And on it goes

May 18, 2020Leave a comment

Last posted on May 10th. Since then, nothing to exciting. I haven’t fallen off any roofs, or broken any bones this week, so that’s a plus.

I ended up taking two days off from training. No real reason, other than a limited desire to train.

Sunday – 5/10 – 2 x 30’/5′ With Bumps

A fun session. Row 4′ at r18 and 160W, then 1′ faster. The faster bits start r20, and go up by 2SPM in each one. So, a little bit of hard rowing with a lot of aerobic strokes.

Also a good chance to use rowsandall interval analysis

       Workout Summary - media/b9c94e1b23-20200510-201916o.csv
--|Total|-Total----|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time-----|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|15424|01:07:24.4|02:11.1|166.9|19.3|142.8|167.0|11.9
W-|14343|01:00:06.0|02:05.7|179.6|19.2|143.9|165.0|12.6
R-|01095|00:07:18.4|03:20.1|062.8|20.1|133.6|165.0|04.9
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|00937|04:00.0|02:08.1|162.8|17.8|113.3|127.0|13.1
01|00236|01:00.0|02:07.3|175.6|19.2|129.4|131.0|12.3
02|00929|04:00.0|02:09.1|164.1|17.8|130.6|132.0|13.1
03|00248|01:00.0|02:01.1|199.0|21.4|136.8|141.0|11.6
04|00933|04:00.0|02:08.7|165.3|18.0|137.7|142.0|13.0
05|00259|01:00.0|01:55.8|225.3|23.8|141.1|148.0|10.9
06|00937|04:00.0|02:08.1|169.8|18.1|143.5|149.0|13.0
07|00271|01:00.0|01:50.8|249.8|25.9|146.0|153.0|10.5
08|00933|04:00.0|02:08.7|168.0|17.9|148.0|156.0|13.0
09|00276|01:00.0|01:48.5|263.8|27.4|148.7|156.0|10.1
10|00932|04:00.0|02:08.8|167.4|18.0|149.7|158.0|13.0
11|00282|01:00.0|01:46.5|283.9|29.3|150.9|159.0|09.6
12|00937|04:01.0|02:08.6|167.1|17.8|137.7|145.0|13.1
13|00239|01:00.0|02:05.8|181.4|19.6|145.9|147.0|12.2
14|00927|04:01.0|02:10.1|163.9|17.6|146.7|150.0|13.1
15|00253|01:00.0|01:58.7|204.7|22.0|146.8|151.0|11.5
16|00925|04:01.0|02:10.3|163.3|17.6|148.5|152.0|13.1
17|00260|01:00.0|01:55.3|226.7|23.7|150.1|155.0|11.0
18|00931|04:01.0|02:09.4|164.8|17.9|152.0|157.0|13.0
19|00266|01:00.0|01:52.8|241.2|25.4|152.8|159.0|10.5
20|00935|04:01.0|02:08.8|167.6|18.0|154.5|161.0|13.0
21|00272|01:00.0|01:50.1|261.2|27.6|154.2|160.0|09.9
22|00945|04:01.0|02:07.5|169.6|18.1|156.5|162.0|13.0
23|00282|01:00.0|01:46.5|289.9|29.9|158.0|165.0|09.4

Monday – 5/11 – 7.5km run

Tuesday – No Training

Wednesday – 5/13 – half and half

30′ stationary bike

2 dart games

Scores: 13840,14210

       Workout Summary - media/b10aaa2c46-20200513-121216o.csv
--|Total|-Total----|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time-----|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|07592|00:34:22.2|02:15.8|152.0|17.7|143.6|152.0|12.5
W-|07562|00:32:47.2|02:10.1|158.8|18.5|144.7|152.0|12.5
R-|00032|00:01:35.0|24:53.0|011.1|01.8|120.2|152.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|03798|16:25.0|02:09.7|160.2|18.5|144.5|152.0|12.5
01|03764|16:22.2|02:10.5|157.5|18.5|144.9|151.0|12.4

Thursday – 5/14 – half and half

30′ on the bike

2 dart games – 14005, 14085 (I was not on my game at all!)

        Workout Summary - media/6e3758c812-20200514-122316o.csv
--|Total|-Total----|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time-----|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|07424|00:34:06.6|02:17.8|148.2|17.9|142.2|152.0|12.2
W-|07397|00:32:15.7|02:10.9|156.2|18.8|143.9|152.0|12.2
R-|00029|00:01:51.0|32:21.3|008.4|01.4|112.3|152.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|03757|16:15.0|02:09.8|159.6|18.7|143.6|152.0|12.3
01|03640|16:00.7|02:12.0|152.7|18.9|144.2|150.0|12.0

Friday – 5/15 – 7.3km run

Down on the cape. Out and back on the road.

Saturday – 5/16 – No Training

I spend a couple hours fixing some shingles on the roof, and then the fencing around the house. Didn’t feel like training.

