double

IMG_1355

Jun 15 2019

Morava Race

It’s been a hectic and very exciting period, and that’s the reason my last blog post was from May 25th. Here’s a very quick run through the sessions starting on May 27th.

May 29th session 1: Weights. On Monday I was too tired, and on Tuesday I was too busy to workout. I do pretty heavy weights sessions, so I think this was a pretty heavy one.

May 29th session 2: Row in the 8+. One of the few preparation sessions we had for our short season. If I remember well, it was choppy. BoatCoach was misbehaving. I thought I had set it to splash guard, but it switched off during the row. The map also showing me taking a jump to North Africa during one or two strokes. It surely didn’t look like I was visiting the Sahara. It was more choppy, wetter, and less coordinated.

On June 30, I drove to Racice to pick up the boats for the camp. Here are Daniela and Dave from Czech Concept2/Wintech/NK:

May 31st: A quick row in the double. We simply ran out of time. It wasn’t very intensive, but it was a pleasure to row the double with Romana.

June 1: Morava Regatta on our home lake. Kazi and I rowed the heat of the men’s 2x. We came in fourth place . It wasn’t a very good race, and we expected to not proceed to the finals. It turns out our time was better than the winner of the second heat, and we qualified for the final on Sunday. We are trying to race faster crews in preparation for the Masters Worlds, so this was good. It was unfortunate that we couldn’t deal with the wakes from the umpires launches and that we couldn’t steer a straight course.

Sunday June 2: Our final race on the double. We were bold and did something you should not try at home: We changed some rigging parameters on our boat just before a race.

And off we were to the final:

We raced a much better race this time, and managed exactly the same time as on Saturday, but this time we

  • rowed in a headwind (as opposed to Saturday’s tailwind)
  • managed to pass another crew which is always a great feeling

Here are some charts comparing the Saturday and Sunday races:

Looks pretty similar, but we had a tailwind on Saturday, and it all felt much more controlled on Sunday.

On the same day, my youngest son Robin (on the right in the picture below) won his heat and final in the boys 4+, and can now call himself Champion of Moravia.

My final race of the weekend was a 2k in our Masters eight. We raced better than we had ever rowed in a training and managed to win a bronze medal.

The picture shows our crew on the right, the winning Men’s crew from our club in the middle, and Lodni Sporty Brno taking silver on the left. There was a little competition going on of funniest pictures on the podium. We weren’t very good. I liked our Juniors 8+:

I took a quick shower and then it was time for the camp to start …

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7F029A8F-DD0C-46C8-9535-59496F42CD97

May 26 2019

A week of rowing

Saturday

A steady state row in the single. This was the weekend of the Brno international Juniors regatta, so I decided to not go on the lake but row on the river instead. There was a strong wind and the lake was very choppy, so this was a good choice anyway. I didn’t have a lot of time to Row because I had to be back in time to coach some of Romana’s girls in Romana’s absence.

steady state

Nice row.

Sunday

Originally, I wanted to go on the double with Romana after the last race of the Juniors regatta, but somehow it went differently. Our club has bought a new LiteBoat Quattro (4x/4x+ combo) and it arrived from France on Sunday morning. I helped putting on the riggers and rigging it, including a complex foot steering mechanism, and so we wanted to try it out. It wasn’t an overall success. The foot steering mechanism was somewhat loose so I had trouble steering it. I did like cutting through a huge wake caused by a motorboat, though.

short row

It was a short row, because we all wanted to be home in time.

Monday

I managed to leave the office at a reasonable time and I did a very nice steady state row in the single. Again to the castle to avoid the choppy lake.

steady

Interesting to see the difference in pace in the tailwind versus headwind part, compared to the power which is nearly constant.

Tuesday

Another day where I arrived early. I had to leave work early to go to the bank to solve an unpleasant issue. During my last visit to the USA, it seems my bank card was copied. Suddenly, suspicious payments at a gas station in North Carolina showed up in my electronic banking app. I blocked the card immediately, and this Tuesday I had to go to the bank to pick up my new card.

