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Jul 12 2017

Tuesday Chop Day

Monday

The plan called for a 1k full out as race preparation, but I decided that I better spend more time at work to finish some things, and I also think that taking some rest in the taper week is not a bad thing. I adapted my plan for Tuesday to compensate for that.

Tuesday

Short training. I arrived at the lake after work and it was very choppy. A few white caps here and there. The plan was a 750m at race pace and then two 250m full out sprints. That’s all. I managed to fit that into 6km including warming up and cooling down. It’s taper week.

Workout Summary - media/20170711-1805210o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|00750|02:46.0|01:51.2|331.3|32.6|173.1|185.0|08.3
W-|00750|02:46.0|01:51.3|330.7|32.6|173.5|185.0|08.3
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|185.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|00250|00:55.2|01:50.3|363.2|33.5|156.2|177.0|08.1
01|00250|00:56.1|01:52.1|319.2|31.9|180.2|182.0|08.4
02|00250|00:55.8|01:51.5|310.1|32.4|183.7|185.0|08.3

I rowed the 750m in cross/tailwind with white caps. That caused the stroke rate to drop a bit below the envisioned 34spm. I also had to make sure I crossed in front of a big tourist boat, so that required some head turning, and I rowed through the wake of two sailboats who were enjoying the windy weather.

It was fun but it felt awful. I am surprised that the summary gives such a low power average for the final 250m, because despite the chop I thought I was able to bring up the power again. Probably, because I check the SpeedCoach only now and then during the row, some of the strokes in the chop were a lot below 300W. It happens. When it happens in a race, all have the same conditions and the one who deals with them best, wins.

I paddled for ten minutes and got ready for the first 250m.

Workout Summary - media/20170711-1805480o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|00250|00:59.0|01:59.0|343.6|35.3|152.2|178.0|07.1
W-|00250|00:59.0|01:59.8|345.2|35.2|153.6|178.0|07.2
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|178.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|00050|00:16.5|02:44.6|318.1|37.7|118.6|132.0|04.8
01|00050|00:10.7|01:46.8|390.0|35.5|149.2|161.0|07.9
02|00050|00:10.4|01:43.7|373.5|34.8|167.5|171.0|08.3
03|00050|00:11.7|01:57.0|336.0|34.0|173.2|175.0|07.5
04|00050|00:10.7|01:46.9|324.9|33.1|176.7|178.0|08.5
I guess that the SpeedCoach started a few seconds too early, due to the chop, causing the strange value for the first few strokes.
After some paddling, I ran out of lake, so I turned around my single and did a 250m in the cross/headwind:
Workout Summary - media/20170711-1806110o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|00250|00:59.0|01:59.2|366.6|33.6|160.0|178.0|07.5
W-|00250|00:59.0|01:59.7|362.5|33.4|162.1|178.0|07.5
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|178.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|00050|00:11.7|01:57.5|421.6|35.3|127.7|142.0|07.2
01|00050|00:11.4|01:53.7|395.5|34.1|156.8|164.0|07.7
02|00050|00:11.7|01:57.4|370.3|33.6|170.6|174.0|07.6
03|00050|00:12.5|02:05.3|309.5|32.4|175.3|177.0|07.4
04|00050|00:12.5|02:04.5|322.5|32.0|177.9|178.0|07.5
That was even more fun, battling against the wind.
 
Data Analytics
In the evening I had some fun with rowsandall.com’s new Trend Flex chart. I have improved it to show the value of the third parameter in the color of the bubble, and by running the chart through various metrics combinations for the past two months of rowing, there are some nice insights to be had from them:

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Jul 9 2017

Mordor Part II

Another excursion to Ostrava (a.k.a. Mordor), this time with daughter Lenka and my lovely wife Romana. Romca has resumed training, and will row the Masters Worlds with a lady from Ostrava. I went to train with Vojta for next weekend’s Masters Nationals.

myimage (28)

Basically steady rowing alternated with starts plus 20 strokes. All went pretty well. Looks like a start at 42spm, first 200m at 36spm, then the stroke rate will drop naturally as the body is struggling to switch on lactate burning, and then we go again.

