December 2017

bokeh_plot (28)

Dec 14 2017

Good Days and Bad Days – a comparison of two steady state sessions

I have been wondering about good and bad days.

On Monday, I did a session that was prescribed by our coach:

2.5 km warming up, 15min/2min, 20min/3min, 15min, 5 min cooling down

All was to be rowed at 20/21 spm. The circumstances:

  • Rowed the day after a pretty good 4x2km
  • Overall feeling “above average”, HRV 7.2, morning pulse 55, fatigue low
  • Music was pretty monotonous techno rock for workouts

This was the executed Monday session:

Stats from rowsandall.com:

  • rPower = 197W
  • Heart Rate Drive = 5%
  • rScore 79
  • TRIMP 129

Note that I did row at lower stroke rates than prescribed. To break the boredom, I did rate ladders, starting at 18, up to 22spm, than oscillating between 21spm and 20spm, and finally down again.

Tuesday

The plan was another steady state session, but there was a guy doing a quick repair on one of our Water Closets. Long story short: The quick repair turned out to be a total replacement of the WC, which I needed to assist with, including driving to the hardware store to buy the thing.

Perhaps carrying old WC down the stairs and new WC up the stairs can count as strength training?

Wednesday

  • Rowed after an unplanned rest day
  • Overall feeling “above average”, HRV 7.7, morning pulse 46, fatique low
  • I listened to the latest Rowperfect.co.uk podcast (“Small Puddles”)

The HRV value is higher (worse) but overall I am on a decreasing HRV trend since I came back from travels. Here is the executed Wednesday session:

Stats from rowsandall.com:

  • rPower = 186W
  • Heart Rate Drive = 6%
  • rScore 81
  • TRIMP 119

On Wednesday, I was free rating but I intended to hold 195W and higher (blue in the chart). I pretty much succeeded and the workout felt very easy.

The mental trick I played was dividing each 20 minute interval into five 4 minute intervals and focus on some aspect of my rowing for four minutes.

So in Summary:

  • Monday – lower average power, workout felt hard
  • Wednesday – higher average power, workout felt easy

Here are the comparison details:

Orange is Wednesday. Higher power.

Interestingly, despite feeling easier, my heart rate was significantly higher on Wednesday.

The chart above clearly shows the different approach to rating.

In terms of Average/Peak force ratio, the workouts are nearly identical.

However, on Monday the average and peak drive force was higher. Also, the drive length was a few centimeters longer:

All this resulted in a significantly higher Work per Stroke value for the Monday workout:

I find this highly interesting. It shows how small things can have a big impact. To summarize:

  • I was on an improving trend in terms of being rested (HRV, resting heart rate)
  • On Monday I was sore from a hard workout on Sunday. Wednesday was done after a rest day
  • I eased up, shortened up slightly, and adapted the rating to get the desired power output

Three things that are small, but the synergetic effect is huge.

Also shows how unreliable Heart Rate is as a measure of fitness. I wish I had done Lactate measurements for these two workouts …

By • Uncategorized • 0 • Tags: , , , , ,

8119FF43-F126-4378-BCFF-DFC8378A074E

Dec 10 2017

Marker Workout (OK)

This morning, we had a late breakfast, and instead of working out, I had a lazy morning. We had lunch in town with some old friends. Then there was a small thing to fix around the house, so it was after 4pm when I changed to rowing gear and went to my erg basement.

The workout of the day was a 4x2km, but I didn’t look up any recent results for this workout. I did a 2km warming up and decided to row this workout as if I was rowing 2km segments of a hard 10km:

  • Focus on rhythm and technique
  • Don’t go too low with Stroke Rate – keep the stroke light
  • Work from a base pace of 1:53 per 500m, go faster only when doing it respecting the previous two bullet points
  • in the first three intervals, a set of 10 hard strokes at the half way point
  • Accelerate and empty the tank in the final interval

After the workout, I scrolled through the PM history to find the last 4x2km. This was the result:
Concept2 PM

Today’s workout was executed exactly according to the plan. No drama, except that the final 300m were really hard.