I suspect this happened on one of the dinners. I hate it when they take your card to do a swipe of the magnetic strip, and then you sign. I think this is a technology of the 1980s, but in the US it is still widely used.

The workout was 4x5min with each five minute interval 2 minutes at 24spm, 2 minutes at 26 SPM and 1 minute at 28 SPM.

intervals

I had company from the Masters E pair, but I was slightly faster than them. The wind was a very light breeze from the south west, nothing to write home about.

speedvspace

The speed vs pace chart looks pretty ok, I think.

Workout Summary – media/20190521-1635470o.csv
–|Total|-Total—-|–Avg–|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
–|Dist-|-Time—–|-Pace–|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR–|-HR–|-DPS
–|11886|01:02:30.5|02:37.8|169.1|21.8|145.7|179.0|08.7
W-|04472|00:19:33.5|02:11.2|239.4|25.7|162.5|179.0|08.9
R-|07417|00:-81:53.0|-5:-24.1|495692181610166.6|85618463765934.2|641582514294807.5|179.0|-0.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|01105|04:51.2|02:11.8|238.2|25.1|158.2|173.0|09.1
02|01096|04:51.9|02:13.1|242.1|25.8|164.1|178.0|08.7
03|01154|04:58.4|02:09.3|232.9|25.9|161.6|178.0|09.0
04|01118|04:52.0|02:10.6|244.8|26.0|166.0|179.0|08.8

First two intervals were in a light headwind, last two in light tailwind. I was happy with the pace and it was a very enjoyable training session.

Wednesday

We were supposed to go out in an eight, but only three people showed up, unfortunately. Also the lake was very choppy, so my original idea to row a 4- wasn’t going to be a very meaningful training. We settled for the erg, doing 2x(4x250m/250m)/4min.

I have no data, unfortunately, but I was happy to hold 1:37 to 1:38 on the intervals. I think this is slightly faster than I would have been able to hold a year ago. I believe this is my weights training paying off.

Friday

I had a quite difficult morning. Our club was supposed to go to the races in Hodonin, but it had been raining very hard in the preceding few days, and the water in the Morava River was rising fast. On Thursday evening, I received following video from the race venue:

I thought racing in these conditions was madness, but the race organizers were postponing their decision. On Friday morning I decided for myself to not race and not send my sons racing. The official decision to cancel the Regatta was done only at 3pm on Friday.

I did a weights session. Bench press, dead lift, squats, cable row, plank. Pretty heavy.

Saturday

Finally! Romana and I went out in the double. We did a short sprint workout: 2x(8×20″/20″). It was fun and it was nice to climb into the higher stroke rates.

sprintervals

Somehow the heart rate monitor misbehaved again, I may have to go back to the chest straps.

After the row, we drove to Klentnice to fine tune the menu for the rowing camp dinner. The Fara restaurant in Klentnice, in the Palava area, just 40 minutes south of Brno, has true genius loci.

food

View

Sun, vineyards, nice modern architecture, ruins of a medieval castle. What do you want more?

Sunday

We were supposed to race in Hodonin, but the races were canceled because of high water. So I invited my 2x partner from Hodonin to come train in Brno. The boys were doing the Pete plan pyramid (250, 500, 750, 1000, 750, 500, 250m) and we decided to join them. There also was a mixed masters 4x on the water, so in the end we were an armada of 2 singles, one pair, one double and two quads doing the same workout, which was big fun. We have a buoyed 6 lane course.

