painsled1

Jan 5 2016

Testing Painsled

Today I did an easy row and some weights.

For the easy row I used the Chrome app function of Painsled. Although I don’t like its name, it’s an interesting app (in beta). I stumbled upon it on the Concept2 forum because the developer advertised a mobile version. What it does? It connects to the PM monitor and then logs data (stroke data). There is an iOS app that works with the wireless enabled PM5. For my PM3 I have to use the USB connection and use the Chrome App version. Here’s a screenshot:

painsled1.jpg

It works pretty nicely. You basically have it running on your computer and don’t care about it. You use the PM to set up workouts and row them. The app just follows what you are doing on the erg and logs each stroke. It shows the data on the screen, so you basically have an extra erg monitor with some data (stroke power curve, watts, 500m pace all in one screen). The logs correspond to the Just Rows or Workouts that you did on the erg. I guess when the PM saves to the log card, a new log is started in PainSled.

After rowing, you can export the data to a CSV file. I did that and then played a bit with Dan Burpee’s spreadsheet so I could manually copy data from the CSV to the spreadsheet and create pretty graphs:

painsleda.jpg
Warming up – a 2k row
painsledb.jpg
A 3x1500m / 30 second rest – pace and heart rate
painsledc.jpg
3x1500m / 30 sec rest – stroke rate and heart rate

I like the philosphy of the app. Just a data logger. There is a TCX export plugin available which I couldn’t get to work. Also, I noted that the cumulative meters in the CSV file stopped after the second 1500m interval. Probably a bug in the software, but the stroke specific data were there so I could easily correct it.

The CSV file is very complete. Here are the data that I found in it:

  1. Start time of stroke (time stamp)
  2. Interval distance at start of stroke
  3. Workout (cumulative) distance at start of stroke
  4. Stroke Number (easy if you want to count strokes)
  5. Stroke type (1 for waiting, 0 for work)
  6. Interval number – I miss this one in RowPro
  7. Workout State (“waiting to row” / “work distance interval” / “interval rest”, etc
  8. Stroke drive duration in ms
  9. Stroke drive meters
  10. Stroke recovery duration in ms
  11. Stroke recovery meters
  12. Stroke duration
  13. Stroke meters
  14. Stroke pace (seconds per km)
  15. Stroke rate (strokes per minute)
  16. Stroke Watts
  17. Stroke Heart Rate
  18. Stroke Drag Factor
  19. Elapsed time
  20. Stroke Calorie Counter
  21. Workout start time stamp
  22. Workout end time stamp
  23. Total workout meters
  24. Total workout stroke count
  25. Workout type (e.g. “distance interval” or “just row”)
  26. Workout Interval Count
  27. Workout rest time
  28. Workout Erg model
  29. Workout Erg Serial number
  30. Workout Erg Odometer
  31. Stroke force map

And if you can write plugins, you could probably make a function to upload the row to Concept2 and other nifty things. A semi automatic excel to extract data from the CSV file is easy and very interesting.

Unfortunately I don’t have a PM5 (nor will I see many PM5 monitors on the hotel gym or crossfit box ergs that I frequent), so the mobile app is useless for me at the moment. In that respect, ErgStick seems promising.

So definitely something to watch.

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20x1min

Jan 4 2016

20x1min

Back at work and a lot of work to do.

Temperatures have dropped even more and it’s snowing all day. A very fine and dry snow at -8C, but when it continues long enough it covers everything. Even streets are white.

Went to the rowing basement in the evening. Outside temperature -8C, inside +4 and dropping once I opened the door to get fresh air.

The drill was 20x1min, every fourth as a full out, the others “controlled”.

