Monday: 3 x 20’/2′ (MP, 10KP, HMP)

Sunday:  Busy.  No time to work out.

Monday:  Did sunday’s session.

M2 3 x 20′ / 2′ MP, 10KP, HMP 90.0% (167)

Power targets were:

  • MP: 180 to 195
  • 10KP: 210 to 225
  • HMP: 195 to 210

I aimed for the lower end of the ranges.  I ignored the HR cap.

5-15a

5-15b

Tomorrow:  This session on the water

M1 4 x 15′ / 4′ 7′ @ 5KP, 8′ @ MP 92.5% (172)

I will row it to power

  • 5KP: 225 to 240
  • MP: 180 to 195

Thursday: 4 x (6′ @ 5KP, 9′ @ MP)/5′ rest – A terrific workout!

In San Diego at Crossfit DelMar.

The plan was to start getting back into formal marathon training.  I’ll admit I was a little worried about how it would go.  I went to be reasonably early and slept OK.  I felt pretty good in the morning.

Workout

  • 6′ @ 5KP (255-240W)
  • 9′ @ MP (180-195W)
  • 5′ rest (it was supposed to be 4′ but I remembered it wrong)
  • repeat 4 times

I don’t even understand why this workout felt so good.  It didn’t feel easy, but my heart rate was nice and low and there was no doubt about being able to handle it.  I was able to increment up the power as I went through the repeats.

5-11a

5-11b

Tomorrow:  I’m taking the red eye home tonight.  I’m planning to go for a easy technique row on my way home from the airport.  Probably a lot of SBR maybe a bit of bungee rowing.

 

Mulching, rowing and wimping out

Saturday:  In the driveway was a pile of 5 cubic yards of dark pine mulch.  It was raining and about 60F.  I procrastinated until about 11am, and then I finally got my ass outside to spread it.  The process is simple and labor intensive.

  • Use an edger to clean up the edge of the bed
  • dig out the dirt and mulch that has settled into the edges
  • Get all the weeds out of the bed
  • Spread mulch

It sounds simple, but I spent from 11am to 3pm, and then from 3:30 to 7:00pm doing it and I didn’t quite finish.  By the time I was done, I could barely lift my arms, and getting up from a sitting position was a struggle.  I’d call that 7 and a half hours of strength/endurance training.

Sunday:  I was tired and sore when I woke up, but I really wanted to go rowing with my friends out in Worcester.  The morning was grey, around 50F, and windy.  The wind was blowing from the SSW between 10 and 15 mph.  It felt like the gusts were higher than that.

We had 6 of us rowing, two people wanted to take singles, so I doubled up with Bob in our “new” wintech double.  I was eager to give it a real tryout.

Screen Shot 2017-05-08 at 11.23.35 AM

I didn’t have much of a plan for the workout, so we just rowed down to the south end of the lake, into the wind.  We had a lot of starts and stops at the beginning as I tried to get the speedcoach working and Bob got his Garmin Fenix running right, but after the first 1000m or so, we got into a rythym.  It was slow going into the wind, but the boat felt good.  I was enjoying myself a lot.

When we turned around at the south end of the lake, I asked Bob if he would be OK doing some rate ladders.  I ended up messing with some of the durations as we went, but it was good to row with specific rate targets.  I think we got better synchronized as the row went on.

After we got the north end of the lake, we noticed that the wind had picked up even more.  The row back to the boathouse was very slow and heavy going.  I was glad that I was in a double.  It would have been a bit hair raising in my single with that much wind and chop.

5-7a

I tried to reconstruct the ladders as best I could.

Workout Summary - media/20170508-150701-SpdCoach 2182533 20170507 0744amo.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|10759|55:03.0|02:33.5|000.0|23.0|154.3|176.0|08.5
W-|10500|52:03.0|02:28.7|000.0|23.0|155.2|176.0|08.8
R-|00268|03:00.0|05:35.9|000.0|20.1|119.5|176.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|00004|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|09.5|086.0|86.0|00.0
01|00682|03:15.0|02:23.0|000.0|22.3|141.1|149.0|09.4
02|01967|09:45.0|02:28.7|000.0|23.8|152.7|166.0|08.5
03|00651|03:00.0|02:18.2|000.0|20.7|142.9|153.0|10.5
04|00432|02:00.0|02:19.0|000.0|21.6|156.1|158.0|10.0
05|00218|01:00.0|02:17.8|000.0|23.0|159.1|161.0|09.5
06|00228|01:00.0|02:11.4|000.0|24.9|161.7|162.0|09.2
07|00860|04:00.0|02:19.6|000.0|22.8|163.0|169.0|09.4
08|00643|03:00.0|02:19.9|000.0|22.2|159.4|161.0|09.6
09|00438|02:00.0|02:17.1|000.0|24.7|163.9|167.0|08.8
10|00229|01:00.0|02:11.2|000.0|26.1|168.5|170.0|08.8
11|00812|04:00.0|02:27.8|000.0|21.1|161.7|169.0|09.6
12|00421|02:00.0|02:22.4|000.0|22.8|160.8|163.0|09.3
13|00702|03:15.0|02:18.8|000.0|27.0|168.2|176.0|08.0
14|01751|10:00.0|02:51.3|000.0|22.1|148.9|159.0|07.9
15|00462|02:48.2|03:02.0|000.0|24.1|157.4|167.0|06.9

It was hard work, but a pretty short session.