Workout Summary – media/20190526-1226280o.csv
–|Total|-Total—-|–Avg–|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
–|Dist-|-Time—–|-Pace–|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR–|-HR–|-DPS
–|13065|01:31:23.5|03:29.9|000.0|23.0|126.1|181.0|06.2
W-|04064|00:14:51.9|01:49.7|000.0|32.7|157.2|181.0|08.4
R-|09007|00:-315:49.3|-17:-26.4|000.0|-1302108410965260137714941952.0|-5016110237894753553529962496.0|181.0|-0.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|00320|01:08.4|01:46.9|000.0|30.5|152.3|166.0|09.2
02|00503|01:48.1|01:47.4|000.0|33.3|110.0|125.0|08.4
03|00743|02:45.0|01:51.0|000.0|32.0|166.2|179.0|08.4
04|00996|03:46.3|01:53.6|000.0|31.0|166.6|179.0|08.5
05|00777|02:54.6|01:52.3|000.0|32.7|163.7|177.0|08.2
06|00493|01:41.3|01:42.7|000.0|36.5|166.1|181.0|08.0
07|00231|00:48.2|01:44.2|000.0|36.0|152.3|168.0|08.0

Splits according to the GPS. In the second 500m we were quite competitive with the boys quad and took the rate up to 38spm in the final bit.

sprints

Here is our stroke rate vs pace chart:

pace

After a short coffee break, we rowed another 10k with lots of drills and technique training.

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mapka2

May 4 2019

Getting ready (?) for first sprint races

Tuesday – April 30

A long weights workout. Mainly worked on breast and shoulder, and legs.

Wednesday – May 1

A bank holiday in the Czech Republic.

5x6min. Power values by estimation and likely overestimated in the headwind intervals and underestimated in the tailwind ones

Romana and I went out in the mixed double. The workout was 5x6min with  a few minutes break. The even intervals were to be rowed at 26spm and the uneven ones at 22/24/26, making a shift every two minutes.

It was a bit windy, so we decided to row in the gorge. There were crowds of bank holiday paddle boarders who didn’t really respect the traffic rules, but we managed. It was a fun workout. We also made progress getting to our signature light, highly effective stroke.

Friday, May 3

A glorious morning row. Mirror flat water. I went out in the single. The workout was a brutal


6x(6x20strokes/15strokes)/5min at race rate

No heart rate data as I had forgotten to charge my OH1. I really enjoyed doing those 20 stroke sprints. I kept the stroke rate between 30 and 32.


