July 2016

Jul 28 2016

A few more pictures from Czech Masters

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By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 0 • Tags: race pictures

Jul 27 2016

Munich here we come

Tuesday and Wednesday: Too busy to do a training. Trying to get everything tied out at work before we leave to Munich.

I managed to move a few meetings to the morning, creating a longer time gap to load the trailer. It turned out to be a good move. Lots of thunderstorms. We managed to get everything done without getting too wet but it took time.

vlek 001 — Four boats, 1 pair of oars, 5 pairs of sculls, two bicycles, riggers, wings and slings. And beautiful towels in the background.

We are leaving tomorrow morning. There will be time for a training in the afternoon, although I will have to dial in to some teleconferences as well.

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 4 • Tags: euromasters, OTW, race prep, rowing

Jul 25 2016

Speed work in the single

Sunday

No training. Well, a sort of strength session. We had some work to do on the rowing club. The work consisted of stapling a big mountain of interlocking concrete tiles on pallets. The reason why we needed to do this is a long story that goes beyond the topic of this blog. After three hours of work in 30 degrees we had 23 neat pallets of tiles. At the cost of a few members’ backs.

The dive into the lake was ever so refreshing. So was the cold beer.

Today, I was supposed to have a rest day, but I had to go to the rowing club anyway, because a guy from another club was bringing two boats. My trailer seems to be the only Czech trailer going to Munich. We loaded the boats on my trailer and then we chatted a bit about Munich, and about the Olympics, and the upcoming changes in rowing Olympic disciplines. It was interesting to listen to this guy who is the president of the Czech Rowing Federation.

By the way, if any of my readers wants to row a quad with three fast Czech guys, including the guy I just talked about, let me know. We’re in for a quad. The caveat is: You have to bring the boat. 🙂

Then I went for another ultra-short workout. In these last two weeks I am cutting back on the volume. Today was the “small pyramid” workout, in the single. The weather was extremely humid and hot with a threat of thunderstorms, but almost no wind during my outing.

After 3km of warming up I did the small Pyramid on the straight 2km.

Workout Summary - media/20160725-163344-2016-07-25-1621.CSV --|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg --|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS --|07409|39:55.0|01:59.4|29.5|148.7|163.3|09.4 Workout Details #-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS- 01|02927| 15:42 |02:41.1|18.4|125.0|139.0|10.1 warming up 02|00094| 00:20 |01:45.0|33.3|116.0|142.0|08.5 20" @ 36spm - from standing start 03|00183| 00:40 |01:48.5|33.3|166.0|173.0|08.3 40" @ 34spm 04|00271| 01:00 |01:50.0|32.2|172.0|177.0|08.5 60" @ 32spm 05|00174| 00:40 |01:53.5|33.5|165.0|172.0|07.9 40" @ 34spm - wake 06|00097| 00:20 |01:39.9|37.1|162.0|169.0|08.1 20" @ 30spm 07|03663| 21:13 |02:53.7|18.9|135.0|171.0|09.2 cooling down

During the second 40″ interval I had a choice between trying to sneak in front of one of the big tourist boats, or to adjust my course and go behind him, rowing through his wake. I couldn’t really judge well if I was going to make it in front of the boat with a comfortable safety margin, so I chose the safer option. Rowing through the wake slowed me down of course. Otherwise I am quite happy with the paces, especially since I was rowing them with a nice “light” stroke.

The summary data above are from CrewNerd. I am not sure how it calculates average SPM, but looking at the plot below I do not agree with the 33spm it reports for the first interval.

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 1 • Tags: OTW, rowing, single, small pyramid, speed work

Jul 23 2016

Munich & Steady State in mixed double

I woke up early and spent some time going through the news on my phone. Of course I found out about the shooting in Munich.

Munich. On Thursday we will go to Munich for the Euromasters 2016.

Munich. A beloved city. Fantastic museums. A very nice old town. Great airport. Nice regattas.

After breakfast, Romana and I drove to the rowing club for a short outing in the double. Steady state and a few practice starts.

At 9:30 it was already warm (around 27 degrees C). The water was perfect. Flat, as if the lake was filled with oil instead of water.

The 3km between 2000m and 5000m on the graph above was like a dream. Every stroke was perfect. Perfect sync. Nice 18spm. Effortless rowing.

Average power is a bit lower than what I perceived. Of course, in the mixed double, power is an average for the entire crew. Also, I calculate power from OTW pace, so any technique deficiencies will reduce the power.

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 0 • Tags: double, lake, OTW, rowing, steady state

Jul 22 2016

40″/40″ in the double with Romana

Warm, but damp after rain during the night. Twenty degrees. Almost no wind.

