row in last years HOCR. It was good to row the course at steady state pressure and work on holding a line.

Each of the doubles had a close encounter with the ample vegetation that has invaded the charles this year. There is a thick bed of weeds around the magazine beach turn. People tend to hug that turn pretty closely in the race. I think this year a bit wider turn will be needed. Once we got up past the Weeks footbridge, we stopped again. This is the about where the start line for the CRI fall classic is. Then we took the rest of the way up as a single piece, and finished strong in front of the CRI boathouse. There was a bit of headwind in this section.

It was an incredibly fun outing.

          Workout Summary - media/20180826-1645260o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|16467|98:39.0|02:59.7|100.1|21.6|147.0|176.0|07.7
W-|15053|77:18.0|02:34.1|115.3|21.3|154.4|175.0|09.2
R-|01422|21:20.0|07:30.2|045.2|22.8|120.3|175.0|03.9
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|00767|04:03.9|02:38.9|098.4|17.7|134.7|148.0|10.7
02|03436|17:10.0|02:29.9|114.9|20.0|153.4|164.0|10.0
03|00966|05:03.0|02:36.9|109.1|20.6|145.6|152.0|09.3
04|02354|11:59.6|02:32.9|108.6|20.6|154.6|163.0|09.5
05|00917|04:38.5|02:31.9|131.2|22.5|155.7|169.0|08.8
06|00570|03:01.5|02:39.1|108.8|20.1|150.3|156.0|09.4
07|01080|05:17.7|02:27.1|121.2|22.4|155.5|169.0|09.1
08|03379|17:49.4|02:38.2|114.9|22.6|157.9|164.0|08.4
09|01584|08:15.4|02:36.3|128.3|23.4|163.8|175.0|08.2

Monday, August 27 – 4 x 2000 / 4′

On the water in Newton. Weather was perfect, maybe a bit hot, but sunny and calm. The goal this morning was to replicate the happy feelings I got from last monday’s 4x2k on the erg. I knew that this was gonna be tougher in the boat. Each rep would last almost 2 minutes longer and I had to focus on technique and steering. I decided for this session to try to hold the stroke rate around 24.

          Workout Summary - media/20180827-1650270o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|11324|67:03.0|02:57.6|112.6|22.6|147.3|180.0|07.5
W-|08138|37:59.0|02:20.0|147.0|24.7|162.4|180.0|08.7
R-|03192|29:04.0|04:33.3|067.7|19.8|127.7|180.0|06.4
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|00284|01:24.6|02:29.2|114.6|19.9|130.0|135.0|10.1 - warmup
02|02004|09:11.9|02:17.7|145.6|24.5|154.5|167.0|08.9
03|01966|09:12.2|02:20.4|154.2|25.2|164.7|176.0|08.5
04|01950|08:55.1|02:17.2|148.4|25.0|166.6|180.0|08.7
05|01933|09:15.4|02:23.7|144.8|25.1|168.6|180.0|08.3

So, that was awesome. Slow, but awesome. I held it together through all the reps and managed to focus on technique with my heart going a mile a minute. It feel good to be back focusing on these simple sessions.

Now, I am on a plane out to San Jose. I have a few days of meetings out here. I’m going to try to find an erg so I can maintain my forward progress.

Quantified Rowing

Measure – Adjust – Improve

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