June 2019

Thursday

A weights session. My weights trainer was sick, so I had to do it myself. I pretty much copied what she has me do normally. Only instead of bench press I trained a similar motion on a fitness machine. I don’t want to have the bar falling on me (we do go to weights and repetitions where I can barely lift the bar). Also, deadlifts was occupied, so I did the first few intervals with a kettle bell. On the squats, I was careful with the weights, so I added a few intervals on the leg press station, which really did my legs in.

1. Substitution for bench press
2. Seated chain row
3. Deadlifts
4. Squats, complemented with leg press

Friday

Wow! The first day this week where I had time for a morning row. What a luxury. I was the only rower on the lake at 6, and I shared it with three fishermen. I did a steady state row in the single, with a few higher rate bursts.

Saturday

Morning

My double partner Kazi is in town, so we did two sessions. The first one was a 8x500m/500m workout.

That went pretty well. What was even more fun is that we used Quiske pods under both our seats, so after the row (and after a quick swim in the lake), we settled on the club balcony, had a beer and fired up the computer. This is what we saw:

So stroke seat (that’s me) is the green line, and bow seat (Kazi) is the blue line. This was taken during one of the 500s, but pretty much all the 500s showed the same picture.

1. During the stroke, my style is more segmented. I am not shooting the slide, but I definitely keep my back in the catch position longer, while Kazi starts pulling with the back already. (This must be the explanation, because our oars are pretty much parallel.)
2. During the recovery, Kazi perfectly matches my seat speed.

Now the big question is if we would go faster if we would be more matched in terms of seat speed. I am not so sure. Here’s a picture of this crew during the 2018 edition of Euromasters (which they won).

Afternoon

The afternoon training was technique and drills. We rowed with pauses. Then we did the catch drill. Then we rowed without feathering. And finally, we tried out the “Chinese drill”. Greg from Quantified Rowing has done it in his Shanghai row (see the blog post about it).

It was fun to do. We started from rowing with pauses at 3/4 slide, hands just before the wing rigger, at every third stroke. We gradually lengthened the pause until it lasted 3 seconds. Then I added the “Shanghai drill”, hooking the handles under the wing rigger, clapping hands, grapping the handles again, and making the catch. We took turns doing the Shanghai drill with the other rower just pausing. And then it was time for the big moment.

It was fun, and it went surprisingly well. The trick is to be really stable during the recovery and to be really controlled and synchronized when you put down the handles, clap the hands, and grab the handles again. We liked it so much (and we liked the admiring looks of the girls on the stand-up paddle boards) that we rowed the entire 2k course clapping hands on every third stroke.

We did a 500m swim in the lake after the row, and then it was time to go home.

The title of this post is Double Fun because I had a lot of fun rowing doubles last week, and Double Analysis because there will be two in-depth boat acceleration analyses done using Quiske pods. And both rowing and analysis is ufn, so that’s double too.

First, a summary of a week of training:

Monday, June 17th

A weights session.

Tuesday, June 18th

Romana and I did a short steady state row in the double. It was very nice. We did the long full lake stretches as rate ladders. Power is estimated.

Wednesday, June 19th

Wednesday is eights day. By the way, here are a few new pictures from our last race in the eight. One of the photos shows us protesting (or were we waving to our fans on the bank?).

We did steady state with a few short bursts at higher power. I was pulling OK but we’ve had better sessions.

Thursday, June 20th & Friday, June 21st

We had a long day at work. Visitors from overseas. Visitors from the Middle East. Workshops. Demos. It was good, long, fulfilling, interesting, and everybody was happy in the end, and there was no time to go out and row.

Saturday, June 22nd

It was a warm, humid day, and I was hesitating if I should do this workout. In the end I did it: 5x1500m at 26spm, in the single. And it went much easier than I thought.

The lower power bits in the third interval are caused by steering. In the fourth interval it’s more about fatigue, and in the final interval it’s steering + fatigue. I was using Quiske with the pod on the oar.