Workout Summary - media/20190503-1040460o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|15379|85:51.0|02:47.5|164.5|22.9|0.0|000.0|07.8
W-|04578|18:32.0|02:01.5|331.1|31.7|000.0|000.0|07.8
R-|10836|67:22.0|03:06.5|118.6|20.5|000.0|000.0|07.4
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|00092|00:21.8|01:58.5|305.8|30.2|000.0|0.0|08.4
02|00123|00:29.2|01:58.6|321.6|31.1|000.0|0.0|08.1
03|00123|00:28.6|01:56.1|327.8|31.4|000.0|0.0|08.2
04|00124|00:29.0|01:57.2|311.6|31.1|000.0|0.0|08.2
05|00138|00:31.8|01:55.6|339.4|32.0|000.0|0.0|08.1
06|00125|00:29.2|01:56.7|327.5|30.6|000.0|0.0|08.4
07|00133|00:31.4|01:58.1|332.4|30.6|000.0|0.0|08.3
08|00132|00:30.8|01:56.3|332.0|31.3|000.0|0.0|08.2
09|00125|00:29.1|01:56.7|315.9|30.8|000.0|0.0|08.3
10|00120|00:27.7|01:55.5|336.7|32.4|000.0|0.0|08.0
11|00120|00:28.1|01:57.0|328.1|32.2|000.0|0.0|08.0
12|00138|00:32.3|01:56.7|329.2|31.9|000.0|0.0|08.1
13|00117|00:28.5|02:01.8|365.6|33.7|000.0|0.0|07.3
14|00123|00:29.0|01:58.1|317.0|30.8|000.0|0.0|08.2
15|00132|00:31.2|01:58.5|328.5|30.9|000.0|0.0|08.2
16|00132|00:31.4|01:58.9|328.1|30.9|000.0|0.0|08.2
17|00132|00:31.7|02:00.3|325.1|30.5|000.0|0.0|08.2
18|00124|00:29.1|01:57.4|321.7|30.7|000.0|0.0|08.3
19|00129|00:41.9|02:42.3|352.2|36.3|000.0|0.0|05.1
20|00127|00:29.3|01:55.6|309.5|30.4|000.0|0.0|08.5
21|00128|00:29.5|01:55.3|314.7|30.2|000.0|0.0|08.6
22|00120|00:27.8|01:55.4|334.7|32.3|000.0|0.0|08.1
23|00133|00:31.2|01:57.2|310.5|30.8|000.0|0.0|08.3
24|00123|00:28.6|01:56.1|321.0|31.4|000.0|0.0|08.2
25|00129|00:51.0|03:18.0|357.3|32.2|000.0|0.0|04.7
26|00125|00:29.2|01:57.1|315.7|30.7|000.0|0.0|08.3
27|00139|00:32.4|01:56.7|330.9|31.4|000.0|0.0|08.2
28|00122|00:28.9|01:58.1|327.6|31.2|000.0|0.0|08.1
29|00122|00:28.6|01:57.5|327.7|31.4|000.0|0.0|08.1
30|00125|00:29.1|01:56.7|322.1|30.7|000.0|0.0|08.4
31|00131|00:40.7|02:35.5|352.8|34.3|000.0|0.0|05.6
32|00131|00:30.5|01:56.4|328.5|31.6|000.0|0.0|08.2
33|00132|00:30.6|01:55.8|338.8|31.2|000.0|0.0|08.3
34|00133|00:30.4|01:54.6|332.2|31.5|000.0|0.0|08.3
35|00143|00:32.8|01:54.4|349.6|32.7|000.0|0.0|08.0
36|00134|00:30.2|01:52.5|355.8|33.8|000.0|0.0|07.9

It was nice to be back at race pace again. And it’s about time. I am racing next weekend. The summary algorithm didn’t catch all the intervals entirely correctly, but you get a good impression of what I did and the paces I achieved on this perfectly flat (still pretty cold) water.

You can also see from the map that our buoys are back in place again, and I am rowing perfectly straight lines in a buoyed course.

After my row, I hosted some guest rowers from Amsterdam, who are visiting Brno for rowing and having fun:

Two Brits, a German and 5 Dutch guys and one Dutch lady. They did two workouts on Friday.

In the evening I joined them for dinner and then visiting one nice Brno bar. It has an aviation theme and specializes in rums. A friend of mine commented that rum is for sailors and aviators drink beer, but I am willing to forgive that mistake because of the nice atmosphere of this place. I think my guests liked it too.

Saturday

Up early because of my son’s rowing training. So I hit the water too, of course. There was a pretty intensive workout on the plan, but during the first interval I changed my mind and did a long, low intensity steady state instead. I still felt the fatigue after Friday’s intervals (or was it the drinks).

This time I drew an interesting figure on the map. Is it only me or do others also see a bird?

The Empower Oarlock ran out of battery after a few minutes, so no power data after that point:

The long breaks were the points where I paddled back to the dock to (finally) welcome the Amsterdammers (who had slept in) and waiting for them to see them row by.

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mapka2

Apr 27 2019

A week of doubles

Monday

Romana and I went out in the double. We did steady state with a 10 stroke race pace interval roughly every kilometer. A very nice row. After we finished, the wind started to increase and the lake showed its ugly face, but we had a nice row.

Wednesday

No row on Tuesday. First day back in the office after my trip to the US. Lots of debriefs to do and some unpleasant meetings as well.

In the evening I drove to the rowing club for a short meeting with the Masters men. We discussed the upcoming season, mainly which races to row in the club eight, and also which disciplines we will start at the Masters Worlds in Hungary.

