Feb 17 2017
Sharpening
8km in total. A few 15 stroke bursts and 350m at 2k pace. Pace came easy today. I went slightly faster than my anticipated pace.
Tomorrow: Race day. A 2k erg race in the Masters category.
Uncategorized
Feb 16 2017
Taper
We have a 2k erg race in two days, so today’s workout was a light one.
3km warming up,
2x500m / 5min rest at 2k race pace
250m full out
10 km in total
I changed the 5 minutes rest to 1000m rest to make it easier to row as a “Just Row”.
Workout Summary - media/20170216-1940200o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|10014|42:45.0|02:08.1|188.8|23.4|149.8|179.0|10.0
W-|07204|29:23.0|02:02.4|199.9|23.7|148.4|179.0|10.4
R-|02810|13:22.0|02:22.8|142.7|21.0|149.9|179.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|02950|12:28.1|02:06.8|182.0|22.2|134.0|165.0|10.7
01|00500|01:45.0|01:45.0|303.0|29.3|161.8|175.0|09.7
02|00500|01:44.2|01:44.2|307.4|29.9|169.1|179.0|09.6
03|00250|00:47.0|01:34.0|424.0|36.8|167.3|176.0|08.7
04|03004|12:39.1|02:06.3|174.6|22.8|156.6|163.0|10.4
My pace and stroke rate was all over the place in the first 200m of the first 500m. The entire second 500m was much more regular and consistent. A nice light stroke at 30spm. That’s how I like it. I am not sure about the significance of the 250m, but I think that it is a way to tell the body that serious work is coming soon.
The flex charts. In the final 3km I was rowing a bit shorter than normal. I was very focused on technique, still having the recommendations from my video analysis in mind.
I didn’t train yesterday. I had to travel to Prague to visit the Dutch Embassy to arrange my urgent passport renewal for an upcoming trip to the USA.
During that trip, I received a phone call from our club’s head coach. Our elite rowers have spent a week in Italy. The club borrowed my trailer to get their boats to Prague, from where they traveled to Italy on the National Team’s trailer.
I had instructed the driver to take my trailer back to Brno, and then take it to Prague again to pick up the returned boats. Against my instructions, they had decided it was more efficient to leave my trailer parked in a hangar on the Dukla club, where the national team trains.
During the training camp, Dukla underwent a reconstruction, and they had to move my trailer, which was locked. Instead of pushing it to another place by hand, the Dukla guys decided to break the lock and tow it.
So I have my trailer back with a broken lock. I told our head coach that he has to get it repaired by the original manufacturer of my trailer, and that it is his problem how he gets it paid by the Dukla guys.
Feb 14 2017
Short and uninteresting
Training plan says: 2x3500m.
I now have official approval from the coach to make trainings longer/harder as I feel fit. He commented that “one shouldn’t be dogmatic about a training plan, and if you feel you can handle a higher volume or shorter rests, I should go ahead and do it, as long as you stay in the prescribed intensity bands”. But today I didn’t feel like it. The only change I made was shorten the 4 minute rest to a 2 minute one.
The air quality in Brno is really bad today and I felt it. There is an official recommendation to not do any sports and public transport is free today. The issue is related to the winter weather, dusty roads and an inverted air temperature gradient. I believe.
Anyway, it was going to be 2x3500m (after a 2km warming up, and with a 1402m cooling down which would also be a slow Valentine Concept2 Cross Team Challenge entry).
Workout Summary - media/20170214-1956130o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|07377|32:22.0|02:11.6|190.7|21.0|155.9|171.0|10.9
W-|07000|28:20.0|02:01.5|196.0|21.0|157.3|171.0|11.7
R-|00378|04:01.0|05:19.3|132.9|21.3|147.5|171.0|00.1
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|03500|14:11.5|02:01.6|194.0|20.5|151.7|161.0|12.0
01|03500|14:09.4|02:01.3|198.1|21.6|162.9|171.0|11.5
And here are a few other charts:
Heart rate was slightly on the high side. Perhaps because of yesterday’s almost 2k row?
Tomorrow: No training. I have to get to Prague urgently to get my passport renewed for an upcoming trip to the US.
If the Netherlands Embassy stuff goes fast, I may be tempted to pay a visit to this place:
Feb 13 2017
Mixed Vegetables – only healthy stuff
A new week, a new email with a training plan. I guess that in the lead-up to the National Indoor Rowing Championships (coming Saturday) this is another light week, because the training plan called for 30 minutes or running.
When I am done with work, it is dark. Too dark to run, especially on snow and ice. So I did it on the erg.