Not all the registrations are in but it looks like both the doubles and singles races will be very hard. The aces have already registered.

In the afternoon, we had coffee in Ostrava, and then drove home. While I am typing this, I am watching the Lucerne races which I recorded.

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Jul 8 2017

Saturday – Fartlek

The wind forecsst urged me to go to the lake as early as possible, but I didn’t skip sleeping in properly and a decent weekend breakfast, so I arrived at 9:30. To my surprise the lake was mirror flat. Also, it was already hot.

When I was about to launch, a Masters ladies eight just came back from their training. This is s group of older ladies from all over the Czech Republic and they are having a training camp at our club to prepare for Bled. I rowed a 3km warming uding some 10 stroke bursts and a practice start. Then I lined up at the start of the 2k course for the first interval. I was going to do a 300 W effort and try to hold on as long as possible. 

With the SpeedCoach set to show SPM and instantaneous power on the top row and elapsed time and average power on the bottom row, this is a nice thing to do. You set out at a certain wattage and then try to hold it as long as possible. My cutoff criterium is that the average has dropped 5W below the target. At 300 W, I managed 5 minutes and I could have continued longer. 


Workout Summary - media/20170708-102438-Sanders SpeedCoach 20170708 0945amo.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|04061|22:00.0|02:42.5|176.0|22.9|157.5|185.0|08.0
W-|01239|05:00.0|02:01.1|300.8|29.8|176.6|185.0|08.3
R-|02826|17:00.0|03:00.5|113.0|19.5|147.9|185.0|08.5
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|00248|01:00.0|02:01.0|317.6|30.5|155.1|174.0|08.1
01|00246|01:00.0|02:01.9|297.6|29.2|178.3|181.0|08.4
02|00248|01:00.0|02:01.0|305.2|29.4|181.9|184.0|08.4
03|00251|01:00.0|01:59.5|302.6|30.1|183.6|185.0|08.3
04|00245|01:00.0|02:02.2|280.8|29.9|184.2|185.0|08.2

 

After 5 minutes, I slowly continued all the way to the 2k finish, then turned around to row back to the start, doing some square blade rowing in the mean time. The next test was 350W. That didn’t last much longer than 2 minutes, a fact I am not happy about. 


Workout Summary - media/20170708-102509-Sanders SpeedCoach 20170708 1007amo.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|04029|22:00.0|02:43.8|162.7|22.1|157.1|186.0|08.3
W-|00520|02:00.0|01:55.3|347.9|33.4|173.7|186.0|07.8
R-|03510|20:00.0|02:50.9|129.1|20.0|154.2|186.0|08.8
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|00261|01:00.0|01:55.0|356.6|34.0|164.0|181.0|07.7
01|00259|01:00.0|01:55.6|339.2|32.8|183.4|186.0|07.9

When I lined up for the third time at the 2k start, it was to do a 325W effort. Around 1:30 in, it looked like I would not hold this much longer than 2 minutes, but passing the 2 minute mark gave me inspiration to go all the way to three minutes:


Workout Summary - media/20170708-102534-Sanders SpeedCoach 20170708 1030amo.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|01336|07:00.0|02:37.2|226.9|26.9|165.6|187.0|07.1
W-|00769|03:00.0|01:57.0|315.2|32.3|175.5|187.0|07.9
R-|00568|04:00.0|03:31.1|083.5|18.0|149.5|187.0|07.9
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|00258|01:00.0|01:56.4|337.5|32.8|160.4|177.0|07.9
01|00255|01:00.0|01:57.8|313.3|31.6|180.8|184.0|08.1
02|00257|01:00.0|01:56.7|294.8|32.6|185.2|187.0|07.9

A few minutes after that, I found energy for another start and a one minute effort:


