rowing

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:

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

And here is how that looks in a 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 sanderroosendaal • rowing • 0 • Tags: 4x2km, concept2, erg, OTE, pete plan, rowing, training

Dec 8 2017

Job’s tidings

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.

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 sanderroosendaal • rowing • 0 • Tags: concept2, erg, rowing, sprintervals, training

Nov 20 2017

Mixed Bag Training

Today I followed the training prescribed for our club’s Masters group:

Warming up 2500 meter
4×10 minutes, 4 minutes rest. Rowed as 4/3/2/1 minutes at 20/22/24/26 minutes
Cooling down for a total of 16km

Sounded good. A bit more intensive than plain steady state but nothing I couldn’t handle in my jet lagged state.

After a 2500 warming up I programmed the PM to 10 min intervals with 4 min rest and set off to do the first interval. The phone rang in the middle of that. It was the KLM guy announcing that he would deliver my bag in five minutes. Good timing. Right in the rest period. I continued rowing and the rest I went in front of the house, right as the guy turned into our street. I got the bag, thanked him, signed a piece of paper, and got back to my erg cave. There was still 2 minutes rest to go, but the PM5 had lost the connection with my heart rate monitor, so I had to reset the monitor and start again.

  Workout Summary - media/20171120-2001110o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|02462|14:00.0|02:50.6|201.6|22.2|135.2|170.0|07.9
W-|02319|10:00.0|02:09.3|203.5|21.9|139.9|170.0|10.6
R-|00146|04:00.0|13:42.6|118.0|23.1|015.5|170.0|01.6
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|00962|04:00.0|02:04.7|177.7|20.2|129.7|142.0|11.9
01|00563|03:00.0|02:39.9|200.8|21.6|132.7|145.0|08.7
02|00524|02:00.0|01:54.6|232.0|24.0|157.2|166.0|10.9
03|00271|01:00.0|01:50.6|257.4|26.0|167.7|170.0|10.4

Here are the three other intervals:

    Workout Summary - media/20171120-2000500o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|08890|42:00.0|02:21.7|181.9|22.0|150.5|173.0|09.6
W-|07422|30:00.0|02:01.3|197.4|22.2|152.8|173.0|11.2
R-|01474|12:00.0|04:04.3|144.2|22.8|147.9|173.0|00.3
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|00959|04:00.0|02:05.1|176.0|20.3|134.2|148.0|11.8
01|00757|03:00.0|01:58.9|208.6|22.9|156.0|159.0|11.0
02|00526|02:00.0|01:54.0|236.5|24.7|164.6|169.0|10.7
03|00242|01:00.0|02:03.8|187.9|21.1|169.6|171.0|11.5
04|00949|04:00.0|02:06.4|173.2|20.5|141.5|152.0|11.6
05|00737|03:00.0|02:02.1|192.3|22.1|155.1|160.0|11.1
06|00512|02:00.0|01:57.1|217.7|24.2|162.1|166.0|10.6
07|00267|01:00.0|01:52.4|245.7|26.1|169.0|173.0|10.2
08|00947|04:00.0|02:06.8|175.2|20.5|144.9|153.0|11.5
09|00746|03:00.0|02:00.6|199.3|22.3|159.4|163.0|11.2
10|00512|02:00.0|01:57.1|217.8|24.1|164.9|168.0|10.6
11|00267|01:00.0|01:52.4|245.2|26.0|169.0|173.0|10.3

On SoundCloud, I chose a “running” workout music playlist and it worked out really well. Minimalistic music with a strong beat. Gets you into a light trance and makes the time go by fast. Here is the link.

By sanderroosendaal • rowing • 0 • Tags: concept2, erg, OTE, rowing, steady state, training

Nov 11 2017

Lactate Step Test

Today was Lactate Day at our rowing club. The kids who are in a performance program get this paid by the federation, and for us Masters and other less promising rowers there is the opportunity to pay and participate. I happily did that, because it is much more convenient than doing it myself.

The tests were done by two ladies from the university. We had 6 ergs lined up and the testing protocol was 5 intervals of 5 minutes, with 2 minutes rest. The second erg started 1:10 minutes after the first, and so forth, so the ladies had 1:10 to collect the data after each interval and they were continuously occupied.

You finish an interval, the two ladies come to you. One writes down your heart rate, and the other takes some blood from your ear lobe. The only thing I had to focus on was rowing at the prescribed Power values.

Here is a picture I took after my row, of the last group. Notice that we had participation from the other club in town, who do these tests on sliders. We row on static ergs.

For me, the levels were 160, 190, 220, 250, and >280 Watt.

  Workout Summary - media/df_20171111-100732.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|07846|41:12.0|02:37.5|223.7|22.7|154.4|184.0|08.4
W-|06419|25:00.0|01:56.8|223.6|24.1|160.8|184.0|10.7
R-|01433|16:12.0|05:39.2|210.2|16.1|131.6|184.0|02.8
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|01156|05:00.0|02:09.7|162.1|21.0|139.5|151.0|11.0
02|01222|05:00.0|02:02.8|189.8|21.9|154.1|160.0|11.2
03|01287|05:00.0|01:56.6|221.2|23.5|163.5|170.0|11.0
04|01346|05:00.0|01:51.4|251.2|25.7|170.4|177.0|10.5
05|01408|05:00.0|01:46.6|293.7|28.2|176.3|184.0|10.0

I had to do some data fusion to merge the heart rate data measured with the Garmin and the other parameters measured with PainSled, connected through USB cable to the PM3.

