Another Ranking Distance

The title of this post doesn’t imply that they are becoming routine. But using the CP chart reduces the risk of blowing up. Still, the stars have to be aligned to achieve a really good result.

Today, it was the 10000m row, also known as the 10k. According to the CP chart, I should aim at a power between 220 and 235 Watts. I have already learned that the higher end of this range is to be done with a real taper and in a really well prepared manner. It requires a super focused effort. The lower end of this range is something that I have probably done recently, probably as part of a longer piece. That made sense this time, because 219W is one Watt above my Full Hour effort of three days ago.

I have also learned that starting off at the lower limit, then increasing the pace according to how I feel, is the best recipe to get a good score and minimize the risk of blowing up during the row. Today, I did just that.

I religiously held 220W in the first 4 km. Then I allowed myself to go higher, taking the planned step increases as a fall back scenario. It was nice to see the average power value gradually increase. (Yes, I have the PM now permanently showing Watts. I am less interested in pace.) At every point in the row, I knew I could finish the row at the average Watts shown on the monitor, so rowing at higher power seemed a risk worth taking, especially past the 5km point.

I did go a little too high, though, because around 235W I found that I couldn’t really increase much. I tried with 750m to go, counting strokes, but as you can see from the graph, I was strangely attracted to a 235W value.

Workout Summary - media/20171222-1556170o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|10000|38:24.4|01:55.1|229.1|25.9|169.9|180.0|10.1
W-|10000|38:24.4|01:55.1|229.1|25.9|169.9|180.0|10.1
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|180.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|00500|01:55.9|01:55.9|218.8|25.3|121.9|155.0|10.2
01|00500|01:56.6|01:56.6|220.6|25.0|158.1|162.0|10.3
02|00500|01:56.8|01:56.8|220.7|25.1|163.5|166.0|10.2
03|00500|01:56.3|01:56.3|221.2|25.0|165.0|166.0|10.3
04|00500|01:56.7|01:56.7|220.3|25.1|166.9|169.0|10.3
05|00500|01:56.3|01:56.3|222.5|25.4|167.0|169.0|10.2
06|00500|01:56.2|01:56.2|223.2|25.2|169.3|171.0|10.3
07|00500|01:56.2|01:56.2|223.5|25.3|170.7|172.0|10.2
08|00500|01:55.5|01:55.5|226.7|25.6|172.4|173.0|10.2
09|00500|01:55.4|01:55.4|227.6|25.2|172.7|174.0|10.3
10|00500|01:55.2|01:55.2|228.9|25.5|173.1|174.0|10.2
11|00500|01:55.4|01:55.4|227.8|25.6|173.9|175.0|10.1
12|00500|01:54.6|01:54.6|232.3|26.0|175.9|176.0|10.1
13|00500|01:54.6|01:54.6|232.5|26.1|176.4|177.0|10.0
14|00500|01:54.3|01:54.3|234.4|26.1|176.4|177.0|10.1
15|00500|01:54.1|01:54.1|235.9|26.4|177.5|178.0|10.0
16|00500|01:53.9|01:53.9|236.5|26.6|178.2|179.0|09.9
17|00500|01:54.5|01:54.5|233.3|26.5|178.4|179.0|09.9
18|00500|01:52.6|01:52.6|245.1|27.4|178.5|180.0|09.7
19|00500|01:52.6|01:52.6|246.8|28.6|180.0|180.0|09.3

I ended up doing the piece at 95% of my PB power, but I do think that my 37:45 PB is one of the strongest rows I have done after the year 2010.

I was pretty happy that I managed to move the average power from 228W to 229W in the final 100m. Here is the updated CP chart, and a close-up in the region around 10k.

In the close-up, the two red points on the right are from my Half Marathon. Moving to the left, the next two points are from my 60 minute row, and the rest is from today’s 10k.