Workout Summary - media/20170708-102559-Sanders SpeedCoach 20170708 1037amo.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|01608|09:37.0|02:59.6|154.3|21.9|145.9|182.0|07.6
W-|00283|01:00.0|01:45.9|411.9|37.6|164.5|182.0|07.5
R-|01325|08:37.0|03:15.3|093.0|18.2|141.8|182.0|08.4
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|00146|00:30.0|01:42.7|449.0|38.3|151.2|172.0|07.6
01|00137|00:30.0|01:49.3|374.9|36.9|177.8|182.0|07.4

 

Uploading to rowsandall.com, I was hoping for a ‘breakthrough’ notification. I thought that the 300 W for 5 minutes would qualify. Alas. Here is my CP chart before the row:

And here is the after picture:

A breakthrough workout is defined as having a red dot above the red line. I did manage to move the green line slightly closer to the red one, though. Perhaps it would be more motivating if I made the criterium easier?

As I saved today’s session in multiple workouts, because I reset the SpeedCoach at the beginning of each interval, I couldn’t use the normal flex chart to look at all the strokes. Of course I could use the Stroke Analysis, setting the date rwnge to cover only today:

However, selecting all of today’s workouts with the new Trend Flex chart, I had fun producing different charts and thinking about them.

First, I looked at pace. Looks like in today”s weather rowing 1:50 would mean holding 35 spm at 350W. In terms of power, below 40 spm there are no diminishing returns. Or, in other words, I can go up to 40spm without losing form, and the question is only how long I can hold it. Looking at pace, there were no surprises either. Increasing the stroke rate inicreases boat speed. The drive length charts confirm that there is nothing wrong with my form. The outliers are really the start strokes, which of course are shorter. 

Judge for yourself, but I do believe that this new chart is useful.

After the row, I did a swim in the lake. After the thunderstorms of Friday evening, the water was a lot colder than last week, so I didn’t swim longer than 10 minutes. I hung up my wet uni in my locker, not realizing that the water was dripping all over my other clothes, so I ended up wearing wet shorts, which looked a bit weird when I went shopping afterwards. 

I also mounted a new bow ball on our double. The old one had suffered from a collision when my daughter rowed it at the Hodonin regatta. It was still a fully functioning bow ball, but I don’t want to risk not passing the checks at the Masters Nationals.

Tomorrow: a trip to Mordor.

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Double_500_416.png

Jul 8 2017

Friday: good old mixed double

When I was in America, Romana had a racing weekend in Brno. Unfortunately, at the start of the Women 4-, sitting at stroke seat, she hurt her back badly. Of course she finished the race and proceeded to race another two 2k races on that day. 

The result was that she couldn’t do much fir two weeks and then had to slowly get back to exercising. She did massages and fysio ij the mean time, but we had to cancel our participation to next week’s mixed 2x event at the Masters Nationals.

As Romana’s back became gradually better, I started to ask if we could do a row in the double again. Yesterday was the first day when I got ‘yes’ as an answer. 

Of course we did a gentle steady state and some technique drills, but it was a great row. A good start of the training for Bled.

Power estimated by rowsandall.com physics module

 

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Jul 7 2017

Thursday – Sprint Sprint Sprint Sprint Sprint

Wednesday

A traditional “rest” travel day, which means sitting in a suit and a tie in a hot meeting room for eight hours, then doing the airport steeplechase (I had fast lane access today, hurray!), flying for 90 minutes, and a 2 hour drive, arriving close to midnight.

Thursday

It’s a holiday in the Czech Republic, and I slept in long, then had a long slow morning which ended around 2pm. I hacked together a prototype of a new chart, which I will explain soon, over on the analytics blog.

Around 2pm, I headed to the lake for a row. Getting to the rowing club was a challenge on this hot, sunny holiday. The road to the club is quite narrow, and when two cars meet, one of them has to stop at the nearest place that is slightly wider so the two cars can pass each other. Normally, this works pretty smooth, but this time the road was populated by people who don’t usually drive here. I am going to stereotype a bit, so apologies in advance, but I felt I was only meeting people in oversized SUVs who don’t really know how big their car really is. They were driving more than a meter from the guard rail, eyes big as tennis balls, scared to scratch their car. That made it slightly challenging to pass each other.