In the data, I selected the fastest bits of each interval as well as the slowest bits. The left chart collects all the “fast” sections, while the right one summarizes boat acceleration and oar angle speed for the slow bits. I think the biggest difference is in how effective (and fast) I am around the catch. You can see it both on the oar angle velocity chart (bottom) as well as on the boat speed chart (top).

I had a great swim in the lake after the row.

Sunday, June 23rd

No training. We had family visits in “nearby” Pardubice (2 hour drive).

Monday, June 24th

This was going to be the day. I was going to measure seat speed for the bow and stroke seat of my mixed double. Finally, we would be having data to see where we can further improve.

It was not going to happen. I had everything: Two phones, two pods, seat pads. I forgot the second phone holder.

So we rowed “unplugged” (NK SpeedCoach only) and did a short session of 1 minute on / 1 minute off.

Heart rates are high, because it was well over thirty degrees Celsius when we rowed. The lake has turned into a giant open air swimming pool as well. Romana and I played around with the stroke rate a bit. That is why the two final intervals of each of the two series is rowed at 30spm instead of race stroke rate. It seems that it didn’t impact the pace too much.


Workout Summary - media/20190624-1720490o.csv
--|Total|-Total----|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time-----|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|09888|00:54:18.6|02:44.8|138.2|23.7|147.4|181.0|07.7
W-|03185|00:12:23.9|01:56.8|273.1|31.8|164.4|180.0|08.1
R-|06718|00:41:55.8|03:07.2|098.3|21.3|142.3|180.0|07.8
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|00107|00:25.8|02:00.9|244.4|27.9|139.6|147.0|08.9
02|00103|00:23.4|01:53.7|277.6|30.7|137.5|150.0|08.6
03|00254|01:00.4|01:58.9|264.5|31.9|158.7|172.0|07.9
04|00248|00:58.2|01:57.3|281.3|32.0|171.0|177.0|08.0
05|00245|00:58.0|01:58.4|254.7|32.2|163.7|172.0|07.9
06|00253|00:57.4|01:53.4|285.3|33.5|163.6|175.0|07.9
07|00260|01:00.0|01:55.3|270.9|31.9|166.1|175.0|08.1
08|00255|00:59.2|01:56.0|263.8|31.6|165.7|173.0|08.2
09|00238|00:57.8|02:01.6|251.0|31.1|158.6|169.0|07.9
10|00253|00:59.9|01:58.5|279.0|32.2|172.3|179.0|07.9
11|00248|00:57.0|01:55.0|295.2|32.7|170.4|180.0|08.0
12|00237|00:54.0|01:53.8|288.3|33.3|168.7|178.0|07.9
13|00235|00:55.3|01:57.7|274.5|30.5|167.8|176.0|08.4
14|00249|00:57.5|01:55.3|281.8|31.2|168.7|178.0|08.3


Pace is not exactly where we want it to be, but it was hot, and we rowed after a long work day.

Tuesday, June 25th

This was going to be the day. I was going to measure seat speed for the bow and stroke seat of my mixed double. Finally, we would be having data to see where we can further improve.

This time I succeeded in getting us all hooked up. It was a very hot evening again. We rowed steady state and a few twenty stroke intervals at 24, 28, 32spm (in headwind) and 32, 38spm (in tailwind) to collect good race pace data.

So here is us at 24spm:

The top chart is boat acceleration, and the bottom one is seat speed. The chart start on the left at a point just after the catch (point of lowest boat acceleration) and finishes on the right after an entire stroke cycle. The two acceleration and speed curves are slightly different, because we are using two different phones (with differently sensitive accelerometers), and because speed is the integration of acceleration data, and (I suspect) a naive algorithm is used so cumulative errors cause the differences. Also, I had to hand select the data for this chart from two different “sessions” on the Quiske portal, so it may be that we are comparing two slightly different sets of strokes from the same interval.

The bottom chart is what we are after. This is the seat speed. You can see that seat speed increases after the catch and reaches a maximum (leg part of a sequenced stroke), and then decreases during the back swing and becomes zero at the arms pull, remains zero at arms away and back swing, and then slowly increases as we are sliding towards the catch during the recovery phase.