Sunday – 5/17 – 3 x 30′ / 2′ Steady State

I’ve been reading more about base training and I want to try to add more minutes at lower intensity.

        Workout Summary - media/11a6da4170-20200517-211416o.csv
--|Total|-Total----|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time-----|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|21759|01:36:00.0|02:12.4|157.0|19.5|134.1|144.0|11.6
W-|20997|01:30:00.0|02:08.6|164.6|19.7|134.9|144.0|11.9
R-|00765|00:06:00.0|03:55.2|044.2|17.5|122.3|144.0|07.6
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|07003|30:00.0|02:08.5|164.5|19.1|128.6|140.0|12.2
01|06995|30:00.0|02:08.7|164.4|19.8|137.2|144.0|11.8
02|06999|30:00.0|02:08.6|164.8|20.0|138.9|144.0|11.7

Back to your regular programming

May 3, 2020Leave a comment

It’s May! Hopefully the weather will get better, and we’ll be able to row outside soon, This Friday, my wife packed up and headed down to the cape for the weekend.

We arrived Friday evening, and stopped to pick up a “hands free” pizza on the way.

Saturday – May 2 – 6km run

On Saturday, we lazed around and relaxed. In the afternoon, I decided to go for a run. I guess I should put quotes around “run”, since it was notably slow, but really enjoyable, I clambered down to the beach and ran around the island to north side. I just made it before the tide washed over the beach at the northwest corner. Running on sand was quite a challenge. It’s much softer sand than in Aruba.

After I turned at the northeast corner, I walked a bit, and then I was on harder packed sandy roads. I ran all the way to bridge on the causeway, then turned and ran down the main road on the island and all the way around to the little beach on the southwest corner. Then I turned into the wind and did the last slog home back on soft sand again.

It was a moderately hard workout, but not that long.

Sunday – 3 May – 3 x 15′ / 2′ steady state

It was 15 days ago when I took the fall off the ladder. The scrapes have healed, my elbow is mostly better. There is still something wrong with my thumb; it really does not like lateral pressure. My shoulder is OK, but still has limited range of motion.

I was thinking that it would be a good time to see whether the damage that I’ve done would keep me from rowing.

I dialed up 2000m for a warmup.

I started off with a pick drill. 20 strokes just arms. I felt a bit of a twinge from my elbow if I extended it completely. Well then, we will just use that as a reminder to keep soft arms. By the end of the 20 strokes, I was able to take them without any pain. Good.

Then arms and body. Now I became aware of a new limitation. If I indulged my bad habit of reaching too far at the catch, my shoulder would remind me not to do that. A few strokes and I managed to get into a groove that was working.

Then into full strokes. Now the final bit of coaching from my shoulder. Don’t take the catch too hard. It was as if Robby Manson was there telling me to hang and bang. If I hit the catch too hard, my shoulder would definitely twinge.

So, the end result is that my elbow and shoulder are conspiring to make me row better.

After 15 days off, the rest of the 2000m felt like a very long way to row, but I was doing well. Mostly pain free and maintaining reasonable power.

After I finished that, I decided to do another 45 minutes or so of easy rowing. So, 3 x15’/2′ at 160W. I let the stroke rate climb up from 18 to 20 over the three pieces to keep my strokes nice and light.

So, what to do now? I think I will stick to easy stuff on the erg for now and go running a couple of times a week for the more intense sessions. I don’t want to push it too fast. Mostly, I want to get stronger for the return of OTW, hopefully in the next couple of weeks.

13km Coastal Row

September 2, 2019Leave a comment

Another really beautiful, sunny, late summer day. On Sunday the breeze was blowing from the East, which meant generally flat water, as long as I hung out close to the eastern shore.

As usual, I picked the windiest time of day to go rowing. I swear that Zeus watches for me to walk out of my house in my rowing shorts, and turns up the wind dial. The highest gust of the day was at 12:19. I launched at 12:12.

So, I was slow going into the wind, and fast going away from the wind, but because of the direction, I was rarely dealing with much chop. There was a fair amount of power boat traffic and that was definitely a factor up near the inner harbor.

I launched 90 minutes before high tide (1:38pm), and when I launched there was still a noticeable current flowing into Loagy Bay. By the time I got up to the inner harbor, there was no noticeable current.

As soon as I launched, I headed up into the wind and then turned at a floating oyster shack to head up into Loagy Bay. I rowed up to the bridge and did a quick turn around. I rowed back north until I was almost to the beach on Indian Neck. I turned and skirted the shore. This turned out to be a bit stressful because there were a bunch of boats moored along the beach, some swamped and barely visible above the water.

As I rowed along the shore, I noticed my splits getting faster. I was coming out of the current into Loagy Bay and into the main stream heading up to the harbor. But at the same time, it was getting closer to high tide.

As always, I was waked mercilessly as I rounded the breakwater to the inner harbor, and that continued until I was almost to the pier. As you get into the inner harbor, there are speed limits that make it much better. This detail map shows a bit more. I was on the southerly track on the way in and you can see the jogs in the path as I worked my way through the wakes.