PM Concept2

And here is how that looks in a chart:

rowing chart

I also looked at a few charts to check if I really was a consistent in rhythm and technique as it felt during the row. I had most difficulty to get into the rhythm at the start of each interval, where pace was oscillating between 1:54 and 1:52. The other hard part was around 1100m to go. Here are the charts:

By • rowing • 0 • Tags: , , , , , ,

7644E16F-2ECF-43C6-A915-FE55B4E23E2A

Dec 9 2017

An Icy Run

I longed for outdoors activity so I went running. It turned out to be a slow run. The snow had melted, and then frozen again.

frozen run

frozen run

frozen run

frozen run

frozen run

frozen run

frozen run

I took a new shortcut near the end of the run. That turned out to be a bad decision. I ended up above the road I wanted to get to and the only way to get there was to slide down a very steep slope.

By • Uncategorized • 0 • Tags:

42EC4A56-3692-477B-A544-EE80B368ABFC

Dec 8 2017

Job’s tidings

workout chart

Tough day at work. Some bad news that sucked the last bit of energy out of me. I had a two hour gap between lunch and a call with a colleague in Washington, so I drove home through the rain and sat on the erg.

I had optimistically planned a sprinterval workout and decided to do it. There was definitely a HD risk, but I feared that swapping this one for a steady state session would be a recipe for boredom, frustration, which also would lead to the undesired HD.

So I decided to do a 3km warming up and then the workout, doing at least 15 intervals but aiming for 20. I dialed up the following sufficiently dark and monotonous sound track on SoundCloud. Dark and monotonous but I like to row to it:

I decided to row the intervals at 2k PB speed and focus on technique. That turned out to be a good choice. I was focusing on pulling a relaxed, gentle stroke at 29 SPM, sitting in a strong position from half way the recovery, then just sliding towards the catch, and hang on the handle during the first half of the leg drive. When I do this correctly, it feels like I get 2 splits for free. (Which reminds me of Ranger, the infamous erg blogger back in the days of Concept2.co.uk.)

Every fifth interval is supposed to be a max out, just to make sure that I was doing the others in a controlled way.

Flex chart Rowsandall

First fifteen intervals went by without any incidents, and then it was just a question of hanging on, and emptying the tank in interval #20. Followed by a 2km cooling down.

A quick shower and on to my calls. An unexpectedly good training. Made my day.

By • rowing • 0 • Tags: , , , ,

csm_Flughafen_Hamburg1_0dddf6c256

Dec 7 2017

Hamburg

Monday

A light hour of steady state on the erg, right after breakfast. Still hurting a lot from the Saturday and Sunday sessions, so I took it a lot easier than I would normally do on these steady state sessions.

Then I headed to the railway station, took the 11:38 train to Hamburg via Prague, Dresden, Berlin. I usually travel by plane, and this train trip was a very nice variation. I love that you have enough leg space, power, USB plugs, and can go to the restaurant wagon whenever you like. I spent most of the time making notes for my speech, then writing out my speech, then condensing it to notes again. It’s how I have learned to prepare and memorize. If I do it well, I can throw away the notes, but I usually like to have them around.

On the train, I also looked at my erging data for the past few sessions.

The Saturday session sticks out. I didn’t split up this session in rest and work strokes, so the averages are pretty skewed, but the top values in the box chart are definitely different than those for a normal session. I was expecting that for “work per stroke” and average and maximum force, but apparently also the stroke length was distorted. Interesting …

Arrived at Hamburg pretty late, took the S-Bahn to my hotel, called my wife, crashed in bed.

Tuesday

Slept too long to do any exercise, and spent the little time I had to have a good breakfast and go through my speech one more time, delivering it to my hotel room. The hotel room didn’t say much, so I guess it was OK. It was a bit short, about 10 minutes shorter than the 40 minutes that I was expected to speak. I guessed that the audience being more interactive than the bed and empty chairs in my hotel room, and leaving a couple of minutes for questions and answers, I would be fine.

