Threshold Tuesday

October 17, 20171 Comment

Weather: Really dark. Just the hint of a cresent moon on the eastern horizon, and lots of bright stars. Cold as hell. 32F. Wind 8-9mph from the NNW. This was a nasty headwind for my long piece and kicked up a bit of chop in places.

The plan: The original plan was a 4 x 2000m. But once I got going, I decided to change it up. When I setup the speedcoach, I didn’t have a field for distance. So, I decided to replace the 2k intervals with 9 minute intervals. Then when I was doing the first interval, I was feeling pretty good. The wind was behind me and I was in a section of the lake where the water was nice and flat, I decided to extend it to 10 minutes. I got to the south end of the lake and waited for the double that I had launched with. While I waited, I looked at the stars. Venus was very bright in the east, Orion was in the western sky, and I saw a shooting star.

My rest extended longer than the 5 minutes, and I decided that instead of continuing with the planned workout, I would just do the whole lake. This is a little bit longer than the HOCR course, so it would be a good way to see what power I can target for the race. Also, with the head wind, it would be a test of character! Could I keep it up while looking at miserably slow splits?

I set off and settled into a rhythm at 26 spm. I was annoyed to see that my HR monitor was stuck at 111bpm. After a couple of minutes, it got unstuck and slowly climbed up to the expected number around 171bpm. Then a couple minutes after that, the power and angle readings from the empower oarlock disappeared as well. I took this as a further test of character. Now, I had no power readings or heart rate readings to make me feel better about the miserably slow splits. I had no choice but to focus on rowing clean and just count strokes. It’s between 600 and 650 strokes to do the 5k. I counted every one of them.

I found that I would get sloppy and tired at r26, and decide to “take 10 for length”. My stroke rate would drop to r24/r25 and my pace would improve a bit. Then over the next couple of minutes, my rate would creep back up again and I would do it all again.

The section from 400 strokes to 500 was probably the toughest. The head wind was most noticeable, and the chop was at it’s worst. I was very tired and getting sloppy. It was a real confidence boost to persevere through it and once I got past 500 and the end was in sight, I was able to start cranking it up.

The finish point is right in front of the QRA docks. I paddled from there up to the north end of the lake and met up with the double again. I did the section going south with my feet out of the shoes focusing on finishes.

You can see the problems with the HR and power numbers in this plot.

Here is a close up plot of the pace and stroke rate, since that’s the only stuff that was accurate through that piece.

          Workout Summary - media/20171017-182015-Greg Smith 20171017 0540amo.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|11792|73:14.0|03:06.3|192.8|24.0|161.0|173.0|06.7
W-|09136|44:08.0|02:24.9|209.7|24.7|166.1|173.0|08.4
R-|02660|29:06.0|05:28.3|139.7|20.7|147.7|173.0|03.2
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|02240|10:00.0|02:14.0|222.8|25.3|164.3|173.0|08.8
02|05115|25:13.2|02:27.9|206.5|25.7|165.0|171.0|07.9
03|01782|08:55.2|02:30.2|204.0|21.4|171.0|171.0|09.3

So, after this workout, I was delighted to see an email from rowsandall.com saying that I had had a “breakthrough workout”. This is a workout that is significantly better than the power profile that you have built up over time.

Here is the before/after view of the profile.

The difference is all in the long workouts. There is a chance that the power meter malfunction is driving the long flat plateau, but based on the pace through the piece, I think that power did not fade all that much. Using this data and the predictor functionality, rowandall thinks that I can target 211W for my race. I think I can probably target 220W.

After the issues today, I hope that the speedcoach works in the race.

Tomorrow: Another session of 2′ SBR/2’Alt/2′ 26spm. This time 4 reps.

10K Threshold

September 29, 2017Leave a comment

The original plan was to do another 30′ piece, but I was looking to change up the workout a little bit. I wanted to challenge myself a bit more and frankly I like distance based pieces than time based ones.

Plan:

10K
Rate: 25-26
Pace: 1:56 (my 30 minutes was at 1:56.2)
Technique: Keep your damn knees together
HR Limit: None

I did 10 minutes on the treadmill to warmup (15% grade, 3.1mph).

