ctc

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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bokeh_plot (21)

Jan 10 2017

January CTC: 4x4min/4min rest

I have taken it easy last week, even though it was supposed to be a hard week. Too much sniffing and sneezing going on to do any hard workouts.

So, today was the first real hard workout in ages. I chose to do the CTC. It is somewhere in between the shorter stuff I have been doing before Christmas and the “long intervals” that I am supposed to do in this mesocycle of my training plan.

Row 4 times 4 minutes with 4 minutes rest between reps

Use the same damper setting for all reps.

Record your distance for the sixteen minutes of rowing.
Don’t include any resting metres.

The first 4 minutes must be a standing start. All others can be standing or rolling starts.

In the 2k warming up I did a few 10 stroke sprints at slightly faster paces than I normally do them. Then I set up the 4x4min.

I was warned that it would be a tough workout, so I set myself a target to row 28spm and higher, a “light” stroke and watch stroke length and technique.

Every interval was the almost same, except that they got slightly harder each time. The first minute flew by and I would have thoughts of doing a fast interval at 1:46. The second minute was slightly harder. The third minute was endless and I was struggling to keep 1:48. The light at the end of the tunnel got me through the fourth minute.

Today, the graphs from Rowsandall.com are very interesting. First, the summary plot:

and the summary:


Workout Summary - media/20170110-195135-sled_2017-01-10T19-42-09ZGMT+1.strokes.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|06613|32:00.0|02:25.2|212.1|25.3|158.0|177.0|08.2
W-|04466|16:00.0|01:47.5|281.5|27.8|167.5|177.0|10.1
R-|02149|16:00.0|03:43.4|074.1|20.7|144.9|177.0|01.3
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|01114|04:00.0|01:47.7|279.0|27.1|162.9|173.0|10.3
01|01120|04:00.0|01:47.1|284.4|27.9|169.5|177.0|10.0
02|01117|04:00.0|01:47.4|282.3|28.0|169.1|177.0|10.0
03|01115|04:00.0|01:47.6|280.4|28.1|168.5|177.0|09.9

And here are the interesting plots:

There is a lot of things going on here (at least in my perception).

  1. I am clearly trading stroke length for stroke rate. I should focus on staying long when I get tired.
  2. In the beginning of the row, I was focusing on technique, especially on a couple of the weak points that I discovered in the video analysis. This leads to a slightly higher Average to Peak force ratio. In the second half of each 4 minute interval, and more so in the 3rd and fourth intervals, I just focus on surviving and my technique flaws come back. The ratio drops.

I was wondering if this is due to the peak force or the average force. Guess what? There is a chart for that:

After a few months of spending some of my free time on rowsandall.com, I have something that is really useful, at least for myself. I use painsled to record the data. I get them onto rowsandall.com. I have set of “favorite” charts defined that I browse through. Rest paddling is automatically filtered out, and the result is a set of data that give me a quick overview of what I did, and some observations that are hard to get without a coach sitting next to and observing you.

The temperature in my rowing basement was +1.5C. Outside temperature -8C.

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img_1110

Oct 19 2016

October CTC – A season’s best by default

It was easy to expect a season’s best. With all the splashing around in boats, I hadn’t done a serious hard 10k since the start of the erg “year” on May 1.

Normally, I do a 6k around this time of the year, as a baseline to measure progress against through the winter. But then the PaddyPower October CTC came along, a straight 10k, so I changed my plans. I will do the 6k in a few weeks time. I consulted my pace predictor:

rowsandall.com pace predictor
rowsandall.com pace predictor

The blue line predicted a 1:54.0 pace, the green line even suggested a 1:53.1 pace. Given that my PB from last March is 37:45.4, which is 1:53.3 pace, I figured I would definitely be closer to 1:54, if not even slower. So I started conservatively, at 1:56 pace, and gradually turned up the heat as the row went along.