After the meeting, Tomas, Ondrej and I went to the weights room and did the following simple but killing workout. Five rounds of:

  1. 15 push-ups
  2. 30 squats
  3. 6 pull-ups
  4. 30 sit-ups

Including erg warming up (10 min) and spinning cooling down, the workout lasted only 50 minutes, but my muscles hurt for three days after.

Friday

Thursday: Another long day. Spent most of it in two very long calls that I took instead of my boss, who is on vacation. I think this was the first day without feeling the jet lag.

On Friday, I decided to leave work early to be in time to say goodbye to Romana, Robin and Dominik who were going to races in Prague, together with the juniors 15/16 and boys and girls 11/12 and 13/14 of the club. After that, I took a rowing related call from the club house and then did a longish workout in the single:

4x(6x20strokes/15strokes)/5 minutes with a bungee cord.

I left out the bungee cord. It was windy and choppy but I didn’t mind. I was happy to be out in the single again.

I really enjoyed this workout. Each series lasted about the length of our lake. Good training programming by our head coach. In the third interval I was catching up with a launch and a pair from the rowing club from the opposite shore. That gave me some motivation to push a little harder. Even though I rowed without bungee, I did rate down to 16/17spm and rowed at a much higher Work per Stroke (WpS) than normal. I pushed at around 620 Joules per stroke, 170 Watt. Heart rate remaind low, of course, at these low stroke rates.

Saturday

Today was a mini training camp. My rowing buddy Kazimir came over from Hodonin to Brno and we did our first sessions in the double of this season. We intend to race the World Rowing Masters together (and a few local races as preparation).

The morning training was a 3x2km at 24-26spm. I arrived at the club at 9am, just in time to have a little chat with our Masters Eduard and Ludek before they launched for the same training in the double.

By the time Kazi and I had warmed up, Ludek & Eduard were about to start their third 2km interval. So naturally we rowed besides and in front of them. Ludek & Eduard go out in the double several times a week, but despite the choppy water and us being together for the first time in 2020, we managed to get in front and create some clear water. Well, admittedly, it was our first interval and their last one.

We stayed on the north end of the lake to avoid the worst chop on the south end. As you can see, the Albano buoys are out again, making it much easier to row a straight line in our 2k course.

Power values by estimation (using rowsandall.com power estimation).


Workout Summary - media/20190427-0920420o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|12259|71:53.0|02:55.9|000.0|24.0|142.7|181.0|07.1
W-|06837|28:34.0|02:05.4|000.0|24.9|167.1|181.0|09.6
R-|05428|43:18.0|03:59.4|000.0|23.4|126.5|181.0|06.1
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|02026|07:58.4|01:58.1|000.0|25.5|169.6|177.0|10.0
02|02016|08:59.3|02:13.8|000.0|25.5|173.9|181.0|08.8
03|01991|07:57.0|01:59.8|000.0|25.8|167.1|176.0|09.7
04|00361|01:37.6|02:15.1|000.0|20.9|145.7|152.0|10.6
05|00443|02:02.6|02:18.3|000.0|20.1|144.8|149.0|10.8

After the 2k intervals we rowed back up to the start of the 2k course. I had the impression we were rowing light, but somehow pace values were very fast. I think it was the strong wind pushing us.

We had a shower and then walked to the “At the lion” pub for a lunch. We were joined by our U23 national squad member Lubos, so we discussed last weekend’s selection races. Kazi’s brother-in-law was part of the same light weights group as Lubos, and there had been some drama around the selection, leaving Kazi’s brother-in-law on the shore, and Lubos and one other member of our club in the national U23 LW quad. All three were trained on our club under our head coach Adam, even though two of them are now rowing in Prague at the national center at Dukla. We seem to have quality lightweights, and our club is supplying many of them.

After lunch, we had coffee in the club house and looked at the metrics for the first workout. Then we launched for what we intended to be a short (10k) technique row.

