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1kmpace

Apr 30 2015

Last day to complete the nonathlon: 1km SB

Last day to do the last nonathlon distance: the 1000m.

I had about 3 hours left when I sat down to do it. No panic, though. I knew I could do a 1000m in under three hours.

I also knew I wouldn’t beat my PB. We had some visitors from the US yesterday evening and we had to taste some Moravian wine … 😳 Followed by a long working day, and a 1km attempt too short after dinner. It would be hard to come close.

So the plan was to take 10 strong strokes after the start, then settle on 1:40 and keep it as long as possible.

1kmspm
1kmpace

Workout Summary - Apr 30, 2015
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|Watts|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS|-SPI
--|01000|03:20.4|01:40.2|347.9|33.5|175.4|183.0|08.9|10.4
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|Watts|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-|-SPI|Comments
01|00100|00:19.0|01:35.0|408.3|37.9|137.8|160.0|08.3|10.8|
02|00100|00:20.0|01:39.8|352.3|33.1|170.8|175.0|09.1|10.7|
03|00100|00:20.0|01:40.2|347.8|29.9|176.2|177.0|10.0|11.6|
04|00100|00:20.1|01:40.5|345.0|35.8|178.8|180.0|08.3|09.6|
05|00100|00:20.0|01:40.0|350.2|33.0|180.3|181.0|09.1|10.6|
06|00100|00:20.1|01:40.7|342.8|32.8|181.9|182.0|09.1|10.5|
07|00100|00:20.2|01:40.8|341.6|32.7|182.6|183.0|09.1|10.4|
08|00100|00:20.2|01:41.0|340.2|32.7|183.0|183.0|09.1|10.4|
09|00100|00:20.4|01:41.9|331.3|32.4|183.0|183.0|09.1|10.2|
10|00100|00:20.4|01:42.2|327.7|35.2|182.8|183.0|08.3|09.3|

920 nonathlon points. Mission accomplished

So according to nonathlon, my 500m is my best SB with 930 points, followed by my 1000m with 920 points, then the rest. My worst SB according to nonathlon is my 60 min effort with 904 points.

According to the Concept2 ranked pieces, my 5km SB is my best at 92nd percentile. The 1000m is among the worst with 84th percentile.

I also tried to fit a “Paul’s law” like curve through my SB data. The fit gave a 4.8 seconds split increase per doubling of the distance. My 500m, 6k, 60min and half marathon are on the fitted curve, while my 1km and 2km are slower. That kind of corresponds to my feeling. I should be able to do faster times on the 1km and 2km. By about 2 to 5 seconds.

Something to try for next Erg season.

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radek1

Apr 29 2015

Steady state in the double

A first row with Radek. We launched at 6, took my double “Orca” on a lake that was relatively quiet, but not entirely without chop.

Pick Drills to warm up.

There was another double on the lake, who launched together with us. As they have been training together forever, and this was the first time in ages that Radek and I sit together, we turned a little earlier to avoid rowing next to them. Rowing next to them would probably have woken up our competitive spirits and would ruin what was supposed to be a good technique / steady state workout.

Did 2x12min, which is one lake length down, one lake length up. As we had turned early and the first leg was with tailwind, I ran out of lake with 15 seconds to go. Tant pis.


| Dist_ | Time_ | _Pace__ | _SPM___ | avg HR | max HR | DPS | Remarks
| 01993 | 13:37 | 03:25.0 | 19.5 | 124 | 152 | 07.5 | warming up
| 00448 | 02:00 | 02:14.0 | 17.9 | 130 | 141 | 12.5 | tailwind, 18spm
| 00477 | 02:01 | 02:06.9 | 19.6 | 146 | 153 | 12.1 | 20spm
| 00483 | 01:59 | 02:03.3 | 20.9 | 154 | 157 | 11.6 | 22spm
| 00667 | 03:01 | 02:15.8 | 18.1 | 146 | 154 | 12.2 | 18spm
| 00470 | 01:59 | 02:06.6 | 20.2 | 154 | 159 | 11.7 | 20spm
| 00203 | 01:01 | 02:30.3 | 22.3 | 160 | 162 | 09.0 | 22spm, ran out of lake
| 00145 | 01:10 | 04:00.6 | 19.9 | 131 | 160 | 06.3 | rest
| 00440 | 01:59 | 02:15.3 | 18.2 | 137 | 148 | 12.2 | headwind, 18spm
| 00447 | 02:00 | 02:14.2 | 19.7 | 154 | 157 | 11.4 | 20spm
| 00448 | 02:00 | 02:14.0 | 21.3 | 162 | 166 | 10.5 | 22spm
| 00631 | 03:00 | 02:22.7 | 18.7 | 160 | 166 | 11.2 | 18spm
| 00446 | 02:00 | 02:14.4 | 20.2 | 164 | 166 | 11.0 | 20spm
| 00234 | 01:00 | 02:08.0 | 22.5 | 168 | 170 | 10.4 | 22spm
| 04063 | 24:29 | 03:00.8 | 18.3 | 137 | 170 | 09.1 | technique & Cooldown