Anyway.

The lake was full of small boats, of course. I think the water is now actually a mix of suncream and water. Wondering if that makes the boat go faster or slower.

IMG 1524

 

The session was 3x(5×30″/variable)/6min. So three sets of 5 30 second intervals, where the 30 second intervals were at 36, 38, 40, 38, and 36spm, and the rest is 30 seconds, 45 seconds, 1 minutes, 45 seconds.

myimage (22)

With all the recreational boats, swimmers, etc, I had to chose the bearing in the direction of the least number of boats. That involved quick 180 degree turns and other course changes depending on the traffic situation.

I am happy to report that despite these challenges I was able to hit the prescribed stroke rates. This workout is not easy. You basically go at faster than 1k race pace for 30 seconds, then you have just enough rest to paddle 5 strokes, and then you go at an even faster pace. The rest after the 40spm is a bit longer, but you really need that rest. It does make you comfortable rating up when in pain.

All metrics were nicely in the usual range, so I won’t bore you with more graphs. But I will include a sneak preview of the new chart:

bokeh plot (49)

 


Work Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-SPM-|-Pwr-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|00141| 00:30 |01:46.3| 36.0| 402 | 158 | 173 | 7.8 - tailwind
02|00142| 00:30 |01:45.6| 38.0| 409 | 175 | 182 | 7.5
03|00148| 00:30 |01:41.3| 38.0| 325 | 175 | 182 | 7.8
04|00143| 00:30 |01:44.8| 36.0| 323 | 171 | 181 | 7.9
05|00139| 00:30 |01:47.9| 36.0| 376 | 172 | 179 | 7.7
06|00133| 00:30 |01:52.7| 34.0| 395 | 160 | 173 | 7.8 - headwind
07|00133| 00:30 |01:52.7| 36.0| 403 | 175 | 180 | 7.4
08|00140| 00:30 |01:47.1| 40.0| 430 | 176 | 183 | 7.0
09|00139| 00:30 |01:47.9| 36.0| 397 | 174 | 180 | 7.7
10|00135| 00:30 |01:51.1| 36.0| 367 | 174 | 180 | 7.5 - tailwind
11|00139| 00:30 |01:47.9| 36.0| 378 | 160 | 172 | 7.7
12|00142| 00:30 |01:45.6| 38.0| 381 | 176 | 181 | 7.5
13|00135| 00:30 |01:51.1| 40.0| 420 | 179 | 185 | 6.8 - headwind
14|00136| 00:30 |01:50.2| 38.0| 393 | 176 | 182 | 7.2
15|00127| 00:30 |01:58.1| 36.0| 344 | 176 | 180 | 7.1
Workout Summary
--|02072| 07:30 | 1:48.5| 36.9| 383 | 172 | 185 | 7.5

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Jul 4 2017

Monday – chop, Tuesday – race pace

Monday

Tired legs from the Sunday workout and a hectic day at work. I was wondering if I should work out. In the end I did drive to the lake, but about an hour later than planned. I decided to do what was planned. A short, light workout in the single. Main goal: Recover.

myimage (19)

As you can see from the pace part of the chart, there was quite a strong wind, pushing me to 2:40 and slower on the warming up and to 3:00 pace on the headwind segment Sirka – Rokle, while speeding me up to 2:20 on the Rokle – Sirka segment and in the cooling down. There was quite some chop. The kind that occasionally breaks on your front stays and splashes your elbows and back. It was fun, actually.

Then a nice chat with the rowers at the club, about the National Championships (Juniors & Open) of last weekend. Our club has done quite well. One of our junior scullers, who wasn’t selected for the National Squad, turned his disgust into energy and took his Filippi to a strong victory in the J18 1x field, winning his heat, semifinal, and final with ease. The second place in the final was taken by another guy who didn’t get selected. We also had a guy in the winning (national squad) J18 4x-.