The 1:56 pace in the beginning meant that I fell into a low stroke rate groove, which I didn’t like. I always feel that I am tiring the legs too much, and if I could lighten up and rate up slightly, and row this pace at 25spm insteady of 23/24spm, I would arrive at the half way mark fresher. But somehow this is a very difficult thing to do on fresh legs.

The hardest part with between 7km to go and 3km to go. After that I set smart intermediate targets. I arrived at the 3km to go mark with a 1:55.5 average pace, and I tried to get the average down by one tenth at a time, taking something between 500m and 700m for each tenth.

img_1110

Of course I did manage to rate up as the row continued. Here is the stroke cloud:

download-36

I basically moved from the left part of the cloud to the right part as time passed by.

And just because we can calculate it, I will throw in a histogram as well:

download-37
Histogram of entire session, including warming up and cooling down

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20160915-195537-sled_2016-09-15t20-04-20zgmt2-strokes20160915-195540

Sep 15 2016

September CTC

Around 2pm in the afternoon, my employer sent out a message to all people on the site that the tap water was not drinkable. Due to hot weather, the entire town’s tap water is above the norm for bacteria. The water company’s site is down, so I don’t know by how much we are over the norm and if there is a huge risk. Driving home after work, I stopped at a supermarket to buy bottled water, only to find it was sold out. Luckily, Romana had managed to get hold of 20 liters of bottled water. Well, I guess you can always boil the tap water and then drink it. It’s a pity I didn’t have our own water well tested. We use it only to flush the toilet and water the garden.

Or, I may have to revert to drinking wine and beer. 🙂

Today’s session was planned as a 5x10min/R3, with the first and last 10min intervals as a warming up, respectively cooling down. I would do the second (hard) 10 minute interval from a standing start, so I could claim it as this month’s CTC.

First, I messed up with the PM. Instead of selecting a time based interval session, I dialed up a single 10 min row.

No problem, that was only the warming up. Dialed up the 10min interval session and set off.

The CTC (Cross Team Challenge) is a fun team challenge. You register for a team (I row for the “Free Spirits”) and each month there is a different rowing challenge. You row the challenge and submit your result to the site. You end up in a “boat” consisting of one lightweight rower, one female rower, and 3 “open” seats, i.e. there will be heavies or fast lightweights or female rowers. The competition is between the teams. The more people participate, the more boats are “floating”. The better your boat scores, the higher you end up in the ranking. I really like this challenge and try to row it every month, to the best score that fits into my training plan. This month’s challenge was “row 10 minutes straight, from a standing start, and record the distance”, so my first 10 minute interval would qualify.


Workout Summary - media/20160915-195537-sled_2016-09-15T20-04-20ZGMT+2.strokes.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|08325|36:01.0|02:09.8|25.2|165.9|185.0|09.2

Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|02727|10:00.0|01:49.9|27.3|170.8|185.0|10.0
01|02609|10:00.0|01:54.8|26.7|174.5|184.0|09.8
02|02283|10:00.0|02:11.2|22.7|157.4|167.0|10.1

20160915-195537-sled_2016-09-15t20-04-20zgmt2-strokes20160915-195540

img_1055
Looks like the PM calculates averages in a slightly different way then I do

I spent some time thinking about my target pace for a 3x10min. My 30 minutes Season’s Best is 1:52.4 pace. According to the fit to Concept2 ranking distances on my own site rowsandall.com, I would be able to do a 30 minute effort (without rests) in 1:52.0 and a full out 10 minutes in 1:46.7 pace. I didn’t think it would be wise to aim for that 1:46.7 pace in the first interval, but I wanted to row 1:52.0 average pace.

download-10

capture

My goal was to row faster than the current lightweight in Free Spirits boat #2: David Plump (also known as Plummy), who had set an average pace of 1:52.9. I knew I wouldn’t be able to beat John Steventon’s (of Free Spirits boat #1) pace of 1:42.9, so I set off at 1:52, held that for 4 minutes, then 3 minutes at 1:51, 2 minutes at 1:50 and final minute free rate and pace.

