Jun 14 2015
I like to take a look at the race course in the morning.
Racing today M2x, MLW 1x and M8+. Daughter Lenka rows the B final in the double and single, A final in the quad, and son Dominik the A final single (12 year old)
Jun 13 2015
Here are a few sessions that I have used in the past to prepare for sprint racing. The dreaded Masters 1000m is really an exercise in lactate suffering and one has to get used to it.
One part of it is to do standalone 1km trials on the water on a regular basis. Feel the bite at 500m.
But for those who like a bit more sophistication, here are some more ideas. They are not my own. I have inherited them from my coaches and keep returning to these in the building up towards the Masters Nationals and Masters Worlds. I am putting them here because I am tired of searching them in old emails. Enjoy!
Session 1: Lactate is the killer
Adding a new layer of misery on top of the 1km.
Warming up
Session 2: To build up lactate levels early, then work through the set pieces.
Needed: A 2km race course with 500m marks
Session 3: Small pyramid (for beginning of taper week)
Warming up
All intervals with rolling start.
20´´/20´´ @ 38spm
40´´/40´´ @ 36spm
60´´/60´´ @ 34spm
40´´/40´´ @ 36spm
20´´ @ 38spm
Cooling Down
Note: This session is very nice in a double and adding 2 strokes to the prescribed stroke rates. Needed: Two scullers who row very well together. The idea is that you become comfortable rating up.
Session 4: Race prep (end of taper week)
Warming up
250m at race pace
500m rest
250m at race pace
500m rest
250m at race pace
Cooling down
Jun 12 2015
Arrived at the lake late, very late. I just had difficulty leaving work, with all the things going on.
High temperature but very low wind, resulting in a lake which was not choppy but there were these longer waves caused by all the recreation boats, tourist ferries, and police speedboats doing “training”. The police training is quite interesting. I think they specialize in rescuing long-legged blond women, because all I see them do is speeding up and down the lake carrying young, blond women.
I heard an anecdote recently, about a sculler from the other club, who was stopped by the police because he was rowing on the part of the river that is forbidden for “sport”. When asked what he was doing, he said he was a drug smuggler who was carrying a load of crystal meth to Veverská Bityška.
Wrong answer, of course.
He had to row back to the club, police following him a few meters behind in their speed boat. This must have been an interesting scene, a relaxed, slowly sculling single sculler, followed by two guys in a police boat. Back the club he had to show is ID, and was thoroughly lectured. That was it.
Anyway, yesterday I was not going to do any smuggling. I decided to do a 1km trial. My plan is to do these regularly to get used to the pain and be able to rate up through it. The dreaded “500m” bite, as so well described in this blog.
Also a good opportunity to experiment with CrewNerds spoken start command.
Warming up: a few 10 stroke sets at higher rates (25, 30, 32spm). Turning in Rokle. Start practice: first one stroke, then two, then three, etc. Then a slow row along the nude beach to the start.
“Ready – Attention – Row”.
I took off at 35spm but quickly lowered it to 31spm. The plan was to hold 1:50, and increase the rate every time I would see a substantial deviation.
The plan was quickly binned. It was very difficult to hold 1:55.
In the second half I started to have difficulty keeping my line and ended up rowing in the buoys a couple of times. In the final 100m I was rowing in the wake of the tourist ferry.
Excuses. Excuses.
The end time was a 3:52. Still a good result given the heat but not the 3:40 that I am chasing this year. Perhaps it isn’t realistic?
