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Jun 20 2017

Vineyards run

Sunday

Spent the entire day doing data for the Czech Juniors trials. More about that in a separate post over on the analytics blog.

 

Monday

The first day of an off site workshop with my boss and his leadership team. My boss came over from Toulouse and his team gathered on a wine estate 40km south of Brno.

We had 1.5 hours of free time planned on Day 1, but good discussions took longer, so I sacrificed my exercise. I did have a swim in the pool though but I wouldn’t classify it as a workout. Here is the view from my room:

Tuesday

I had constraines myself during the evening wine tasting tour, so getting up at 5am for a run was not an issue. I set out through the vineyards, up the hill, making a loop around the view tower you can see in the distance on the picture above.

Behind that hill I kept running in a pleasant pace, all the way to the village of Rakvice, where I turned around at the village school. Then I found out that the pleasant running had been mostly downhill, which on the way back was a less pleasant uphill, followed by a few steep places that stung a bit.

The wine growers were at work all the time, in the vineyards. In the heat, they start very early and some of them were returning home by 6am.

I saw a couple of hares, a deer, and lots of pheasants.

 

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Jun 17 2017

Saturday – steady state

This is another workout where I proved to have limited compatibility with the SpeedCoach interface. About 700m into the row, the fully charged SpeedCoach lost connection with the Empower Oarlock (with new battery). I solved it by switching the SpeedCoach off and on, but I forgot to start recording.

There was a strong wind and the lake was pretty rough. I have seen worse, but I still decided to wait at Rokle, to see if the two juniors made the crossing of the lake OK. They are two less experienced juniors. The other ones are at trials in Racice. They made it, but it was a long wait.

Then, rowing up the river towards the castle, I rowed away from them. They turned after 5.5km, when I was about 700m ahead of them. So I turned and rowed back to catch up with them. All good steady state. The 80%.

At Rokle, Adam, one of the juniors, turned around and started another loop to the castle. I really didn’t want to row more, so I started crossing the lake with Radim. The wind had gotten stronger and it was difficult to land at our dock without damaging the boat. Every other wave went over the dock and there was a risk of the bow or stern being thrown on the dock. I managed and called my son Robin to hold the boat, so I could help Radim.

After we cleaned the boats and had a shower, Adam wasn’t back yet, and we couldn’t see him. Radim and I became slightly nervous and we contemplated taking the launch to go and find him, even though I don’t have a license for the launch. In the end we decided that Radim would go on an inspection walk along the bank and I would wait on the dock.

About 20 minutes later Adam arrived and he was OK. He was also glad that there was someone to help him with the dock and his single.

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Jun 16 2017

Good workout despite still tired from travel

Thursday was a long working day with lots of long and difficult meetings. Having been in the US for 10 days, a couple of local things piled up, and I had to take care of them. I arrived at the rowing club at 6:45pm. Just as on Wednesday, it was another nice, sunny, windless day.

The workout I wanted to do, despite being very tired, still jetlagged, etc, was a 3x2k with 5 minutes rest, OTW.

Leaving the changing room, I remembered I wanted to replace the battery in my oarlock. But I didn’t want to return to my locker, open it, go through my bag to find the spare batteries, and I decided to risk it without replacing the battery.

It was also getting pretty late, and my son would be waiting for me to drive home after the training. He has (his age group) National Champs a week from now, and this week they are doing two trainings per afternoon/evening.

I decided to compromise on the warming up, doing only 1k. Then I aligned at the start of our 2k course and set off.

bokeh plot (92)

 

According to my CP plot on rowsandall.com, my 100% 2k power is 270-280W, assuming a duration of 8 to 9 minutes (or 500 to 550 seconds). I decided that rowing the 3x2k at 85-90% of that (230-250W) would be a good target. I was still suffering from business travel tiredness, and I have experience that the risk of handing down in such a situation is real.

bokeh plot (88)

 

The empower oarlock kept losing connection and reconnecting. Only during the second interval, I lost connection about 500m in and it didn’t reconnect, as the red graph above shows. In terms of stroke rate and pace, the rows looked as follows:

bokeh plot (91)

 

bokeh plot (90)

 

I was scared to look at the Heart rate data, because I feared high values. Indeed:

bokeh plot (93)

 

Still, I think it was a good workout. Despite rating higher in every interval, my effective length stayed pretty constant, even getting longer as the training progressed.

bokeh plot (94)

 

Also, the average power was around 250W (roughly 90% of max over 2k) and I didn’t have problems finishing the workout.