Summary:

dist_____|time_____|_pace___|_HR__|_SPM__|_DPS|comment
1993_____|_13:37____|_3:25.0|124|19.5|7.5|warmup
5393_____|_24:00____|_2:13.5|152|19.6|11.5|Main set
4063_____|_24:29____|_3:00.8|137|18.3|9.1|Cool down
0145_____|_01:10____|_4:00.6|131|19.9|6.3|rest meters
11594____|_03:16____|_2:43.7|141|18.3|10.0|_Total

On the tailwind leg, the other double seemed to be slightly faster than we, rowing about 500m behind us. On the headwind leg, even though they were doing 26spm and we did 18spm, we had the same speed. Nice!

Then we did 4km of cooling down with technique drills.

“King of the mountain” followed by “Pimanov” (aka Top Quarter)

Pause after tap-down

Square blade rowing

I asked them how it went. They were happy that they had done a “steady state” 6km at 26spm. Interesting. When I do a 6km I count it as “hard distance”. May be just a nomenclature confusion.

radek1

radek2

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500m

Apr 28 2015

How to earn a beer (and some nonathlon points)

I have a few days left to catch up on my nonathlon scores. For those who don’t know, the nonathlon (http://www.nonathlon.com/) is an annual erg competition where your performance is measured against an age and weight determined standard. In this way, everybody can compete against everybody. Also, it’s a good way to make sure you make do your tests on all the Concept2 ranking distances.

Unfortunately, today was a long day with business in Prague. Had to get up at 5:30 for what ended up to be a 3 hour drive (doing the final 10km in a nerve wrecking 40 minutes). Then a full day of business meetings, followed by a 3 hour drive home (doing the first 10km in 30 minutes because of an accident) through pouring rain with an outside temperature of +3C, lots of traffic in hilly countryside on a bumpy highway with lots of road construction.

Then had to bring the company car back to the office, get my own car and drive home.

I was ready to sit on the sofa and drink a beer.

Well, I might just as well do a quick row before that.

Looked up my PB (1:31.6 from 2011/2012). When I am ready to do short sprinty work, I am usually in full OTW season swing, so I rarely do these on the erg. Well, this year I want a >900 nonathlon score on all ranking distances, so I better get going.

Not sure where I would end up, but decided to just fly and see and see where I would die and how far I would have to limp home.

Warming up consisted of a brisk 2000m with a 2x 10 stroke intervals (at 1:50 and 1:40) and a 5 stroke interval at 1:33.

Dialled up the 500m. Didn’t give it much more thought, did a race start and off we go.

stroke 1: 2:05
stroke 2: 1:50
stroke 3: 1:35
stroke 4: 1:26

Now keep hanging on below 1:30 as long as possible.

That turned out to be around 300m.

Then the average pace started to creep up but until the last stroke I believed it could be a PB.

It wasn’t to be: 1:31.7. One tenth of a second above.

Still think I deserve the beer (and the sofa).


Workout Summary - Apr 28, 2015
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|Watts|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS|-SPI
--|00500|01:31.7|01:31.7|454.3|38.6|167.5|181.0|08.5|11.8
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|Watts|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-|-SPI|Comments
01|00100|00:18.1|01:30.4|473.9|39.8|130.4|155.0|08.3|11.9|
02|00100|00:17.9|01:29.7|484.3|36.8|169.2|176.0|09.1|13.2|
03|00100|00:18.0|01:29.9|481.7|40.0|177.9|179.0|08.3|12.0|
04|00100|00:18.5|01:32.4|443.1|38.9|180.3|181.0|08.3|11.4|
05|00100|00:19.2|01:35.9|396.9|37.5|181.0|181.0|08.3|10.6|

Fly'n'die
Fly’n’die
Fly'n'die in terms of S P M
Fly’n’die in terms of S P M

1km cooling down brought today’s total to exactly 3500m on the erg and 412km in the car. 😀 😀 😀

The result made me think about how to do the 1km attempt on Thursday. Could I do a 500m in say 1:33, then follow with a 1:43 500m and still end up with a good 1km score? I guess a better way is to do 10 strokes full out, then settle for PB pace.

