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Jul 2 2015

Wednesday for Project 2: Mixed Quad Steady State

It’s quad craziness. Almost every second outing I do is in a quad. But we have to, because some members of our mixed quad are going on vacation, so the next time we meet it will be a few weeks before Belgium.

We did 12km of steady state with catch drills at every turn.

Good session.

Today, the ladies of our mixed quad, my wife Romana and Lubica, will attend the funeral of Eva Velešíková:

Eva was a big driving force behind women’s Masters Rowing in Brno. Lubica and Romana have trained and raced with her. As a member of Masters International, a group of women raiding Masters races, she won two medals at Masters Worlds in Varese, in 2013, when she was already diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and told she had 1-1.5 years left. After her husband died, she traveled around the globe, and remained very active, optimistic and energetic until a few months ago. I don’t know her closely but I feel enormous admiration for her.

She passed away last Saturday, when I was out in the mixed quad with two ladies who have rowed with her frequently.

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 1 • Tags: lake, OTW, quad, rowing, steady state, training

Jul 1 2015

Tuesday: CTC & 3x2km in the Quad

I made a promise to Free Spirits and to myself to do each and every CTC this year, and yesterday I almost broke that promise.

This month’s challenge is a nice one: “Row 4810m and record your best time.” The challenge is to find time to erg in the middle of the rowing season. Usually I can rely on the weather to find a good training day to do the CTC, but with races and nice weather, this month was a disaster.

I woke up on the last possible day of the month to do this CTC with the feeling that I wouldn’t do the session in the morning.

Luckily, working from home I was super effective, so in the afternoon I was able to break out for an hour, sit down and do the session. With an OTW training planned for the evening, this wasn’t going to be a super-fast session. I aimed for 1:56 average pace for the 4810m and I wanted to do it in a strongly negative split way. The plan was to start at 2:00 pace and accelerate for each 500m.

It was easier than it looks on the graph. I managed a 1:55 average split and this way of doing it felt really nice.

Still, I had tired legs afterwards, and only 2 hours to go to the start of the OTW session.

The quad session was great. Three km warming up, then 3x2km @26-27spm but with a race start. Paddle 2km between the intervals.

Hard work but not sprint race intensity. Good session to try out if our stroke falls apart at these medium stroke rates. We held up pretty well. Stroke rate had a tendency to creep up instead of down, and we ended up rowing the final 500m of each interval at 29-31spm. We are a competitive crew. Once we set the time for the first interval, everybody on board wanted to be close to that time in the subsequent 2 intervals.

|Start|Stop_|Dist_|Time_|_Pace__|avg HR|max HR|Remarks |00000|02897|02897|16:22|02:49.5| 120 | 151 |warming up |02897|04903|02006|07:13|01:47.9| 173 | 183 |1st 2km |07129|09126|01997|07:12|01:48.1| 175 | 186 |2nd 2km |11389|13389|02000|07:21|01:50.3| 176 | 186 |3rd 2km |13389|14533|01144|07:02|03:04.5| 141 | 179 |cooling down

Heart rates were high again. Apparently I was just having a “high heart rate day”, because the perceived effort wasn’t at all like that.

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 2 • Tags: 3x2km, lake, OTW, quad, rowing, training

Jun 30 2015

Monday: Another typical On The Water workout

There would be no point in doing this on the ergometer. This one is really about getting used to high stroke rates in real conditions (wind, waves, chop, traffic, buoys, and wake). Anybody can get up to 40spm on the erg, but getting good boat speed at 38spm in a single is more difficult.

This is another one from my personal list of interesting workouts that I collected over the years. It says:

3x(5×30″)/R8 (1) 30″/30″ @36spm, (2) 30″/45″ @ 38spm, (3) 30″/60″ @40spm

So three sets of 5 times 30 seconds of hard work, with mini rests that get longer for the higher stroke rates. Eight minutes rest between the sets. This is the first time I am doing it this season and I am not sure whether the stroke rates weren’t originally intended for the double or even the quad, so I lowered the target spm by 2.

The conditions: Alternating sun and a few drops of rain, light wind from the north (the nearby weather stations reported something else but in this hill country a weather station 5km away on the other side of the hill can report something entirely different), about 24 degrees C.

Warming up was uneventful. I did 3 10 stroke bursts at slightly higher stroke rate than my normal “warming up” bursts, and I took 3km of warming up instead of 2.

The first set was with slight tailwind, the second set with headwind and the final set with tailwind again. In the first interval of the second set, I had to suddenly steer in another direction because I was on a collision course with a tourist ferry. During the first set I thought I would not be able to survive the second and third sets, but the slightly longer rests combined by the fact that I really got used to the high rates were enough to save me.