In the J16 fields, our club won virtually everything on the sweep side. On the girls side (Romana’s team), the results were varying, and disappointing in the final, getting beaten by crews that they beat easily in the heats on Friday. Lenka has just come back from a long illness, so three days of racing is a lot for her, currently. Iva wants to win so bad that she forgets about technique (not her strongest point) and tries to outpower everyone in the first 1k, then dies in the second 1k with people rowing cleaner and longer passing her. Well, she’s 16 so there is time for her to learn how to race.

Tuesday

Out early to get in a workout before heading to the airport. Today’s workout was a 2x(12x35sec/25sec)/6min with a target stroke rate of 30 to 32spm. Short and sweet.

I made a point of rowing strokes with stops during the warming up, focusing on body position during the recovery. This helps me tremendously in approaching the catch on “a stable platform” and getting the most (length, catch efficiency) out of every stroke.

The workout itself was interesting. I had to program it as 30″/30″ intervals, because the SpeedCoach doesn’t take less than 15 second steps. However, I used the final 5 seconds of each rest interval to take to strokes at full power (but lower stroke rate) to get up to speed. That worked out quite well. A 25 second rest is really short! Still, I was able to row well, and only in the second half of the second set (in a headwind) did the rowing start to fall apart – slightly. I think I could have managed a third set, but two weeks to the Championships, I prefer my workouts to be shorter.


Work Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|00134| 00:30 |01:51.9| 34.0| 145 | 161 | 7.9 - tailwind
02|00131| 00:30 |01:54.5| 32.0| 164 | 170 | 8.2
03|00133| 00:30 |01:52.7| 32.0| 165 | 171 | 8.3
04|00134| 00:30 |01:51.9| 32.0| 168 | 173 | 8.4
05|00134| 00:30 |01:51.9| 32.0| 168 | 174 | 8.4
06|00135| 00:30 |01:51.1| 32.0| 170 | 175 | 8.4
07|00134| 00:30 |01:51.9| 34.0| 171 | 176 | 7.9
08|00134| 00:30 |01:51.9| 32.0| 172 | 176 | 8.4
09|00134| 00:30 |01:51.9| 32.0| 170 | 175 | 8.4
10|00135| 00:30 |01:51.1| 34.0| 173 | 179 | 7.9
11|00133| 00:30 |01:52.7| 34.0| 172 | 176 | 7.8
12|00136| 00:30 |01:50.2| 34.0| 172 | 178 | 8.0
13|00132| 00:30 |01:53.6| 32.0| 160 | 168 | 8.2 - headwind starts here
14|00128| 00:30 |01:57.1| 34.0| 170 | 176 | 7.5
15|00131| 00:30 |01:54.5| 34.0| 173 | 179 | 7.7
16|00129| 00:30 |01:56.2| 32.0| 174 | 178 | 8.1
17|00126| 00:30 |01:59.0| 32.0| 175 | 179 | 7.9
18|00127| 00:30 |01:58.1| 34.0| 175 | 179 | 7.5
19|00128| 00:30 |01:57.1| 34.0| 175 | 180 | 7.5
20|00125| 00:30 |01:59.9| 32.0| 175 | 179 | 7.8
21|00126| 00:30 |01:59.0| 32.0| 175 | 180 | 7.9
22|00125| 00:30 |01:59.9| 32.0| 176 | 179 | 7.8
23|00126| 00:30 |01:59.0| 32.0| 175 | 179 | 7.9
24|00137| 00:30 |01:49.4| 36.0| 176 | 179 | 7.6 - tailwind
Workout Summary
--|03147| 12:00 | 1:54.3| 32.9| 170 | 180 | 8.0

Here is the pace and SPM plot from the FIT export from the SpeedCoach:

myimage (20)

 

Here is the same plot from the CSV export.

myimage (21)

 

The SpeedCoach CSV doesn’t denote the “rest” intervals as rest. In fact, it doesn’t contain any strokes taken during the rest at all. I find that quite disappointing, and will urge NK to change that. The FIT at least contains the time stamps, so you can see how the intervals are spaced apart, and it doesn’t fool rowsandall.com into believing that I have rowed a “breakthrough” workout:

image

 

Anyway, I was able to contantly push the power above 340-350W.

