Torture Variations

It’s one thing that we regularly torture our bodies to misery. Let that pass. But torturing it always in exactly the same way, that goes too far.

So even though I keep coming back to the interval sessions from the Wolverine Plan (and the Pete Plan), this year I make an effort to vary how I row them. Today I tried red-lining (or perhaps purple-lining, looking at my heart rate). Next time it may be positive splitting. Or do a full out 2k in the first interval, then try to minimize the damage in the following ones. The method behind the madness is to avoid staleness, and there are even training theories based on physiology that support this. Surprise your metabolic systems …

The target was 1:52.9 which didn’t seem too hard, but I have come to respect these 4x2km sessions. You cross the line and suddenly you are at risk of not finishing the session.

4x2km24x2km1

The pictures tell the full story better than the summary table. Basically I went into each 2km with 10 hard strokes at 1:40 pace, then slowed down. From the second interval onward this left me gasping for air with about 1890 meters to go. Then I would try to recover. At the half way point I did 10 hard strokes (1:47 pace), and with 500m to go I would do 50 hard strokes (1:48-1:50 pace). The final interval was of course a special one, with everything one or two seconds of split faster and a crazy acceleration in the final 500m, to squeeze out everything.

Workout Summary - Nov 30, 2015
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|Watts|SPM-|-HR--|-DPS
--|08000|29:40.3|01:51.3|254.1|27.6|167.6|09.8
Workout Details
#-|EDist|-Etime-|-SPace-|Watts|SPM-|AvgHR|DPS-|Comments
01|02000|07:29.9|01:52.5|246.0|26.3|158.0|10.2|
02|04000|14:56.0|01:51.5|252.3|27.3|167.2|09.9|
03|06000|22:20.7|01:51.2|254.6|27.9|170.0|09.7|
04|08000|29:40.3|01:49.9|263.8|29.1|174.6|09.4|

Average pace: 1:51.3. Nice. Haven’t done this session this fast before. In the 2014/15 winter, I managed 1:51.6.

That brings me to my final thought of the day, on steady state intensity again. Since I started measuring lactate I have started to think I can increase their intensity to 200W. One thing is to stay below 2.0 mmol/L in these sessions, but another requirement will be that the steady state intensity is low enough that I can be sharp for the harder sessions.

Follow me in social media