Joined the conference, listened to a couple of interesting talks, had lunch, and then it was time for me to deliver my part.

I had just asked a critical question to the previous speaker, and the chairman made a lengthy introduction. To break the ice, I expressed the fear that the chairman (and myself, with my question) had raised the expectation a little too high, and then I started with my intro.

Getting some nods and comments, and expanding a bit on a couple of points that were already raised by previous speakers, I filled the 40 minutes easily. A guy form Alitalia had a few interesting questions and comments, and that was it. Job done. I like to talk about the work that my guys do, but I have to have the time to prepare well.

In the evening, we were invited to drinks and dinner, and I had a good time. The drinks were served inside the airport, on one of the upper levels. This was approximately the view from where we were having our drinks:

Because I had been a speaker, people would come and talk to me, and comment on my talk, which was nice. Met a few of our suppliers. Sneaked out of the party around 10pm, walked back to the hotel through the rainy and windy Hamburg weather, and went to bed.

Wednesday

Set alarm clock for 6am so I could get in some exercise before breakfast. For such an expensive hotel, the Radisson Blu Hamburg Airport, the gym wasn’t much. A few elliptical and a few stationary bikes. Spent 15 minutes on each, then went back to my hotel room and completed the session with 20 minutes of body weights exercises.

I have started to use an app called HRV4Training, which supposedly measures Heart Rate Variability (HRV). You use it each morning. It measures your pulse through the smartphone camera and derives HRV, and something called “Recovery Points”, which I can sync to SportTracks. It also asks questions about travel and alcohol consumption.

For three days I have used it, and my scores have been constantly improving, while I traveled to Germany, trained and slept irregularly, and there was alcohol consumption. Still, my resting heart rate and my “recovery points” keep improving.

Will continue to use it a bit longer to see if it discovers any trends.

I spent the rest of the day at the conference, including an evening workshop.

Thursday

Up at 5 to catch the S-Bahn to the railway station. I had noticed that there was an entrance to the S-Bahn right in front of the hotel, but when I wanted to take it, I noticed the sign that this entrance was closed. Had to walk a long distance to another entrance to the same station, and missed my train. Luckily, I had built in quite some reserve, so even with the next train, twenty minutes later, I had plenty of time at the Hamburg station to take a coffee and some pastry.

Now, I am in the train, between Berlin and Dresden. I hope to arrive to Brno around 5pm, and I hope to get in a steady state erg session. Probably not one with impressive splits, though.

By • Uncategorized • 0 • Tags: , , , , ,

C860A8A3-774D-47C8-A338-7AC6B4B31D47

Dec 3 2017

5x5min

At the rowing club. Using a beta version of PainSled, which stores incorrect data during the rest intervals. Well, that is the risk of using beta software. I have notified the developer and trust it will be fixed in the next version.

The training was 5x(3min+1min+1min)/3min, at 24, 26, and 28spm.

workout chart

Workout Summary - media/20171203-184557-sled-2017-12-03T16-27-50ZGMT+1.strokes.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|08483|40:00.0|02:21.5|262.3|24.8|0.0|000.0|08.5
W-|06702|25:00.0|01:51.9|254.2|25.9|000.0|000.0|10.4
R-|01790|15:00.0|04:11.3|284.4|22.4|000.0|000.0|00.6
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|00792|03:00.0|01:53.6|233.2|24.6|000.0|0.0|10.7
01|00276|01:00.0|01:48.8|272.2|26.4|000.0|0.0|10.5
02|00287|01:00.0|01:44.7|302.0|28.4|000.0|0.0|10.1
03|00751|03:00.0|01:59.8|220.1|23.7|000.0|0.0|10.6
04|00276|01:00.0|01:48.8|268.8|26.3|000.0|0.0|10.5
05|00285|01:00.0|01:45.3|298.0|28.2|000.0|0.0|10.1
06|00777|03:00.0|01:55.9|230.6|23.5|000.0|0.0|11.0
07|00273|01:00.0|01:49.9|261.6|26.1|000.0|0.0|10.5
08|00284|01:00.0|01:45.6|296.5|28.1|000.0|0.0|10.1
09|00770|03:00.0|01:56.9|224.4|24.0|000.0|0.0|10.7
10|00271|01:00.0|01:50.6|259.2|26.2|000.0|0.0|10.4
11|00288|01:00.0|01:44.0|311.1|28.8|000.0|0.0|10.0
12|00810|03:00.0|01:51.2|262.6|27.0|000.0|0.0|10.0
13|00278|01:00.0|01:48.0|279.3|29.2|000.0|0.0|09.5
14|00284|01:00.0|01:45.6|293.6|31.9|000.0|0.0|08.9