Here are the data.
| Dist_ | Pace__ | _SPM | avg HR | max HR | DPS | Remarks | 03161 | 02:38.6 | 20.1 | 136 | 169 | 09.4 | WU | 00140 | 01:47.3 | 32.9 | 159 | 172 | 08.5 | 34spm #1 (32.0 / 1:46.2) | 00136 | 01:50.1 | 33.3 | 174 | 180 | 08.2 | 34 spm #2 (33.9 / 1:48.1) | 00133 | 01:52.7 | 32.8 | 176 | 182 | 08.1 | 34spm #3 (33.9 / 1:49.9) | 00142 | 01:45.4 | 32.9 | 177 | 182 | 08.7 | 34spm #4 (34.0 / 1:42.2) | 00139 | 01:48.2 | 33.0 | 176 | 182 | 08.4 | 34spm #5 (34.0 / 1:48.1) | 01414 | 02:49.7 | 20.1 | 147 | 183 | 08.8 | rest 8min | 00126 | 01:55.4 | 34.6 | 169 | 178 | 07.5 | 36spm #1 (34.0 / 1:54.7), steering | 00137 | 01:49.5 | 34.8 | 176 | 181 | 07.9 | 36spm #2 (36.0 / 1:49.1) | 00134 | 01:51.5 | 35.6 | 178 | 182 | 07.6 | 36spm #3 (36.0 / 1:48.7) | 00143 | 01:48.1 | 34.3 | 177 | 183 | 08.1 | 36spm #4 (35.9 / 1:45.9) | 00137 | 01:49.7 | 35.1 | 179 | 185 | 07.8 | 36spm #5 (33.9 / 1:48.7) | 01425 | 02:48.4 | 19.6 | 152 | 186 | 09.1 | 8 min rest | 00143 | 01:44.7 | 37.1 | 167 | 177 | 07.7 | 38spm #1 (38.0 / 1:43.0) | 00145 | 01:46.7 | 36.4 | 174 | 179 | 07.7 | 38spm #2 (38.0 / 1:43.7) | 00149 | 01:40.6 | 37.1 | 176 | 181 | 08.0 | 38spm #3 (37.9 / 1:39.1) | 00140 | 01:47.0 | 36.6 | 176 | 183 | 07.7 | 38spm #4 ( (36.0 / 1:45.8) | 00137 | 01:49.6 | 36.8 | 175 | 182 | 07.4 | 38spm #5 (37.9 / 1:45.7) | 01916 | 02:59.3 | 20.1 | 155 | 184 | 08.3 | CD

I have removed the data for the mini rests as they are not interesting. In the comments I captured what CrewNerd reports me. In these short intervals it is slightly different from the excel spreadsheet. I guess it gives you a feel for the accuracy. The intervals were just 17 to 19 strokes long, and with one data point per second there are bound to be rounding errors.

Summary:
dist_____|time_____|_pace___|_HR__|_SPM__|_DPS|comment 3161_____|_16:43____|_2:38.6|136|20.1|9.4|warmup 2082_____|_07:31____|_1:48.3|174|34.9|8.0|Main set 1916_____|_11:27____|_2:59.3|155|20.1|8.3|Cool down 4553_____|_24:59____|_2:44.6|159|20.3|9.0|rest meters 11712____|_00:40____|_2:35.4|154|21.0|9.2|_Total

Happy with the paces achieved and even more happy with the stroke rates. During the 36spm and 38spm I really felt how I could work fast and still get reasonable stroke length.

This evening a session in the quad and I may have to do a 5km on the erg immediately after it to keep my promise to do each and every CTC of this year.

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 2 • Tags: L1, lake, OTW, rowing, single, stroke rate, training

Jun 29 2015

What is better, Masters rowing or youth?

Well, in terms of the post-race dinner, Masters clearly win:

Rowing Youth's idea of a good place to stop for dinner on the way home after races — Rowing Youth’s idea of a good place to stop for dinner on the way home after races

Otherwise, Youth rowing is cool:

Beautiful weather at the Racice race course

Yay! A bronze medal for our Boys 15/16 pair

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 3 • Tags: Czech National Championships, OTW, race, Racice, rowing, youth

Jun 27 2015

Saturday part 1: 7x1km

Thursday

Up at 3:20. To airport, catch flight to Brussels. Have Admin Board meeting (interesting part estimated to be around 3% of total content), lunch with board members (110% worth it but not for the sandwiches). Back to airport, catch flight to Vienna. Home at 21:45. Nobody there because Romana, Dominik & Lenka are at the Youth Nationals and Robin stays with my mother in law.

Surprisingly, I didn’t find time for a training.