I managed to  2727 meters in that first interval which is 1:50.0 pace. This resulted in a few lightweights jumping ship. I managed to enter Free Spirits II (same boat as Greg) and move it from 20th place to 17th place. Plummy moved to Free Spirits III still on 27th place but with a better score, and RGelissen moved to Free Spirits IV, bringing that boat up from 39th place to 18th place. Free Spirits V and VI are still in the boathouse.

Having rowed 1:50.0 in the first interval, I took back the power a bit in the second interval, with the idea to row 1:55 average, and then manage 1:52.5 in the final interval. I managed to execute that second interval according to plan, but I didn’t like my heart rate at all. It went substantially above 180bpm, just as in the first interval. Also, I felt tired and not motivated. So I just paddled the final 10 minute interval and called it a cooling down.

My mental strength always returns late from business trips.

Anyway, the CTC challenge does make indoor rowing more fun.

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20160824-192305-sled_2016-08-24T20-48-53ZGMT+2.strokes20160824-193915

Aug 24 2016

Dusting off the erg – CTC

The plan for today was to do a 6×10 minute steady state step test at 170/180/190/200/210/220W and measure lactate after every 10 minutes. I am eager to pick up lactate testing and erging again after a long summer with zero erg time.

Got my lactate measuring device ready and some test strips. Note to self:

  1. Order new strips.

The current ones are nearing their expiry date. Set erg monitor to 10 min  / 1 min rest and took off at 170W.

Wipe. Wash. Wipe. Prick. Ouch. Wipe. Prepare strip. Drop.

Low battery. Ouch.

Note to self:

  1. Order lactate test strips
  2. Buy a new battery for the lactate meter

Well – it didn’t make sense to continue, and I changed to plan B. Do the CTC of this month. I had to skip the July because the 3x2813m session didn’t fit into my plan and I wanted to maximize boat time, so I was keen on getting a score in for this month’s CTC, which is a funny one:

Row four sprints during August.
(They don’t need to be done on the same day.)
One 400m, one 300m, one 200m, and one 100m.
If you row more than one of the pieces as intervals each must be from a standing start.

Find the pace (time for 500m) for each of the four rows from your performance monitor.
Simply add the four paces together to give you an entry for this CTC.

I rowed them in the following order: 400m, 200m, 100m, 300m, with roughly five minutes of active rest in between and of course from a standing start.

During the active rest after the 400m, I noticed that my Garmin Ant heart rate strap behaved funny. It seemed stuck to a value of 130bpm, while I was gasping for air and my heart rate was definitely still higher than that value after an exhausting 400m row.

So I sprinted to my OTW sports bag and grabbed the Tickr heart rate belt.

Note to self:

  1. Order new lactate strips
  2. Buy battery for lactate meter
  3. Buy battery for Garmin HR belt

Here are the plots for the CTC pieces:

20160824-192436-sled_2016-08-24T20-24-25ZGMT+2.strokes20160824-193940
400m – HR belt misbehaving
20160824-192606-sled_2016-08-24T20-35-14ZGMT+2.strokes20160824-193934
200m
20160824-192736-sled_2016-08-24T20-42-09ZGMT+2.strokes20160824-193926
100m
20160824-192305-sled_2016-08-24T20-48-53ZGMT+2.strokes20160824-193915
300m

Tomorrow: Steady State. Probably OTW followed by trailer loading.

Note to self:

  • Don’t forget to put the Tickr HR belt back in the rowing bag!!

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IMG_0909

Jun 2 2016

2x30min on the erg. CTC or not?

In the morning I dropped the car off for a check (and probably renewal) of its shock absorbers, as well as the bi-annual technical test. Plus oil and filters.

They were supposed to call me. In the evening I realized they hadn’t. Need to check tomorrow. I hope it’s not more expensive than they told me and they are afraid to tell me. :-/

Anyway, without a car, the lake is a bit too far. So I did an erg session at home. First, a gentle 5 minutes warming up. Then a 2x30min with 3 minutes rest. The first one nice and gentle as well, the second one at 24spm average and a bit more fierce. Not as fierce as I wanted, but still. I managed 7705m.

