concept2

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Apr 18 2017

5x1500m fail in the cold

The plan was to row a 5x1500m on the water, first thing in the morning.

This plan didn’t survive the time I needed to scrape the ice off my car windows. The North Pole has decided to send its weather our way. Temperatures are around 0, windy, with icy rain, hail, and other nice stuff. Snow is expected for tomorrow.

The official training plan for the Masters in our club has a light week, but I have decided that training properly is more important than performing on coming weekend’s races. So plan B was to do the session indoors and compare with a similar workout of a few weeks ago.

First, I needed to reinstall Painsled. My “beta tester” version had expired, so I had to download the “ordinary” version. This involved going upstairs to tell my son to stop downloading videos.

After a 2k warming up I started the main session. I set it up as a “ReRow”, with my previous session as a pace boat.

I managed to follow the pace boat for the first three intervals. At the start of the fourth interval I saw that my pace boat was getting faster. I was now chasing a 1:50 average.

After 1000m, the wheels came off.

myimage (10)

 

bokeh plot (13)

 

bokeh plot (12)

 

The only nice thing about it is that I have the workout compare functionality on rowsandall.com to see this happening in real life. Unfortunately, the last time I rowed this with my defect Wahoo Tickr, and the heart rate values were not reliable.

I bet they were lower than today, though. I think the first graph tells the story all too well. Too much red in the third interval …

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welcome.png

Apr 11 2017

Ending Rowing Careers

No, not my rowing “career”. Today, I heard that my performance at the LW men Open Czech Long Distance Championship was used as a kind of benchmark. Elite rowers slower than Roosendaal can end their career. Elite rowers who beat me with a too small margin also have a problem.

Interesting.

Today, I am happy, because I ended a few weeks of schizofrenia. On the test server of rowsandall.com, I have been working on updated looks, including a new designed logo.

Every time I went to the “production” version of the site, I was more and more unhappy. I liked the new design more.

Today, the “develop” version has become the “production” version. Rowsandall.com v2.0. Here’s the landing page, including a licensed stock photograph:

welcome

And this is the facelifted version of the workouts list:

workoutlist

And more is to come.

Today, I rowed on the erg. I had too much work to do. Also, the wind prediction was very unfavorable, so I didn’t risk. The bluetooth connectivity issue with the PM5 was solved by resetting the iPhone. So, nothing wrong with the PM, but the iPhone had corrupted bluetooth settings after an iOS update.

myimage (23)

 

Today’s workout is from the training plan of our head coach and it was:

3km warming up

3x10min/5min rest, with 10min = 4min@20spm, 3min@22spm, 2min@24spm, 1min@26spm

Cooling down


Workout Summary - media/20170411-1845240o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|09394|45:00.0|02:23.7|188.3|21.8|156.0|180.0|09.6
W-|07623|30:00.0|01:58.1|214.0|22.1|161.7|180.0|11.6
R-|01779|15:00.0|04:13.0|106.8|19.9|146.8|180.0|00.4
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|00987|04:00.0|02:01.6|191.6|19.9|143.7|153.0|12.4
01|00766|03:00.0|01:57.5|215.4|22.4|160.8|167.0|11.4
02|00522|02:00.0|01:54.9|230.6|23.9|168.9|171.0|10.9
03|00270|01:00.0|01:51.2|254.8|26.0|173.3|174.0|10.4
04|00965|04:00.0|02:04.4|185.0|19.5|152.3|161.0|12.4
05|00763|03:00.0|01:58.0|212.8|22.4|166.2|170.0|11.4
06|00529|02:00.0|01:53.3|240.2|24.3|173.2|175.0|10.9
07|00272|01:00.0|01:50.2|260.5|26.0|176.8|178.0|10.5
08|00979|04:00.0|02:02.6|193.6|20.3|153.7|164.0|12.1
09|00768|03:00.0|01:57.2|217.1|22.1|169.1|173.0|11.6
10|00531|02:00.0|01:53.0|242.2|24.2|175.5|178.0|10.9
11|00272|01:00.0|01:50.3|260.4|26.0|179.1|180.0|10.5

Interesting workout. I think it would have been more interesting to row it on the water.

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Apr 7 2017

Thursday: Head Race Prep done Indoors

I rushed from work early to be in time for the loading of our trailer and get in the last serious OTW workout before Saturday’s race.

The lake played one of its famous tricks. Today it looked really like the high seas. I took a picture of our new club car, but I don’t think the waves are clearly visible. Believe me, they were big enough to make any outing just dangerous.

IMG 1420

 

So I started to prepare my boat for transport, when the head coach came around telling me that he had to exchange my rower’s registration card for a new one and the Czech Rowing Association hadn’t copied the expiration date from my old car to the new one. So, before Saturday’s race I had to get a signature and a stamp from a doctor. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to start the race.

I had planned to do a full sports medical test, but you have to make an appointment well in advance for that. Now I was stuck. I called my GP and she agreed that she would sign. Not having visited a doctor for treatment in years, I guess she was fine.

Then I went home and got ready to do the race prep workout on the erg.