|Start|Stop_|Dist_|Time_|Pace__|_SPM__|avg HR|max HR|DPS|Remarks
|00000|03407|03407|21:01|03:05.0| 20.1 | 149 | 178 |08.1|warming up
|03407|03507|00099|00:23|01:55.7| 31.3 | 148 | 172 |08.3|1km, split 1
|03507|03605|00099|00:22|01:51.4| 31.5 | 178 | 180 |08.5|1km, split 2
|03605|03707|00102|00:23|01:53.1| 31.0 | 181 | 182 |08.6|1km, split 3
|03707|03804|00097|00:22|01:53.5| 31.0 | 184 | 185 |08.5|1km, split 4
|03804|03907|00103|00:24|01:56.3| 30.5 | 185 | 185 |08.5|1km, split 5
|03907|04007|00100|00:23|01:55.4| 30.3 | 186 | 186 |08.6|1km, split 6
|04007|04108|00101|00:24|01:59.2| 29.9 | 186 | 186 |08.4|1km, split 7
|04108|04204|00096|00:23|01:59.3| 29.5 | 185 | 186 |08.5|1km, split 8
|04204|04307|00103|00:24|01:56.9| 30.4 | 186 | 186 |08.5|1km, split 9
|04307|04405|00098|00:24|02:01.9| 29.7 | 185 | 185 |08.3|1km, split 10
|04405|10798|06393|36:13|02:49.9| 19.5 | 153 | 185 |09.1|steady state / cooling down
dist_____|time_____|_pace___|_HR__|_SPM__|_DPS|comment
3407_____|_21:01____|_3:05.0|149|20.1|8.1|warmup
0998_____|_03:52____|_1:56.3|180|30.5|8.5|Main set
6393_____|_36:13____|_2:49.9|153|19.5|9.1|Cool down
10798____|_01:06____|_2:49.7|154|19.4|9.1|_Total
During the row I was convinced there was a strong headwind. When I stopped, it didn’t seem so strong anymore. Still the Italian flag on the fireworks pontoon was flying evidence that I had been rowing into a headwind.
After the 1km I needed a few minutes to recollect myself, then I did a 6km steady state. After the row I went for a swim in the lake. It was nice and warm in the top 50cm, but below that it is still quite cold. First time swimming in the lake, this season.
Jun 11 2015
Today I received the results of my VO2 max test on the bicycle. As every year, this slightly old-fashioned Institute for Sports Medicine just gave me a printout printed on a line printer. I am surprised they are still able to purchase the paper for their printer. (Or perhaps they bought sufficient paper for a few decennia at the end of the communist era.) So I spent some time happily typing the values into my spreadsheet.
In contrast to a year ago, the graphs have textbook quality.
So my VO2 max is identical to last year at 56 ml/min/kg. However, I achieved a slightly higher Power at 365W (5.07 W/kg) vs 350W a year ago. The ventilatory threshold seems to be around 150 bpm at 234W. A year ago this looked more like 160bpm at 215W. My max HR during the test was 183bpm, vs 182bpm a year ago. I have seen higher values in races and trainings.
So what’s the conclusion? I guess I optimistically interpret this as a slight improvement. Still, race performance will depend more on being rested and motivated, and on technique, than on my “raw power”.
Not sure how the cycling power correspond to erg power.
Jun 11 2015
Tuesday
I traveled to Brussels on Monday afternoon, arriving at 9pm. No training on Tuesday, just mental endurance training during long meetings. Traveled home in the evening, arriving at 11:30pm.
Wednesday
I had some difficulty to reach the rowing club. It is the annual fireworks festival, and yesterday’s location was our lake. So police was blocking the road to the rowing club, not allowing anyone in, I guess to avoid a traffic and parking chaos. I tried to argue with the police man that I was going to the rowing club and would be parking on private property. He asked if I could prove that … Apparently a bag with sports clothes and rowing club stickers on my car wasn’t enough.
So I had to drive around and use the back road, which took another 25 minutes (because of the traffic chaos created by the police closing off the lake). I was now under time pressure, because it was already past 6pm and I would have a conference call at 7:30.
Steady state in the double with Radek. We just did 2×12 minutes because we didn’t have time for more. The second 12 minute interval was interrupted by a short phone call that I had to take.
After the row, we quickly washed the boat and put it in the rack. After that I had literally 30 seconds left before the start of the conference call.