You can see that bow (green) has a slightly less sequenced stroke than stroke seat (blue). Her seat is moving slowly during the back swing and arms phase. In this sequence, we are slightly asynchronous, especially during the recovery phase. Let’s take a look at 28spm:

Well, the picture doesn’t change much, but the differences are smaller. Let’s take a look at 32spm:

Again, tiny differences, but I think this is a pretty good match. Finally, let’s look at the last interval at race pace:

This interval wasn’t really great. We were waked, tired, hot, and distracted. So I am not surprised we see some bigger differences here. Especially on the recovery, bow seat starts rolling the seat a bit earlier than stroke seat. Stroke than slides slightly faster.

But how serious are these differences? Let’s take a look at another double:

I think Romana and I should be happy with the synchronicity that we achieve. Here is data from another boat:

From this instagram post (click on the image to see the video on Instagram):

So we used a “random” sample of other published curve sets to say that we are already very good.

Mission failed: Romana and I didn’t find anything to improve.

Relationship saved, of course: As stroke seat and husband, I would find it hard to tell my bow seat and wife that she is less than perfect. Turns out we have data to prove she is perfect.

We also had a really good swim in the lake, after the session.

Wednesday, June 26th

Another Wednesday evening row in the eight. Today, the thermometer reach 37 degrees C and it was really hot. We did a short outing, but we did do some speed work in the eight. My heart rate band misbehaved a bit, I think:

In the first 10 minutes of this chart, only the seats 5 to 8 are rowing. From about 10 to 16 minutes into the session, seats 1 to 4 (including me on 2 seat) are paddling. The main purpose of this session was to get some time in at high stroke rates.

We had a long team swim after the row. The lake water was fantastic!

Monday

No training.

Tuesday

A weights session. Pretty heavy on the squats, and finishing off the legs with leg press.

Wednesday

Arrived at the club for a session in the eight. Four people turned up. One decided to go home because of the chop. The three others (including me) sat down for an erg session: 4x2km at 24spm. First two at high drag. I didn’t record the session in any digital way. Didn’t even have my phone with me to take a screenshot.

I did the first two high drag intervals at 1:56 pace and didn’t find it difficult. I was very surprised to find that I couldn’t hold 1:58 in the last two intervals (at normal drag factor). I think my legs were just getting very empty.

Thursday

I decided to do a steady state row up the gorge towards and beyond the castle. I had a sip of water every 3.5km and turned around after 7km. The first 10km of the workout were very pleasant rowing. I did record my steady state stroke using the Quiske app. I recorded my 20spm stroke on the straight 1km just before the castle, both on the way there and on the way back.

The top chart is boat speed (dashed lines) and acceleration (solid lines). The bottom chart is seat speed with respect to the boat. Here’s a walk through the chart. If you take the time to read it in detail, you will appreciate the differences later in this post, when I discuss 30spm:

• The drive phase is indicated by the orange part of the bar (marked “Drive”). This is where the blade is in the water and you are putting in work to increase the speed of the system
• The recovery phase is where the blades are not in the water. The only force that is working on the system is the drag of the water (and a slight contribution from air drag). As I am moving my 75kg body sternwards and then slowing down on the slides, there are some inertial forces that affect boat speed as well.
• Actually, the moment the blade enters the water is all the way to the right end of the chart. It’s hard to give evidence without video, but I am almost certain that the blades enter the water very close to the point where my seat changes direction. It may even be slightly before, at the moment where the acceleration curve starts has an inflection point. Why do I believe that, because the blades entering the water immediately create a lift force on the blades which will propel the boat forward. However, the boat keeps slowing down, because I am starting to push on the footstretcher to change the direction of my body.
• During the first half of the drive, my seat speed achieves it’s maximum value around the first blue bar from the left side of the chart (“max leg speed”). This is also the point at which the boat acceleration starts to hit positive numbers (speeding up).
• The second blue bar from the left shows the point where I believe is the middle point of my back swing. This point coincides with the maximum boat acceleration. The legs are still working, the back is adding its force, and all’s well.
• Going further to the right is the point I call “keep boat send”. This is what I tell myself, to remind me of the need to finish strong and have a strong arms part of the stroke. Acceleration is low, but the important point is that it’s positive. I am able to keep the boat accelerating all the way until tap-down.
• Arms away. This may be a bit slow, because the boat is losing some speed here.
• Start seat and back. I am not extremely sequential with this. The moment my arms are away, I start rolling up the slide as well as getting my back to catch position. Because of the transfer of momentum, I am now able to stop the boat speed drop and keep the boat at constant speed. I am actually pretty much able to manage my seat speed to keep the boat from slowing down.
• Until the moment where I have to start slowing down my seat speed to prepare for the catch.

