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Vienna 001

Oct 22 2015

Cycle, Row, Travel

Good morning. Six AM and I am at Vienna Airport again. This week’s business trip will be

Thursday: Amsterdam
Friday: Brussels
Weekend: Home
Monday: Toulouse
Tuesday: Toulouse

Great!

Yesterday I cycled home from work. I want to do cycle legs per week, but with the business trips it is difficult. My bicycle actually spent an entire week at work. When I rode it home, it was raining a little but the temperature was OK. I didn’t need gloves.

https://www.strava.com/activities/417479989

After that, I did an extensive steady state erg session. Warming up. Thirty minutes on Rowpro with 2 other chaps (got disconnected about 20 minutes in), then a cooling down. I had ambitions for a 2×30 minute but got bored.

30min

By the way, I wonder who approved the architecture of Vienna Airport terminal 3. Here’s what I don’t like about it:

  1. Not enough walking conveyor belts. I just got a gate change from F01 to F36. About 10 minutes of walking in my pace, but that could amount to about 20 for an old lady
  2. Toilets. You have to go down one level for the toilets. How convenient is that for disabled people?
  3. The colors. Everything is white, gray or black. You can see every scratch, every stain, and it makes a very dreary impression
  4. Endless distances. I walk pretty fast, but some people must spend a full hour between the arrival gate and the parking garage …
  5. Stupid architecture. I believe the architects gave this job to an intern. There are crazy “unsolved” places everywhere. Take for example this spot:

Vienna 001

This picture was taken from the F01 waiting area looking into the main space. The glass bit on the right are escalators  for passengers who arrive, get dropped one level below the departure gates, have to get up the escalator 2 levels to one level above the departure gate, then walk the entire length of the terminal, and finally go down 3 levels to the luggage belts. On the left is a black place that I suspect contains another set of stairs or escalators. The architects created a nice crawl-through corridor. I guess in the early days some passengers bumped their heads here, so they had to put warning tape on it and restrict the access to the useless area under the stairs.

A user experience that is way below average.

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30min

Oct 20 2015

Monday-Tuesday: Steady State and CTC

Monday

Wanted to row OTW but I had to finish something at work. It was raining hard when I had to drive to the club, and I was late already, would have to shorten the row because of the early darkness … so I did an OTE session.

Warming up, then a 30 minute rowpro session, then a cooling down. A bit under an hour in total. Time pressed.

30min


Workout Summary - Oct 20, 2015
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|Watts|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS|-SPI
--|07255|30:00.0|02:04.0|183.4|22.1|156.4|167.0|11.0|08.3
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|Watts|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-|-SPI|Comments
01|01205|05:00.0|02:04.5|181.6|21.6|136.1|147.0|11.2|08.4|
02|01226|05:00.0|02:02.3|191.2|22.4|156.0|161.0|10.9|08.5|
03|01216|05:00.0|02:03.4|186.4|22.0|160.0|164.0|11.1|08.5|
04|01207|05:00.0|02:04.3|182.2|22.2|160.1|164.0|10.9|08.2|
05|01206|05:00.0|02:04.4|182.0|22.0|163.6|166.0|11.0|08.3|
06|01195|05:00.0|02:05.5|177.1|22.2|162.2|167.0|10.8|08.0|

I did the 30 minutes at slightly higher power than the Friday session.

Tuesday – CTC

Again working late. I started this session close to 9pm. 15×1 minute on 1 minute rest, and actually quite enjoyed it. Targeted 1:45 which is around my 2k pace. It was nice to do some sprinty stuff after many steady state and distance sessions. Counted to 30 strokes. A sip of water after every 3 sets. Final three sets with closed eyes and imagining rowing the final 300m of a sprint race.

I did wear the heart rate belt but forgot to clip on the heart rate unit. 🙁

ctc

Tomorrow: Cycling and steady state.
Thursday: Fly to Brussels/Amsterdam
Friday: Short hotel fitness triathlon + weights

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12107274_961661450558794_4509343596385715127_n

Oct 18 2015

Czech Rowing Club Brno Season Closure Races

Four coxed fours,rowed in old boats with wooden oars. Crews determined by random draw. First the four strokes were drawn, then the four #3, etc until the four coxes. It was not allowed to sit on a different position than the one determined by random draw. Big fun. Followed by crew of the year awards and a lot of beer drinking:

12088075_961663007225305_5849189264462826764_n 12096603_961662757225330_3082006058265834971_n 12112415_961661877225418_2762308688411294209_n 12105971_961661890558750_6170398654906191749_n 12115428_961661817225424_7845944578308151137_n 12109318_961661753892097_2402223104056330045_n 12112444_961661603892112_5906647105177299846_n 12107965_961661607225445_2278473027881412649_n 12141671_961661583892114_3817135821155802873_n 12107274_961661450558794_4509343596385715127_n 11254287_961661370558802_1864947563004652308_n 12118686_961661307225475_5767163119381730664_n 12088545_961661337225472_8799425425251824641_n 11164041_961661190558820_6755979031524086750_n 12115936_961661073892165_3039016178995803544_n 12109138_961661060558833_3026510497046531823_n 10439053_961660973892175_7575685108410098053_n

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Running 10-18-2015

Oct 18 2015

Sunday: Recovery Run & the wonders of Strava

Slept in, had a family brunch, then coffee, and then I went for a little run. Not a planned course, but making it up during the run. It was supposed to be a recovery run so I made sure I ran slowly.

rondje

rondjespm

Running 10-18-2015

Even though it was supposed to be a recovery run, I had to take a pretty steep climb that I call “killer climb”. It was either that or a detour of 4 km. This climb is about 4 minutes of steep uphill running, 600m with an average grade of 12%. Quite a good rowing spring race simulation.