These rows are pretty brutal. Just like the 30′ piece that I did last weekend, I started out trying to hold 1:55. I lasted a bit longer today. Out to around 5K versus 3K for the other piece. I had a very brief crisis around the 7000 meter point. I essentially pulled up for two strokes, and then thought better of it and took a minute or so at 2:00 pace. Then pushed the pace slowly back toward target. It was a pretty good save.

I did a slow 1K on the erg for a cool down.

        Workout Summary - media/20170929-1236080o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|10000|38:38.0|01:55.9|224.2|24.7|167.9|180.0|10.5
W-|10000|38:38.0|01:55.9|224.2|24.7|167.8|180.0|10.5
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|03:48.6|01:54.3|229.9|23.8|141.8|155.0|11.0
01|01000|03:49.2|01:54.6|232.5|24.5|159.2|162.0|10.7
02|01000|03:49.7|01:54.9|230.9|24.7|164.2|166.0|10.6
03|01000|03:50.0|01:55.0|230.1|24.9|168.1|171.0|10.5
04|01000|03:51.2|01:55.6|226.5|24.9|171.2|173.0|10.4
05|01000|03:52.7|01:56.3|222.5|24.9|172.3|174.0|10.4
06|01000|03:56.7|01:58.3|211.2|24.5|171.6|175.0|10.3
07|01000|03:55.5|01:57.7|214.6|24.6|174.2|176.0|10.4
08|01000|03:54.0|01:57.0|218.4|25.0|176.6|178.0|10.3
09|01000|03:51.2|01:55.6|226.6|25.2|178.4|180.0|10.3

Here is the whole workout from the polar OH1 sensor

I was curious about how this session compared to my 30′ piece. So, I used the nady multicompare features in rowsandall to look.

Pace and power, you can see how I started both pieces at about the same pace, and then faded in the 30′ around 2500m. Then you can see the crisis around 6300m in today’s piece.
I did a better job at keeping the stroke rate up today.
better HR response today.

Tomorrow: I’ve got my new rigger for my boat. I will mount it tonight and hopefully do a nice long and easy technical session tomorrow on Quinsig.

15 x 3′ / 1′ Static

September 25, 2017Leave a comment

I felt tired at 5:15 so I rolled over and slept 2 more hours. I’m glad I did.

I headed to the gym at lunch and sat down on the new erg. And my HR strap didn’t link up to either the PM5 or the phone. I popped out the battery and it was wet. Uh Oh. I put in a new battery. Still no life. I think the seal must have gone and sweat has gotten into it.

I pulled out my old wahoo tickr and put a new battery in this one. I had stopped using this one because it seemed to have a problem following fast HR changes, like you see in interval sessions (like today’s workout). This one linked up right away, and I got going with the workout using painsled.

The plan:

15 x 3′ / 1′ rests
Pace: 1:54
Rate: 26
Technique: knees together, limit layback
HR limit: none

So the sensor still has issues. Glad it wasn’t my imagination.

So, targets met. Tired now.

Tomorrow: 80 minutes of endurance training. 20 minutes treadmill, 3 x 20′ on the erg.

30 minutes hard – static

September 23, 2017Leave a comment

It was foggy and windy this morning so no coastal rowing for me. Probably a good thing. I have a lot of issues to work on right now, but threshold fitness is probably the biggest one. It’s probably easier to focus on fitness on the erg compared to a coastal row with a lot of wind, chop and other distractions.

Plan:

5 minute warmup with 10 stroke bursts at 22/24/26/28
30 minutes hard
- rate target: 24
- pace target 1:55
- HR limit: none

Workout Summary - media/20170923-1750570o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|09631|39:00.0|02:01.5|209.7|23.5|163.3|181.0|10.5
W-|07749|30:00.0|01:56.1|223.0|24.0|169.4|181.0|10.7
R-|01885|09:00.0|02:23.3|155.4|21.3|139.2|181.0|08.1
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|01300|05:00.0|01:55.4|232.5|23.8|152.5|162.0|10.9
02|01301|05:00.0|01:55.3|228.9|24.0|164.9|168.0|10.8
03|01286|05:00.0|01:56.7|220.5|23.9|169.2|172.0|10.7
04|01284|05:00.0|01:56.8|219.5|23.9|174.0|175.0|10.7
05|01275|05:00.0|01:57.7|214.7|24.0|176.3|178.0|10.6
06|01304|05:00.0|01:55.1|222.1|24.6|179.8|181.0|10.6