Now on to register for the Slovak Championships in Piest’any. A 1km Masters 1x for me on May 10. My son Dominik will run his first race in the boy’s single (up to 12 year olds). His reaction to the news: “Yes!”

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minutovky

Apr 27 2015

Finding Length in a Black Hole

This morning’s workout was scheduled for 6:15 AM (defined as time we push off the dock). Lately it is no problem for me to get up this early. I find that after about 7 hours of sleep I wake up with upper back pain. I have no problems whatsoever during the day or during workouts. Only in bed. Perhaps time to buy new mattresses.

This morning had a 20x1min/R1min on the menu. Last week, Boris suggested a 30″/30″ which I mistakenly remembered as “30 strokes on / 30 strokes off”, which is awfully close to 20x1min/1min which is a popular workout at my rowing club.

Tried to talk the Masters double into doing it with me but they had 4x5min or something like that.

The warming up was a bit shorter than normal because I didn’t want to row into a field of debris that was floating around the nude beach area.

I was a bit scared by this workout, and was afraid I would bail out early. Didn’t happen, actually.

It was 6 intervals from the nude beach to Sirka. Then 6 intervals headwind back to the nude beach. After these 12 intervals I was determined to finish the set. Six more intervals with tailwind, then two times one minute into headwind and I would be ready for the day. Somehow I got motivated by trying to better the number of meters for each interval.

It took me 16 intervals to figure out that I could lengthen the stroke a bit at the catch, row 29.5spm instead of 30spm and find quite a lot of boat speed in this way. Of course you have to have the fitness to sustain these long strokes. It doesn’t really show from the numbers but interval 17 was going to the wrong side of 2:00 pace until I slightly lengthened the stroke, which in 3 strokes brought the pace to 1:56. It may of course have been the GPS inaccuracy fooling me.

The weather was OK but the lake was again playing tricks, adding some breeze that created some waves when we started our workout. When we finished, the lake went to calm and flat again.

Here’s the “rollercoaster” picture (HR, speed and position in one Google Maps):
minutovky

I had to change my spreadsheet to allow for so many intervals. Numbers 7, 13 and 19 were problematic because there I had literally one minute to drink a bit, turn the boat and row out of (or into) the 2k course:

| Dist_ | Time_ | _Pace__ | _SPM___ | avg HR | max HR | DPS | Remarks
| 01934 | 11:44 | 03:02.0 | 18.6 | 123 | 150 | 08.9 | warming up
| 00250 | 00:59 | 01:57.9 | 29.2 | 140 | 155 | 08.7 | #1 tailwind
| 00256 | 01:00 | 01:57.3 | 30.1 | 148 | 151 | 08.5 | #2
| 00264 | 01:01 | 01:55.6 | 29.3 | 150 | 153 | 08.8 | #3
| 00256 | 01:00 | 01:57.0 | 29.0 | 150 | 163 | 08.8 | #4
| 00249 | 00:59 | 01:58.7 | 30.1 | 153 | 154 | 08.4 | #5
| 00247 | 01:00 | 02:01.6 | 28.3 | 156 | 164 | 08.7 | #6
| 00241 | 01:01 | 02:06.4 | 29.2 | 152 | 164 | 08.1 | #7 headwind
| 00241 | 01:00 | 02:04.7 | 29.2 | 158 | 168 | 08.2 | #8
| 00234 | 00:59 | 02:05.9 | 28.7 | 160 | 168 | 08.3 | #9
| 00238 | 01:00 | 02:05.9 | 28.7 | 163 | 171 | 08.3 | #10
| 00238 | 01:01 | 02:08.4 | 28.9 | 161 | 169 | 08.1 | #11
| 00234 | 01:01 | 02:10.4 | 27.7 | 160 | 167 | 08.3 | #12
| 00249 | 00:59 | 01:58.4 | 29.2 | 157 | 166 | 08.7 | #13 tailwind
| 00250 | 01:00 | 01:59.8 | 29.1 | 160 | 168 | 08.6 | #14
| 00255 | 01:00 | 01:57.6 | 29.2 | 163 | 171 | 08.7 | #15
| 00260 | 01:01 | 01:57.5 | 29.3 | 158 | 169 | 08.7 | #16
| 00251 | 00:59 | 01:57.6 | 28.9 | 162 | 171 | 08.8 | #17 found stroke length
| 00255 | 01:00 | 01:57.6 | 29.4 | 163 | 173 | 08.7 | #18
| 00232 | 01:00 | 02:09.1 | 28.5 | 159 | 167 | 08.2 | #19 headwind & turn
| 00250 | 01:01 | 02:02.2 | 30.7 | 168 | 176 | 08.0 | #20
| 02143 | 12:35 | 02:56.2 | 18.8 | 142 | 176 | 09.1 | cooldown