Funny. My PM5 wouldn’t connect to Painsled wirelessly. I switched to ErgData. Same thing. ErgData gave me a -56dB warning. It would connect for a second, and then it would drop the connection. Not sure what is going on here. Is the Bluetooth broken on my PM5? I found the iConnect cable and set it up with the cable.

The workout was:

Warming up

3000m @ 22spm

5 minutes rest

3000m rowed as 1000m @ 24spm, 1000m @ 26spm, 500m @ 28spm, 500m @ 30spm

Cooling Down

On the Static Erg, I decided to lower the stroke rates by 2.

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Workout Summary - media/20170406-1815230o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|07136|29:55.0|02:05.8|191.9|21.8|161.1|184.0|10.9
W-|06000|23:53.0|01:59.5|203.9|21.9|163.3|184.0|11.6
R-|01137|06:01.0|02:39.0|112.7|20.1|144.6|184.0|07.7
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|03000|12:23.4|02:03.9|180.8|19.9|154.0|162.0|12.2
01|01000|04:01.0|02:00.5|204.4|21.9|164.8|171.0|11.4
02|01000|03:49.6|01:54.8|228.7|24.1|174.8|178.0|10.8
03|00500|01:50.3|01:50.3|255.9|25.9|179.5|181.0|10.5
04|00500|01:49.4|01:49.4|255.9|26.6|182.5|184.0|10.3

Today: Travel to Horin, the race venue, and a quick row.
Saturday: 6km head race in the single

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myimage (9)

Mar 30 2017

Dream on, Sander & Rowsberry Pi

How many times have I made this mistake? Many times.

Actually, I was fully aware that I was making this mistake when I made it. But I guess this is how I am wired. I was going to try anyway.

This is the failure mode:

  1. Go on a business trip
  2. Return late in the evening
  3. Have a busy day at work catching up with all the stuff of running a research department
  4. Plan to row an erg test (a 6k this time) in the evening
  5. Fail

Our coach wanted us to row the spring 6k test a week ago, but I was in Racice rowing on the water. This week I was on a business trip. Today I was doing item 3 above, with on top of that a key meeting where I had to announce a major course change to a project team, as well as two technology demonstrations to our CTO. So it was quite a busy day,

Oh, and I hadn’t slept too well. Some stuff related to growing up children that kept me awake. I guess the usual stuff parents go through.

But I still wanted to give the 6k a try (and at the same time record a time for the 5142 meters CTC challenge). So I dialed up a 6k.


Workout Summary - media/20170330-2015100o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|06000|24:10.0|02:00.8|203.8|24.0|163.9|178.0|10.3
W-|06000|24:10.0|02:00.9|201.9|23.9|163.9|178.0|10.4
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|178.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|01500|05:32.6|01:50.9|254.5|26.6|166.2|178.0|10.2
01|01500|06:15.8|02:05.3|187.8|23.8|161.4|178.0|10.1
02|01500|06:09.1|02:03.0|188.0|22.7|163.1|168.0|10.7
03|01500|06:12.7|02:04.2|182.9|22.7|165.0|170.0|10.6

So you can see that I gave up after 2000m and made this an ordinary steady state row.

Well, I guess I will always dream.

Rowsberry Pi

Talking of dreaming. The Rowsberry Pi is going well. I have a quickly hacked version that logs my workouts automatically and sends each workout to a configured email address when you press the Menu button on the PM.

Rowing with the iPhone running Painsled, it was kind of cool to see emails coming in immediately after I pressed the menu button.

This project is now officially Open Source and it lives on Github. One developer has joined me and is doing a fine job of decluttering and refactoring the code.

The end goal should be an easy to use software that you can burn to a microSD disk and use with a Raspberry Pi. The software should be used as a datalogger, and will then be expanded to be much more than that.

Any rowing Software developers skilled in Python out there? Come and join the effort. I guess this is a dream project in a way … so if you like to do things that can’t be done, and you are a rower … come join!

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myimage (36)

Mar 9 2017

A long day and a 5x1500m

I started the workout very late. I had a long day at work, trying to cram all the week’s interactions with my people into one day. I will be out on travel tomorrow. Just a day trip over to Prague (2 hour drive). And after dinner, my sons were quizzing me about computers and programming, so I showed them the Sonic Pi program on the Raspberry Pi. It’s a simple integrated development environment to program sounds. A kind of synthesizer software that teaches you to program. One of my sons plays guitar, so he know chords, and soon we were trying to program chords.

Still, I was determined to get a 5x1500m in. I know these workouts are always hard after an exhausting business trip, so I aimed at 1:52 average pace. Somehow, I went slightly faster in the first. I got tired, but I had a good rhythm and just kept going. After the second interval I shifted the stroke rate up a little and that turned out to be a good move. I didn’t have difficulty hitting 1:50 pace consistently, and that in itself was a huge motivation.

So, very glad I finished this workout. And when I look at my scores from 2 seasons ago, when I did a strict Wolverine plan, it’s a pretty good average pace. My fastest 5x1500m from that winter was 1:49.9 pace.