Thank you for reading the Quiske chart explanation in detail. Here’s the row chart:

During that second straight kilometer, at around 52 minutes into the row, I was catching up with another sculler, and that gave me just enough motivation to ignore the signals from my legs and keep pushing. Only later did I see that I actually pushed my heart rate into the red. I paid a price for that.

After the squats in the weights room on Tuesday, the heavy drag 2ks at 24spm on Wednesday, and 10km of steady state on Thursday, my legs started to refuse service. They just had enough.

I was fast enough to stay in front of the other sculler and even create a bit of distance between us, but my power gradually went down and in the last 10 minutes I was just wishing I was already back at the dock.

Friday

I decided to skip a session to give myself some rest.

Saturday

A fun session in the double. The only problem was that it was a very hot day.

Romana and I did the following session:

2km warming up

3x10min of 15″ on, 15″ off, at 34-36spm.

First series into headwind. I lost count, and it looks like we did one 15 second interval more than we were supposed to do. We rowed to the end of the lake, turned around, and did the second series. I had to skip the fourth to wipe the sweat off my hands. All was good, until we turned around again at the end of the lake to do the third and last series, into the headwind. After 4 intervals I stopped because I just had enough. After a brief break, we got rowing again and we did a few more 8 stroke intervals, but with longer breaks. We extended the last one to 30 seconds.

Sunday

I was hesitating being the planned session (8x500m/500m) or just a steady state. The lake was pretty choppy and windy. Romana was out in a mixed coxless four and they were doing the 500s, so in the end I decided to do them.


Workout Summary - media/20190616-1840460o.csv
--|Total|-Total----|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time-----|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|10812|00:59:25.9|02:44.9|164.2|23.4|146.7|181.0|07.8
W-|04215|00:17:46.4|02:06.5|276.8|29.3|161.2|179.0|08.1
R-|06605|00:41:40.4|03:09.3|116.2|20.9|140.6|179.0|07.2
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
03|00509|02:00.1|01:58.1|294.3|29.5|151.8|171.0|08.6 - tailwind
04|00497|01:57.4|01:58.1|291.0|30.6|164.1|174.0|08.3 - tailwind
05|00498|02:00.4|02:00.9|280.0|30.4|160.6|176.0|08.2 - tailwind + chop
06|00510|02:26.5|02:23.7|253.8|27.3|163.7|174.0|07.6 - headwind + chop
07|00500|02:16.8|02:16.8|280.4|28.4|162.9|176.0|07.7 - headwind + chop
08|00510|02:14.1|02:11.4|283.6|29.9|166.2|179.0|07.6 - headwind
09|00489|01:57.2|01:59.8|270.5|30.2|160.0|174.0|08.3 - tailwind
10|00521|02:05.3|02:00.2|268.3|30.1|164.5|176.0|08.3 - tailwind


I ended up doing all of them. There was quite a lot of chop on the south end of the lake, which severely slowed me down in the third to the fifth interval.

I “Quisked” all the intervals and here is the summary slide:

I am showing only the first four intervals here, three tailwind ones and one choppy headwind one. It shows that despite the significantly lower boat speed, the choppy headwind interval wasn’t too bad.

Let me talk you through the chart.