Also, I wanted a confidence builder for Saturday’s race, so I figured that if 30 minutes of steady state is healthy, adding a nice and spicy 1500m at race pace wouldn’t hurt.
Also, I wanted to test a Variable Intervals workout on Painsled. I am working through some Painsled bugs with the developer.
Anyway, here is the summary:
Workout Summary - media/20170213-200557-sled_2017-02-13T19-39-36ZGMT+1.strokes.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|11485|50:41.0|02:12.4|190.4|22.6|153.0|181.0|10.0
W-|11182|46:39.0|02:05.2|187.6|22.2|152.2|181.0|10.9
R-|00304|04:02.0|06:37.9|082.8|20.7|142.2|181.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|07182|30:00.0|02:05.3|183.6|20.9|149.6|169.0|11.5
01|00250|00:53.1|01:46.3|292.3|30.5|148.0|168.0|09.3 - 2k test
02|00250|00:52.9|01:45.8|291.3|29.8|172.6|175.0|09.5
03|00250|00:52.5|01:45.1|293.4|29.7|177.7|179.0|09.6
04|00250|00:53.4|01:46.7|301.2|30.3|179.8|181.0|09.3
05|00250|00:52.2|01:44.5|300.3|30.9|180.7|181.0|09.3
06|00250|00:53.0|01:46.1|302.5|30.9|180.8|181.0|09.2 - 2k test 1500 done
07|00250|01:30.4|03:00.9|064.3|19.0|164.5|180.0|08.7 - rest
08|00250|00:50.3|01:40.5|332.1|33.6|165.4|172.0|08.9 - final 250m
09|02000|09:01.9|02:15.5|143.9|21.1|145.2|151.0|10.5
Here are the plots:
Pie charts:
And the flex charts:
I did the first 30 minutes as a Fletcher style warming up, but lightened up on the 18spm bits in anticipation for the 2k.
I paced the 2k in Caviston style: 800m @ 1:46, 600m @ 1:45, and then on to 1:44. Here’s a close up on pace for the 2k:
I stopped with 500m to go. Paddled 250m. Then changed my mind and blasted out a final 250m.
Good enough to build confidence that I should go around 7:00 on Saturday. For the rest of the week I will be a nice boy and stick to the training plan.
Feb 12 2017
A different kind of training
We are two rowing clubs in Brno. Our club is called “Czech Rowing Club Brno” (CVK Brno). We are blue. On the other side of the lake there is “Boat Sports Brno” (LS Brno). They are red.
We do compete on the water, but we also collaborate. Today, LS Brno organized a First Aid Training, and about half of the participants, including Romana and myself, were from CVK Brno.
So while we had a rest day training-wise, we were active the entire day. This training involved a lot of action. We got to train first aid in various situations, with actors acting out various injuries. Very discomforting, very confusing, but also extremely useful. Between 9am and 6pm, I role played saving about 10 lives in various situations.
We have to acknowledge that accidents can happen on rowing clubs and during races, and it is good when as many people as possible know what to do and what not to do in such situations. I definitely recommend training this with club members, and if you decide to do it, chose a training where you practice yourself. Only learning the theory doesn’t work.
I did such a training 10 years ago and the little bits I remembered definitely helped when I was in a situation where calling an ambulance was needed. Today’s refresher really helped.
Feb 11 2017
Running along the lake
I won’t go ice skating or XC running on our lake any more. The ice thickness is 50cm (20 inches), but the lake water level has been lowered by a meter. With thinner ice, this usually leads to cracks around the edges, but we were warned that this time there is a huge air bubble under the ice layer. Nobody knows if and when it is going to crack.
I was thinking about that during the run. There must be material strength tables for ice, so in theory we could calculate the load leading to breaking.
The girls had a workout similar to what I did yesterday (short intervals), except that the intervals were 40 seconds instead of 60 seconds, but there were more of them. I checked our trainer’s training program for the Juniors, and noted that the Masters plan is a shortened, lighter version of the men’s Juniors. I might do some of the Juniors trainings instead of the Masters ones, if I feel my training load is too light.
The ergs were occupied by the 10 to 14 year old Boys (including my two sons of 10 and 12), so the girls did the warming up running with me. I sent them back to the rowing club after 10 minutes of running, and continued myself.
We chose the south/west side of the lake, running on paved roads, because these are the only ones free of ice and snow. As the snow has partially melted and then frozen again, it is not really suitable for running. Most of the forest trails have turned into bobsled tracks.
After importing the data to Strava, I noticed a very low average heart rate, and some strange jumps in the heart rate data.