I held onto to 1:55 as the target through the first 10 minutes, but I felt like I wasn’t going to be able to keep it up the whole way. I decided to let the pace drift up to 1:57. That got me through the next 5 minutes. At the halfway point, I decided to try to play a little visualization game. I tried to remember the rough spacing of bridges in the HOCR. I was pretty sure it was about 5 minutes from the Eliot bridge to the end. It was probably a little more than 5 minutes from the Anderson to Eliot, and another 5 minutes from Western to Anderson. So, I tried to visualize the different parts of the course as I did them. I was really struggling at 10 minutes to go, and I was picturing myself going around the long turn from Anderson to Eliot. I pictured the Cambridge Boat Club coming into view with about 2 minutes left and focused to trying to stay close to the buoy line. I let my pace slip a bit slower than 1:57 because I wanted to save a little for the last stretch beyond the eliot bridge. With 5 minutes to go, I split it up even more. First was about 25 strokes to get me to the BBN docks. Then 50 strokes to get around the last turn. Then a final 50 strokes to the finish.

It was pretty satisfying to get it done. I was really losing hope in the middle. I am not pleased at all about the time. My best 30 minutes is 1:48.8 pace back in 2013, and my best hour is at a 1:52 pace late in 2015. Hell, my best half marathon is faster at 1:53.6 (also in 2015). So I am more than 7 seconds off my best pace for head race distances. All I can do is work on my tolerance for pain and do my best.

Tomorrow: Hopefully an easy coastal row.

2 x 5K with bumps

December 20, 2016December 20, 2016Leave a comment

I am doing my best to try to keep exercising as parts of my life go a bit out of control. I decided on a very simple idea of just doing 10k a day. Depending on the day, it might be hard or easy, but 10K takes around 40 minutes and I can get in and out of the gym in just about an hour.

I’ve done hard 10Ks, push 10Ks, L4 10Ks. Today, I thought I would do a bumps workout. I remember in the good old days of the concept2 UK site, that all of the 10SMPS folks would do these 8Ks with bumps. They looked like misery. Basically you row at about your steady state pace, and then every so many meters, you increase the pace to something faster (like 2K pace) for 100m (or 200m, or 250m, or whatever), then return to the steady state pace afterwards.

I thought it would be an way to get some faster rowing into the 10K format. SO here was my plan for today.

10K
20 x ( 400m @ 2:00, 100m @ 1:45)
Free rate
Strapped in
No HR cap

Since this was a first attempt, I had no idea if this would be too hard or too easy. It turned out to be too hard. It didn’t help that I over-achieved on the sprinty bits.

I made halfway through, and I knew that I was in trouble. I had decided that I would slow down the steady state, or drop out some of the fast bits. That’s when the PM5 decided that it had gone just about far enough on this set of batteries and threw a persistent error.

The good news is that Painsled behaved perfectly! When I looked later, the whole thing was safely on my iphone and it even handled the ignominious finish without any troubles.

I went to my gym bag, found a couple batteries (always prepared!) and changed them out in the PM5. Then, with trepidation, I set up another 5K for more bumps action.

I only made it a couple of bumps into this one when I found that I couldn’t hold the 2:00 pace anymore. My HR was sky high and wasn’t dropping much at all between bumps. I skipped one bump and then rowed the steady state slower, between 2:05 and 2:10 generally, but slower right after the bump.

