concept2

czechoslovakia1956

Mar 5 2017

Short Intervals & The Rowsberry Pi project

First, a cool photograph that I came across today. It is totally unrelated to the post, but I like it, and I find my “feature image” featuring charts and graphs a bit boring:

Czechoslovakia, 1956

There are five people on the photograph.

Today’s row was the short interval session that I had planned for this week. It is not part of my club’s training program, but I have decided to go hybrid. I have planned out my training periodization and the type of workouts I will do in each period. On Monday, when I receive the coach’s training plan, I will plan out the rest of the week, adhering as much as possible to his sessions, but making sure I remain close to my planned periodization, and thus adding, replacing or adapting sessions where needed. It allows me to join the group erg sessions on the club but still understand what the purpose is of each session.

After lunch, I played a bit with the Raspberry Pi, for the “Rowsberry Pi” project. The idea is to create open source software that can be loaded on a Raspberry Pi, turning it into a low-cost data logger for erg sessions. I started with PyRow and I adapted it slightly to capture some extra stroke stats, like drive length, work per stroke, etc. It took a few iterations to get that to work, so my family saw me running back and forth between the rowing basement and the living room.

The basic idea is as follows:

  1. One or more ergs connect to a Raspberry Pi through the USB cable
  2. The Pi just listens to the ergs. When a workout is programmed and started, it starts recording automatically.
  3. At the end of each workout, the Pi saves the stroke data to a CSV file. If configured with an email address, the workout is uploaded automatically to rowsandall.com. Otherwise, the data are available on a shared drive on the network

It should really be a plug-and-row solution. Here’s a picture of my “test lab”:

The Pi is connected to the network through Wifi, and has a network address rowsberrypi1.local. It is connected to the erg through USB. I still have to manually start the program before each workout, and get the results from the Pi by FTP. So there is still some work to do. Also, the recording of the interval session failed. I manually started the session, then programmed it on the PM. I believe that the Pi thought that the session ended at that point.

So, lots of fun details to get right. But imagine being able to install a few Pis in the rowing club ergroom and just silently log all the data … or have your own Pi for recording sessions while traveling. With the network access, even more can be done. A coach can set up all ergs to the same workout remotely through the network.

So here is  my traditional warming up with a few hard strokes, as recorded with Painsled and processed on Rowsandall.com:

And here are a few quick graphs from excel, from the CSV file produced by the Pi. Same warming up as above:

And here is the main session. I did 15 intervals of 40″ on, 1 minute off:

Finally, I did a 3km cooling down.

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myimage (21)

Mar 4 2017

Friday – a lot of 500m

This is the mirror post to this one, so I suggest you read Greg’s observation first. The training was 2x10x500m/80″, with 4 minutes between the sets of 10. And with a rate cap of 26spm.

This was on my training plan and Greg agreed to do it as well, so we could test some of the new “team” functionality on rowsandall.com.

I will go straight to the results.

Set 1:

Workout Summary - media/20170303-1700260o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|07000|29:39.0|02:07.1|205.9|24.0|159.7|175.0|09.8
W-|05000|18:40.0|01:52.1|253.1|25.8|161.2|175.0|10.4
R-|02000|11:00.0|02:45.0|098.1|19.8|156.2|175.0|08.8
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|00500|01:51.4|01:51.4|245.8|25.6|150.0|165.0|10.5
01|00500|01:52.5|01:52.5|256.6|25.7|158.6|170.0|10.4
02|00500|01:51.5|01:51.5|253.3|25.8|158.2|168.0|10.4
03|00500|01:52.0|01:52.0|257.7|26.3|162.4|171.0|10.2
04|00500|01:53.1|01:53.1|251.3|25.7|160.3|172.0|10.3
05|00500|01:52.6|01:52.6|255.4|25.9|162.0|174.0|10.3
06|00500|01:52.1|01:52.1|248.4|26.1|164.1|174.0|10.2
07|00500|01:52.3|01:52.3|252.0|25.7|165.1|174.0|10.4
08|00500|01:51.5|01:51.5|258.1|25.9|164.4|174.0|10.4
09|00500|01:51.8|01:51.8|252.6|25.8|166.7|175.0|10.4

Set 2:

Workout Summary - media/20170303-1700240o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|07000|29:32.0|02:06.6|206.4|24.2|162.6|179.0|09.8
W-|05000|18:13.0|01:49.4|264.2|26.2|163.7|179.0|10.5
R-|02000|11:19.0|02:49.8|080.8|19.9|160.2|179.0|08.9
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|00500|01:50.3|01:50.3|253.2|25.9|154.6|171.0|10.5
01|00500|01:50.1|01:50.1|259.2|26.4|162.0|174.0|10.3
02|00500|01:50.0|01:50.0|261.0|26.2|163.7|174.0|10.4
03|00500|01:50.1|01:50.1|258.1|26.2|162.9|175.0|10.4
04|00500|01:49.9|01:49.9|257.8|26.2|163.6|174.0|10.4
05|00500|01:49.6|01:49.6|265.8|26.2|165.6|175.0|10.5
06|00500|01:50.0|01:50.0|259.9|25.9|164.4|176.0|10.5
07|00500|01:49.7|01:49.7|263.1|26.0|164.6|175.0|10.5
08|00500|01:47.6|01:47.6|276.7|26.2|167.3|177.0|10.6
09|00500|01:46.7|01:46.7|288.0|26.3|168.5|179.0|10.7

And the graphs:

It was a doable workout. On paper it looks very brutal, but I didn’t have any problems rowing it. Hence I accelerated in the second set, by focusing on long strokes.

While rowing, I was wondering how Greg was doing. I imagined 1:44 pace. After we both uploaded our workouts to rowsandall.com, we could compare:

So you can see that we were really close in terms of heart rate and power. On the dynamic, Greg upped the stroke rate a bit.

Here are the metrics plots, just because I have them. Nothing special to observe, except that I did a good job holding length.

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Rowingchat-logo-on-soundcloud

Feb 28 2017

3x20min at the rowing club

I got up very early. We took the 6:07 train to Prague, for another visit to the embassy, this time with the kids, to get the documents for the rest of the family in order. I spent a few hours in the train updating the rowsandall.com site with some advanced filtering of Empower Oarlock data.

The training plan was clear and this is a training I recognize.

3x20min / 4 min rest. Alternate 20 and 22 spm each 2 minutes

I rowed this at the rowing club and the turnout was great. We Masters occupied 5 ergs. Doing the rate stuff in a row of five ergs is interesting when you sync your strokes, as we did.

I was on the erg next to the wall, and I did notice that air circulation is a lot worse there. I am used to my cold rowing basement and I did have a lot of trouble rowing in this hot, humid environment.


Workout Summary - media/20170228-1920230o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|15791|72:00.0|02:16.8|190.0|21.2|000.0|000.0|10.3
W-|14649|60:00.0|02:02.9|189.3|21.4|000.0|000.0|11.4
R-|01146|12:00.0|05:14.1|188.7|21.9|000.0|000.0|00.2
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|04900|20:00.0|02:02.5|190.5|21.4|000.0|000.0|11.4
01|04883|20:00.0|02:02.9|189.8|21.3|000.0|000.0|11.5
02|04866|20:00.0|02:03.3|187.6|21.4|000.0|000.0|11.3

I was the slowest of the lot, but I think I am the only one who knows about a polarized training plan. I tried to explain that this should be rowed at “conversation” pace, but the others wanted to pull faster splits than their neighbors.

I am happy to report that my Sunday hour of updating firmware was successful. I have the full metrics from Painsled now.

No heart rate data. I recorded that separately on the Garmin, but I haven’t finished my Data Fusion functionality on rowsandall.com yet.

Oh and I should mention that you can listen to my on Sunday 8pm UK time, when I will be in the RowPerfect Rowing Chat: https://www.rowperfect.co.uk/rowingchat/

You can also download the podcast afterwards and listen to it later.

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bokeh_plot (15)

Feb 23 2017

Power at 17spm

Today’s workout was another interesting one:

5x(6x15strokes on / 10 strokes off)/5 minutes rest. Drag 145. Stroke rate 17spm

My Masters team mates warned that this is a “very heavy” workout. So after another long day at work, I went down to my erg cave. Tired, but curious.

I did a 1500m light warming up without any fast strokes. Then set the drag to 145 and started a “Just Row”.

After the first interval I took a piece of paper and wrote down a row of numbers 1 to 5 and another row of numbers 1 to 6. Then I took two coins and placed one on the 1 in the top row and the other one next to the 1 on the bottom row.

After each 15 strokes “on”, I moved the bottom coin to the next number.

The only way for me to count the number of intervals and sets. Counting to 15 and 10 was hard enough.

Here are some stroke stats:

Pace-wise, I paddled the 10 strokes at a very light pace, and the “on” strokes got down to 1:54, but usually were between 1:56 and 1:58. It took about 10 strokes in each set to get below 2:00 pace.