I am pretty happy with the power achieved in the final interval.

The power pie chart is a beauty. I have to share it:

Not sure what to think of the following chart:

I was quite constant in stroke length, so I obviously varied the force from interval to interval. I am wondering if the Lactate values would be different with constant drive force, varying the stroke rate more.

Anyway, the blood samples are now traveling to the lab, and I will know the results on Tuesday. That is the only advantage of doing Lactate tests yourself: you can play with the data immediately.

By sanderroosendaal • rowing • 0 • Tags: concept2, erg, lactate test, rowing

Nov 10 2017

Back in the single & an unexpected visit

Thursday

Another hour of steady state on the erg. I made it a little more interesting by varying the stroke rate every minute in intervals 1and 2, then reverting to a more traditional rate ladder in the last 20minute interval.

Yep’ in the last interval I did a cooling down at the end. I had some fun looking at stroke data on Rowsandall.com:

Pretty consistent drive length there.

Friday

I will be in the USA for 6 days next week, tomorrow I will do an erg lactate test, and on Sunday I will probably go running. So today was the day to get in some steady state, not too hard, in the single.

It is funny. I know Work per Stroke goes down at the end of the workout, but I seem incapable of preventing this to happen.

It was a great workout. The water was not flat but still very rowable, I was the only single out except for s lightweight guy from the other club, accompanied by his coach in a launch. At one point I needed to speed up a bit to stay ahead of his wake. The young LW guy is a bit faster than I but he was doing some intervals and by working a bit harder during his rest and staying focused on technique I stayed ahead of his coach’s wake.

When I was cleaning my boat after the row, Ondřej Synek walked on to our club. It was great to chat with him. He is in town for the Sport Life trade fair, promoting Concept2 ergometers, and decided to pay us a surprise visit. We showed him our boats and he talked about racing in Brno as a junior. Then he walked into the erg training of our Juniors. They almost fell off their ergs.

In the car driving home I heard this song. I liked.

By sanderroosendaal • rowing • 0 • Tags: concept2, OTE, OTW, rowing, single, steady state

Nov 8 2017

Prague Skyline

I’ll start with the highlight of this post. Some great photos of the Head of Prague race. Somewhere among these boats is us:

And here we are rowing towards the turning point. Notice the Prague castle and cathedral in the background:

Yesterday, I got my annual influenza vaccination with the recommendation to avoid exercise for two days, so I skipped training. Today, I did the 2×20 minutes of steady state prescribed by our club Masters training plan. It doesn’t sound like a lot of volume, but we do very long warming up and cooling downs so all in all it was 15km of erging.

Here are both 20 minute pieces compared.

The orange line with lower power and higher heart rate is the second interval.

By sanderroosendaal • rowing • 0 • Tags: concept2, erg, OTE, rowing, steady state, training

Oct 27 2017

A lot going on actually

#Wednesday

Body weight exercises. Several iterations of the Wahoo Tickr 7 minute set. I am going to do these ones more often. A short session but still feeling DOMS on Friday.

#Thursday

Erg session. 2 kilometers warming up. Then a 10k row. I tried to hold 180W and stay below 165bpm heart rate at the same time. Ended up at 178 Watts. Towards the end I ignored the heart rate cap and tried to get back to 180W average power.

I tried a 2x1min intensive bit before the cooling down.

#Friday

A busy day. In the afternoon, my sons visited me at work. We had organized a little event for kids where they could fly our airplane and helicopter simulators.

Then we headed to the rowing club. Dominik did an erg session and a circuit training. I went out in the single despite severe conditions on the lake. There was a lot of chop but when I reached the gorge it was just windy. It wasn’t sunny, unfortunately, it even rained a bit. Still, I took some pictures of Veveri Castle and the woods around it.

The row was a light steady state session. Not too hard because of tomorrow’s race. Unfortunately, I forgot the heart rate belt at home, so no heart rate values. The headwind section:

The tailwind section:

I was running a Beta version of BoatCoach in parallel with the SpeedCoach. Dan Eiref of BoatCoach prepared a beta based on some tests I did for him. I am happy to report that Stroke Rate and Pace are now very close to the values of the SpeedCoach.

The comparisons were done on rowsandall.com.

On top of that I did a few good changes to the Critical Power parts of the rowsandall.com site. More about that another time.

By sanderroosendaal • rowing • 0 • Tags: Comcept2, erg, OTE, OTW, rowing, steady state, training

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rowing

Marker Workout (OK)

Job’s tidings

Mixed Bag Training

Lactate Step Test

Back in the single & an unexpected visit

Thursday

Friday

Prague Skyline

A lot going on actually

Calendar

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