First 5K

Workout Summary - media/20161219-175842-sled_2016-12-19T11-48-29ZEST.strokes.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|05134|19:48.0|01:55.8|234.6|22.3|163.5|178.0|11.6
W-|05134|19:49.0|01:55.9|230.2|22.0|163.3|178.0|11.9
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|178.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|00400|01:32.6|01:55.8|208.5|19.9|124.4|137.0|13.0
02|00100|00:20.7|01:43.7|311.0|26.0|144.7|150.0|11.1
03|00400|01:34.7|01:58.4|211.9|20.3|149.8|152.0|12.5
04|00100|00:20.2|01:40.8|341.1|28.2|153.1|156.0|10.6
05|00400|01:34.8|01:58.5|214.6|20.4|157.6|159.0|12.4
06|00100|00:20.3|01:41.6|326.4|26.7|158.6|161.0|11.1
07|00400|01:34.7|01:58.4|214.0|20.2|162.5|163.0|12.5
08|00100|00:20.1|01:40.5|336.1|28.2|162.7|165.0|10.6
09|00400|01:34.5|01:58.1|217.8|20.7|166.2|167.0|12.3
10|00100|00:20.0|01:39.8|353.5|28.6|166.9|168.0|10.5
11|00400|01:34.8|01:58.5|215.3|20.3|168.9|170.0|12.5
12|00100|00:20.1|01:40.3|336.5|28.2|169.2|171.0|10.6
13|00400|01:35.4|01:59.3|213.6|19.7|170.8|172.0|12.8
14|00100|00:20.2|01:40.9|327.6|27.4|171.3|173.0|10.8
15|00400|01:34.9|01:58.6|213.0|20.5|173.2|175.0|12.3
16|00100|00:20.8|01:43.8|308.7|27.8|174.0|175.0|10.4
17|00400|01:34.9|01:58.6|213.2|22.4|174.6|176.0|11.3
18|00100|00:20.6|01:42.9|317.4|28.4|174.6|176.0|10.3
19|00400|01:35.1|01:58.9|208.8|22.2|175.3|177.0|11.4
20|00234|01:00.8|02:09.8|200.6|24.7|174.6|178.0|09.3

Second 5K

Workout Summary - media/20161219-2055100o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|05000|19:52.0|01:59.3|214.2|22.7|170.1|180.0|11.1
W-|05000|19:53.0|01:59.4|209.3|22.4|170.0|180.0|11.3
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-
01|00400|01:34.6|01:58.2|204.1|20.6|139.6|155.0|12.3
02|00100|00:20.8|01:44.0|302.5|26.9|157.1|160.0|10.7
03|00400|01:35.7|01:59.6|208.0|21.3|164.4|166.0|11.8
04|00100|00:20.8|01:43.9|305.3|26.2|167.9|170.0|11.0
05|00400|01:35.5|01:59.4|209.0|21.0|170.9|172.0|11.9
06|00100|00:20.6|01:43.1|315.5|28.8|172.1|174.0|10.1
07|00400|01:36.5|02:00.7|207.2|22.4|174.7|175.0|11.1
08|00100|00:24.7|02:03.6|176.0|21.2|170.6|172.0|11.5
09|00400|01:38.6|02:03.3|186.7|20.2|170.5|172.0|12.1
10|00100|00:21.3|01:46.6|284.0|26.8|171.3|173.0|10.5
11|00400|01:39.4|02:04.2|182.8|20.2|172.9|174.0|12.0
12|00100|00:21.2|01:46.2|291.3|26.7|174.4|175.0|10.6
13|00400|01:39.9|02:04.8|180.3|20.0|174.6|176.0|12.0
14|00100|00:20.5|01:42.6|310.0|28.0|176.3|178.0|10.4
15|00400|01:43.9|02:09.9|164.3|21.7|174.7|179.0|10.6
16|00100|00:20.3|01:41.7|314.2|28.3|174.0|176.0|10.4
17|00400|01:41.1|02:06.3|177.9|22.8|175.1|177.0|10.4
18|00100|00:20.3|01:41.3|322.0|28.7|175.3|177.0|10.3
19|00400|01:38.3|02:02.9|192.6|23.1|176.9|178.0|10.6
20|00100|00:19.6|01:38.2|362.8|31.0|178.3|180.0|09.9

So, next time I do this workout, I think keeping the slow bits at 2:05 might be a better idea.

Saturday: 2 x 5K Pushes

December 17, 2016December 18, 20163 Comments

I love push workouts. Almost always, I will do a 10K push, start at a 2:00 pace and then speed up a second every 1000m. Today, I wanted to do it a bit differently, so I did 2 5K pushes.

2 x 5K push workout
- First 5K
  - start at 2:00 pace
  - drop the pace by 2 splits every 1000m
- 2 min rest (paddle and drink)
- second 5K
  - start at 2:00 pace
  - drop the pace by one split every 500m
- No rate restrictions
- No HR caps

So, I stuck to the pace targets except for the last 1000m of the first rep and the last 500m of the second rep.

It was a good threshold workout. with some good variety of intensity.