5-7b

It was great to see my friends and I really like the wintech double.

After I got home, I spent another couple hours finishing up the mulching.  Not nearly as strenuous as Saturday’s labors but still.

Monday:  I felt awful last night.  I thought I might be coming down with something.  Or maybe I was just worn out from my busy weekend.  I felt like I might be getting a fever.  Nevertheless, I set out my stuff to go rowing this morning, and I was out the door before 5:30 to get to the river.

As I was driving there, it started to rain.  And I notice that the temperature was only around 42F.  I made an executive decision.  I decided to blow of “real” rowing and just go do a quick erg session at work before my first meeting at 9am.  I had some prep to do and I felt my stress level go down as soon as I decided.

I didn’t have any shoes, so I rowed in socks.  I don’t much like that since my heels tend to slip out, but it would do for the short session I had in mind.

I just did a easy 10K push.  I started with a target of 2:09, and sped up by a second for every 1000m.  This was easy to keep track of because the pace was the same as the leading digit of the distance to go.  9xxx –> 2:09, 8xxx –> 2:08, 7xxx –> 2:07, etc.

It was also really easy rowing at the beginning and only started to feel tougher with about 3000m to go.

5-8c

I enjoyed that session too.

Tomorrow:  I will try to get back on the marathon plan.  I haven’y yet done any of these workouts on the water.  So tomorrow will be.

M1 4 x 15′ / 4′ 6′ @ 5KP, 9′ @ MP 92.5% (172)

Now, I don’t really know exactly how to pace this, so I will try to row it to power.  So that would make my targets  225 to 240 for 5KP and 180 to 195 for MP.  I’m interested to see how it works.

1-17j

The other challenge that I have is river length.  I can just about squeeze in 15 minutes, but the longer intervals in the plan will require me to spin to get them done.

 

 

I’m not complaining, but….

…my occupation seems  to be be getting in the way of taking a disciplined approach to training.

I was planning to do 80 minutes of endurance work this morning, but getting through email took longer than planned, and I needed to keep it to 60 minutes.

Since I was bored, I decided to change up the workout a little.  I decided to do power ladders.

Here’s my revised plan.

  • 3 x 5000m intervals
  • 1 minute rests.
  • break each 5K into 5 1K pieces
  • first 5K: 160W, 165W, 170W, 175W, 180W
  • second 5K: 165W, 170W, 175W, 180W, 185W
  • third 5K: 170W, 175W, 180W, 185W, 190W

Based on yesterday, i figured that 175W was a good UT1 power, so this workout would start out pretty easy and push a bit beyond aerobic for the last 2K or so.

Of course, since I was in a rush, ergdata decided to hangup within 5 minutes of starting.  Now I’m wise to it’s tricks, so I had started the wahoo app to collect HR data as a backup, so I just kept going.

4-21a

The time passed very quickly and I had fun doing it.  And I made it to my first meeting just on time.

Tomorrow:  I’m really tired.  I’m not sure what I’ll do.  Probably an erg session in the afternoon.

Better than nothing! 3 x 20′ / 1′ rest

Easy day today.   Early meetings, so no time for OTW.  I planned 3×20′, and I decided to go very easy at the beginning.  I did the first 20′ at 165W, then ramped it up to 175W, and then rowed to a HR cap of 155.

I started to exceed the cap towards the end, but a couple of big belches kept me in the proper HR zone.  Amazing how that works.  It’s usually worth about 3 to 5 bpm. 🙂

4-20a

Weather forecast is lousy for tomorrow morning.  45F and 99% chance of rain.  So I guess I’m inside again tomorrow.  I have a bit more time, so I think I’ll do 4×20′ with a HR cap at 155.

 

 

A little bit of speed

Note:  Just realized that I never posed this workout. I had a draft written and never published it.

I had an 8 am meeting today, so not enough time for OTW.  I was sick of slow and steady sessions so I decided to dip a toe back into an easy speed session.

8 x 500 / 2 min rest.

Target was to do a couple 500s as warm up and that start at 1:50 and do each one faster than the last.

It was fun, and it helped me calibrate what a reasonable pace would be for this session.

For some reason, nothing was working in terms of electronics.

I set up in erg data and it hung up in the 4th interval.  Then I setup in pain sled and that hung up after 2 intervals.  At that point, I just kept going without capturing any data.  Kind of disappointing.

