It was easy to expect a season’s best. With all the splashing around in boats, I hadn’t done a serious hard 10k since the start of the erg “year” on May 1.
Normally, I do a 6k around this time of the year, as a baseline to measure progress against through the winter. But then the PaddyPower October CTC came along, a straight 10k, so I changed my plans. I will do the 6k in a few weeks time. I consulted my pace predictor:
rowsandall.com pace predictor
The blue line predicted a 1:54.0 pace, the green line even suggested a 1:53.1 pace. Given that my PB from last March is 37:45.4, which is 1:53.3 pace, I figured I would definitely be closer to 1:54, if not even slower. So I started conservatively, at 1:56 pace, and gradually turned up the heat as the row went along.
The 1:56 pace in the beginning meant that I fell into a low stroke rate groove, which I didn’t like. I always feel that I am tiring the legs too much, and if I could lighten up and rate up slightly, and row this pace at 25spm insteady of 23/24spm, I would arrive at the half way mark fresher. But somehow this is a very difficult thing to do on fresh legs.
The hardest part with between 7km to go and 3km to go. After that I set smart intermediate targets. I arrived at the 3km to go mark with a 1:55.5 average pace, and I tried to get the average down by one tenth at a time, taking something between 500m and 700m for each tenth.
Of course I did manage to rate up as the row continued. Here is the stroke cloud:
I basically moved from the left part of the cloud to the right part as time passed by.
And just because we can calculate it, I will throw in a histogram as well:
Histogram of entire session, including warming up and cooling down
We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it.Ok
Oct 19 2016
October CTC – A season’s best by default
It was easy to expect a season’s best. With all the splashing around in boats, I hadn’t done a serious hard 10k since the start of the erg “year” on May 1.
Normally, I do a 6k around this time of the year, as a baseline to measure progress against through the winter. But then the PaddyPower October CTC came along, a straight 10k, so I changed my plans. I will do the 6k in a few weeks time. I consulted my pace predictor:
The blue line predicted a 1:54.0 pace, the green line even suggested a 1:53.1 pace. Given that my PB from last March is 37:45.4, which is 1:53.3 pace, I figured I would definitely be closer to 1:54, if not even slower. So I started conservatively, at 1:56 pace, and gradually turned up the heat as the row went along.
The 1:56 pace in the beginning meant that I fell into a low stroke rate groove, which I didn’t like. I always feel that I am tiring the legs too much, and if I could lighten up and rate up slightly, and row this pace at 25spm insteady of 23/24spm, I would arrive at the half way mark fresher. But somehow this is a very difficult thing to do on fresh legs.
The hardest part with between 7km to go and 3km to go. After that I set smart intermediate targets. I arrived at the 3km to go mark with a 1:55.5 average pace, and I tried to get the average down by one tenth at a time, taking something between 500m and 700m for each tenth.
Of course I did manage to rate up as the row continued. Here is the stroke cloud:
I basically moved from the left part of the cloud to the right part as time passed by.
And just because we can calculate it, I will throw in a histogram as well:
By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 2 • Tags: 10k, concept2, ctc, erg, OTE, rowing, SB, training