It’s fun to look at the metrics for this workout because it is free rate and I just try to find the most efficient rate for each target pace. It still comes out very close to the kind of increment I see in L4 workouts, about 2 splits per SPM.

On this workout you can see in increase in work per stroke as the stroke rate goes up. In an L4 workout, this would be nearly constant.

I saw Sander included the avg/pk force ratio in his workout. I wanted to compare. Here’s mine.

So, my force ratio was 0.67, versus a 0.56 for Sander. This is a much larger difference than I was expecting to see. Here are the two parameters that go into the ratio.

To complete the set. Here’s drive length. You can see that I am back to full slide, with no significant knee issues.

This intrigued me, so I looked at drive length versus power and drive length versus SPM. Nearly constant for both. I think that’s a good thing.

Sunday: another brief 10K workout. Probably just an easy L4.

WTF 10K

December 11, 20161 Comment

I ended up skipping training yesterday. I was just doing other stuff, and I didn’yt really feel like it. You might be able to tell that my discipline is ebbing, as my surgery date approaches.

Today, I knew I would be getting on a long flight and I always do better if I have exercised before I fly. So, I decided to do a quick 10K before I got ready to head to the airport.

I also wanted to push my knee some more. As perverse as it sounds, I wanted it to hurt. I wanted it to lock up. I wanted it to misbehave. It refused to do that.

I dutifully put down my bandaid to limit compression, but as I went along in the piece, I started to ignore it and try to push as far into compression as I possibly could. I was reaching for the handle guard in front of the fan cage, and nearly touching it. My knee started to feel a bit sore, but did not misbehave. Not a click was heard, no locking happened, and it didn’t betray me, as much as I wanted it to. What the hell is up with that.

Anyway, my intent was just a nice UT1 kind of workout. A bit spicier than a normal endurance session since I was only going for 10K. I ended up pushing harder than that. And the only thing UT1’ish about the session was the rate.

Workout Summary - media/20161211-214912-sled_2016-12-11T13-16-31ZEST.strokes.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|10000|38:28.0|01:55.4|227.3|22.3|163.2|184.0|11.6
W-|10000|38:28.0|01:55.4|227.1|22.3|162.9|184.0|11.7
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-
01|01000|03:51.8|01:55.9|217.4|21.0|129.6|143.0|12.3
02|01000|03:49.1|01:54.5|232.9|22.4|150.2|156.0|11.7
03|01000|03:50.2|01:55.1|229.7|21.9|157.3|159.0|11.9
04|01000|03:52.4|01:56.2|223.2|21.5|160.4|162.0|12.0
05|01000|03:52.2|01:56.1|223.4|21.9|163.3|166.0|11.8
06|01000|03:53.1|01:56.6|221.2|22.0|166.7|171.0|11.7
07|01000|03:51.6|01:55.8|225.6|22.5|170.1|173.0|11.5
08|01000|03:50.9|01:55.4|227.5|23.0|173.8|176.0|11.3
09|01000|03:50.8|01:55.4|227.5|23.1|176.8|179.0|11.3
10|01000|03:46.4|01:53.2|242.6|23.8|180.8|184.0|11.1

Now, this was no where near as fast as my 10K CTC in October, but I was interested in comparing the two workouts.

First, comparing power.

In October, I started fast and faded a bit. Today, I started slower and held it.

Stroke rate…Very different. I rated higher the whole way in October.

This infers that my work per stroke should be higher this time…And it is.

Which led to a higher rise in HR.

Now, what about drive length? I started today shorter, but as I started to test my knee, I matched my stroke length from that row.

This got me thinking about drive length versus peak force. Here’s the two plotted together for today’s row.

Goes to show you how much length matters!

So, now I’m at the airport, getting ready to board. Not sure what the training will be like this week.

Hard Half Marathon

November 21, 2016November 21, 20165 Comments

Continuing with the Crazy Bear Challenge. Today was a bit spicier.

Plan:

Half Marathon
Free Rate
Pace: 1:57.5
No HR Cap

Last weekend, I did a 1:58.5 and I was sure I could do better. I was thinking I’d aim to slice a second off the pace. I didn’t bother to warmup, I just sat on the machine and started going. I settled in at 1:55 and even though I was worried that I’d burn out, I just kept going and let the pace bleed off and the rate creep up over the row. I was never in any serious distress, but I sure felt pretty awful after I finished.

