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May 8 2015

Day before the race

       Our hotel.  

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adam

May 8 2015

Double Clinic

Tuesday

Meetings in Brussels. No training.

Wednesday

More meetings in Brussels. At 3pm, my old friend Arjan picked me up and we drove to Eindhoven, through rainstorms.

When we arrived at ERV Beatrix, my old club, the rain and wind had disappeared. The Eindhovens Kanaal was quiet as always. We took the club double that we always used to row in, adjusted the footstretchers and off we went.

We hadn’t rowed together in 7 years. The secret plan is to start in the C category at the Masters Worlds. First 2km warming up and drills. Then 4×12 minutes “L4” style:


| Dist_ | Time_ | _Pace__ | _SPM___ | avg HR | max HR | DPS | Remarks
| 04020 | 17:05 | 02:07.5 | 19.7 | 125 | 166 | 12.0 |
| 00450 | 02:00 | 02:13.3 | 18.1 | 137 | 155 | 12.4 |
| 00461 | 02:01 | 02:11.3 | 19.8 | 155 | 160 | 11.5 |
| 00481 | 02:00 | 02:04.8 | 20.9 | 158 | 161 | 11.5 |
| 00622 | 03:00 | 02:24.8 | 18.3 | 148 | 161 | 11.3 |
| 00456 | 02:00 | 02:11.7 | 19.6 | 150 | 159 | 11.6 |
| 00231 | 01:00 | 02:09.8 | 20.8 | 158 | 167 | 11.1 |
| 00240 | 00:59 | 02:03.0 | 21.9 | 165 | 169 | 11.1 |
| 00428 | 02:00 | 02:20.3 | 18.6 | 157 | 167 | 11.5 |
| 00451 | 02:01 | 02:14.1 | 20.0 | 153 | 164 | 11.2 |
| 00477 | 02:00 | 02:05.8 | 20.7 | 162 | 165 | 11.5 |
| 00646 | 03:00 | 02:19.4 | 19.1 | 155 | 163 | 11.3 |
| 00447 | 02:00 | 02:14.2 | 20.3 | 157 | 164 | 11.0 |
| 00065 | 01:00 | 07:44.1 | 12.4 | 155 | 160 | 05.2 |
| 00965 | 09:52 | 05:06.8 | 18.4 | 135 | 153 | 05.3 |
| 00419 | 01:59 | 02:22.1 | 20.3 | 148 | 154 | 10.4 |
| 00408 | 02:00 | 02:27.1 | 18.2 | 150 | 153 | 11.2 |
| 00441 | 02:01 | 02:17.1 | 19.1 | 151 | 163 | 11.5 |
| 00672 | 03:00 | 02:14.0 | 19.8 | 161 | 167 | 11.3 |
| 00431 | 02:00 | 02:19.1 | 18.3 | 151 | 158 | 11.8 |
| 00216 | 00:59 | 02:16.4 | 19.7 | 155 | 159 | 11.2 |
| 00220 | 01:01 | 02:18.9 | 19.8 | 156 | 158 | 10.9 |
| 00344 | 01:59 | 02:52.9 | 20.8 | 150 | 164 | 08.3 |
| 00412 | 02:01 | 02:26.9 | 18.2 | 149 | 157 | 11.2 |
| 00437 | 02:00 | 02:17.2 | 19.2 | 155 | 160 | 11.4 |
| 00524 | 03:00 | 02:51.7 | 21.1 | 160 | 169 | 08.3 |
| 00171 | 02:00 | 05:51.3 | 18.9 | 125 | 128 | 04.5 |
| 00152 | 01:00 | 03:16.9 | 19.7 | 122 | 127 | 07.7 |
| 02481 | 15:01 | 03:01.6 | 20.8 | 136 | 169 | 07.9 |

I guess the short summary is more useful:

dist_____|time_____|_pace___|_HR__|_SPM__|_DPS|comment
4020_____|_17:05____|_2:07.5|125|19.7|12.0|warmup
7813_____|_37:04____|_2:22.3|152|19.3|10.9|Main set
2481_____|_15:01____|_3:01.6|136|20.8|7.9|Cool down
3453_____|_22:49____|_3:18.2|144|19.1|7.8|rest meters
17767____|_31:59____|_2:35.3|144|18.6|10.4|_Total

It was good fun. Arjan remarked that he was feeling the zen of rowing again, so that made me happy. We discussed technique a lot and were working really hard and concentrated to get our strokes together.