Is it perhaps time to replace the batteries in the Wahoo Ticks? Talking about battery replacement, I have replaced the two “D cell” batteries in my PM5 today, for the first time since I installed the PM5. The PM started to complain that the batteries were low.
Feb 19 2017
Under 7 minutes again – ErgoShow Race Report
What a relief. I prolonged my membership of the sub-7 minutes group yesterday, at the “ErgoShow”.
The ErgoShow was an indoor rowing event. The main part of the event was the Czech Indoor Rowing Championships, but they had fun events around it. For Masters, there was a 1k race in the morning (to which I didn’t participate) and they had University Fours. Four ergs slides connected together, racing over 4 minutes. The sum of the four distance scores is the score of the four. Teams of different universities rowed against each other in this format.
They also had live broadcasting over YouTube and a very good commenter. In the morning, I followed the races from my living room. I ended up cheering to the computer monitor when my daughter Lenka rowed her race.
Just after lunch, one of the other Masters at our club, picked me up in his minivan. A quick round through Brno to pick up the others and we were on our way to Hodonin, a 1 hour drive south of Brno.
The venue was really nice. There was a warming up room with lots of ergs, a separate cooling down room with lots of ergs and bikes, and the main hall with two stages full of ergs. Another nice detail was lots of places where you could refill your water bottle with a sports drink for free.
I made a quick stop at the Concept2/NK booth to pick up some goodies:
Yes – my own Empower Oarlock. Too bad there is still 40cm of ice on our lake.
I also got an iphone connection kit. Unfortunately, I was already too focused on my race, and didn’t check it. At home, I found out that they had given me a connection kit for the iphone 4, which has a different connector than my iphone 5. Well, trainings at the club will remain unconnected for a while.
Concept2 did ask me if I could come around for a chat after the races.
Now it was less than an hour to my scheduled racing time. Time to change clothes and hop on one of the warming up ergs, a model D with a PM3.
After about 6km of Fletcher-like warming up (I can never remember the exact durations and paces, but I think I get it sort of right) it was time to visit the bathroom and some other confused running around. By the time I was done with that, it was 10 minutes to the scheduled time for my race.
A few minutes to get the footstretcher and drag factor set to my favorite settings and do a few strokes to test the erg, and then it was Ready – Attention – ROW! (Actually we did get to do that twice, because someone – not me – caused a false start.)
Again an unconnected row. I just have the Strava heart rate record from my Garmin watch:
On the monitor next to the erg I could see that my little boat was in the back of the pack. I knew this was going to happen and I actually rowed my own race. After the first few starting strokes I found myself at 1:39, with an average of 1:46. I continued conservatively, pulling 1:45/1:46 1:46 with the occasional 1:44 in the first 800m (I was mentally doing 1:46, but there were enough strokes at 1:45). At 1200m to go I switched to “1:45” (i.e. I banned 1:46 strokes). Rowed down to 900 to go, then to 600 to go, at which point I started pulling 1:44. With 300m to go I went all out. There was a guy who was 8m ahead of me. I nearly got him, but in the end he finished 2 seconds earlier.
No drama, really. Even though I wondered whether there was more in the tank, I was glad I paced conservatively. After my 7:09 debacle I wasn’t sure if I was in sub-7 shape. Actually when my competitors asked what I was aiming for, I jokingly answered that I would go for 6 minutes and 60 seconds.
The “quick chat” at the Concept2 booth started with “Why haven’t you told us about your project?” and it turned into a slightly longer, friendly chat. At one point my team mates threatened to leave without me, so I had to stop chatting and jump in the car back to Brno.
Here are the full results in the Masters category. Our Jiri Pfeifer rowed a nice row for a 51 year old (6:23.9). My race was won by Karel Nevrala. He moved to live with his Mix 2x partner, who now also is his girlfriend, and both of them have taken to train very hard. Romana and I beat them in the Mix 2x a couple of time, but she rowed a 6:57.6 yesterday, so she nearly chicked me.
My end time was 6:57.5 (just 1.9 seconds above my Masters PB of 6:55.6). Here are the splits according to the PM:
1st 500 – 1:45.4 – 31SPM
2nd 500 – 1:45.0 – 31 SPM
3rd 500 – 1:44.0 – 31 SPM
4th 500 – 1:43.2 – 33 SPM
Unfortunately, I cannot look at my race on YouTube any more because the Warner Music Group has blocked it for copyright reasons. Yes, there was background music played at the venue!
By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 4 • Tags: 2000m, 2k, concept2, erg, OTE, race, rowing