End result: 1:21:38.8 (1:56.1)

That’s good enough to be ranked 14 of 474 on the concept2 rankings of 50-60 hwts. So, I’m pretty happy with that.

It was a hard row, about an hour above AT. The last 4 minutes in AN. I might be able to squeeze a bit more out with a slower start, but I’m not sure. I’m still a ways off of my PB (1:19:55.4), that’s a 1:53.6 pace. Maybe after 25 more HMs?

Workout Summary - media/20161120-222121-sled_2016-11-20T15-12-43ZEST.strokes.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|21097|81:36.0|01:56.0|223.7|23.6|166.7|181.0|11.0
W-|21097|81:37.0|01:56.1|223.7|23.5|166.4|181.0|11.0
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|181.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|01000|03:49.2|01:54.6|227.7|22.2|132.9|143.0|11.8
02|01000|03:51.2|01:55.6|226.5|22.4|147.9|152.0|11.6
03|01000|03:50.8|01:55.4|227.6|22.8|153.5|155.0|11.4
04|01000|03:50.6|01:55.3|228.3|22.9|156.5|158.0|11.3
05|01000|03:50.5|01:55.2|228.6|23.2|160.0|161.0|11.2
06|01000|03:50.8|01:55.4|227.7|23.4|162.3|164.0|11.1
07|01000|03:51.7|01:55.8|225.1|23.2|164.7|165.0|11.2
08|01000|03:51.5|01:55.8|225.6|23.4|165.3|167.0|11.1
09|01000|03:51.9|01:55.9|224.8|23.3|167.6|168.0|11.1
10|01000|03:52.2|01:56.1|223.3|23.4|168.1|170.0|11.0
11|01000|03:52.9|01:56.4|221.7|23.1|170.2|171.0|11.2
12|01000|03:53.1|01:56.5|221.1|23.4|170.9|171.0|11.0
13|01000|03:53.9|01:57.0|218.9|23.5|171.1|172.0|10.9
14|01000|03:54.0|01:57.0|218.1|23.7|171.8|172.0|10.8
15|01000|03:54.2|01:57.1|218.3|23.7|173.6|174.0|10.8
16|01000|03:54.2|01:57.1|217.5|23.6|173.7|174.0|10.8
17|01000|03:53.7|01:56.9|219.3|24.1|175.1|176.0|10.7
18|01000|03:54.7|01:57.3|216.7|24.0|175.8|176.0|10.6
19|01000|03:54.7|01:57.4|216.6|24.2|175.4|176.0|10.6
20|01000|03:52.4|01:56.2|223.2|24.7|177.3|178.0|10.5
21|01000|03:48.9|01:54.5|234.0|25.6|178.9|181.0|10.2
22|00097|00:20.2|01:44.2|304.6|29.5|181.0|181.0|09.8

With the tools on rowsandall.com, I can get a good look at how I traded rate for power as the row went on. You can see my weakest part, from about 7k down to 2k, where my strokes got shorter and the work per stroke went down.

Tomorrow: HM L4. Interested to see how much oomph I have after this workout.

Saturday: 10K push

November 12, 2016November 14, 20162 Comments

I had a busy day on Saturday. I had a haircut appointment in the morning, then some shopping to do. I got home around 1 and we needed to head out to pick up some friends for dinner and a concert at 2:30.

I almost didn’t workout, but I was feeling antsy, so I decided to do a 10K push workout. For those unfamiliar, these workouts are AWESOME! Here’s how it works

10K distance
Start at something close to your steady state pace
Speed up by 0:01/500 for each 1000m of the workout

I have done this workout a 3 times in the past year.

Dec 10, 2015: Start at 2:00, failed at 4K to go, peak HR 180
Dec 15, 2015: Start at 2:02, success, peak HR 178
May 30, 2016: Start at 2:03, success, peak HR 177
Aug 15, 2016: Start at 2:05, success, peak HR 177

I was feeling pretty cocky after my good 10K last month for the CTC, so I decided to start at 1:59 today. It worked out very well.

Nov 12, 2016: Start at 1:59, success, peak HR 174

No problems at all. A nice cruise and I was only pushing hard for the last 3000m or so.