What worked: We managed to get a nice swelling stroke and make the boat run. Arjan managed to time the finish better with me.

What didn’t work: We didn’t stick to the prescribed stroke rates. Instead, they tended to drift up by 1 or 2 spm. Sloppy tap-downs were not solved successfully. He didn’t pay me 1200 EURO for a successful rowing clinic. May not become a rich freelance rowing trainer. 🙂

What I would do differently next time: Nothing I can think of now!

I was scared by how narrow the Eindhovens Kanaal is. I guess I have really become a lake dweller:

A sculler on the Eindhovens Kanaal

Then we drove to his home in Weert, picked up some Chinese take away for dinner (another traditional thing that we used to do in our student days) and ended up spending a nice evening with his family.

arjan

Noisy GPS data because I had left the XGPS160 at home.

bea

Thursday

Took the 6:29 train to Amsterdam.

No rowing training but something that may come in useful in rowing as well. For a change I can write about my business trip. This day I was in a coaching training at Honeywell in Amsterdam. The training was given by Inside Out, and it was excellent. Their founder is a tennis coach, and the guy who was training us was a qualified ski coach. So of course I chatted with him about coaching and self coaching in sports. It was very energizing.

A very simple thing that works is to write down after each session what worked, what didn’t work and what you would do differently next time. May try to implement it in my blogs.

At the end of the day I took the 8pm flight to Vienna and the take off from Amsterdam was great. The weather was very clear and beautiful, the plane flew right over the area where I grew up and of course with my seat nr 6A I had a fantastic view of Amsterdam, Diemen, Weesp, Naarden, the IJmeer, Gooimeer, IJsselmeer, all the way up to the Noord Holland and the Wadden Sea. An unexpected present.

The view was something like this, but much more beautiful:

Amsterdam and Gooi view from plane
Amsterdam and Gooi view from plane

Arrived home at midnight.

Now I need to pack for three days of racing and drive to Piestany.

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20tempos

May 4 2015

Low visibility and race pace training

The week started quite interestingly. At least it made me produce some nice paces in today’s workout:
racepace

But back to the story. On Sunday evening, after we had finished watching a film on DVD, I made the mistake to check my email. I shouldn’t have done that. Why do I make the same mistake over and over?

There was an email about next week, telling me the club had signed me up for
– Masters Single
– Open category quad
– Open category eight

Damn! Looking at the program the open quad is less than 2 hours before my single race. I cannot do a full out 2k, then a full out 1k in the single a few hours later. Also, my idea of the weekend was to enjoy watching the races. Do the masters quad on Saturday, the master single on Sunday, but mainly watch my children race. Now I would be zipping up and down the race course trying to be in time for the start and I would miss all the youth action.

I did send out a few quite bitchy emails.

Things got worse.

I am usually a bit grumpy getting up at 5:30 to row at 6, but this time I was really in a foul mood. Seeing the mist on the lake didn’t really help, but at least the water would be perfectly flat.

It was even to be worse.

Arriving at the rowing club, I noticed a text message from my double partner that he was sick. The message was sent at 5:30, but my phone is on night mode so I didn’t register the message.

With my single already prepared for transport (because I will be out on business travel for the rest of the week), I had nothing to row on and would be stuck to the erg.

Eda arrived and I started discussing how he could have put me in a Men’s quad and eight without even consulting me.

Turns out it was supposed to be a Masters quad and a Masters eight, both rowed on Saturday, while my single race is on Sunday. Today they will correct the registration.

He also allowed me to row in his single LiduÅ¡ka, so all was good. This single is built for 95kg, so a little big, but with the flat water it wouldn’t be too much of a problem.

It was really low visibility today. Rowing on the Albano, I could see 5 buoys behind me, so that is 50m, not more. In the middle of the lake I couldn’t see any of the banks. Just rowing in white milk. There was no other traffic on the lake at this early hour, and the double and I decided to row the same workout next to each other to avoid any collisions.

The workout was 20 strokes “on”, 20 strokes “off”.