• Again, the “blades enter water” moment is actually the last blue bar on the right of the chart. That is when the legs start to push.
• Boat is still slowing down (negative acceleration) but at the maximum seat (leg) speed it flips to a positive acceleration peak.
• I am a little less smooth around the catch than on the 20spm steady state stroke. The acceleration dips slightly before it peaks again during the middle of my back swing.
• At around 35% of the stroke duration, the seat stops and it’s back and arms, finishing with arms only. Happy to see that I keep accelerating the boat.
• Compared to my 20spm session, I am more dynamic with the arms away and the boat doesn’t slow down in the first part of the recovery
• When I start rolling up the back and the seat starts moving, I am creating a little boat surge. This is normal at higher stroke rates.
• At higher boat speeds, drag is increased compared to my 20spm pace. When I stop accelerating on the slide, the boat starts to slow down. I might want to try to keep this accelerating almost all the way to just before the catch. I am doing this better at lower rates.
• When the seat has to slow down, I have to push on the footstretcher and the boat acceleration goes to negative.

The “best” line seems to be the green one, but I am not sure if that was due to wind or me rowing better. Otherwise, no conclusion. I know what I am working on, and I am glad I see the evidence of that in the curves. I need to keep monitoring.

The picture (from a previous edition of the Primatorky regatta) says it all. Racing in eights in the center of Prague. By the way, that is our club’s men’s eight in the lane on the left, and I believe the picture is from the final race on Sunday, two years ago.

The racing happens between the Rower’s island and the finish at Naplavka. Naplavka, the river bank, being turned into a sponsors’ market, offering products from gourmet ham sandwiches to Lexus sports cars.

The special thing about the race is a giant turn after about 800m of racing. Every lane has a big colored buoy and it is a huge turn they are doing:

But first things first. It was Saturday morning, June 8, and Romana and I drove to the club in Brno to pick up our trailer with the rental boats for the camp. We would bring it to Prague to be picked up by Wintech Czech Republic.

The long drive on the D1 highway was thankfully uneventful. And that is almost a miracle. Here is my list of things to bring on a car ride to Prague over the D1:

• 3 liters of water
• Two chicken sandwiches
• The AC/DC album “Highway to hell”
• A copy of the book “On the road” by Jack Kerouac
• A piece of paper with the motivational text: “Success is not a destination, but the road that you’re on”

Well, there was some excitement. News from the race course.

• Our Juniors eight had been disqualified for steering the wrong side of the buoys
• The boys 15/16 eight (with my son Dominik) had been disqualified as well. Their coxswain had turned too late and they crashed into the next lane’s boat
• My youngest son’s boys 13/14 year eight had won their heat and were through to the semifinal

Yes, coxing is hard on this course, and unfortunately the disqualifications were entirely the result of our coxswain’s errors. That said, it was very hard for the cox of the Juniors. They had put a young and unexperienced boy on the cox’s seat. This 13 year old is a good cox on our home lake, but I don’t think he was prepared for the pressure of racing.

We arrived in Prague, I moved the singles to the agreed place where Wintech would pick them up, handed over the bag with NK Empower Oarlocks to a guy nicknamed “Navy”, and I took some pictures of Robin preparing for his semifinal:

They won their semi.

A quick lunch, a stroll through through the finish area (I bought a polo shirt) and a few hours of hanging around in the CVK Praha club house and it was time for us to launch our Masters 8+.

Our preparation has been abysmal. We didn’t manage to get in more than 3 practice rows. I think we were in our weakest form in years.

And we were the crew to beat. We have been winning this race 6 times in the last 7 years. (Last year’s edition was canceled due to a ferocious thunderstorm.) The one time we didn’t win, it was due to a grossly unfair start and the race was declared undecided without a rerow.

Three clubs from the Prague region had made a “Sélection de Raisins” in order to put a strong eight against us. It was all very exciting.

The Race

Attention! Go!

Off we were, about 2 strokes behind CVK Praha who started at Attention, and slightly behind the combination crew to our left. Coming in behind, we started to pass the two crews. It took about the first 500m to get back and then disaster struck. CVK Praha to our right and the combination to our left both started to go off course and they basically closed us in. We raced a few strokes with clashing blades, then with our hands in the air as protest, and it took ages for the umpire to decide to stop the race. He waved the red flag and we stopped rowing. Then he blew the horn to alert the other crews and they stopped rowing as well.

With something between 650 and 750m in our legs, we turned the boats and rowed back to the start.