Friday

At work. It dawned on me that I could have stayed the weekend in The Netherlands and visit some friends there … Next time plan better, Sander!

Afternoon training. The plan was to do Greg’s 7x1km in the double with Radek, but he is recovering from a cold. So we did 10k technique. Catch drills were very useful.

Home to empty house. In bed early.

Dominik made it to the semifinals by finishing third in his heat. Saturday’s semi will decide if he will row Final A or B on Sunday.

Lenka in the double also progressed by being 4th by a bow ball. She will row today and has to be third or fourth to make final B and first or second to make final A. Fifth and sixth place don’t row on Sunday.

Saturday part I

Up at 5:30 and drove to the club for the first workout. 7x1km done in 24/26/28/30/28/26/24 spm.

2000m warming up. I wasn’t sure about the rest intervals so I dialed up 3:00 rest. Turns out I should’ve used a longer rest interval.

Flat water. A slight breeze from the north causing ripples but no chop. Intervals 1, 2, 4, and 6 were rowed in the tailwind. All intervals from standing race start.

Data will follow later. Somehow the image upload refuses service this morning in the mobile WordPress app.

The first 28spm and the 30spm were rowed in 4:00. I lightened up on the pressure in the 30spm interval as I was getting tired and wanted to hit the prescribed stroke rates. Did I say I took very short rests? I barely rowed 250m, then turned around, a quick sip of water and then there were barely 15 seconds left to the starting command.

Session total 12km.

Now I am stretching in the gym and waiting for the mixed quad to arrive. A short row and then to the train station to catch a train to Prague and on to the race track.

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 1 • Tags: lake, OTW, rowing, single, training

Jun 25 2015

Pyramid better than expected

A busy day at work. In the morning a visit from a new Vice President. In the afternoon an interview with a major Czech newspaper. The interview went well, but these things are draining. Our communications guy later told me this lady regularly does interviews with prime ministers and the likes. Glad I didn’t know it beforehand.

Anyway, I arrived at the lake tired and uninspired. This is a problem, because my training plan has a fixed set of workout types per week (steady state, intervals, race prep, etc) but I decide on the spot what kind of workout I will do, depending on how I feel and what I have done earlier in the week. My week starting on Monday, I usually do short intervals on that day, but this week that had been a fierce low rate row. I was hesitating between “long” intervals and “short” intervals.

First thing I did was checking the juniors and men’s training schedule on the notice board in the changing room. Hm, the Juniors had a 3x2km/2km rest at 24/26/28spm that seemed doable with my level of energy.

Unfortunately, when I launched I noticed that there was a sailing race going on in the bottom half of our lake. Doing 2kms would get me in the middle of the race in the final 750m. Rather not.

So I reverted to “Cheops”, the Pete Plan Pyramid session. But I allowed my self to rate down in the 750m and 1km sections.

No speed bursts during the warming up, just not feeling like it. Also, the weather was a transition between calm/cloudy and rainy, with random wind speed and direction changes making it difficult to do anything with decent form. Luckily, there was only a light chop.

The wind was still changing direction every 10 strokes or so, but it seemed to be calmer around Rokle,the upper part of our lake. So I dialled up the session on CrewNerd and started the first 250m with a race start. Start was good at 40spm, then quickly settling down for 30spm. Splits looking good at higher 1:40s or lower 1:50s.

About 15 strokes in I passed another single going in the other direction. It was my double partner Radek coming from Lodni Sporty. I wanted to discuss a training on Friday, so after the 250m I did a hard stop, stopped the session in CrewNerd, quick turn and rowed back to Rokle.

After that I knew of no other way to do the training than to restart the entire session. Well, I kind of enjoy those 250s anyway, so it wasn’t a big problem.

This time, with Radek on my tail, I managed a 1:49.0 average split at 32spm. Not bad.

Then a 500m from a rolling start. I focused on “swing” which enables me to keep the stroke rate high without too much effort. CrewNerd showed paces between 1:55 and 2:05 depending on the wind and reported a total time of 1:56.6 at 30spm, which I was happy with.

A few kids in sailing boats had ventured towards the 1000m mark, so I turned again to do the 750m towards Rokle. Doing this one in a calmer fashion, it turned out to be a 2:02.7 pace in 29spm.

Then the dreaded kilometer. I survived this one by counting strokes. One hundred and sixteen strokes at an average pace of 2:03.7, and 28spm.

The second 750m done in slightly calmer water but headwind. Again a 2:03.7 pace in 28spm.

I was now on the good side of the pyramid and as training usually does, my mental energy was slowly coming back to me. The 500m done in 1:58.6, 30spm and looking forward to the final 250m.