I really enjoyed the last bit behind the jetty. Flat water, tail wind and the end in sight.

For whatever reason, the trip out of the harbor was less eventful. I swung wide around the breakwater because there was a bunch of traffic. I got hit by a monumental interference pattern of wakes between two power boats going in opposite directions on either side of me. I took on a boat full of water, which I drained through the bailer.

One thing about the Aero. Even when this happened, I felt completely stable.

The row home was enjoyable, but felt a bit heavier than the outbound leg. The wind was on my port bow. The headwind and the flat water made it easy to focus on blade work. It was a bit like bungee rowing. After I got free of the wake zone, I just started counting strokes and three hundred strokes later, I was just off the beach.

The long break around the 47 minute mark was when I turned around behind the jetty. I got into a conversation with a couple of guys in motor boat. One their sons rowed for Penn, and they were asking about the boat and where I row and stuff like that.

Now it’s Monday and a holiday here. I have some errands and some prep work for the coming week. I think I will try to do an erg session later today. Probably something a bit more intense, but I’m not sure I have the motivation to dig really deep.

90′ Hot and Tired Coastal Row

August 19, 2019Leave a comment

Sunday was the last day of my vacation, and I have to say that the weather has been pretty amazing. I was able to train outdoors 7 of the past 8 days.

On Sunday, there wasn’t too much wind, but it was really hot and humid. I launched around 12:30.

I really enjoyed rowing around the salt marsh on Saturday, so I started off doing the same thing today, but explored a new nook and cranny behind Indian Neck. The chart is a bit deceiving. The part that is shown as blue behind indian neck is actually pretty heavily channeled salt marsh. I turned around when the channel got a bit narrow to easily turn around.

When I rowed out from behind Feld Pt, the rowing actually got pretty annoying. The westerly wind was building up a bit of chop, but there were also a ton of criss crossing boat wakes. Rowing with this mess on the beam was really challenging. Trying to take clean strokes and get my blades consistently buried was a constant struggle.

I was pretty miserable by the time I got up the inner harbor and I wasn’t looking forward to the long slog home. Because of the angle of the wind, the row home was a bit harder, but a lot less annoying. I was really tired, my legs were empty and my heart rate was abnormally high. I think the humidity and the total training load of the past few days just got to me.

As I came into the Lee of the island, the water flattened out and I decided to push the last bit harder. I kept the rate reasonably low and pushed the pressure.

        Workout Summary - media/20190818-1826050o.csv
--|Total|-Total----|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time-----|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|15655|01:47:52.0|03:26.7|000.0|19.7|144.6|177.0|07.4
W-|14215|01:23:09.0|02:55.5|000.0|20.4|148.1|177.0|08.5
R-|01449|00:24:43.0|08:31.8|000.0|17.5|133.2|177.0|02.4
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|01616|08:19.0|02:34.4|000.0|18.3|131.4|147.0|10.6 to bridge
02|02813|15:57.0|02:50.1|000.0|18.4|144.5|155.0|09.6 behind indian neck
03|01809|11:28.0|03:10.2|000.0|18.9|149.7|155.0|08.3 halfway to harbor, got waked
04|00540|03:20.0|03:05.4|000.0|21.0|149.0|155.0|07.7 waked again
05|02636|15:21.0|02:54.7|000.0|21.3|151.9|162.0|08.1 rest of the in harbor
06|00283|01:39.0|02:54.7|000.0|20.8|144.1|149.0|08.3 
07|01464|09:18.0|03:10.6|000.0|21.8|146.6|155.0|07.2
08|00134|00:51.0|03:09.9|000.0|21.5|137.3|140.0|07.4 
09|02920|16:56.0|02:54.0|000.0|22.3|156.5|177.0|07.7 back to beach

By the time I got back to the beach, I was feeling a little woozy and it was a challenge to get everything loaded on the car. I drove back to the house and got the boat put away, and took a shower. I laid down for about 30 minutes and started to feel much better.

I decided to take a rest day on Monday.

90′ Easy Coastal Row

August 17, 2019Leave a comment

Nice sunny day with a light breeze from the ESE. I launched around 2:15. High Tide was at 1:40, so the tide was going out during the row.

I wanted to get about 90 minutes of nice endurance building low intensity rowing in today. Since I was rowing at high tide, I decided to go do a little exploring. First, I rowed through the marsh to bridge, then I rowed back up into blackfish creek. On the way out, I did a loop through drummer cove. Finally, I rowed up along the outside of Indian Neck to the harbor entrance. After the nice smooth water of the first part of the row, the wakes and chop of this part was a not entirely welcome. The slog back to the beach was right into the wind, chop and for the last part, right into the tide as well. I had to keep reminding myself to just take it easy. But I get frustrated when the split drops slower than 3:00/500.

Tomorrow: Probably more endurance rowing. I think it’s supposed to be a nice day. Then it will be back to the grind.