Of course, this was a tremendous advantage for us. CVK Praha was disqualified. I think the combination crew should have been disqualified as well, but the umpire claimed that we started to go off course as well.

Here is our GPS track. In the race, we are going from the bottom to the top in the two tracks on the right hand side, the straight one being the second start. Looking at the GPS track, I think the only thing our coxswain did was to try and avoid boat damage when the other crews were coming off their tracks. But it’s hard to tell.

Anyway, a second start. I didn’t mind, but I was a bit worried about how much our less trained crew members would have left in the tank.

We started well and were leading right out of the gate. Then, unfortunately, the combination crew took over, underrating us but going faster. By the railway bridge, with 350m to go, my 2 seat was level with their 6 or 7. We rated up (from 38 to 42) and tried to pass them in a final push. However, fatigue made it hard to row well and although we managed to speed up and we were faster than the opponent, we lost by a bit.

Exciting racing. Disappointing result, although I think we didn’t really deserve to win. We need to prepare better.

After the shower and a beer with the disqualified CVK Praha crew in their club house, we all went to the Bohemians rowing club for the Masters Party. It was great. Of course, we were being made fun of: “Why do Brno rowers race with one hand in the air? Is that how they teach to row in Brno?” but there was beer and wine, live music, good food and dancing. I’ll leave the rest to your imagination.

On Sunday morning, Romana and I saw our son Robin get a second place in a very good race, and then we hit the road again. Back to Brno.

From June 2 to 7th, I was busy hosting a rowing camp. You can read all about it here: https://pryglrowing.com/2019/06/10/the-june-2019-rowing-camp/

I didn’t row on Monday as I was too busy with the camp. On Tuesday, I joined the camp participants on their third session. My session was

1x1500m in tempo 24

2x(4x1min/1min)/6min (stroke rate 30, 32, 34, 36)


Workout Summary - media/df_20190615-132747.csv
--|Total|-Total----|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time-----|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|11883|01:10:06.1|02:57.0|155.8|21.9|149.5|183.0|07.7
W-|06377|00:31:12.8|02:26.8|225.7|24.8|153.2|183.0|08.7
R-|05517|00:38:54.2|03:31.6|099.6|19.6|146.5|183.0|08.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|02923|15:46.1|02:41.8|165.7|19.7|144.8|163.0|09.4
03|01474|06:25.1|02:10.6|226.9|24.4|166.0|175.0|09.4 - 1500m at 24spm
04|00238|00:59.4|02:05.0|278.0|29.5|153.5|169.0|08.1 - 30 spm
05|00241|00:58.6|02:01.7|320.2|31.9|172.4|180.0|07.7 - 32 spm
06|00234|00:56.2|01:60.0|327.0|33.3|174.5|182.0|07.5 - 34 spm
07|00224|00:53.2|01:58.9|329.8|33.7|171.9|182.0|07.5 - 36 spm
08|00259|01:02.0|01:59.9|270.5|29.1|150.6|168.0|08.6 - 30 spm
09|00281|01:05.0|01:55.6|297.1|31.5|170.2|177.0|08.2 - 32 spm
10|00242|00:54.2|01:51.8|327.4|34.0|170.9|179.0|07.9 - 34 spm
11|00255|00:56.5|01:50.8|351.7|36.1|174.2|183.0|07.5 - 36 spm


It was a great outing, and fantastic to have a sparring partner. It was also very hot, which I think explains the high heart rate.

On Wednesday, I had a very hectic day. I had to go to the office to do a big demo (which turned out to go really well). Then we had a dramatic row with the eight.

Lots of soul searching. It was also extremely choppy, which was a change after the super flat water we had had for three days.

On Thursday, I did a race preparation workout, combined with some technical exercises and start practice. I also invented a new drill, the “Romanian Drill”. I may explain it later. For now, I keep it as a secret drill for camp participants.

We did a 250m and a 500m at full power, racing side by side. It was great!

On Friday, after the end of the camp. Romana and I took the double and did “one lake”.

Just a nice low rate row to enjoy the lake after we had successfully completed the camp!