Still good to be out on the water, even on such a busy day.
| Dist_ | Time_ | Pace__ | _SPM | avg HR | max HR | DPS | Remarks
| 02306 | 12:52 | 02:47.4 | 19.2 | 118 | 140 | 09.3 | WU
| 00450 | 01:59 | 02:12.3 | 18.0 | 121 | 132 | 12.6 | 2min @18spm
| 00482 | 02:00 | 02:04.4 | 19.5 | 141 | 145 | 12.3 | 2min @20spm
| 00492 | 02:00 | 02:02.0 | 21.2 | 157 | 162 | 11.6 | 2min @22spm
| 00700 | 03:00 | 02:08.6 | 18.5 | 150 | 160 | 12.6 | 3min @18spm
| 00477 | 02:01 | 02:06.9 | 19.8 | 151 | 157 | 12.0 | 2min @20spm
| 00235 | 00:59 | 02:05.5 | 20.9 | 159 | 160 | 11.4 | 1min @22spm
| 00114 | 01:00 | 04:22.3 | 17.1 | 144 | 160 | 06.7 | turn
| 00420 | 02:00 | 02:23.0 | 19.1 | 135 | 152 | 11.0 | 2min @18spm
| 00444 | 02:00 | 02:15.1 | 19.4 | 152 | 155 | 11.4 | 2min @20spm
| 00276 | 02:01 | 03:39.1 | 19.0 | 132 | 161 | 07.2 | 2min @22spm, phone call
| 00614 | 03:02 | 02:28.3 | 18.9 | 133 | 155 | 10.7 | 3min @18spm
| 00459 | 02:00 | 02:10.9 | 20.1 | 160 | 164 | 11.4 | 2min @20spm
| 00245 | 01:01 | 02:04.5 | 21.8 | 163 | 168 | 11.0 | 1min @22spm
| 02229 | 13:37 | 03:03.3 | 18.8 | 136 | 168 | 08.7 | CD
Jun 15 2015
Morava Championship – Saturday Race Report
The Championship of Morava is one of three regional championships that were held in the Czech Republic this weekend. Czech rowing is organised by rivers: Vltava (Moldau) which is mainly the Prague clubs plus South Bohemia, Labe (Elbe) which is all clubs north and west of Prague, plus Pardubice in East Bohemia, and Morava which is our region. Your club’s river is determined by the main river that your body of water is connected to.
The championships are closed for out-of-region clubs. The championships are important for the clubs overall national ranking, based on a system where you get 1 point per seat for a last place in the final, 2 points for beating one boat, etc. On these regional championships, clubs use the opportunity to put as many crews on the water as possible. For example, by putting a slow eight on the water, you get 8 points for being last, but your A boat will automatically have 8 points more because it will have beaten an extra boat.
For youth, these championships are a qualifying race for the National Championships. The first 8 boats are qualifying, so youth rowed heats on Saturday and Finals A and B on Sunday.
Saturday
Arriving at the club, I learned that one of our competitors in the double had withdrawn. With 6 boats left we would row the final directly on Sunday morning. No racing for me on Saturday.
So I took the single for a brief 6km. At 9am, it was already 29C and the expected maximum temperature for the day would be 36C. I did the 3x250m race prep workout that I have described in Friday’s blog.
Shortly after that, Lenka and Laura had their heat in the Girls 15/16yr double. They came in fourth, beating one boat, and didn’t qualify for Sunday’s A final. In the B final they would have to be first or second of four boats in order to qualify for the youth Nationals.
During the hottest part of the day the boys and I went swimming for an hour, mainly diving from the dock to cool down. It was great fun.
Lenka was rowing her single heat during mid day. There were some waves and there was a lot of heat, so race seemed to happen in slow-motion. The girls seemed to be doing 25spm. Lenka didn’t manage to qualify for the A final. She beat one girl and was rowing in the pack but she needed a third place. To be honest her motivation for the single is lower than for the bigger boats.
Then I sat in the club house doing some work.
Around 5pm, Dominik races his heat in the boys single (<12yr). He came in third place and qualified himself for the A final and thus also for the Youth Nationals. Goal accomplished.
Finally Romana and I took the double for a 5km row. After that I did a quick try out of the double with my temporary double partner Jiri for Sunday’s races. It was good we did this 4km round because we found out he had to move the rails and set the oarlock height a bit higher.
The day ended with a barbecue. I carefully weighed myself before, so I knew how much I could eat without jeopardizing my LW single final on Sunday.
Adding a few pictures from last week’s races in Prague.
By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 1 • Tags: double, lake, OTW, race, rowing, single