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Jun 16 2017

Wednesday – Thursday: crossing the pond, then cruising the lake

Wednesday

No training. Departed from Atlanta in the evening, arriving in Paris CDG at 10:30am, then a (delayed) flight to Vienna and a drive to Brno. As my entire family was on the rowing club, I went there directly.

Took the single for a short (low expectations) paddle. Things were great. Somehow the single felt really light. Perhaps the water has warmed up a bit. Perhaps it is the lighter rigging of my boat compared to the boats in Atlanta.

myimage (18)

A couple of spikes on the Power graph. The Empower Oarlock disconnected and reconnected a few times during the row. I used a borrowed SpeedCoach, with a lower battery level. Also, I think I need to replace the battery in the Oarlock.

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Jun 13 2017

Chattahoochee! Take two

After a long Monday working day in our office in Midtown Atlanta, I drove to the Atlanta rowing club, which turned out to take more than an hour because of traffic. 

It had been raining all day and it was hot and humid. The Chattahoochee river water level was even lower than on Sunday. 

With M, I took a Hudson double, which I stroked, because I didn’t want to steer with all the shallow places. We ended up scraping the bottom a fee times. Also, I got a shock every time my blade hit the bottom of the river. I guess I am digging a little deep with my blades.

We did 2x2km at 24spm. The stroke rate was estimated. I really don’t have much data for this row. Forgot my hesrt rate belt, so GPS only. At leadt I could measure distance. It was hard work. The boat was rigged very heavy and because of our height difference, M and I weren’t really pulling together. That made the 2k hard. 

On the second 2k we were chased by a single, but he took shorter routes through the turns, while we tried to stay in the deeper channel. With the 2k intervals done, I finally relaxed and we just did gentle rowing at an estimated 18spm. 

It was a great row. Very friendly people at ARC and I am grateful I got my row in, got to know them, and exercised on a nice, albeit shallow river.

This morning I received following drone photos from our race in the eight. I am 2 seat in the winning boat.

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Jun 11 2017

Chattahoochee!

I had posted my itinerary on the Masters Rowing International Facebook group and the Atlanta Rowing Club responded. So for 8am (very civilized time) on Sunday I was up for a row with their Masters rowers on the Chattahoochee river. 

I left from the hotel at 7:20 for a 30 minute drive. Of course I wanted to be smarter than the GPS, so instead of taking the I-285 as the GPS suggested, I continued on I-75 to the Roswell exit. So I had to drive back about 8 miles over a road with traffic lights and I arrived just in time. 

The Atlanta Rowing Club has great facilities. A nice club house with lots of great boats. I was welcomed by the club’s Vice President and President and after signing a waiver and saying hello to the other Masters rowers I found myself a part of a mixed (three guys and a lady) quad taking out a Hudson boat on the fast flowing Chattahoochee river.

The lady stroked the boat. I was seated in 2, which I guess is the lowest risk position on a quad steered from the bow seat. On the downstream 6k I got used to the stroke’s extremely fast tap down and hands away. I also got convinced to move my footstretcher sternwards. I had no time to admire the surroundings, trying to get the timing right. 

At the turning point, I adjusted the footstretcher, when bow seated Vice President suggested that on the way back we should try to catch those singles that had about 1500m on us. The lady on stroke seat accepted the challenge and started to stroke a fun 26spm. I was OK because the higher SPM, especially with adjusted footstretchers, was easier to follow than the estimated 21spm down stream. 

After a little argument with what the rest of my crew called “a redneck” who decided to park his fishing boat in the middle of the narrowest part of the river, called “the narrows” and a little more of 27spm rowinf we caught up with the singles. Shortly after that, our bow man landed us on a very shallow part of the river. So shallow that the hulk scraped the bottom and we had to get out and push the boat to deeper water. 