Friday: 2 x 400 strokes @ 25 – Coastal

August 17, 2019Leave a comment

Time for another hard session. More head race prep. Generally I want to do a single hard distance piece for the third hard workout of the week, but since I was rowing close to low tide, my course selections were a bit restricted. I also didn’t feel particularly ambitious today.

I decided to row out to my favorite buoy to warmup. Then row from there up to the entrance of Wellfleet harbor. Take a bit of a breather and then row back to the buoy.

I figured it would be roughly 2 x 20′ pieces.

As it turned out, I pushed myself way too hard in the first piece and I called it quits after about 400 strokes. I was still about 500m short of the harbor entrance, but I was gassed and my form was falling apart. I stopped had a drink, caught my breath, got the boat turned around and then went for interval number two.

In this interval, I made a concerted effort to lighten up my stroke and just work on maintain good form, getting my oars off the waves on recovery and staying forward during the initial part of the drive. You can see from the HR plot that I was going a lot easier in the second rep. My intent was row back to the red buoy, but I got to 400 strokes and I was having trouble spotting it while I was rowing. I decided to call it finished at that point. Once I had stopped, I looked around and I still couldn’t find it. I started rowing for home, and after a hundred meters or so, I saw the buoy off my starboard bow. My course setting from the harbor was pretty terrible, I was way west of the buoy.

I had a long row home to cool down, and experiment with good form with the wind on my beam, and then on my bow. There wasn’t much chop because the wind was from the SE and I was in the lee of the island. I tried to be careful rowing back to the beach because of the low tide, but I misjudged the channel slightly and I ended up having to get out to drag my boat for about thirty feet back to the deeper water. You can see that as a little jog on the map right near the beach.

       Workout Summary - media/20190817-0031030o.csv
--|Total|-Total----|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time-----|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|11744|01:12:42.0|03:05.7|000.0|21.0|153.5|180.0|07.7
W-|09915|00:53:07.0|02:40.7|000.0|22.9|158.2|180.0|08.2
R-|01836|00:19:35.0|05:20.0|000.0|16.0|140.9|180.0|05.2
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|02366|12:03.0|02:32.8|000.0|19.5|141.5|152.0|10.1 - out to the buoy
02|02937|15:54.0|02:42.4|000.0|25.0|168.7|180.0|07.4 - into tide, with wind
03|02907|14:31.0|02:29.8|000.0|25.3|168.0|177.0|07.9 - into wind, with tide
04|01617|10:05.0|03:07.1|000.0|20.4|147.7|154.0|07.9
05|00088|00:34.0|03:13.0|000.0|18.9|152.1|153.0|08.2

I’m pretty happy with the session. I’d be happier if I had taken each interval out to 20 minutes, but I’ve gotten 3 good hard sessions in this week. It’s a good setup for fall training.

14 x 3′ coastal

August 15, 2019Leave a comment

It was cloudy and misty. There was a breeze from the NE at 10 mph with gusts to 15. I had hoped that this would have given me smoother waters, but it was still quite choppy.

I was electronically challenged. My Speedcoach GPS died a sad death, a couple of days ago. The first symptom was it producing impeller data when it wasn’t connected to impeller. Then it stopped listening to the on/off button. Finally, when I plugged it in to charge, a strange, random pattern appeared on the screen and flashed ominously.

The diagnosis from NK was “water ingress”, and a replacement is on the way. (Fantastic customer service!) But all I had to work with was my iphone in its waterproof case. I planned to use CrewNerd, which has a good screen lock feature. It worked perfectly on older models of the iphone which had a real home button. But on the newer iphone, you really don’t seem to be able fully lock the screen, since swiping up from the bottom is the replacement gesture for pressing the now non-existent home button. So, anyway, CrewNerd lasted about 4 thousand meters and multiple splashy dousings. Then I took a big wave over the side of boat and the phone decided to flip over to Safari, then Spotify, then the lock screen. All of which are pretty useless to get your pace and rate.

I spent a few minutes trying get back to CrewNerd, but getting the phone to unlock with a very wet touch screen was not going very well and I gave up on it. I did the rest of the workout in the 20th century, with no feedback. It was somewhat refreshing.

I was doing three minute intervals with one minute rests. I was doing them at 25 strokes per minute. So when I rowed into the stone age, I worked off of stroke count. I did 77 strokes for each interval, and then I would catch my breath and do it again.

If I needed to turn around, the rest would last a little longer. The intervals going north were really hard work. The tide was going out, and the wind was right on the bow. The water got a lot flatter as I got closer to the north end of the harbor, so I went back and forth there a bit. The intervals going south were easier and more fun.

The last two intervals were quite messy. I was rowing with the wind and the waves on my beam. I experimented with rates to try to get in rhythm with the waves, and I worked really hard to get the blades way high on recovery to avoid clipping the waves.

I was rowing as it was approaching low tide, and on the last interval, the water got shallow enough that my oar blades were hitting bottom for about 10 strokes of the interval as I passed over a sand bar.