Here are the first four intervals.  The first two were warm ups.  Then:

target actual

  • 1:50, 1:49.9
  • 1:49, 1:48.7

Then I reset the workout and continued.  I think I cheated myself out of a little rest.

  • 1:48, 1:47.5
  • 1:47, 1:46.5
  • 1:46, 1:45.5
  • 1:45, 1:44.6 (slipped a tenth!)
  • 1:44, 1:43.3 (got it back with interest)
  • 1:43, 1:37.9 (The irresitable lure of the faster last!)
  • Then a “cool down” rep.  It turns out I wasn’t in the mood to cool down.

So, I think aiming at 1:45 for all reps would be totally reasonable.

 

 

More catching up.

Last time I posted was April 5th.  It’s been a while.  Work has been keeping me very busy and I’ve been struggling to find time to workout, just not enough time to keep good records.  Which is a shame because I’m trying to remember what the heck I did way back on the 6th.

Thursday, 6 April: Flew out to San Diego on the 7:30AM flight.  No training.  Flew home on the red-eye.

Friday, 7 April:  Worked from home.  Felt really beaten up from the flight.  No training

Saturday, 8 April:  Slept for a very long time, nearly 11 hours.  I had to drive all over to try to organize what to do with my late father’s possessions.  No training.  I think this might be the first time I’ve taken three days off in a row in a long time.

Sunday, 9 April:  A glorious morning.  I took my boat out to Worcester for a row with my friends at Lake Quinsigamond Community Rowing.  It was an exciting day for us.  We bought a used WinTech Double from Saugatuck over the winter and today was the inaugural row.  I was in my single, Joe was in the new (to us) double with Gretchen, and we also boated a quad.

The northern end of the lake was off limits because it was being used for a collegiate regatta.  We snuck a little ways up the lake before things got going, but otherwise stuck to the southern 2/3.

Screen Shot 2017-04-15 at 1.35.09 PM.png

I wanted to try rowing a bit harder with the Empower oarlock, so I decided to do rate ladder workout.

  • 4′ @ 18
  • 3′ @ 20
  • 2′ @ 22
  • 1′ @ 24
  • Repeat 4 times.

4-9b

This was much harder work than it should have been.

4-9c

But it was delightful. I used the speedcoach mainly to look at effective length, which was darn short.

I’m still trying to figure all this stuff out, so here’s a bunch of charts over the distance and versus stroke rate.  I blanked out the rest strokes from all of it.

After I got back to the dock, Joe asked me if I wanted to take a short spin in the new double.  I sure did!  It’s a big improvement from the vespoli we rowed last year.

Monday, 10 April: Back down in Newton on the Charles.  Sunny and nearly 50F.  Back to steady state work. My hands were a mess.  Blisters on blisters.  I decided to keep working on technical stuff like maximizing effective length.

4-10a

I was rowing at at a consistent (albeit slow) power, dropping off about 10 watts during the session.  The interesting thing to me was how much the current effected things.  There was very little wind for the first half.  A bit of breeze picked up in the second half which was a tail wind for the downriver and had wind upriver.  The current was essentially making me 0:05/500 faster going downriver and 0:05 slower going up river.  And even more is certain places.

  • Power and work per stroke faded a bit over the workout as I stayed under my HR cap.
  • Length was reasonably consistent, effectively length faded.
  • Catch and slip was very consistent.
  • Finish and Wash told a real story.  The wash went through the roof as I did my last 4K up river.  I was not watching wash on the display and it got really bad toward the end.

 

Tuesday, 11 April: I had a meeting at 8:30 so I had to be quick.  I still wanted to get out on the water.  My hands continued to be an issue.  More light technical rowing.  I managed to forgot to start the speedcoach again.

4-11a.png

4-11b

Wednesday, 12 April: Another day, pressed for time.  Today, I decided to stick to technique stuff.  I did one of my favorite workouts.

  • 2 minutes square blade
  • 2 minutes alternating square and feathered
  • 2 minutes feathered
  • keep repeating

4-12a

Thursday, 13 April: Steady State.  Watching wash on the speedcoach.

4-13a.png

My technique was better today.

Friday, 14 April: Rest day

Saturday, 15 April:  Down on the cape.  Busy all day.  Just popped down to the basement for a quick 10k.

4-14a.png

Sunday, 16 April:  Still on the cape.  60 minutes at 180W.

4-15a.png

 

Tuesday: Back indoors – 60 minutes

Tuesday’s weather was horrible.  Windy, driving rain, temperature around 35F.

I decided to sleep in and try to squeeze in a session in the afternoon at work.

I hit the gym instead of eating lunch.  I did 60 miutes straight.  Target power was 170W.  Erg Data hung up on me with about 20 minutes to go and didn’t save any data.

Here’s the HR data from the wahoo app.

4-4a