In the first half, from Rokle to Sirka, I kept the stroke rate “low” (30-31spm) and tried to work on sending the boat. I think that worked out pretty well. The double was slightly faster than I but in the 20 strokes they never gained more than 1 boat length. I used the 20 stroke breaks to get back next to them.

Turning, and some rest. Now, I thought, they will let the dogs out.

And they did. But I had positioned myself half a boat length ahead of them and was able to counter their 36-37spm bursts, first doing my own 34spm, but as the end of the workout was nearing I had to go up.

I did see 40spm on CrewNerd. And I did see a consistent 10 stroke interval of 1:44s. Happy with that. I think I had to work harder than the double but I was able to match their speed. A good training to rate up.

20tempos
20tempotempos

No detailed statistics today. We were rowing this on stroke count rather than on time and I don’t know how to get that from CrewNerd.

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May 3 2015

How can you go faster? Try slowing down… thoughts on Super Slow Motion Training

Great drill video here, and a very true blog post.

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IMG_0222

May 3 2015

Race Preparation

We are rowing the Slovak Championships, next week in Piestany, Slovakia. It may turn out to be an interesting regatta, with participants from the Czech Republic, Austria, Hungary and of course Slovakia.

It has all categories in one weekend, from 12 year olds rowing a 500m to Elite, to Masters rowing a 1km.

This lovely Spa town will be the site of my son Dominik’s first rowing race. He is taking the preparation very seriously. He is just a beginner in the single, but now he refuses to take a single light stroke during his trainings.

Let’s hope the weather will allow him to row at all.

Here are some pictures from yesterday’s training.

IMG_0223

IMG_0222

As you can see it needs a few more kilometers, but the most important thing now is that he is thoroughly enjoying it.

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saunove-centrum-Infinit-Maximus-3

May 3 2015

Data annoyances and wellness

Just checking if this cool video works. Looking forward to following this guy:

Saturday

Went out in the single for a steady state workout. Everything seemed to work against me. I had terribly tired legs after Friday’s workouts. There was a nasty chop. Did I mention I was tired? My back hurt. I didn’t seem to be able to find my light and fast stroke. CrewNerd issues. First, the XGPS160 stopped after 4km, which I discovered just after the turn and I didn’t want to interrupt my rowing, so I rowed 4km without tracking. Then I switched the XGPS back on, closed CrewNerd, restarted it, but CrewNerd didn’t seem to take the high update rate of the XGPS. I can see that on the screen. When it works, the distance rowed is increasing in 1 meter intervals and I can see the pace change during the stroke. When it doesn’t work, the distance rowed is increasing in steps of 2 or 3 meters, and the pace displayed changes every other stroke.

I have the new version of CrewNerd and I am duly sending bug reports to the author of the software, who is very active and responsive, so I am expecting this is a bug that will be solved in the next couple of weeks.

However, on a day when everything seems to cost extra energy, I find this annoying. 4km of rowing missing in my data. Data in two separate files. Not good for this data and automation junkie.

Need to start using the Garmin forerunner again as a backup scenario. It has never failed me and seems to have more accurate position data than the iphone without the XGPS160.

I made a salad with green asparagus and lamb steaks from the charcoal grill for dinner. Picture will follow once Lenka sends it to me.

Sunday

Went out in a double with Romana in considerable chop. The plan was to do 4x6min but it turned out there were sailing races. We couldn’t go on the river because it is officially forbidden to go there so you have to do that only on times when the ferries aren’t out. On the lake, we had only 500m of the 2k to our disposal because of the sailing races.

My father called me in the middle of the row and I had to take it. My first phone call from the middle of the lake.

Funnily, this was one of the rare outings where Romana actually did enjoy rowing in rough conditions. So we did do a race start and a few fast strokes, then binned the session, promising ourselves that we would finish it in the erg room.

We didn’t do that. We went to the wellness in hotel Maximus instead:

saunove-centrum-Infinit-Maximus-3

It’s a really great wellness, with lots of nice saunas around a little lake with ice cold water to swim in after the sauna. The sauna complex is 500m from the rowing club. So I took an unexpected rest and recovery day. I really enjoyed the sauna. Feel very refreshed now.