Had to turn back at one point. I was following a new path created by forest workers, descending down a steep hill. It turned out to be a dead end.

Uploading the run to Strava reveals interesting facts. My “killer climb” turns out to be a “segment” so I can compare my results with other people who run this climb. Not many, it turns out:

killerclimb

Also, I can compare my own efforts:

killerclimb_own

Apparently, I have ran this stretch only 5 times. I believe I have done more of them.

https://www.strava.com/activities/415421037

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fartlek1

Oct 17 2015

Saturday: Fartlek in the single

The training plan said “Intensive Steady State”. The original plan was that I would row in the quad with Romana’s girls crew, but in the end there were enough girls. So I took the single.

I rowed next to the girls quad for most of the session, and decided to do a Fartleg at 22spm and higher.

fartlek2 fartlek1

The water was nice. Some chop but today I liked it. There was enough chop to make it a challenge but it was manageable with good technique.

We all went for lunch to a pizzeria close to the lake. Took some pictures on the dam when we returned to the club. The first picture shows the lake (and there is a sailing race going on), the second picture shows the river as it continues after the dam. The concrete construction on the left is a 1940s bridge pillar for a highway the Germans wanted to build across occupied Czechoslovakia:

Lake
Lake
zaba 006
River

After that we had the traditional season closing with the club. We determined coxed four crews by a draw and raced against each other. Then we had a few beers and discussed the state of rowing in our town, in the world, and the world in general.

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3x20min

Oct 16 2015

Friday: 3×20 min

Woke up too late to do a session in the hotel. Flight from Brussels to Vienna was delayed by 20 minutes, so I missed the RailJet direct train. Arrived home around 4:30pm.

Dialed up a 3×20 minutes (with 2 minute active breaks) and decided to try out the Greg protocol, i.e. start slowly, then accelerate. To break the boredom, I varied stroke rates between 18, 19 and 20spm and power between 160, 170 and 180W. Looking at the HR plot, I might go a little faster on these sessions.

3x20min
Listened to a local radio station during the row. They announced that the police has removed another corpse from our lake today. They found the body of a dead man near Rokle, with a sports bag filled with stones tied to his body. The police announced that they think the man died at the end of September.

Tomorrow:
If the weather is good, a “intensive steady state” row OTW. If the weather doesn’t allow OTW rowing, it will be my debut as running trainer for our club’s girls group. Still have to think about a nice running session. I don’t usually run from the rowing club.

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LC6000-6-Stack-Multi-Station_M

Oct 15 2015

Hotel Fitness workout

Wednesday

Worked from home in the morning, then took the train to Vienna. First time I saw the real refugees/migrants from Syria, Afghanistan, and other places. About a hundred of them in the Vienna Hauptbahnhof hall. Young families with small children (babies to 6 year olds), and groups of young men (in their twenties). They looked tired. They probably still believed what the smugglers have told them. Didn’t know what to think about it. In the media these people are either described as bloodthirsty jihadist, or, on the other end of the spectrum, as piece loving engineers and scientists. I was glad I saw the real people and not just the media image.

Then on to the airport and a plane to Brussels. No exercise.

Thursday

Woke up quite well rested and headed for the hotel gym. The meetings don’t start until 10:30 so I had some time. I am 75% through reading the book that Boris recommended, “Muskelrevolution” by Marco Toigo. Apart from learning very interesting things about how the little muscle engines work, here are a few things I grasped (hopefully correctly) so far:

  1. Don’t fuss about sets vs repeats
  2. Determine your 1 repeat maximum, then work at 50%-60% of it
  3. Work slowly

So after about 30 minutes of threadmill, cycle and elliptical (10 minutes each) I headed for this monster:

Actually, I quickly returned to my hotel room to get a pen and my notebook, and determined as well as I could my max for bench press, leg extension, leg curl, lat pulldown, biceps curl, bench pull and shoulder press. Then did a little circuit where I worked at 60% of the max, and just did as many repeats as I could until failure (or until 20 repeats, whichever came first). I also added situps, pushups, back and squat with weights into the mix. Actually, I added the squat later, when I started to realize that I was mostly working my upper body … I guess that is what fitness rats like to work…

I did the circuit 2 times. One hour and fifteen minutes including the 30 minutes extensive steady state and the quick determination of 1RM maxima.

Looking forward to how my body will feel tomorrow.

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