With all the adventures with electronics, I totally lost count of the number of reps.

My last backup system is my apple watch. It did nor record gps data, but it captured heart rate. Looking at the data, I was pleased to see that I had done 15 reps, and they were basically the right length, with appropriate rests.

After I finished and drove home, I realized how tired I was. This was a pretty epic workout. I ended up falling asleep at 10:30 and slept until 8:30 this morning.

Today, I am looking to do a nice gentle endurance session. Either coastal, or erg or bike. We’ll see how it works out.

4 x 10′ / 5′ Coastal (still a bit windy)

August 12, 2019Leave a comment

I launched at about 12:15, the wind was West between 10 and 15 with gusts to 20mph. I decided to spend as much time in lee of the island to minimize the exposure to the waves. When the wind if from the west, they build up pretty good.

The plan for today was 4 x 10′ intervals at head race rates. In a coastal boat, it’s basically impossible to set a target pace. Between the tidal current and the wind, my pace was varying more than 30 seconds per 500 at roughly the same pressure. I was generally working by feel.

I warmed up by rowing way into Loagy Bay where the water was nice and flat. I was able to get a good 3 minutes of the interval in reasonable protection, then I had to turn into the wind and slog it out. I was still in a bit of the wind shadow of the island for all but the last few minutes of the outbound piece. At that point, I was crashing through waves and rowing with the footwell full of water, It was kind of fun actually. It certainly kept my mind off the oxygen debt!

The ride back was also a blast. The first few minutes I was surfing big waves and had a nice tail wind. It was actually a challenge to maintain really high pressure because of the steering and oarwork required to navigate the waves. If I did it right, I would catch the face of a wave and hear almost a sizzling noise, then the bow would dig into the trough and solid water would wash over the whole boat.

Between the 2nd and 3rd intervals I met up with a guy in Kayak. He has house down here, but he is a member of the Saugatuck rowing club. He has an Alden and he just bought a nice looking australia coastal boat. Hopefully, I can meet up with him in the coming days and we can do some rowing together.

This chat extended my rest a bit beyond regulation, but I decided to atone for it by adding 30 seconds to the next rep. This was my best rep. I stuck closer to the island and spent more time in relatively smoother water. When I popped out from the lee of the island with 2 minutes to go, I was again smashing through the chop. I managed to get within a couple beats of my maximum HR, but I was having too much fun to be in much distress.

The ride home was again a surfing delight. Not as intense as rep 3, but hard work nonetheless.

I’d say this was a good session.

        Workout Summary - media/20190812-195158-SpdCoach 2182533 20190812 1218PM 2o.csv
--|Total|-Total----|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time-----|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|11181|01:25:23.0|03:49.1|000.0|22.6|143.4|181.0|05.8
W-|09115|00:51:58.7|02:51.1|000.0|24.8|156.8|181.0|07.1
R-|02072|00:33:25.0|08:03.9|000.0|19.3|122.6|181.0|06.4
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|01168|07:16.8|03:07.1|000.0|19.2|127.0|141.0|08.4
02|01905|10:03.8|02:38.4|000.0|25.3|163.2|175.0|07.5 - rep #1
03|01772|10:27.6|02:57.1|000.0|24.8|163.0|174.0|06.8 - rep #2
04|02019|10:30.6|02:36.2|000.0|26.2|166.0|181.0|07.3 - rep #3
05|01670|10:09.3|03:02.4|000.0|25.6|163.5|179.0|06.4 - rep #4
06|00581|03:30.6|03:01.3|000.0|27.8|135.0|147.0|06.0

Tomorrow: Endurance. Hopefully OTW, but the weather looks a bit iffy. Might be on the erg.

14k coastal row

August 12, 2019Leave a comment

It was pretty windy, but warm and sunny. I decided to go bounce around. I launched at 11:30. Here’s the weather. It was blowing 15-20mph from the WNW.

The bounciest part was right after launching. I was rowing right into the teeth of the wind and the waves had a long fetch from the north end of the harbor really build up. Most of the waves were around a foot, but every minute or so, there would be group of 2 or 3 two foot waves that totally swamped me. I basically had the bailer open all the way up to Wellfleet inner harbor.

Once I got used to the dousing and shortened up my stroke, I was able to relax and just work my way through the waves. By the time I got to the green can, the water smoothed out and I glided into the inner harbor. It felt a lot like getting onto a paved road after you’ve driven on a rough dirt road.

I wanted to row at least 90 minutes, so I did a lazy lap around the inner harbor, up into the cove, dodging moored boats and the shallows. Then I headed out the main channel into the wind again. The wind was blowing, but the water was reasonably flat and I wasn’t taking on a much water. I decided to row over to Great Island and then come diagonally back to the beach.

You can see that I skirted the edge of the shoals (the green) along the north edge of the harbor. These are marked by big yellow floats because the shoals are leased as shell fish beds. Basically followed the outer buoy line.