Some technique related charts. Try to guess where the rowing started to fall apart:

 

Now, I am sitting at the gate at Munich Airport, waiting for my connection to Brussels.

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1280px-Dolni_Vitkovice_sever

Jul 2 2017

A visit to Mordor

The ladies are still at the Open/J18/J16 Czech National Championships, so my sons and I are enjoying a men’s weekend.

Today, we hit the road at 8am, to arrive in Ostrava at 10AM. From Wikipedia:

Ostrava grew to prominence thanks to its position at the heart of a major coalfield, becoming an important industrial centre. It used to be nicknamed the country’s “steel heart” thanks to its status as a coal-mining and metallurgical centre, but since the Velvet Revolution (the fall of communism in 1989) it has undergone radical and far-reaching changes to its economic base. Industries have been thoroughly restructured, and the last coal was mined in the city in 1994. However, the city’s industrial past lives on in the Lower Vítkovice area, a former coal-mining, coke production and ironworks complex in the city centre boasting a unique collection of historic industrial architecture. Lower Vítkovice has applied for inclusion in the UNESCO World Heritage List.

When we arrived in Ostrava, the boys and I started to call it Mordor. It’s a strange place. Lots of abandoned 19th and early 20th century industry sites. Lots of buildings falling apart. On the horizon beautiful mountain ranges. It has a funny atmosphere.

But the reason to visit this interesting place was rowing.

As I am rowing the Masters Nationals with Vojta Cernak from VK Perun Ostrava, I was up for a training on his Filippi 2x, on the river Odra. We installed my sons Dominik (12) and Robin (10) in the club house, where they were watching the Tour de France, playing games on their smartphones and other fun stuff, Vojta and I took the double out for a long row.

For this training, I had two aims. First, to do some technical drills to get us rowing together and set up a stable base on the double. In the past two sessions, we rowed on my boat on the Brno lake, but with all the traffic, Vojta wasn’t comfortable, and was turning around to watch traffic every few strokes, which negatively impacted boat feel. Now, on his home river, where he knows every turn, this should be better. So technical drills first, then some race pace segments.

We did a lot of square blade rowing in the first 2.5km against the stream. Then we used the downstream part to do rowing with stops, working on being together especially in the final part of the recovery.

Then we turned around for another loop, during which we did a 500m and a 30 stroke interval. Finally, we agreed on a usable format. Our “500m” at race pace would be 60 strokes at 34spm, followed by 10 strokes full out. That was fun to do. We did the 34spm strokes at 90%, focussing on technique and being together and I think we did quite well.

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All intervals were done from a standing start in order to practice that as well. The Odra river is a slow “S” turn, and it was beautifully flat. In the low intensity strokes between the intervals, we were dowing 2:20 pace downstream/tailwind and 2:35 pace upstream/headwind.

It was a very nice experience. I think we finally nailed these 70 stroke intervals and we now feel very comfortable at 35spm. Also, we know that we are capable of doing a 40spm sprint while keeping technically together, so that is a good thing, because we may need it in the race.

After that, we had lunch together, and then I drove to the Lower Vitkovice area with the boys. This is an amazing place. A coal mine, coke production and ironworks complex in the middle of the city turned into an urban park, with a great technical museum. We spent more than three hours there, and we left only because I didn’t want to be at home late. It’s a two hour drive of 170km, so it was me who was getting tired. Given a choice, my sons would still be there, trying to operate a steam loc, playing in the automobile simulator, or learning about how an ironworks plant works.

To quote an online reviewer, agreeing with everything he says:

It was a brilliant idea to make something of Ostrava’s brutal industrial heritage. The ruins of a coal mine and a steel smelting plant have been converted into an area of clubs, concert halls, cafes, and attractions, including the splendid Bolt Tower that you reach by lift. The whole area is work in progress so it will only become more interesting in years to come.

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