The session was a 40″ on / 40″ off. Similar to the session of Wednesday, but 10 seconds longer work and 10 seconds longer rest. Trying to work on relax during the recovery at the higher stroke rates, which led to a slightly lower stroke rate for some of the intervals.

http://rowsandall.com/rowers/workout/531/interactiveplot

Workout Summary - media/20160722-072853-2016-07-22-0723.csv --|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg --|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS --|07105|39:25.0|01:58.8|29.4|159.6|174.9|09.6 Workout Details #-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS- 01|02896| 16:28 |02:46.7|18.0|129.0|167.0|10.0 02|00181| 00:40 |01:50.4|34.6|137.0|168.0|07.9 - standing start 03|00187| 00:40 |01:46.1|31.8|171.0|177.0|08.9 04|00187| 00:40 |01:45.7|33.3|172.0|178.0|08.5 05|00187| 00:40 |01:45.7|34.9|173.0|180.0|08.1 06|00181| 00:40 |01:49.2|33.4|172.0|177.0|08.2 07|00181| 00:40 |01:48.8|31.9|171.0|177.0|08.6 08|03105| 18:57 |02:59.8|16.9|152.0|175.0|09.9

I have been mystified by the “equivalent erg pace” on the plots on rowsandall.com. I was running the exact same algorithm as when I calculate it off-line, but the equivalent erg pace looked weird. Turns out I did one averaging step too much after the calculation of the result. So here is the proud result of today’s row, Power and Erg pace calculated by rowsandall.com, from the OTW pace and stroke rate, using the 2x rigging and weight parameters:

You can play with the original (interactive plot) here: http://rowsandall.com/rowers/workout/531/interactiveotwplot

So pushing around 1:39 – 1:40 Concept2 erg pace, which sounds about right. It is also interesting to note that the often heard phrase “erg pace is a four” is not true. It depends a lot on the crew weight, and it also depends on the actual pace. Looks like in sprint races our mix double is slightly slower than the erg.

Received some great photos of our friends/competitors in the Mixed Double, Karel and Vendula. They had the bronze, we had the silver 🙂 :

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 0 • Tags: double, lake, OTW, rowing, sprintervals

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Jul 20 2016

Czech Open Masters – A few more pictures

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By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 1

Jul 20 2016

Speed Work

Still not fully recovered from the race weekend. Tired legs. Painful arms and shoulders. Out in the single today, on a nice calm morning. Hardly any wind. Nice temperature.

The plan was 30″ on / 30″ off and I was determined to do this workout, but I didn’t know how I would get through it. I also decided that in these two last taper weeks the volume should be low, so I planned to:

Thoroughly warm up for 3km with a few 10 stroke speed bursts
Do the sprintervals for a full 2km. That would mean that I would probably get 4-5 minutes worth of high intensity rowing
Thorougly cool down for 5km

So I got help. After 2km of warming up, when I was turning the boat at Rokle, Radek came rowing up in his single. He launches from the other club, so when we don’t go in a double together we are not aware of each other’s training times. I immediately realized that having a sparring partner would have a very beneficial effect on the quality of the workout, so I asked him what he was doing. “Just rowing,” was the answer. Convinced him to row the intervals with me.

Workout Summary - media/20160720-091145-2016-07-20-0640.CSV --|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg --|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS --|08745|44:31.0|01:55.1|30.2|167.8|179.2|09.6 Workout Details #-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS- 01|02915| 17:00 |02:51.5|17.9|143.0|172.0|09.7 02|00139| 00:30 |01:47.4|34.1|135.0|166.0|08.2 03|00141| 00:30 |01:45.4|32.3|174.0|179.0|08.8 04|00135| 00:30 |01:49.9|32.3|176.0|180.0|08.4 05|00134| 00:30 |01:50.0|30.5|175.0|180.0|08.9 06|00133| 00:30 |01:50.7|32.7|174.0|181.0|08.3 07|00140| 00:30 |01:47.2|32.0|176.0|181.0|08.8 08|00132| 00:30 |01:50.7|32.8|176.0|181.0|08.2 09|00137| 00:30 |01:46.5|34.9|178.0|183.0|08.1 10|00140| 00:30 |01:47.2|32.1|179.0|185.0|08.8 11|04599| 23:01 |02:30.2|20.2|160.0|183.0|09.9

And here is a close-up of the intervals:

During the cooling down I did one 30 second piece to confirm that the wind didn’t have a big influence. It didn’t.

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 0 • Tags: lake, OTW, rowing, single, sprintervals

A few more pictures from Czech Masters

Munich here we come

Speed work in the single

Munich & Steady State in mixed double

40″/40″ in the double with Romana

Czech Open Masters – A few more pictures

Speed Work

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