I planned to row almost all the way to beach on the shore of Great Island, but as I was approaching, I rowed right over a gigantic rock, submerged about a foot under the waves. It really freaked me out. I’d spent some time looking at the charts and this rock never really registered. But when I looked afterwards, I found the asterix. You can see it in the included chart. In previous rows, I had only come over this way when it was much closer to high tide and the rock would have been much deeper. I also thing that I am usually a bit closer to the north shore, because I go in the cove by the Herring River.

At any rate, if the tide had been 6 inches lower, or the waves had been a bit bigger, I could have ripped a big hole in my boat and that would have been a bad ending to this row. I’ll have to avoid that area in the future.

Since I was spooked, I just decided to row home. I got most of the way to the main channel and realized that I would get back a bit too soon. So, I turned and followed the main channel out to my favorite buoy. As I rowed along out here, the waves were getting bigger as there was a longer fetch for them to build.

I really started to feel the waves again, once I turned and headed to the beach. I needed to keep the bailer open again. The wave heights changed quite dramatically as I rowed. I assume it was due to the depth of the water. My impression was as I got closest to the green shoals, I would get much steeper and nastier waves. At this time, though I was rowing with them, so I would go surfing down the face of the waves and the bow of my boat would bury in the trough, sending solid water into the cockpit. Over the next 10 strokes, the bailer would do its job and slowly empty the footwell.

I go back to the beach after around 95 minutes. From the summary chart, it looks like it was an appropriate intensity and it was a lot of fun, not counting the close encounter with the rock.

Tomorrow: Hopefully a coastal 4 x 10’/5′ at r25

A week of mostly vacation

July 7, 2019Leave a comment

Friday – June 28 – On the cape – No Training

I arrived at Logan at about 7:30AM. I was in my car and on the way to the cape by 8:00AM. The traffic leaving the city was pretty heavy, but by the time I was down to Weymouth, things were moving better. I got to the house around 11, with donuts!

I had a couple of work calls and hung out. I was massively tired and didn’t feel like working out.

Saturday – June 29 – 3 x 20′ / 2′ (Humon)

Down on the cape, in the basement. Feeling tired from travel.

Humon kept me honest.

I saw that I was dipping into the orange with r20, 180 stuff, so I kept away from any higher power segments.

We headed out late to go home on Saturday night.

Sunday – June 30 – No training

I was feeling lazy, but I managed to head outside and do a few hours of yard work. After that, I wasn’t in the mood for any training.

Monday – July 1 – Steady State with a few higher rate bursts.

I’m not getting to do a lot of rowing in my single these days, so this session was a treat. I decided to do an extensive warmup, all the way to the dam at Waltham center. I did a Rojabo style warmup, with stroke sets of increasing intensity.

I’m thinking that a more intense warmup, even when doing an endurance session “opens up” the circulation in the muscles and raises the smO2.

This certainly seemed to be the case today.

After the warmup, I rowed, focusing on technique. If I dipped into orange, I would ease off the pressure and focus on really easing into the drive from the catch. At the end of the trip back up the river, I saw a guy I knew, so I did a quick segment at higher rate to go say hello. After a quick chat, I did another twenty strokes or so of harder rowing, and then after navigating a set of booms across the cove, I settled back into normal endurance rowing. Something I am noticing is that I am tending to overload at the start of these intervals, notice the sliver of red. I slowed down to fix that , and again focused on form. The rest of the row was unremarkable, but I did another couple of quicker bits right at the end.

It was a really nice session and I managed to find a bit of boat speed in some of the harder bursts.

        Workout Summary - media/20190701-1335500o.csv
--|Total|-Total----|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time-----|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|14790|01:23:57.4|02:50.3|119.5|20.2|136.1|167.0|08.7
W-|12254|00:59:17.2|02:25.1|135.8|20.1|140.6|165.0|10.4
R-|02546|00:24:41.3|04:50.9|080.2|20.4|125.2|165.0|03.8
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|00324|01:37.2|02:29.8|135.0|17.8|127.1|135.0|11.2
02|00791|03:46.9|02:23.4|130.5|19.5|134.1|149.0|10.7
03|00853|04:01.0|02:21.2|145.9|22.1|146.7|157.0|09.6
04|00227|00:59.6|02:11.2|190.2|25.1|151.3|162.0|09.1 - 1' at r24
05|00314|01:23.4|02:12.7|182.1|24.2|142.3|164.0|09.3 - 30 strokes @ r24
06|00162|00:36.8|01:53.9|289.7|34.2|150.0|165.0|07.7 - 20 strokes @ max
07|02932|14:25.9|02:27.7|125.3|18.3|144.3|152.0|11.1 - back upriver
08|00165|00:41.7|02:06.1|216.3|27.3|140.2|151.0|08.7 - 20 strokes @ r27
09|00134|00:36.2|02:15.0|194.3|24.9|126.7|140.0|08.9 - 20 strokes @ r25
10|00136|00:37.0|02:15.9|185.6|26.0|114.8|128.0|08.5 - 20 strokes @ r26
11|02583|12:57.1|02:30.4|129.0|19.3|139.6|156.0|10.3 - back down river
12|01508|07:29.2|02:29.0|118.0|18.5|135.8|141.0|10.9 - back upriver
13|01484|07:18.0|02:27.6|124.2|20.0|142.6|154.0|10.2 - part 2
14|00234|00:55.6|01:58.6|241.4|30.3|147.4|163.0|08.4 - cut to turn
15|00406|01:51.6|02:17.6|140.5|24.7|142.6|160.0|08.8 - across lagoon