Short summary:

dist_____|time_____|_pace___|_HR__|_SPM__|_DPS|comment
1934_____|_11:44____|_3:02.0|123|18.6|8.9|warmup
4950_____|_20:01____|_2:01.3|157|29.1|8.5|Main set
2143_____|_12:35____|_2:56.2|142|18.8|9.1|Cool down
3046_____|_18:59____|_3:07.0|159|19.1|8.4|rest meters
12073____|_03:19____|_2:37.3|149|21.1|9.0|_Total

According to Greg’s equation this is a Black Hole workout. I disagree. My legs strongly disagree, and my stroke length is very happy I did this workout.

Pretty graphs:

Pretty graph with pace
Pretty graph with pace

Pretty graph with SPM
Pretty graph with SPM

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IMG_0221

Apr 26 2015

Barefoot 2000m erg season’s best & OTW 2km row

I chickened out of the 2km attempt yesterday. I wanted to do it at home, but hay fever and other excuses got in the way.

So I had to do it today. I chose to row it on an erg at the rowing club, before my row with Romana. I asked her to cheer.

I was lucky. There were a few other Masters rowers in the weights room.

Too bad I forgot to bring my training shoes. I should permanently store an old pair in my locker at the rowing club. Why not?

Well, I would row this one barefoot, then. I did a 2km warming up with a few bursts, then dialed up a 2km, took a deep breath and I was off.

Romana was chatting with the 2 guys in the weights room. What, she was supposed to cheer!

The plan was to go at 1:44-1:45 pace and see where it ends up. First 500m was without any problems, in 1:44.
Second 500m went by and I was still seeing the 6:55 predicted end time on the monitor.

The problems started in the third one. Luckily, that was about the time when Romana finally came over to stand behind me and cheer. I even saw a few 1:43s when she started to cheer me.

But it was very painful. After 750 to go I had to close my eyes.

At 500m to go I had three people cheering me. Luckily. I was very close to handing down.

Come on, 350 to go!

I was rowing with eyes closed and listening to the instructions, which were telling me to quit the 1:47s and bring back the 1:45s.

Come on, the last minute!

I started counting strokes. Lost count.

250m to go! I started counting again.

Lost count.

Last ten strokes!

Five strokes!

Collapse.

I was delighted to see a sub 7 time, but a bit disappointed after the hope giving 6:56 that I saw during the first km.

Well, as a Season’s Best I will take it! Also just above 900 nonathlon points, which was my target. Still have to do a 500m and a 1km before the end of the month.

Then we had a delightful 8km steady state in the double.

I took the picture from my home erg, transferring the result to it using the log card.

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roeivideo 009

Apr 25 2015

Video day

Today I didn’t train. Instead, I was the computer/video guy making videos of Romana’s girls. Here is daughter Lenka on stroke with Laura on bow position, our 15/16 girls crew:

The junior girls have a few quite good moments towards the end of this video:

Music Credits:

First Video: Chris Zabriskie, “Is that you or are you you”: http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Chris_Zabriskie/Reappear/04_-_Is_That_You_or_Are_You_You

Second Video: Kristin Hersh, “Crooked”: http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Kristin_Hersh/Crooked

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IMG_0204

Apr 25 2015

Nature being ironic

You know you’re an old irritating dad when you drive to the rowing club with your grumpy teenage daughter and put the Talking Heads on with loudspeakers on max:

TAKE ME TO THE RIVER! DROP ME IN THE WATER!!

You know nature is being ironic when there are sailing races on the lake today and the lake looks like this:


Oily water and sun. Last week there was the spring regatta: storm, waves, rain and cold weather:

20150408_1xcvk01

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