It was a great row. On quads, I usually sit in stroke seat, so I really enjoyed sitting in the middle, trying to sync with the strokeand catch unannounced SPM changed. I finished the row all sweaty and wet, mix of sweat and river water. 

I uung around the rowing club a little longer, because I love post row chats, and arranged for a mixed double for monday evening.

I really appreciate the guest rows. It is good to be part of an international community of rowers, and I invite all rowers to contact me whenever they are close to Brno and fancy a row.

After this adventure, I went for a coffee, then drove back to the hotel. 

In the afternoon, I took a walk to the Olympic Centennial park. I expected to see an Olympic stadium but I just found a par with an Aquarium, World of Coca Cola and a few other museums. In the end I decided to visit the National Center for Civic and Human Rights. I spent about two hours in the museum, taking in the American civil rights movement and the struggle for human rights. One lady asked me if I was from the US and when I said ‘no’, she said she was so embarrassed about segregration. Well, being from The Netherlands, my national history isn’t exactly free of embarrassment, given that the Dutch profited a lot from slave trade. 

I teturned to the hotel to prepare for the working week, and was delighted to discover that my employer’s offices are on walking distance from my hotel.

 

 

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Jun 11 2017

Saturday – a run along the river

Another day where I had to get up at 4am. I didn’t take the I-17 because it was closed over the weekend, but took the 51 instead.

On Friday I was a little concerned as my debit card got declined at two stores in Phoenix, so I spent the evening checking my bank account (healthy as it should be). I know a few stories where colleagues’ card details were stolen and big withdraws made before they noticed.

So I tried to withdraw money from an ATM at Phoenix airport and that worked fine. I guess I will call my bank on monday morning to check what was going on. I just hate it when these things happen, and it always gives me flashbacks from my student years when I was on a vety tight budget and still had to learn to manage a budget. Eating budget pasta without sauce, while training every day …

Anyway, the 7:00 flight from PHX took me to Atlanta in about three hours, also shifting forward time by three hours. So suddenly it was 2pm. Made a quick call home to find out how things had been going on the Morava regatta. Heard stories of wind and extreme chop. My son made it to the final in the single scull and when he beats one guy in that final, he qualifies for The National Championships. Since his win in Hodonin his ego has had a huge boost, so we’ll see how he fares.

First time in Atlanta, not counting connecting at the airport. I was surprised by traffic jams on Saturday afternoon! My hotel is in Midtown. Right across the Fox theatre and quite a nice area.

Arriving there around 3pm I thought about getting in some exercise. Of course, I could hit the hotel gym, but why not find a nice place to run and run outdoors.

It was hot, but the sky was overcast and 30C is not really hot after being exposed to 45C in Phoenix. Strava suggested a place called Cochran Shoals, a run along the Chattahoochee river. According to Google maps that was a 20 minute drive so the choice was easy.

Dialling up Cochran in the rental car’s GPS gave me a 40 minute drive, so I navigated using my 3 lines of noted on the hotel notepad based on Google maps.

About 15 minutes inti the drive my notes proved to be not sufficiently detailed, so I was getting worried. But then I crossed a bridge and saw a shallow river and people on rafts. I knew I was close. Not long after that I found the Cochran Shoals parking.

I wanted to run for at least 10 kilometers. I set off on the hiking trail along the river. After about 15 minutes I reached the other end of the park. I hesitated between returning and potentially doing two loops, and continuing. I continued. First a street with never ending condos, then an area with really big and really nice houses. Thirty minutes into my run, I started to think about returning. I saw a turn to the right ahead, which might bring me back closer to the river, and I had hope of finding a hiking path along the river, instead of running on hard pavement. I turned right, and explored a path along the river, for sbout 1000m, but then found it ended at a gate to a private property, so I had to backtrack. Too bad, but not really a problem. The advantage of being fit is that these setbacks don’t really matter. You know you will finish the run. It will just be a bit longer. And it sure was way better than running on a hotel gym threadmill.

I returned and to make things more interesting, I tried to guess how many of the big residences I would pass before the condos would start. I guessed 20, and I was way off. There were 30 of them, spaced about 100m apart.

After the condos, I entered the Cochran Shoals park again and I took a slightly different route back to the car.

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