A week of doubles

Monday

Romana and I went out in the double. We did steady state with a 10 stroke race pace interval roughly every kilometer. A very nice row. After we finished, the wind started to increase and the lake showed its ugly face, but we had a nice row.

Wednesday

No row on Tuesday. First day back in the office after my trip to the US. Lots of debriefs to do and some unpleasant meetings as well.

In the evening I drove to the rowing club for a short meeting with the Masters men. We discussed the upcoming season, mainly which races to row in the club eight, and also which disciplines we will start at the Masters Worlds in Hungary.

After the meeting, Tomas, Ondrej and I went to the weights room and did the following simple but killing workout. Five rounds of:

1. 15 push-ups
2. 30 squats
3. 6 pull-ups
4. 30 sit-ups

Including erg warming up (10 min) and spinning cooling down, the workout lasted only 50 minutes, but my muscles hurt for three days after.

Friday

Thursday: Another long day. Spent most of it in two very long calls that I took instead of my boss, who is on vacation. I think this was the first day without feeling the jet lag.

On Friday, I decided to leave work early to be in time to say goodbye to Romana, Robin and Dominik who were going to races in Prague, together with the juniors 15/16 and boys and girls 11/12 and 13/14 of the club. After that, I took a rowing related call from the club house and then did a longish workout in the single:

4x(6x20strokes/15strokes)/5 minutes with a bungee cord.

I left out the bungee cord. It was windy and choppy but I didn’t mind. I was happy to be out in the single again.

I really enjoyed this workout. Each series lasted about the length of our lake. Good training programming by our head coach. In the third interval I was catching up with a launch and a pair from the rowing club from the opposite shore. That gave me some motivation to push a little harder. Even though I rowed without bungee, I did rate down to 16/17spm and rowed at a much higher Work per Stroke (WpS) than normal. I pushed at around 620 Joules per stroke, 170 Watt. Heart rate remaind low, of course, at these low stroke rates.

Saturday

Today was a mini training camp. My rowing buddy Kazimir came over from Hodonin to Brno and we did our first sessions in the double of this season. We intend to race the World Rowing Masters together (and a few local races as preparation).

The morning training was a 3x2km at 24-26spm. I arrived at the club at 9am, just in time to have a little chat with our Masters Eduard and Ludek before they launched for the same training in the double.

By the time Kazi and I had warmed up, Ludek & Eduard were about to start their third 2km interval. So naturally we rowed besides and in front of them. Ludek & Eduard go out in the double several times a week, but despite the choppy water and us being together for the first time in 2020, we managed to get in front and create some clear water. Well, admittedly, it was our first interval and their last one.

We stayed on the north end of the lake to avoid the worst chop on the south end. As you can see, the Albano buoys are out again, making it much easier to row a straight line in our 2k course.

Power values by estimation (using rowsandall.com power estimation).


Workout Summary - media/20190427-0920420o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|12259|71:53.0|02:55.9|000.0|24.0|142.7|181.0|07.1
W-|06837|28:34.0|02:05.4|000.0|24.9|167.1|181.0|09.6
R-|05428|43:18.0|03:59.4|000.0|23.4|126.5|181.0|06.1
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|02026|07:58.4|01:58.1|000.0|25.5|169.6|177.0|10.0
02|02016|08:59.3|02:13.8|000.0|25.5|173.9|181.0|08.8
03|01991|07:57.0|01:59.8|000.0|25.8|167.1|176.0|09.7
04|00361|01:37.6|02:15.1|000.0|20.9|145.7|152.0|10.6
05|00443|02:02.6|02:18.3|000.0|20.1|144.8|149.0|10.8


After the 2k intervals we rowed back up to the start of the 2k course. I had the impression we were rowing light, but somehow pace values were very fast. I think it was the strong wind pushing us.

We had a shower and then walked to the “At the lion” pub for a lunch. We were joined by our U23 national squad member Lubos, so we discussed last weekend’s selection races. Kazi’s brother-in-law was part of the same light weights group as Lubos, and there had been some drama around the selection, leaving Kazi’s brother-in-law on the shore, and Lubos and one other member of our club in the national U23 LW quad. All three were trained on our club under our head coach Adam, even though two of them are now rowing in Prague at the national center at Dukla. We seem to have quality lightweights, and our club is supplying many of them.

After lunch, we had coffee in the club house and looked at the metrics for the first workout. Then we launched for what we intended to be a short (10k) technique row.

However, because it was still windy, we decided to row into the gorge to seek shelter, and the rowing was fun, so we turned no earlier than 7.5km from our club house:

It was a very good training. We did some technique drills and we spent the bulk of the row trying to find a light stroke, with some emphasis on the second half of the drive. I did a few pieces at 24spm, 28spm and 32spm (but light pressure) to check how the boat runs.

The charts above were measured with the Quiske pod under my (stroke) seat for the 24spm (blue), 28spm (green) and 32spm (red) intervals.

This was a very important workout. I think we really came together here.