It wasn’t very hard, and I was surprised how fast the first 10km passed. Perhaps I was doing something wrong? Perhaps I should pull harder?

Doing the flex charts I made an interesting discovery. The average/peak force was unusually high for me. Normally it is around 0.56 or 0.57. Today it was significantly higher at 0.62. Most of the following plots are made on rowsandall.com by selecting only the strokes below 18spm:

Not sure about this workout. Let’s see. Either I did it wrong, or I wake up tomorrow with a 10% increase in leg strength.

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Feb 22 2017

February CTC (10×90″/30″)

Well, that was painful.


Workout Summary - media/20170222-2000230o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|04931|20:00.0|02:01.7|244.4|26.8|170.3|181.0|09.2
W-|04129|15:00.0|01:49.0|274.0|27.9|169.9|181.0|09.9
R-|00813|05:00.0|03:04.6|110.8|22.5|172.9|181.0|02.4
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|00417|01:30.0|01:47.8|268.6|27.8|145.1|163.0|10.0
01|00408|01:30.0|01:50.2|270.8|27.1|162.0|169.0|10.0
02|00407|01:30.0|01:50.7|261.7|26.9|166.9|172.0|10.1
03|00414|01:30.0|01:48.6|268.6|26.9|169.5|173.0|10.3
04|00415|01:30.0|01:48.5|283.5|27.8|171.7|177.0|10.0
05|00414|01:30.0|01:48.6|272.2|27.3|175.2|179.0|10.1
06|00411|01:30.0|01:49.5|273.3|27.0|175.9|180.0|10.2
07|00415|01:30.0|01:48.5|278.9|28.7|176.7|180.0|09.6
08|00415|01:30.0|01:48.6|279.4|29.1|177.5|181.0|09.5
09|00413|01:30.0|01:48.9|282.8|30.2|178.4|181.0|09.1

The training plan called for a 50 minute gentle run. I came home very late and had 4 performance reviews today, one of which was a very tough one.

Also, I wanted to get the CTC out of the way, and with a 2km warming up and a 2km cooling down, it would be a short workout.

Short but painful. I aimed for 1:49 pace. The 30 second “rest” is just enough to make you go harder than if you would row this without breaks, and you pay for it after 3 or 4 intervals.

A bunch of stroke metric plots:

And here is the correlations table:

You can see the strong negative correlation of stroke rate and average/peak force ratio. I would also like to point out the strong positive correlation between Work per Stroke and stroke length. A fact we all know but forget as soon as we sit down on the erg.

Finally, a few cumulative statistics. I am building the map of New Zealand by plotting power vs stroke rate. Stroke Force Ratio is pretty constant across stroke rates. 

You can also see that in the past 10 days I have done a bit more speed work, compared to the past year.

I nearly fainted after completing the workout. This is a real hard one, especially on a day with a few performance reviews.

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myimage (63)

Feb 21 2017

Team workout

Armed with my iphone connection kit and a 30-pin to firelight (or firewire or wirefire, whatever), I took to the rowing club. I want to get into the habit of doing one or two sessions per week with the other Masters rowers. It is good to train with others.

It is also unusual. The erg room is hot and sweaty, not like my gloomy but nicely cool rowing cave. There is other music. But mostly, you are rowing next to other guys and there is the peaking on each other’s PM’s factor.

Today’s training was 3x15min/4min with the 15min at 20spm, but every fifth minute at 24spm. We rowed in sync.


Workout Summary - media/20170221-1825230o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|13178|57:05.0|02:10.0|172.1|17.6|0.0|000.0|13.1
W-|11320|45:00.0|01:59.3|206.8|21.2|000.0|000.0|11.9
R-|01861|12:05.0|03:15.0|001.0|00.1|000.0|000.0|382.8
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|03814|15:00.0|01:58.0|212.5|21.0|000.0|0.0|12.1
01|03759|15:00.0|01:59.7|204.9|21.2|000.0|0.0|11.8
02|03747|15:00.0|02:00.1|203.0|21.3|000.0|0.0|11.7

The plots are a bit weird. I was hesitating if I would add a fourth interval or not. In the end I couldn’t convince Martin (gasping for air) and Tomas to do it, but I did a few strokes into a fourth interval. Painsled didn’t like that really.

I also discovered that the PM3 doesn’t send the cool metrics like drive force and drive length over the USB connection. Messes up the stats.

As I don’t have a Polar heart rate connector, I recorded my heart rate separately on the Garmin Forerunner. Quite high heart rates. I didn’t much like this workout. Too low stroke rate for me.

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empower

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!

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