June 2015

Arrived at the lake late, very late. I just had difficulty leaving work, with all the things going on.

High temperature but very low wind, resulting in a lake which was not choppy but there were these longer waves caused by all the recreation boats, tourist ferries, and police speedboats doing “training”. The police training is quite interesting. I think they specialize in rescuing long-legged blond women, because all I see them do is speeding up and down the lake carrying young, blond women.

I heard an anecdote recently, about a sculler from the other club, who was stopped by the police because he was rowing on the part of the river that is forbidden for “sport”. When asked what he was doing, he said he was a drug smuggler who was carrying a load of crystal meth to Veverská Bityška.

Wrong answer, of course.

He had to row back to the club, police following him a few meters behind in their speed boat. This must have been an interesting scene, a relaxed, slowly sculling single sculler, followed by two guys in a police boat. Back the club he had to show is ID, and was thoroughly lectured. That was it.

Anyway, yesterday I was not going to do any smuggling. I decided to do a 1km trial. My plan is to do these regularly to get used to the pain and be able to rate up through it. The dreaded “500m” bite, as so well described in this blog.

Also a good opportunity to experiment with CrewNerds spoken start command.

Warming up: a few 10 stroke sets at higher rates (25, 30, 32spm). Turning in Rokle. Start practice: first one stroke, then two, then three, etc. Then a slow row along the nude beach to the start.

“Ready – Attention – Row”.

I took off at 35spm but quickly lowered it to 31spm. The plan was to hold 1:50, and increase the rate every time I would see a substantial deviation.

The plan was quickly binned. It was very difficult to hold 1:55.

In the second half I started to have difficulty keeping my line and ended up rowing in the buoys a couple of times. In the final 100m I was rowing in the wake of the tourist ferry.

Excuses. Excuses.

The end time was a 3:52. Still a good result given the heat but not the 3:40 that I am chasing this year. Perhaps it isn’t realistic?

 

|Start|Stop_|Dist_|Time_|Pace__|_SPM__|avg HR|max HR|DPS|Remarks
|00000|03407|03407|21:01|03:05.0| 20.1 | 149 | 178 |08.1|warming up
|03407|03507|00099|00:23|01:55.7| 31.3 | 148 | 172 |08.3|1km, split 1
|03507|03605|00099|00:22|01:51.4| 31.5 | 178 | 180 |08.5|1km, split 2
|03605|03707|00102|00:23|01:53.1| 31.0 | 181 | 182 |08.6|1km, split 3
|03707|03804|00097|00:22|01:53.5| 31.0 | 184 | 185 |08.5|1km, split 4
|03804|03907|00103|00:24|01:56.3| 30.5 | 185 | 185 |08.5|1km, split 5
|03907|04007|00100|00:23|01:55.4| 30.3 | 186 | 186 |08.6|1km, split 6
|04007|04108|00101|00:24|01:59.2| 29.9 | 186 | 186 |08.4|1km, split 7
|04108|04204|00096|00:23|01:59.3| 29.5 | 185 | 186 |08.5|1km, split 8
|04204|04307|00103|00:24|01:56.9| 30.4 | 186 | 186 |08.5|1km, split 9
|04307|04405|00098|00:24|02:01.9| 29.7 | 185 | 185 |08.3|1km, split 10
|04405|10798|06393|36:13|02:49.9| 19.5 | 153 | 185 |09.1|steady state / cooling down



dist_____|time_____|_pace___|_HR__|_SPM__|_DPS|comment
3407_____|_21:01____|_3:05.0|149|20.1|8.1|warmup
0998_____|_03:52____|_1:56.3|180|30.5|8.5|Main set
6393_____|_36:13____|_2:49.9|153|19.5|9.1|Cool down
10798____|_01:06____|_2:49.7|154|19.4|9.1|_Total


During the row I was convinced there was a strong headwind. When I stopped, it didn’t seem so strong anymore. Still the Italian flag on the fireworks pontoon was flying evidence that I had been rowing into a headwind.

After the 1km I needed a few minutes to recollect myself, then I did a 6km steady state.  After the row I went for a swim in the lake. It was nice and warm in the top 50cm, but below that it is still quite cold. First time swimming in the lake, this season.