During the training the wind had definitely calmed down, and a few strokes before the start of the final 250m it started to rain heavily. I managed the 250m in 1:49.0 pace at 33spm, counting six sets of five strokes.

The rain was too cold so I had to stop and put on an additional layer before doing a cooling down.

The spreadsheet gives slightly different paces than CrewNerd, which is caused by rounding errors.

|Start|Stop_|Dist_|Time_|Pace__|_SPM__|avg HR|max HR|DPS|Remarks |00000|02056|02056|13:42|03:19.9| 17.9 | 123 | 145 |08.4|warming up |02056|02306|00250|00:55|01:50.2| 31.5 | 146 | 170 |08.6|250m |02306|02510|00205|04:01|09:49.2| 17.3 | 164 | 170 |02.9|chatting with Radek |02510|02760|00250|00:54|01:48.0| 31.4 | 144 | 171 |08.8|250m |02760|03010|00250|01:11|02:22.2| 20.7 | 165 | 172 |10.2|rest |03010|03508|00499|01:57|01:57.3| 29.1 | 173 | 178 |08.8|500m |03508|04019|00510|03:12|03:08.1| 18.6 | 149 | 177 |08.6|rest |04019|04766|00747|03:03|02:02.5| 28.5 | 171 | 181 |08.6|750m |04766|05540|00774|06:09|03:58.4| 17.2 | 138 | 180 |07.3|rest |05540|06537|00997|04:07|02:03.8| 27.4 | 172 | 179 |08.8|1000m |06537|07537|01000|05:38|02:49.0| 18.9 | 147 | 178 |09.4|rest |07537|08285|00748|03:05|02:03.6| 27.8 | 174 | 180 |08.7|750m |08285|09034|00749|04:59|03:19.7| 18.6 | 141 | 180 |08.1|rest |09034|09532|00498|02:00|02:00.4| 28.5 | 166 | 178 |08.7|500m |09532|10038|00506|02:46|02:44.1| 19.5 | 157 | 179 |09.4|rest |10038|10287|00249|00:55|01:50.5| 31.3 | 166 | 176 |08.7|250m |10287|11658|01371|08:45|03:11.5| 19.4 | 140 | 176 |08.1|cooling down

Summary stats:
dist_____|time_____|_pace___|_HR__|_SPM__|_DPS|comment 2056_____|_13:42____|_3:19.9|123|17.9|8.4|warmup 4238_____|_16:56____|_1:59.9|168|28.7|8.7|Main set 1371_____|_08:45____|_3:11.5|140|19.4|8.1|Cool down 3993_____|_27:56____|_3:29.9|148|18.3|7.7|rest meters 11658____|_07:19____|_2:53.2|147|20.5|8.5|_Total

Overall happy with having done this workout. Technique wasn’t bad.

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 0 • Tags: cheops, lake, OTW, pete plan, rowing, single

Jun 24 2015

Quad to Castle and Back

Tuesday evening is quad evening this week (because I will be on a business trip on Thursday).

Before the training, we broke the news to “Turkey” (some of us have nicknames) that we are going to row the quad in Hazewinkel in this constellation. Selection has been made and we will now train without crew changes. Good news for him because his pair partner cannot make it to Belgium.

He was happy as a child. Jumping up and down in the changing room.

“I am going to Belgium! I am going to Belgium! Guys, I am so happy! I gotta tell my wife!”

Training with the quad is interesting. A lot of time spent messing with the boat. When we rowed, we did steady state and technique:

| Dist_ | Time_ | _Pace__ | avg HR | max HR | Remarks | 00180 | 03:58 | 10:59.3 | 080 | 111 | Messing with boat | 02743 | 12:59 | 02:22.0 | 141 | 154 | Warming Up | 00120 | 03:03 | 12:41.4 | 107 | 150 | Discussions | 02564 | 11:26 | 02:13.8 | 149 | 162 | To the castle | 00183 | 05:45 | 15:40.4 | 110 | 153 | Turn & Peeing | 03220 | 12:48 | 01:59.3 | 148 | 160 | Back to the lake | 00182 | 02:19 | 06:22.1 | 117 | 151 | Discussions | 02021 | 09:22 | 02:19.0 | 145 | 156 | Cooling Down

It was interesting to steer through the narrow and windy part of the river with a foot steered quad:

Pictures by Marcela Jakusova https://ssl.panoramio.com/user/2080598?with_photo_id=54959204

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 2 • Tags: OTW, quad, river, rowing, steady state, training

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Uncategorized

Wednesday for Project 2: Mixed Quad Steady State

Tuesday: CTC & 3x2km in the Quad

Monday: Another typical On The Water workout

What is better, Masters rowing or youth?

Saturday part 1: 7x1km

Pyramid better than expected

Quad to Castle and Back

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