Apr 22 2018
They chartered me for the ladies’ eight, who were missing a lady. So I happily rowed with them. Mostly low race stuff, and two pieces of approximately 500m. The stroke had a tendency to rate down to 16spm, but many of the crew had a hard time following her. I had a great time anyway. I like rowing in eights.
Apr 19 2018
Monday and Tuesday – no training. It’s a tough week to find time to train. My parents are visiting. On Tuesday, it was my daughter’s 18th birthday. On Thursday, it will be my birthday.
The weather is great and we visited one of the attractions of Brno, the Villa Tugendhat, a 1930 building by Mies van der Rohe, a famous architect.
Yesterday, we went to the rowing club so my parents could watch the rowing training of their grandsons, and I made use of the opportunity to sneak in a 4x2km/5min. The last time I had done this session OTW was in August.
Interestingly, in warm water and with little wind, I managed a 247W average power and a 2:10.2 average 500m pace.
Today, the workout summary is:
Workout Summary - media/20180418-1525480o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|08000|36:17.0|02:16.1|231.9|26.2|173.2|183.0|08.4
W-|08000|36:17.0|02:16.1|231.9|26.2|173.2|183.0|08.4
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|183.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|02000|08:28.1|02:07.0|238.2|25.6|169.2|179.0|09.2
01|02000|09:39.9|02:25.0|234.4|26.0|173.1|179.0|08.0
02|02000|08:32.5|02:08.1|227.9|26.6|175.5|181.0|08.8
03|02000|09:36.9|02:24.2|227.4|26.6|174.8|183.0|07.8
So a 231W average and a 2:16.1 average 500m pace. It was quite choppy, which usually reduces the power a bit (at same perceived rate of exertion), and the water was colder. So at 93% of the power, compared to last August, I rowed at 96% of the pace. Seems pretty consistent. I was expecting the average pace drop to be larger. I am thinking that water depth is important too. The lake in Trebon (where I rowed last August’s 4x2km) is shallow with a sandy bottom. The Brno lake is deep, with a rocky bottom.
When I downloaded the charts, I was annoyed that I had forgotten that the NK SpeedCoach doesn’t record the rest strokes when you program intervals with rest.
The slide show shows the technique charts that I found interesting. Catch angle influenced by head vs tailwind and by chop. The same thing can be seen for effective drive length. Wash was gradually increasing during the workout, as I got more tired.
This was a nice, pretty intensive workout. I had fun. It’s nice to row at 26/27spm, 80% of maximum effort, and cover the 8-9 minute effort with confidence. Also, there were sailboats and other scullers out on the water, so I had to pass people and watch traffic, which makes time go by so fast, in comparison with the ergometer.
I am adding to pictures from the weekend, which I forgot to attach to the blog. One of a coach who got towed in on Saturday morning. Engine problems with the launch, on the middle of the lake. The water guards told us he was their first “rescue” of the year. Another picture showing the mirror flat water on Sunday, which quickly became choppy while we were changing clothes. An old trick of our rowing lake.
Apr 18 2018
Romana went out in the double with her partner Veronika and I took the single. I was looking forward to this workout, and a little worried about the prescribed stroke rates:
3x(3x2min/2min)/6min, two minutes are 1 minute at 28spm, 1 minute at 30spm
The coach always writes stroke rates for bigger boats, so for a single we are supposed to subtract 2. Still, I haven’t spent much time at stroke rates above 25spm this year, and the water was a little rough.
It was, actually, ideal weather for the youth sailing regatta happening on the south end of the lake, confining us rowers to its northern half:
A bit of a zig zag course. I warmed up to Rokle (top left on the map) and then on to the start of the 2k course (top middle, close to “Osada”). I did two of the three intervals in headwind (south direction), followed by a turn, and then one interval in tailwind, followed by a paddle back to the start of the 2k. In the last series, I had to change course quite abruptly at the beginning of the second 2 minute interval, to avoid a crash course with some sailing boats, so I rowed the last interval in front of the rowing club, and the cooling down was quite short.
I am pretty happy with the stroke rates I managed, especially given that the charts below seem to suggest I was holding up technique pretty well at the higher rates, despite the choppy water. This is in line with what I felt during the row.
Apr 18 2018
In the double with my wife Romana.
The first row in 2018 and it was great. The water was mirror flat when we launched, but degraded slightly during the training. We did technique drills at low spm and then we went on to do a rate ladder. The boat was moving nicely and lightly, so the next lake length was another rate ladder, but going a bit higher. We ended up at 24 spm and enjoying ourselves greatly.
Almost 12 km in a little over an hour.
Apr 8 2018
No, the title of this blog is not a typo.