The data annoyances continue. I am actually surprised at how low my HR was during the 5km row in the double, but looking at the values and steps in the HR, I am really suspecting something is not right.

dubbeltwee dubbel

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antiracistaction

May 1 2015

18km on a day when the police used tear gas in our town

We had a holiday today, so we all did two trainings.

In the morning, Romana had to coach the girls, but because one of the launches still isn’t repaired, we went on the double rowing next to them. The girls were on singles, and they did 4x6min at 24spm. Romana and I just did technique and rowed next to them.

Then we had a few hours break. I used it to do an online training that I was due, in the club house, drinking hot tea and eating sandwiches.

At 1pm, Romana took the launch and did a technique workout with the girls.

At 2:30, I stroked a quad. We did 20x30sec/30sec rest. It was the first time we were out in a quad, this season, so it was quite a challenge to do this workout. We did it anyway, because we are thinking about registering for the Slovak Open of next weekend.


| Dist_ | Time_ | _Pace__ | _SPM___ | avg HR | max HR | DPS | Remarks
| 02270 | 19:56 | 04:23.5 | 22.7 | 103 | 167 | 05.0 | warming up
| 00150 | 00:31 | 01:43.1 | 33.4 | 155 | 167 | 08.7 | #1
| 00144 | 00:29 | 01:40.5 | 32.9 | 169 | 173 | 09.1 | #2
| 00149 | 00:31 | 01:44.1 | 33.8 | 171 | 176 | 08.5 | #3
| 00148 | 00:30 | 01:41.4 | 33.5 | 171 | 176 | 08.8 | #4
| 00145 | 00:29 | 01:40.1 | 34.9 | 174 | 177 | 08.6 | #5
| 00152 | 00:31 | 01:41.8 | 33.1 | 173 | 178 | 08.9 | #6
| 00139 | 00:29 | 01:44.3 | 33.8 | 172 | 177 | 08.5 | #7
| 00145 | 00:30 | 01:43.4 | 33.7 | 172 | 177 | 08.6 | #8
| 00154 | 00:31 | 01:40.8 | 33.2 | 173 | 177 | 09.0 | #9
| 00142 | 00:29 | 01:41.9 | 34.1 | 173 | 178 | 08.6 | #10
| 00151 | 00:31 | 01:42.3 | 33.1 | 173 | 177 | 08.9 | #11
| 00153 | 00:31 | 01:41.6 | 31.9 | 169 | 174 | 09.3 | #12
| 00147 | 00:30 | 01:42.3 | 32.1 | 171 | 175 | 09.1 | #13
| 00142 | 00:29 | 01:42.0 | 32.6 | 173 | 177 | 09.0 | #14
| 00152 | 00:31 | 01:41.6 | 32.4 | 175 | 178 | 09.1 | #15
| 00138 | 00:29 | 01:44.9 | 32.9 | 176 | 179 | 08.7 | #16
| 00145 | 00:30 | 01:43.7 | 32.7 | 176 | 179 | 08.9 | #17
| 00152 | 00:31 | 01:41.7 | 32.9 | 177 | 180 | 09.0 | #18
| 02406 | 14:05 | 02:55.6 | 19.1 | 148 | 158 | 08.9 | cooling down

Short summary:

dist_____|time_____|_pace___|_HR__|_SPM__|_DPS|comment
2270_____|_19:56____|_4:23.5|103|22.7|5.0|warmup
2649_____|_09:02____|_1:42.3|172|33.1|8.9|Main set
2406_____|_14:05____|_2:55.6|148|19.1|8.9|Cool down
2499_____|_15:59____|_3:11.9|168|24.3|6.4|rest meters
9825____|_59:02____|_3:00.3|143|19.6|8.5|_Total

parovka1

On CrewNerd, I saw 1:31 to 1:35 pace towards the end of the 30 seconds.

While we were steaming up and down the lake in our quad, our daugher Lenka was in the center of the town. We later heard there was a demonstration of Neo Nazis. About 2000 citizens organized an anti demonstration and blocked the Nazi marching into a part of town inhabited by many Roma minority people.

The police used tear gas on the citizens and arrested more than 50 of them.

arrestatie

antiracistaction

Luckily, Lenka was in the shopping area, a few hundred meters away from the tear gas. We called her that the trams weren’t running from the train station, so she had to take another route home.

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