This was not exactly what my training plan prescribed, unless you call this extensive steady state. This month’s CTC is not entirely clear to me. At the Free Spirits Forum, it is described as 30 minutes at 24 spm (maximum average). On the CTC site, it says: “Row for 30 minutes at a stroke rate of 24spm or lower.” I am not sure if my row fits the bill. The average was 24spm or lower, but I counted strokes and knew I could go up to 29spm in the final minutes. I did start the second interval from a standing flywheel, even though that condition is nowhere mentioned.

I hope it is a valid attempt, because with all the rowing on water, it will be hard to fit a second attempt into the month.

The cooling down was a 2000m which I managed in 9:00.0 minutes exactly.

IMG_0909

I am proud to say that I uploaded it to my website rowsandall.com where it transferred correctly:

http://rowsandall.com/rowers/workout/268

By the way, here is the interactive plot of the 2x30min:

http://rowsandall.com/rowers/workout/267/interactiveplot

Also, all this syncs nicely to the Concept2 logbook:

Capture

If you also want this functionality, just register at rowsandall.com.

There are still a few glitches that need ironing out, but we are slowly getting to the point where the interactions start to be smooth.

 

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CTC 002

May 4 2016

Under the weather & CTC

Monday was a planned rest day. Already on Sunday I started to feel bad, then I had a really bad night. Headache. Sore throat. Still went to work. Had a difficult day, surviving on aspirin and willpower.

So I worked from home on Tuesday and decided to skip the rowing session in order to get fully recovered. I already felt much better. Still sniffing and sneezing but no more headache, and able to concentrate on work. Business dinner in the evening which I survived without too much damage.

I am not ill very often, and when I catch the cold, it is usually this very intensive but short affair. Somehow I relate this to my physical fitness. When I trained less, these illnesses were much milder, but they carried on longer. I like it better this way.

Today, Wednesday, I definitely felt I could do a workout. The plan called for something intensive, short, with little rest. So a good day to try this month’s CTC:

May 2016 – The Sub 7 Triple 7 Long and Short of it
This challenge was chosen by SUB7
Row
777m / 223m / 777m / 223m / 777m / 223m / 777m / 223m
With 7 minutes total rest spread however you like between the reps.
The first rep from a standing start the others how you choose
Record the time taken for the total 4000 metres.The simplest way to split the rests is one minute between each rep.

I decided to do the rest in a bit more fancy way:

  • 777m, 30 seconds rest
  • 223m, 90 seconds rest
  • 777m, 30 seconds rest
  • 223m, 95 seconds rest
  • 777m, 35 seconds rest
  • 223m, 100 seconds rest
  • 777m, 40 seconds rest
  • 223m, done

I had no idea about pacing but 2k pace seemed a good idea. It wasn’t of course! I guess I should be able to hold 2k pace (or faster?) when in good shape, but recovering from a cold is not the same … CTC 002

And here are the colorful plots.

There is something special about these pictures. Although they look like the ordinary Python stuff I have been using recently, these ones are made online on my website rowsandall.com, which runs Python and creates the plots for you.

In fact, one of the plots was made directly from the iPhone, using painsled’s export to Google Drive and Safari browser’s capability to upload files from Google Drive. Here’s my website on the iPhone during the process:

CTC 003
The website’s “dashboard”
CTC 004
Selecting the file from Google Drive
CTC 005
Ready to upload and create a Pie Chart at the same time
CTC 006
The upload succeeded and the pie chart was made

Here are some screenshots from a Desktop Brower:

uploada
Uploading the CTC to the website
edit
After the upload I can edit the details and create new charts
addedchart
I have created the Pie chart as well

I have built in synchronization functionality with the Concept2 Logbook. Right now it works with their Development/Testing server. Once the application is more mature, I will ask them to allow to upload to their production server.

warminguponc2
The warming up as it appeared on Concept2’s test logbook server

After all this, the images are on my website, ready to be linked to blog or forum posts. Drop me a note if you are interested and want to be part of the testing!

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