It was too windy to go rowing, so I went on a slow run. After 2km, I noticed this guy and took a picture.
A while later, I met this bunch:
Then I noticed that there were hordes of toads doing it in all kind of combinations. Pairs, triples, quads. I didn’t see an eight.
Otherwise it was just a run. I had some water from the well:
The collection of mugs is ever increasing.
Apr 7 2018
This was another planned hard workout. On Thursday and Friday, I had to work long and I didn’t have time for rowing. I felt pretty bad about missing two sessions and was prepared to make this an extra hard one to compensate.
A nice 2x3km, with a 5 minute break in between. Instructions from the coach. First one in 26spm, second one in 28spm. He writes instructions for pairs and fours, and has explained me many times that singles rowers subtract 2 from the SPM values. So I was supposed to do this at 24spm and 26spm. Of course I forgot.
It doesn’t work like that.
I arrived at the club at 9:30, just in time for my sons to start their training. I quickly changed to rowing gear (shorts, it was only 9 degrees but very sunny).
When we arrived the lake showed its mirror flat side, but the weather forecast had predicted a pretty strong wind, so I wasn’t sure it would remain flat. When I launched and during the warming up, the water was still nice, and I didn’t notice that the tailwind slowly increased in strength.
I turned around at Rokle and got ready for my first 3k. Go!
A few minutes later it was the 20th minute in the chart below.
With around 1.6km to go, this wasn’t going well. My heart rate was very high and I was having difficulty holding the stroke rate. Also, I was rowing very hard on the first part of the drive and I had the feeling this wasn’t sustainable.
It was a head wind and it was stronger than I had expected, and little waves were starting to build.
All this was adding up in my brain, and I stopped abruptly. Then continued technique drills at low stroke rate.
At Sirka, I turned around and drank some water, then got ready for Plan B – do the second 3km in 24spm and focus on taking a light catch. Even in the tailwind, the rowing wasn’t easy. The waves were getting bigger, and I was not as fresh as I wanted.
I held that for 10 minutes, then stopped.
It wasn’t to be, today.
I did run the Quiske app during the “intensive” parts of this session, and the charts are shown above. The lines are averages over pretty short time intervals. I think they are the average over about 10 strokes maximum, perhaps fewer. The Black line is the average over the entire session. The curves look pretty close to the single stroke ones that the Quiske RowP app shows during the row. I started an interesting discussion on the in-stroke data over at the Rowing Data Analysis Facebook Group. I am thinking deeply about that first acceleration bump around 7% into the stroke. According to Kleshnev, having this bump, i.e. a local maximum in the acceleration, is good.
The wiggles around 45% of the stroke are bad. These are my fast hands away. At the end of the second 3km stretch, I did a little photo shoot. First, the selfies:
Then, the scenery:
And, finally, the rowing kit:
You cannot see the Android phone with the RowP app, because I had taken it out of the RAM mount (on the right, behind the wing rigger) to take the pictures. Also invisible is the RowP pod under the seat. Seat dynamics didn’t reveal any interesting insights, so I didn’t bother adding the pictures to the blog.
Yes, this was a confrontation with the skills of a rower who has spent more than four months on the erg. I am missing the subtlety in the catch. I am not able to dose my power wisely. I get thrown off by little waves. I guess all this will improve in the coming month.
It has to.
Apr 22 2018
Saturday – Spring Races
Absolutely crazy weather. Approaching 30 degrees C. The Brno Dam was packed with people.
In 2017, this race was canceled because of hard wind. This year, the only trick that our lake did was to swap wind direction specially for Saturday. The entire week had been a nice tailwind from Start to Finish. Now it was a headwind. Otherwise the water was fine.
I had to be there because of the eights races. I didn’t race any small boats. But lots of family members were racing. Here’s a picture I took when I walked to a nearby restaurant to have a quick lunch.
I spent most of the day relaxing on the grass. I made a mistake not going for a quick training row in the single, but there was so much to see.
These races are organized by Lodni Sporty, the rowing club on the other side of the lake. From our club’s perspective, it’s a strange event. You don’t really see the buzz of racing, the commentator’s voice, the out-of-town clubs arriving with their trailers. It’s just a busy, sunny day at the rowing club. But then you take your boat out of the boathouse on to the water, you do a warming up, and there you are in the middle of a regatta.
First, my sons rowed their races, watched by their trainers:
Dominik was second in the 4x+ over 1000m. In fact, their cox had a confusing moment and they rowed about 1100m, leaving the race course and then returning to it.
Robin and Vasek won the 500m in the double:
Romana and Veronika won the Women’s double (for their only opponent not being at the start in time, because of double boat use).