Workout Summary - media/20161114-185906-sled_2016-11-12T13-36-38ZEST.strokes (1).csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|10000|37:52.0|01:53.6|23.5|153.1|174.0|11.2
W-|10000|37:52.0|01:53.6|23.5|152.4|174.0|11.3
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|00.0|000.0|174.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|01000|03:54.5|01:57.2|21.3|130.0|138.0|12.0
02|01000|03:54.3|01:57.1|22.2|141.7|145.0|11.5
03|01000|03:52.4|01:56.2|22.3|145.8|148.0|11.6
04|01000|03:51.0|01:55.5|23.0|147.9|152.0|11.3
05|01000|03:49.5|01:54.8|23.1|150.6|153.0|11.3
06|01000|03:47.3|01:53.7|23.3|153.7|156.0|11.3
07|01000|03:45.1|01:52.6|23.9|159.0|161.0|11.2
08|01000|03:43.4|01:51.7|24.4|162.2|165.0|11.0
09|01000|03:41.0|01:50.5|25.0|165.3|168.0|10.9
10|01000|03:34.2|01:47.1|26.5|171.0|174.0|10.6

Generally, the splits line up pretty well between the postprocessed results and the PM5 data. The first split is off a little bit.

I purposely tried to use a fluffier stroke rate on this piece, so I was interested to see how my power versus stroke rate would look. It’s kind of fun to see the results. Here is the whole thing. From this you might conclude that there is a positive correlation between stroke rate and drive force.

So, I split the data set to look at the first half versus second half. Now you can see the the first half is flat and the tail is in the second half. This got me thinking, is there a correlation, or did I just hammer the last 1000m.

Answer: I hammered the last 1000 meters. Theses two plots are the first 9000m and the last 1000m.

What a fun workout and I drank beer at dinner with little or no guilt.

Monday: 4 x 2800m Threshold OTW

November 7, 20162 Comments

In Newton in my Fluid

Weather: 36F, Clear, light wind from the NNW 3-5mph. This was a head wind heading down river. It was only a factor in the straight section in front of the watch factory.

Plan:

4 x 2800m
3-5min rest
Rate: 24-26
Pace: ~2:15
HR Cap: None –> Target TR zone
Technique: Clean Finishes.

Workout Summary - media/20161107-143843-78581o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|13608|71:23.0|02:37.4|23.1|150.5|170.0|08.2
W-|11198|51:40.0|02:18.4|24.8|160.0|170.0|08.7
R-|03680|27:30.0|03:44.3|19.1|123.4|170.0|07.9
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
02|02820|12:55.7|02:17.5|25.1|158.4|164.0|08.7
03|02804|12:46.9|02:16.8|24.7|160.1|166.0|08.9
04|02753|13:05.1|02:22.6|24.5|160.9|166.0|08.6
05|02821|12:52.3|02:16.9|24.9|160.4|170.0|08.8

A very good workout. I pushed hard, but tried to stick to r24, and that kept the HR in a reasonable place. I wanted to focus more on rowing clean than driving for the best possible pace.

The one interesting thing from the workout is the sharp deceleration at 6000m. I was going through the s-turn and a goose did not get out of my way quickly enough. I hit it hard with my oar during recovery, and lost my grip on the handle. Luckily, the force of the “bird strike” pushed the handle toward my torso. It was trapped between my leg and chest and I could grab it again quickly. Good thing too, because the blade was flipping from feathered to square and starting to really catch water. I think I avoided a flip by a fraction of a second. Usually the geese are smart enough to get out of my way. I think this specific goose will probably do so in the future.

Here’s a quick look at stroke metrics.

The loop down to 20 spm at the bottom is my “bird strike”.

I did a plot of each interval to see if I could see the effect of the light headwind. The left column is against the headwind, the right column is with the wind.

Now I am off to San Jose and LA for the week. I will probably stick to cross training at hotel gyms for this trip. Maybe try to do a couple of strength sessions.

Quantified Rowing

Measure – Adjust – Improve

Tag: Threshold

Threshold Tuesday

10K Threshold

15 x 3′ / 1′ Static

30 minutes hard – static

2 x 5K with bumps

Saturday: 2 x 5K Pushes

WTF 10K

Hard Half Marathon

Saturday: 10K push

Monday: 4 x 2800m Threshold OTW