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).
- I am clearly trading stroke length for stroke rate. I should focus on staying long when I get tired.
- 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.
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.![](http://blog.rowsandall.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/bokeh_plot-4.png)
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.
By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 1 • Tags: concept2, ctc, erg, OTE, rowing, training