Shock therapy

Tuesday – Sunday

No training. Nothing at all. On Tuesday I was tired. On Wednesday, my family and I traveled to Brussels. On Thursday, first I had to get my wife and kids on track for their site seeing in Brussels, and then I had to attend a long meeting. At the end of the day, we drove to my parents’ place in The Netherlands.

On Friday, we made a bike tour around Enschede. A few hours on the bike. Nothing intensive.

On Saturday, I wanted to go running, but in the morning it was raining too hard, then we made a small trip to the castle of Bad Bentheim (in Germany) and in the afternoon my sisters had arrived, so I preferred to spend time with them.

Bad Bentheim Castle

On Sunday we drove back to Brussels and flew to Vienna. We landed at 5pm local time, and were in the car by 5:30. Just in time for Romana to start following the live broadcast of the World Championships Men 1x final. I was driving, but we heard the comments, and Romana was commenting as well. It was great to witness Synek’s win live.

This was a long, not really planned training pause. I must say I don’t regret it. I am hoping that it doesn’t decrease my fitness significantly. I had work and family priorities. Also, I felt hungry during the entire week and ate large meals. I am secretly hoping that my body is building up necessary reserves.

Monday

A long working day. But still I wanted to go on the water and do a 6k trial. Shock therapy after such a long training pause.

The last one before the race of coming Saturday. It turns out it was good that I arrived so late. The weather had been windy and the lake was far too choppy to row until 6pm. When I arrived, all rowers were indoors rowing on ergometers. I was the first to go out. When I rowed to the starting point for my 6k, it was still quite choppy on the lake part, but the wind strength was decreasing rapidly.

Behind Veveří castle, I turned around the single and got ready for the 6k.

Veveri Castle

I was wondering what a good average power would be for Saturday’s race. The CP chart on https://rowsandall.com tells me it is around 256 W. My last 6k race was on April 6, when I averaged 244 W. For today, I aimed at 240W, assuming that on race day I will be able to row at the same power, perhaps a few % faster.

I focused on not pulling too hard in the beginning (both in terms of power as in work per stroke) and feeling the boat run. I think I succeeded quite well with that.

Between km 2 and 3 I was going through a narrow part, which was even more complicated than normally because I

  • It was getting too dark to see anything in my rear view mirror
  • I was passing two paddle boarders in the final turn

Then, arriving at the lake, the chop increased and the headwind became stronger.

Workout Summary - media/20171002-182806-Sanders SpeedCoach 20171002 0633pmo.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|06000|26:26.0|02:12.2|244.4|26.9|175.2|179.0|08.4
W-|06000|26:26.0|02:12.2|244.2|26.9|175.3|179.0|08.4
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|179.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|00500|02:09.8|02:09.8|279.4|27.5|160.0|175.0|08.4
01|00500|02:08.0|02:08.0|254.0|27.1|175.9|177.0|08.7
02|00500|02:09.5|02:09.5|259.9|27.0|176.8|178.0|08.6
03|00500|02:08.3|02:08.3|244.8|27.0|176.8|178.0|08.7
04|00500|02:13.7|02:13.7|254.5|27.1|176.7|178.0|08.3
05|00500|02:15.4|02:15.4|238.1|27.3|176.6|178.0|08.1
06|00500|02:09.9|02:09.9|236.7|27.0|176.1|177.0|08.6
07|00500|02:11.7|02:11.7|238.7|26.8|176.9|179.0|08.5
08|00500|02:17.1|02:17.1|228.4|26.2|176.2|177.0|08.3
09|00500|02:14.8|02:14.8|236.0|26.4|177.1|178.0|08.4
10|00500|02:16.6|02:16.6|230.5|26.4|177.2|178.0|08.3
11|00500|02:11.7|02:11.7|231.8|27.4|177.0|178.0|08.3

Comparing with the April race is also interesting. Light blue is the race. Orange is today’s session:

I think I can conclude that I am not in bad shape. Interesting to see the difference in Drive Length. I wasn’t aware I am rowing shorter than in April. The dips and peaks in the power values are due to steering (which was virtually absent in the April race). I am not comparing pace, because the conditions were incomparable.

The chop had a marked influence on Wash values:

So, pretty happy with the result. For the rest of the week, I will be tied to the erg. Customer visits. Long days. Business dinners, one of them I cannot escape from.

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