Tuesday – July 2 – 12 x 3’/1′

I got up early, mainly because I couldn’t sleep. It seems like trips to Asia mess me up for about a week. We were going to be heading down to the cape later in the day, and I wanted to get a session in. I also wanted to get back to some semblance of a training plan, so I decided to make this session a bit more intense.

I used to do this session as 15×3’/1′ Today, since I was pressed for time, I decided to take the first few intervals as warmup.

I wore the Humon, to see what these kind of intervals look like from an smO2 perspective.

So, they look kinda cool! You can see the quick trip into the red in each interval. You can also see the recovery. I was generally flipping from blue to green right when I was starting the next interval. You can also see the effect of cumulative fatigue in the lower peak smO2 as I get deeper into the session. I also slowed down. I was really having issues. I trust the power in the summary more than the pace.

        Workout Summary - media/20190702-1250500o.csv
--|Total|-Total----|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time-----|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|14244|01:04:09.9|02:15.1|168.3|23.4|150.5|178.0|09.5
W-|09284|00:35:53.1|01:56.0|228.5|24.8|156.3|178.0|10.4
R-|04970|00:27:10.0|02:44.0|091.9|21.6|142.6|178.0|11.4
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|00791|03:00.0|01:53.8|237.1|25.1|143.2|156.0|10.5
02|00797|03:00.0|01:52.9|240.2|25.1|148.1|160.0|10.6
03|00762|02:53.1|01:53.5|236.7|24.6|148.8|162.0|10.8
04|00794|03:00.0|01:53.4|237.6|24.6|153.8|165.0|10.7
05|00791|03:00.0|01:53.8|238.9|25.3|157.2|168.0|10.4
06|00778|03:00.0|01:55.7|233.0|24.7|157.1|170.0|10.5
07|00768|03:00.0|01:57.2|229.7|25.4|159.3|171.0|10.1
08|00754|03:00.0|01:59.4|217.4|24.6|158.7|170.0|10.2
09|00762|03:00.0|01:58.0|213.9|23.5|159.5|171.0|10.8
10|00766|03:00.0|01:57.5|219.1|24.8|162.2|172.0|10.3
11|00756|03:00.0|01:59.1|213.6|24.8|163.0|172.0|10.2
12|00765|03:00.0|01:57.6|225.0|24.8|164.7|178.0|10.3

I guess that’s why I need a training plan.

Wednesday – July 3 – 16km Coastal

A beautiful, sunny day. Not a lot of wind. A great day for a nice long row. I launched from the beach by Loagy Bay, and headed out to the red buoy. For a change, I decided to row down south a bit along the shore of Lt Island. There are a couple of big rock that are visible almost until high tide, and I could see them clearly, so I rowed down to the big rock to the south of the island. Then I doubled back and rowed on the inside of the other big rock back to the red buoy. Then I set a course for the harbor, basically due north. I threaded my way into the inner harbor and dodged a few power boats. On the way back to the beach, I hugged the shore of Indian Head, mainly to avoid the wakes from the boats in the channel out of the harbor.

It was a nice, low intensity session. No Humon today, but I kept the HR below 150. The pace varied all over the place because of tide (it was coming in) and breeze.

Thursday – 4 July – 4 x 10′ hard rate ladders

In the morning, I went for a low tide walk. I love doing this. I walked a little more than 3 km, and explored the sand flats going south from our house.

I didn’t feel ready to take on full power long intervals, especially in coastal conditions. It was another beautiful sunny day. A bit more wind, and with the holiday, every power boat was on the water and throwing up wakes. To make the session a bit more tolerable, I decided to make them rate ladders.

4′ @ r24
3′ @ r26
2′ @ r28
1′ @ r30

Why I do these intervals in the 1x, I usually aim between 26 and 28. But I usually am doing a 4 x 2K which is a lot closer to 9 minutes. I also have a lot less navigating to do and it’s a lot less choppy.

I rowed out to the red buoy as my warmup. I threw in a couple of hard 20s to get used to the idea. Then I had a drink and got ready. When I was within a minute of starting, I was swamped by a wake, so a quick flip of the autobailer was needed. Then I was off and rowing.