Workout Summary - media/20170309-2010220o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|11142|52:37.0|02:21.7|205.1|25.4|150.3|180.0|08.3
W-|07500|27:36.0|01:50.4|260.6|27.3|158.0|180.0|09.9
R-|03645|25:01.0|03:26.0|096.6|23.6|142.0|180.0|00.2
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|01500|05:32.1|01:50.7|255.5|26.6|152.7|171.0|10.2
01|01500|05:35.6|01:51.9|255.7|26.9|158.0|167.0|10.0
02|01500|05:31.5|01:50.5|260.7|27.5|159.6|175.0|09.9
03|01500|05:30.9|01:50.3|258.9|27.2|164.4|180.0|10.0
04|01500|05:26.5|01:48.8|272.2|28.5|155.3|174.0|09.7

The PM gave an average of 1:50.2. I believe something is wrong with the average reported in the second interval. Also, the heart rate graph seems a little weird. I had was wearing the Bluetooth HR belt and had the feeling the PM was lagging behind. The values on the Garmin watch (connected over the ANT protocol) seemed more reliabe.

And here are the metrics charts. I leave the interpretation as an exercise to the reader. It is quite evident what is going on.

I was also recording heart rate in parallel on the Garmin. I am making progress on Data Fusion for rowsandall.com. I may publish some sneak preview screenshots in a separate post over the weekend. Then we can see if the Garmin recorded different heart rate values.

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ifema.jpg

Mar 9 2017

Tuesday & Wednesday – Steady State

Tuesday

My boss’s phone call woke me up. He was stuck at the airport in Toulouse because of Air Traffic Control strike and couldn’t fly in to Madrid. Suddenly I was the person who had to speak to his contacts and his boss’s contacts.

So that threw my plans out of the door. As my luggage hadn’t arrived on Monday evening (despite Iberia’s promise), I had to rush to downtown Madrid, hit El Corte Inglés for clean shirts, smart pants and a tie, and rush back to the IFEMA, where the conference was held, then find our Government Relations lady and align our talking points.

I really love clothes shopping. Not. My usual style of clothes shopping is already quite close to a covert operation, and this time it was really get in, find shirts, find matching tie, try, pay, get the hell out of there.

ifema

After the prep, it was a whirlwind of meetings, then a reception with a few drinks and lots of discussions. I ended up at my hotel room extremely tired, and even canceled the planned dinner. No time for training.

Wednesday

Dragged myself down to the hotel fitness room for an erg session before breakfast. I was extremely uninspired, dialed up a 10k and started rowing, 2:05 split. After 2.5km I added in a 10 stroke acceleration to spice up things a bit and that seemed to help. So I did the 10 strokes at 1:52 pace every 1000m until 2k to go, at which point I settled for a cooling down.

Not the ideal training but about the maximum possible given the circumstances.

The rest of the was catching up with my own meetings which I had moved out of the Tuesday, and then I caught a flight back home. Arrived pretty late.

Today I am catching up with overdue blog posts, and more importantly trying to catch up with everything at work, because tomorrow I will be on a business trip to Prague, and on Sunday I am leaving to the US for a week. I don’t think I am getting in the required amount of training this week, and definitely not the right intensity. Well, that just comes with my job. I have a cool job, so there I will have to accept the occasional suboptimal training.

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Mar 9 2017

Monday: Travel blues & Steady State

 

Every spring I attend the World ATM (Air Traffic Management) Congress in Madrid, Spain. It’s a nice event where the entire industry gathers. A great opportunity to compress in a few days what otherwise could have been endless conference calls or numerous business trips. Also, the chance of nice weather early March is a lot greater in Madrid than in Brno, so there is the additional benefit of feeling the sun on your winter skin during a lunch break.

For the past three years I have stayed in a hotel in central Madrid, but this time I decided to return to a hotel close to the conference venue, because I knew the fitness had a Concept2 erg. Here it is. Do you see the Concept2 erg?

3814096 20 z

At Vienna airport Iberia forced me to check my luggage.

At Madrid, only 10 suitcases arrived on the belt. All the other luggage had remained in Vienna. Great. So instead of heading directly to the hotel and get in my workout, I had to queue more than an hour to fill out my lost luggage form. Iberia promised that the luggage would arrive on the next flight. I didn’t believe them much.

So after I arrived at the hotel, I headed to the shopping mall opposite and bought the cheapest workout clothes I could get. A 3 Euro T-shirt and training shorts. Then I took my iPhone connector kit, heart rate belt, Garmin watch (all of which I luckily had in the small carry-on bag), and headed down to the hotel fitness.

The Concept2 was there waiting for me. Unfortunately, the PM3 on firmware version 82 did not connect to the iPhone. I tried both Painsled and ErgData but no luck. Oh well. The training effect is there even without recording the data, right?

I rowed a 15km of steady state. It was dry and warm and at the end I was very sweaty. I didn’t go very fast.

IMG 1378

I also noted that the poor erg had been idle for a very very long time:

IMG 1380

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