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

By • Uncategorized • 0

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

By • Uncategorized • 0 • Tags: , ,

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.

By • Uncategorized • 0 • Tags: , , , ,

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.

By • Uncategorized • 1 • Tags: , , ,

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.

By • Uncategorized • 14 • Tags: , ,

Ochtendrit 10-13-2015, Elevation

Oct 13 2015

Tuesday: 4x2km HD

How much force of will does one have on an average day?

Here’s a sample of the stuff I did today:

  1. Cycled to work in -1 degree C and enjoyed it
  2. Completed a difficult performance review
  3. Discussed salary expectations with a direct report – having to hold a line which I think is a fair one
  4. Listened in to a project review, discovering 55 minutes into the discussion, that the guys who are claiming to be in a verification/validation phase are actually still in a debugging phase, a few weeks from a presentation to a launch customer. Followed a long interrogation on where they think they ought to be vs where they really are, ending with a project leader who felt offended. Followed an hour long discussion with the guy’s manager on how to recover the project …
  5. Helping the boys with their homework … later than expected

Anyway, I still thought I could do a full erg workout, did a warming up and dialed up the 4x2km. I did have a modest target pace, 1:53. First 2km in 1:52.7 in 25spm. Still OK although a little high on the heart rate.

Five hundred meter into interval #2 I stopped. I was doing solid 1:52 pace at the time but I just didn’t feel like completing the workout. Actually, it felt like I was looking at the entire amount of workout work I have to/want to do in the coming winter.

Somehow I have a feeling that a person can be limited in the amount of force of will he can use on a day, and perhaps this is something that needs to be trained as well. Researching this a bit, I actually found an article about it. Key sentence from the abstract: “mentally fatigued subjects reached their maximal level of perceived exertion and disengaged from the physical task earlier than in the control condition. In conclusion, our study provides experimental evidence that mental fatigue limits exercise tolerance in humans through higher perception of effort rather than cardiorespiratory and musculoenergetic mechanisms.”

Will do some easy stretching this evening and that’s it.  Tomorrow’s another day. A travel day, actually.

My morning ride:
Ochtendrit 10-13-2015, Elevation

By • Uncategorized • 5 • Tags: , , ,

L4 Prehrada 10-12-2015, Heart rate

Oct 12 2015

Monday: Rowing a quad with the girls

Romana had to be in Pardubice for work. Usually she has her appointments in the morning and is back in time to coach her girls, but today I volunteered to look after them.

They had scheduled 1500m intervals (3 of them) on the erg, which was sensible given the predictions of freezing temperatures and a 4 Beaufort wind, which can throw nasty chop on our lake. However, when we arrived at the rowing club, it was sunny and the wind direction was such that there was a lot of rowable water. Three girls: Lenka, 15, and an experienced rower. Iva, 14, who has rowed in the girls 13/14 category, and Klara, 17, who is just learning to row. I decided to take them in the quad and do technique/extensive Steady State. I promised them I will explain to Romana. I also promised they will not escape from the OTE intervals.

I put the “girls double” on 3 and 4, Klara on 2 and I rowed bow position to take care of the course and to keep an eye on Klara as the least experienced. But she picked up quite well. We did rowing by pairs on the first 1km. Then we used the second warming up km to work our way to a full stroke, starting with hands only, etc. After 3km we were rowing steady enough that we could add some pressure. So the training ended up to be low stroke rate (17-18spm) with high pressure and a sloooow recovery to feel the boat run (and give Klara some time to sequence everything right).

Worked out pretty well and it was fun to do. Turns out, I thought I was doing nothing myself, but when I did some stretching this evening I found out that I had taxed my muscles a bit. So far, so good.

L4 Prehrada 10-12-2015 L4 Prehrada 10-12-2015, Heart rate

By • Uncategorized • 2 • Tags: , , , , ,

«< 101 102 103 104 105 >»