Then some more lazy race watching:
We need binoculars to see most of the racing.
By then, it was time for some eights racing. A certain Masters group had registered for the Open 8+, and a mix of Juniors and Men from our club had taken up the challenge.
(Of course, this is not the CVK Brno Masters 8+, because we are not training at all.)
So a little after 5pm, after the Women’s 8+ race, two crews hopped in the boats and rowed to the start, which is just one kilometer from our club. This Masters 8+ group needed that entire 1k to go from arms only to full stroke, and that was all the warming up they got, because the referees were eager to get this final event of the regatta started off.
Two eights at the start. A Masters group, and a mix of Juniors and young Men. A Wintech boat (the Masters) against an Empacher (the men/juniors).
Ready … go.
No practice starts done at all, and still this was a great start. The Masters were half a length ahead of the juniors/men and in the first 200m they built that to a boat length advantage, going strong at 35spm.
One of the Masters rowers, a guy sitting in 2 seat, was rowing well and enjoying a bit of racing, but also struggling with his too loose hat blowing off his head in the headwind. The hat blew into his lap and he was afraid of getting it between the rolling seat. Luckily, after a few strokes, the hat fell into the cockpit behind the footstretcher.
Thirty four strokes a minute, 500m into the race, the Masters were still leading, and just silently enjoying the view of the Juniors/Men, a length behind them. That other boat was not silent. One after the other, those guys were shouting calls. They were clearly surprised at not leading.
After about 1000m, the Masters eight passed the CVK Brno club house, in front of assembled wives and partners. Good to hear the cheers.
A few strokes later, there was a huge wake coming from the left. From the Water Rescue Squad, who were being playful with their launch.
The Masters got the full wake but kept rowing, but the Juniors were doing one more of their power tens while they didn’t have the wake, and rowed straight through the Masters.
From that moment on, the Masters were trailing half a length, then a length. There was some good cheering at Kozi Horka (Little Goat Mountain) and the club house of Lodni Sporty Brno, and then it was counting strokes until the finish line.
As expected, the men won, but the Masters won the 1k, and isn’t that the Masters’ distance?
Well, look at the stroke rate. No wonder they faded at 1k.
How-To
This row was recorded on a NK SpeedCoach GPS 2 coupled to a Polar OH1 optical heart rate meter, worn on two seat Masters rower’s upper left arm. This doesn’t limit the rowing at all.
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There were a lot of people wearing heart rate belts, and perhaps this confused the SpeedCoach, or there was something else wrong with the heart rate, because this Masters rower went well above 170bpm. He knows how he felt during the race, and it certainly wasn’t 140 bpm.
The row was recorded as a “Just Row”, because on Regattas, you don’t want to fiddle with the SpeedCoach right before the race start.
After the race, the SpeedCoach was paired with an iPhone and the row was downloaded using NK LiNK for iOS. From the app, you can select the workout and send it as a CSV to workouts@rowsandall.com, which is exactly what happened just before the post-race shower.
As the SpeedCoach didn’t record power data, the rower had to use one of the little tricks on rowsandall.com to get a power estimate.
On the Advanced Workout page, there is a link to “Geeky Stuff”. Clicking on that brings you to a page where you can Edit wind and stream data and start the OTW power calculations.
First, we need to add the wind, because the wind direction has a large influence on the power needed to achieve a certain boat speed.
The easiest way to get wind data is to click on either “Airport Data” or “Dark Sky Data”. The wind is downloaded from these databases (either for the nearest airport or for the row’s coordinates from the Dark Sky database) and from the wind bearing and speed, a headwind/tailwind is estimated. After that is set, you can launch the OTW Power calculations.
It is important to check the boat type and average crew weight, otherwise you get nonsense results. The Quick Calculation is a slightly faster calculation cutting a few corners. The site will launch a background process to estimate the power for each stroke, and it will send you an email when it is done. Then, you have power estimated values in your workout data.
It is important to note that the estimate is the average power per rower for the eight. You may have pulled harder or less hard than the average. However, the power estimate is a good way to get at least some power value for rowers without power, and it is a way to see if rowing with power is something for you, before you spend the money to buy a power meter.
Finally, I had set up today’s workout as a row over a course. On rowsandall.com, you can upload courses to row. Here is a link to the Brno 2k. You need to be logged in to see it. When you set up your session as a row over this course, and you link it to your workout data, the site checks whether your row went through the polygons marked on the course map and calculates your net time from start to finish:
When this is done by an entire training group, the rowsandall.com page gives you a ranking per time.
By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 0 • Tags: 2k, eight, OTW, race, regatta, rowing