20x1min.jpg

Workout Summary - Jan 04, 2016
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|Watts|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|09174|40:00.0|02:10.8|156.4|25.2|166.5|182.0|09.1
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|Watts|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-|Comments
01|00293|01:00.0|01:42.3|326.6|31.0|143.4|164.0|09.5|
02|00294|01:00.0|01:42.1|328.9|30.0|164.4|171.0|09.8|
03|00295|01:00.0|01:41.6|334.0|30.0|161.9|173.0|09.8|
04|00308|01:00.0|01:37.4|379.0|33.0|167.6|178.0|09.3| full
05|00296|01:00.0|01:41.4|336.0|30.0|168.2|176.0|09.9|
06|00296|01:00.0|01:41.4|335.2|30.0|168.4|177.0|09.9|
07|00295|01:00.0|01:41.7|332.7|30.0|167.6|177.0|09.8|
08|00309|01:00.0|01:37.0|383.7|34.0|171.5|180.0|09.1| full
09|00295|01:00.0|01:41.5|334.4|30.0|169.2|177.0|09.8|
10|00294|01:00.0|01:42.2|328.3|30.0|168.7|176.0|09.8|
11|00296|01:00.0|01:41.5|335.2|30.0|169.9|178.0|09.9|
12|00310|01:00.0|01:36.7|387.5|35.0|172.6|181.0|08.9| full
13|00293|01:00.0|01:42.4|326.1|30.0|170.2|177.0|09.8|
14|00294|01:00.0|01:41.9|330.3|31.0|167.1|177.0|09.5|
15|00293|01:00.0|01:42.3|326.6|31.0|167.9|177.0|09.5|
16|00307|01:00.0|01:37.6|376.1|35.0|172.4|180.0|08.8| full
17|00290|01:00.0|01:43.5|315.5|31.0|169.4|176.0|09.3|
18|00290|01:00.0|01:43.6|315.2|31.0|169.0|176.0|09.3|
19|00291|01:00.0|01:43.0|319.9|30.0|166.6|175.0|09.7|
20|00295|01:00.0|01:41.7|332.8|33.0|169.6|177.0|08.9| full

Happy with that. I think I was slightly slower than last week but this was less than an hour after dinner. From number 12 on it started to be hard.

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3x20min

Jan 3 2016

Watts came easily: 3x20min

Woke up and wrist was better than yesterday, and improving during the day.

I am really wondering what caused this episode. The start is clear. I slipped on ice and instinctively broke my fall with my arm, thus landing my wrist on concrete. Probably caused some serious sprained wrist. As I started to relax in the evening, the healing process set on, causing swelling and inflammation.

Then I played a card game (Dominion) with my sons. I have a very strong suspicion that holding the cards in my painful hands didn’t help.

The next part of my theory is that training regularly actually helps speed up the “repair” of the damage. The body is used to micro damage and starts to repair as soon as possible. As soon as the swelling started to reduce the vicious pain disappeared and life became bearable again.

I now can feel that the wrist has gone through something. It is slightly stiffer and bigger than my other wrist, and making a fist is slightly painful. But otherwise it is fine.

My family’s theory is that I overreacted on Friday and showed some very fine acting behavior. 🙁

Anyway, I felt I could try a 3×20 minute. Normally I do a 4x20min in the weekend, but I had already done a 4×20 earlier this week, and I am already above my training hours targets for this week. Plus the wrist. I decided to dial up a 3×20 min and abort it if there would be a problem with the wrist.

Temperature in my rowing basement was 7 degrees inside, dropping to 4 degrees during the row, and -8 outside. Relative humidity around 40%.

3x20min.jpg


Workout Summary - Jan 03, 2016
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|Watts|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|14977|60:00.0|02:00.2|201.6|22.4|159.0|171.0|11.1
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|Watts|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-|Comments
01|04989|20:00.0|02:00.3|201.2|22.3|151.5|162.0|11.2|
02|05003|20:00.0|01:59.9|202.9|22.5|161.3|169.0|11.1|
03|04986|20:00.0|02:00.3|200.8|22.6|164.1|171.0|11.1| 1.2 mmol/L

The power seemed to come easily today. Although my average heart rate is one of the highest of all the similar rows since the end of November, and heart rate drift wasn’t small either, I found it very easy to hold 200W. Perhaps the low temperatures helped.

Let’s see what this does to my “injured” wrist, but I bet I will be able to row the erg race coming Saturday.

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wrist20tendons

Jan 2 2016

Wrist update and today’s training

I had an interesting evening:

7pm – wrist starts to be painful (while playing cards)

8pm – wrist so painful I am afraid I will faint from the pain

9pm – see 8pm. In bed.

10pm – pain gets more numb but still prevents me from sleeping. I move to the living room to watch TV

2am – I wake up in front of the TV, wrist better. I go back to the bedroom.

8am – waking up with a stiff wrist but pain level is bearable

I am carrying the arm in a sling to give it rest. In the morning I wanted to decide whether or not to have it X-rayed today. This morning, I decided to postpone that decision until Sunday or Monday. It will be easier to visit a doctor on Monday anyway.