However, because it was still windy, we decided to row into the gorge to seek shelter, and the rowing was fun, so we turned no earlier than 7.5km from our club house:

It was a very good training. We did some technique drills and we spent the bulk of the row trying to find a light stroke, with some emphasis on the second half of the drive. I did a few pieces at 24spm, 28spm and 32spm (but light pressure) to check how the boat runs.

The charts above were measured with the Quiske pod under my (stroke) seat for the 24spm (blue), 28spm (green) and 32spm (red) intervals.

This was a very important workout. I think we really came together here.

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IMG_1526

Mar 17 2019

Double the Fun

Beautiful weather today. The wind direction turned 180 degrees since yesterday and calmed down. It was sunny and 14 degrees, but on the lake it felt like 20. I am talking Celsius scale now.

The Masters were present in a large group. Martin, Lubica, Zuzana, and Darinka took a quad. Tomas went out in the single. Romana and I did our first workout in the Double of the year.

Warming up. Then breaking down the strokes by stops. In Dutch we call them “first stop”, “second stop”, and “third stop”. These are stops at, respectively, the finish, arms away, and body rocking over. We started with all three, then removed the first, then the second and finally went back to rowing continuously.

Then, we rowed without feathering for 2km.

And finally we did a special, secret, technique drill that makes us very fast. You can see its mark at 6800m and 9000m in the chart above. And here’s a panorama shot from our dock:

And another one:

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zachranna-akce-tonouci-prehradaBrno_ZZSJmK

Sep 22 2018

The Water is Dangerous

Thursday

A nice technique row in the double with Romana. The weather was nice with very flat water when we launched. The only issue was low visibility because somebody was burning leaves or grass on the other side of the lake, and the smoke cloud covered a large part of the lake.

We rowed up to Rokle, and then back to Sirka through the middle of the lake and through the smoke cloud. Then we turned at Sirka and rowed back. When we were about 1km from Sirka, we saw the fire brigade rushing towards the lake. I thought somebody had called them because of the guy creating the smoke cloud.

A little later, the rescue service and the police sped across the lake in their speed boats. I started wondering. They sped to an area in front of Lodni Sporty rowing club, but then they moved to the beach around the 1km mark, roughly where we were rowing when we first saw the fire brigade.

A few minutes later, a helicopter arrived at the scene. We continued our technical/steady state row to Rokle and then turned. The beach at the 1km mark was now full of police, ambulance, fire brigade, and the two speed boats. At that time we thought it was a drill.

Not true. We were witnessing desperate attempts to save someone’s live.

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According to the news, a person of about 65 years of age was playing with a remote controlled model airplane. The plane fell into the water, and he decided to swim for it. Which cost him his life. Difficult to guess what happened, but a few meters below the surface, the water is not exactly warm.

Of course we didn’t know anything about that when we were rowing, and we were quite happy with the pace achieved at a relatively light pressure. Did I mention the water was quiet and mirror flat?

Friday

I nice weights workout in the gym. I found a free hour in the afternoon and did a thorough weights session. Increased the weights on some of the exercises.

Saturday

A 2km swim followed by a hot tub. We went to Kurim, where they have a 25m pool. I prefer a 50m pool, but this was a nice workout. The water was nice. It was good to be swimming again, and I got a very good workout.

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acceleration2

Sep 10 2018

Last Week – Amber and Red

So the week started well with a hard 9k in the single. Still got an “amber” score on my training plan because it was harder than anticipated:

On Tuesday, I did a weights session. The first weights session after vacation, and as expected it created shoulder and breast muscle soreness for two days.

On Wednesday, we had the inaugural training for “Head of Prague”, in the mixed 8+. This one was easier and shorter than planned, although I suspect that I pushed the power a bit harder than what rowsandall.com estimates based on boat speed and stroke rate. We had some replacement rowers which definitely didn’t pull as hard as Martin and I in the “engine room”.Thursday’s steady state in the single was a very nice one. I had chartered Martin to be my sparring partner and we were about the same speed.