I focused on keeping my stroke light and hitting the rate. This was made challenging by the fact that I was doing the piece close to and parallel to the main channel. Someboats were nice to me and either steered wide, or slowed down a bit to minimize the wake. Others did neither of those things and I ended up with a cockpit full of water. As I got to the r28 and r30 sections, the boat traffic became a bit thicker and the wakes were pretty constant.

The second interval, I decided to row away from the channel. This was a good idea, but didn’t help entirely. I made it through 3 minutes of the first 4′ section and was totally swamped by a huge wake. I dropped a couple strokes and opened the bailer. I rowed the rest of the piece with the bailer open, which slowed me down a bit and made the boat feel a bit heavier, but it was better than sliding the seat through water, since I was flooded all the way to cover the seat deck.

I rowed the rest continuing toward Loagy Bay, and turned the boat in time to start the third interval. I did the usual bargaining with myself, that if I did a good job with this one, I’d stop the workout there. It was a fine interval. Less wakes, but I got swamped again near the end of the r26 section. I flipped the bailer on again and finished it out.

I felt a bit better than I feared I would, so I decided to do the last interval. I needed to get back to the beach anyway. This one went right to plan. No interruptions, no swampings, and no stops for the bailer. I just didn;t have much power left in my legs.

Good workout.

Tough to get a lot of metrics on this one because of the wind, current and waves, but the HR shows pretty consistent effort.

Friday – 5 July – 3 x 20’/2′ on slides

Another walk in the morning. This time going to the north side of the island. This time, about 4km.

Then in the afternoon, my wife and I kayaked around the island. This was huge fun, we saw a bunch of cool birds. We stopped at the bridge and I jumped off into the water. This activity is a summer tradition, as illustrated on the webpage for our residents association.

after that, we paddled back along the south edge of the island, this was a bit of slog into the freshening breeze. Fantastic.

Later in the afternoon, the wind had freshened some more, and I didn’t feel adventurous, so I went and did a 3×20 endurance session in the basement.

The first twenty minutes, I did in warmup format. Again trying to maximize smO2. I was pretty tired after the long walk and kayak adventure. It was interesting watching it climb even through the second 20 minute piece. Heart rate was quite low, but I felt taxed throughout.

Saturday – 6 July – 10K threshold

Another beautiful morning, another walk on the sand flats. I hit it right at low tide and it was a particularly low tide today, so I was able to walk all the way out to the big rock that I rowed around on Thursday.

From out there, the island looks very small.

I was able to walk around both of the rocks that I had rowed around on Thursday.

I lazed around for most of the day, and finally got up the oomph to go erg in the late afternoon. I definitely was not feeling too sharp, and I had a limited time window. I dove into a hard 10K without any real warmup and boy did I struggle at the start. I was having trouble getting into any rhythm and my breathing was all messed up. I stopped a couple times in the first 500m, and then rowed well below target power through 1000m. Then I tried to ramp up the power to target and bailed out again. I sat there for a few seconds and then I just started paddling.

My smO2 started rising. And I started to feel a lot better. I started pulling 200W and it was OK. Then as I went along, I pushed a little harder, and then a bit more. When I first targeted 200W, my projected finish was around 40:30. Then I pulled it down to 40:20. With 3000m to go, I pushed a bit more and saw a projected finish hovering around 40:00. With 1000m to go, I rated up and pushed the power up to around 230W which enabled me to finish in about 39:50.

        Workout Summary - media/20190706-2055480o.csv
--|Total|-Total----|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time-----|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|09997|00:39:48.7|01:59.5|213.2|24.9|153.2|174.0|10.1
W-|10000|00:39:49.2|01:59.5|213.2|24.9|153.2|174.0|10.1
R-|00000|00:00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|174.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|01000|04:15.1|02:07.5|196.7|23.5|123.2|140.0|10.0
01|00973|04:12.9|02:09.9|196.5|24.1|138.4|146.0|09.6
02|01027|04:05.1|01:59.4|206.0|24.3|149.2|151.0|10.3
03|01000|03:57.0|01:58.5|210.5|24.7|152.3|154.0|10.3
04|01000|03:55.8|01:57.9|213.5|24.9|154.1|156.0|10.2
05|01000|03:55.4|01:57.7|214.5|25.0|157.7|159.0|10.2
06|00964|03:46.8|01:57.6|215.1|25.0|159.8|162.0|10.2
07|01036|04:01.9|01:56.8|220.0|25.2|163.4|165.0|10.2
08|00967|03:45.8|01:56.8|220.2|25.4|166.5|168.0|10.1
09|01033|03:53.5|01:53.0|242.9|27.3|172.0|174.0|09.7

The smO2 shows the struggle with lack of a warmup. Once I was past the 10 minute mark and my muscles were actually working well, things were pretty good.

Good lesson to learn about how a warmup affects things.

Today is our last day down on the cape. Hopefully I will get to do another coastal row. Then tomorrow I have an early flight out to San Francisco for a big conference.

Quantified Rowing

Measure – Adjust – Improve

Tag: wellfleet