I have little pain when pushing or pulling the hand straight, but a lot of pain when doing fine motorics, like buttoning buttons, eating with knife and fork, and opening a tube of toothpaste. I think the wrist is heavily bruised, but not broken. The swellings and pain are from inflammation, which is part of the healing process.

wrist20tendons

I went to the rowing club. Tried two pulls on the concept2 and gave up. A 2:45 pace gives me wrist pain. May try again tomorrow.

The plan was a 30 minute row and weights. I ended up doing 35 minute of gentle spinning on an indoor cycle and then did the weights that I could do, which was mainly core strengthening business.

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12400913_995954790462793_6920616646124641374_n

Jan 1 2016

New Year OTW and delayed onset heavy pain

Typing this with my right hand only, as my dominant left hand is a bit painful. Today was our traditional New Year’s row. We took a quad and a single and rowed on the part of the lake that wasn’t frozen.

Whille carrying my sculls  to the water I slipped and fell, landing on my bum and lower left arm and wrist. Nothing serious, I thought, and was happy to escape without breaking anything. I rowed for 6 km and then did an erg workout. No problems.

Had a nice time at the club, drove home and prepared dinner.

I fell at 2pm and at 7pm the pain in my wrist started. Quite heavy pain, even when the hand is resting. If it doesn’t get better tomorrow, I will have it X-rayed.

Here are the pics. I am in  the single.

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Erg 030

Dec 30 2015

3x(5x30sec/R1)/R5 and some steady state

I joined Romana’s girls for a training today, at the rowing club.

For the girls, we set up this monster:

I rowed on a static erg next to them. It’s nice to couple the erg on slides like this and have them row simultaneously.

We also took some side video for technique discussions. I will only show the one with me:

The training was a long warming up with some speed bursts, then 3 series of 5x30sec with 1 minute rest, at 32spm. Then 20 minutes of steady state.

3x5x30.jpg

I used the Wahoo app on the iphone to record the session. Noticed that it now has rowing as a sport, with what looks like a quite decent “speedcoach” style display.

Here are the results:

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4x20min

Dec 29 2015

4x20min at lactate

Managed to get RowPro not crashing, so I did a 1k warming up and then the main thing.

RowPro behaved well until it wanted to save stroke data for the row. It threw an error message and offered that I email this to assist at digitalrowing.com, which I did. In the rowing log it shows up as 0m rowed, but when I export a CSV file, I have the summary data, at least:

4x20min.jpg

I started slowly, increasing from 170W to 200W during the first interval. Then I remained between 195W and 205W in intervals #2 and #3. This did feel a bit harder than it should and my heart rate seemed high. Did a Lactate measurement and got my suspicion confirmed: 1.7 mmol/L is a high value for me. I want to be around 1.2-1.5 mmol/L.

So I gave myself permission to back down during the final interval, which I rowed without much pace discipline, oscillating between 170W and 200W. Measured lactate again with the last strip from my first batch and got a nice value of 0.9 mmol/L.

I had some difficulties measuring lactate in the past few weeks. It has been very humid weather. The meter gave an error message indicating that it thought the strips were already used. I suspect that lying for an hour in my humid basement didn’t do them good. So I threw those strips away. Yesterday, I replaced the thermometer with a full blown weather station including a measurement of humidity. When I started today’s row, the air in my basement had a relative humidity of 61% at a temperature of 9 degrees C. This corresponded nicely with the Brno airport reported dew point of 2 degrees C (and an outside temperature of 4 degrees, and thus a partial H2O pressure of 7 hPa). During the row, the temperature rose by 0.1 degree but the relative humidity increased to 70%, I guess by my own breathing. In these conditions, the strips turned out to be usable, but I suspect that in the past weeks the relative humidity has been well above 85%, which is the maximum according to the spec of the strips.

Now I have RowPro misbehaving again. I may try to delete the database and see if that makes RowPro behave well again. Alternatively, I may stop using RowPro and just use the PM.

The training program says that I need to test a 60 minute row this week, but that was just to get nonathlon points. I looked at my half marathon result and decided that I would put a pro-rated score of 15319m on nonathlon. I also noticed that during the 60 minutes of my half marathon I covered 15380m, which is 37m past my PB. So I consider that a new Personal Best.

So I dropped the 60min. I moved a 5k test to January because it is that month’s CTC. I also moved the 10k to the next mesocycle where it will be a nice threshold training. That improves the focus on anaerobic capacity for this mesocycle, which is good.

 

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