This I should pretty close to the 5x1500m standard that I do regularly, but without rate restrictions I would rate it higher.

Rowed in company and it was slightly competitive. Did empty the tank in the final interval.

By • Uncategorized • 0 • Tags: , , , ,

myimage (10)

Dec 3 2017

Rowing training or strength training?

Strength or rowing training?

It has been snowing and below zero for most of the week, so I didn’t even bother going to the rowing club. I would have difficulty finding a free erg.

Instead, I took some time after breakfast to plan out my December training mesocycle. I also reviewed our club Masters rowers training plan for the past week and looked at what I have done during the trip to Belgrade, and what I had planned for this week, and tried to find the two missing trainings, for Saturday and Sunday.

I did this, because on Sunday I will be training with the Masters group, so I want to do the same training they do. That turned out to be a 5x5min at fairly high intensities.

So, for Saturday, I had the choice between steady state and something that looked … interesting. I know I don’t get enough strength training and I am a skinny aerobic freak. Perhaps this was worth a try:

5x(6×15 strokes / 10 strokes)/4min at 17spm at 140 drag

So what is that? You do bouts of 15 strokes at max force, with 10 strokes of light paddling. You do this 6 times, then paddle for 4 minutes, and repeat until you have done a total of 5 sets.

If I liked, I might start doing more of these.

I tried the Painsled Beta again during the warming up. I wasn’t able to connect to Zwift because Zwift insisted on installing a 16 minute update download, and I didn’t want to wait for it. I also struggled with the app crashing on CSV data export, but managed to get out my data eventually.

But for the main event, I switched the iPhone for the iPad (with the regular Painsled), because I didn’t want to risk losing data. Here they are:

I found it difficult to count the sets of 15 and remember where I was. If you look carefully, there is one set of 7 intervals. Well, I am glad I didn’t discover a set of 5. Each set turned out to last about 12 to 13 minutes, so it was easy to calculate if I was doing set 4 or set 5.

This was interesting. I found it difficult to hold 17spm and found myself driving to 18spm, even 19spm sometimes.

I was going somewhere between 1:54 and 1:57 pace. As the PM averages over three strokes, it was hard to estimate the exact power. I also think that Work per Stroke is the correct metric to use in this workout. There should be a Work per Stroke display on the PM. But perhaps it doesn’t matter much, as long as you are giving it the maximum per stroke.

I did have to watch posture though. I think this is a risky workout for my back, so I did monitor myself to sit straight and push on the legs only in the first half of the stroke.

Here’s a chart of Work per Stroke, Average Drive Force and Max Drive Force:

I have filtered out all the rest paddling in this chart, but still there is quite a large spread on the horizontal axis. Here is how the peak and average force behaved over time:

I also made this beautiful chart, trying to see if the differences in work per stroke were due mostly to differences in drive length or differences in average force. Looks like a mix of both. Drive length is closer to my usual range of values, though. I conclude that this was a rowing specific strength training.

Greg, here is the chart you requested:

By • Uncategorized • 0 • Tags: , , , , ,

1 2 3