The last full lake stretch was interesting. I was experimenting with “waiting” a bit longer around the finish. Here is a plot of distance per stroke when I was doing my normal stroke:

Now the same thing with the much hyped “wait” around the finish:

I did take care to select the same stretch of lake. It looks like I gained 3 centimeters per stroke at very comparable stroke rates, but I was also adding a bit more Work per Stroke. Looking at OTW Efficiency, which is a measure of the power/velocity efficiency, there was a slight increase from 60.5% to 61.5% when I was adding a slight pause at the finish.

In theory, 3cm per stroke would mean 6.6m over a typical 2000m race, but the problem is that I expect the difference to become smaller as stroke rate increases to above 30spm. I think it is good to measure these things and to try and quantify them. Of course, it’s also possible that I was already rowing pretty well (?) or I was not executing the “improved” stroke well enough. Also a third explanation comes to mind. Perhaps this hyped slowness at the start of the recovery works better in crew boats, and perhaps the mechanism isn’t about boat acceleration but more about being in sync. A fourth explanation is that the wind slightly changed. Definitely, wind has a big effect on these metrics. It was only a mild wind on Thursday, but I had to discard the middle stretch of this workout as it was rowed with a very light tail wind, improving the distance per stroke and OTW efficiency numbers.

More to follow. I am really interested in improving my efficiency on the recovery.

I had a morning swim planned as Friday’s recovery cross training, but they are still reconstructing the 50m indoor pool and the outdoor pools have already restricted opening times (because the school vacations have ended). I also had some late conference calls (until 9pm on Friday evening) so there was no time for a light evening workout.

Also, I had started to develop a head cold. This changed my plans for the weekend. The original plan was to do a hard 8km in the single and then either a cross training or a row in the double on Sunday. I decided to go for a run on Saturday (causing muscle soreness because of not having done a running session in a long time) and go out in the double with Romana on Sunday.

Sunday’s row was a great one. In the first part of the workout we focused on our synchronization around the tap down (again using the pauses that I discussed above). In the final part of the row, we added a slight acceleration in seat recovery speed just before the catch. We didn’t do quite enough strokes with this feature to really nail it, and the negative consequence was that we lost a bit of our lightness on the catch, but there were a few interesting strokes. I recorded everything with the Quiske pod and RowP app and here are the charts:

The green line represents the stretch were we focused on our catches. We were slower than when we weren’t! However, I have to point out that even though most of the workout was with mirror flat water, the wind increased strength during the workout, and this final stretch was rowed in head wind conditions.

You can see a very slight delay of the boat deceleration just before the catch when we were focusing on the catches (green line), but the effect is blurred because we were rowing in the double and there were many strokes where the timing wasn’t 100%. In the next chart, I try to pick out one stroke where I think we nailed it:

The blue line is the one with the delayed deceleration before the catch, which is the right most part of the chart. The green line is a similar stroke (at same stroke rate and on the same stretch of the lake) when we weren’t working on the catches. The wiggles at the end of the pull are not good. You typically see them when the synchronization of the tap down and hands away between bow and stroke is not good.

In that sense, the double is a great boat to do these measurements. In bigger boats, one guy being out of sync doesn’t do much to the boat acceleration or deceleration, and in a single you cannot be out of sync and you’re only looking at your individual strokes.

Thinking about boat acceleration charts, another thing should be noted. When rowing at a steady average boat speed, the area of the positive (acceleration) part and the area of the negative (deceleration) part should always be equal. So, if I change something that makes me row more efficient, the boat should speed up a bit. Because at higher boat speeds, drag increases, thus increasing the deceleration. What I am trying to point out is that looking at boat acceleration charts one has to be very careful about comparing two curves if they are taken at slightly different boat speeds. In this case, you can see that although we are managing to delay the big deceleration (checking) of the boat just before the catch, we are paying for that by slightly higher deceleration during the first part of the recovery.

And again, we’re trying to look at very subtle things here, where we always have to bear in mind that the effect of wind or stream may completely overwhelm any slight speed benefits.

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