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poster

Dec 8 2016

On to the Holiday Challenge

Well, that was a little disappointing. On the Concept2 logbook, I noticed that a 22km row would bring me just above 100k during the Holiday Challenge.

I almost dialed up a 22km row, but then I decided to just do a Just Row. I have a slightly sore throat. Not feeling the usual 110%.

Heart rate climbed faster than expected, so I reset my expectations to do a normal 15km.

Gliding scale thing. I stopped after 10km, paddled out to 11km and that was it.

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bokeh_plot-46

Dec 6 2016

Another 15k of steady state

No training on Monday.

And today, another staple 15km of steady state. This time I did it as a 3x5km/1min rest interval workout. Outside temperature was -1C, but in my rowing basement it was a comfortable 6C.

myimage-21


Workout Summary - media/20161206-2005090o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|15317|64:04.0|02:05.5|191.9|21.5|161.6|175.0|11.1
W-|15000|61:04.0|02:02.2|194.9|21.5|161.9|175.0|11.4
R-|00320|03:00.0|04:41.6|076.8|19.8|151.5|175.0|01.4
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|05000|20:19.4|02:01.9|192.4|21.2|153.5|163.0|11.6
02|05000|20:18.3|02:01.8|195.4|21.3|164.7|173.0|11.6
03|05000|20:27.1|02:02.7|196.9|22.0|167.6|175.0|11.1

I had to stop in the last interval because the playlist ended with 3.5km to go. I figured it was better to start a new playlist than to row in silence. I have turned around the erg (Romana’s wish). The positive thing is that the cold outside air is now near the flywheel and my back is towards the inside of the house, which is good for preventing backpain. The downside is that the radio is not any more an arm reach from the erg. With the old setup, I could switch from bluetooth mode (playlist played from phone) to radio within one recovery. Now I have to get up.

The avera/peak force is oscillating interestingly
The avera/peak force is oscillating interestingly

I looked at the plot for Average/Peak Force ratio and it shows some interesting oscillations. I was wondering what this is, so here is the plot for the peak and average force.

bokeh_plot-47

It looks like the main variations are in the peak force.

bokeh_plot-45

Drive length doesn’t seem to depend on stroke rate, but again looking at the metric vs distance is interesting:

bokeh_plot-48

Definitely looks like some fatigue setting in, leading to shorter drives. And here is the reason why this is bad:

bokeh_plot-49

The shorter the drive length, the less energy in the stroke. This is a pretty good example of a strong correlation.

It’s fun to look at these data. My power histogram over this erg season is starting to show a strong steady state component:

 

bokeh_plot-50

 

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114066_8-md-sd

Dec 4 2016

Plocina Tribute

I was moved by a tribute video made for Michal Plocek, the 22 year old rowing talent who ended his life a week ago:

Michal Plocek Tribute – R.I.P from Bastian Faralisch on Vimeo.

I think the video catches very well what a tragic loss this is. Doing my steady state row of today, I had a lot of time to think about it. The Czech media and the Czech rowing community gossip is full of information around his death and I am unqualified to distinguish between facts and lies.

Still, this tragedy forces us to think about what we are doing, in our clubs, as coaches, as masters rowers, as members of club boards, to prevent. In my mind, whatever we do in rowing, building a positive community with love for the sport and being part of a team should come first, and winning races should be a result of a positive experience rather than the end goal. Sports clubs are one of the few places where the generations are not segregated and as rowing adults we may be role models, and we cannot deny that we may have a small influence on young people, and by enforcing the importance of good results in school, a positive attitude in life, or, in general, by making your rowing club a place where young people can build self confidence.

I am not and have never been a world class athlete. But still I think that rowing has taught me some very important skills that have helped make me the person I am, and I am grateful to my coaches and team mates for that. Rowing and sport have become a life long addiction for me, and I am reaping the benefits of that every day.

We should also be aware that sometimes people have such big struggles, that even though we try to be there and be positive, we cannot prevent a tragedy. There is only so much an individual can do, and it can make the difference, but sometimes it doesn’t, sadly.

So these were my thoughts during a 19km steady state row, rowed as 4km/3km/2km/1km/2km/3km/4km at 20/21/22/23/22/21/22 spm:


Workout Summary - media/20161204-1540090o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|19000|78:30.0|02:04.0|185.4|21.2|157.9|169.0|11.4
W-|19000|78:31.0|02:04.0|185.1|21.1|157.7|169.0|11.5
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|169.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|01000|04:07.2|02:03.6|180.3|20.2|130.0|140.0|12.0
02|01000|04:10.2|02:05.1|179.8|20.2|142.9|151.0|11.8
03|01000|04:07.0|02:03.5|184.7|20.4|146.8|153.0|11.9
04|01000|04:07.0|02:03.5|185.7|20.2|151.0|154.0|12.0
05|01000|04:05.3|02:02.7|189.8|21.0|155.7|158.0|11.7
06|01000|04:04.7|02:02.4|190.9|21.1|158.6|161.0|11.6
07|01000|04:05.8|02:02.9|188.5|21.2|159.8|163.0|11.5
08|01000|04:02.7|02:01.4|195.8|22.1|162.6|165.0|11.2
09|01000|04:02.3|02:01.1|197.0|22.2|164.0|166.0|11.2
10|01000|04:00.9|02:00.5|200.0|23.0|166.3|168.0|10.8
11|01000|04:03.3|02:01.7|194.5|22.4|166.6|168.0|11.0
12|01000|04:03.8|02:01.9|193.1|22.3|166.6|169.0|11.0
13|01000|04:08.0|02:04.0|183.6|21.3|163.1|166.0|11.3
14|01000|04:09.2|02:04.6|181.0|21.5|162.9|165.0|11.2
15|01000|04:09.7|02:04.8|180.0|21.2|162.5|165.0|11.4
16|01000|04:12.2|02:06.1|174.6|20.6|161.3|164.0|11.6
17|01000|04:13.2|02:06.6|172.6|20.4|160.1|162.0|11.6
18|01000|04:27.6|02:13.8|170.4|20.1|155.8|160.0|11.2 - change radio station
19|01000|04:11.0|02:05.5|177.1|20.8|159.9|162.0|11.5

Steady State does give you time to think.

Lactate measurement at the end: 1.3 mmol/L. Rate of perceived exertion: Time flew by.

myimage-18

bokeh_plot-40

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myimage-15

Dec 2 2016

Steady State again (finally)

Thursday

I arrived around midnight on Wednesday night, and the last 2 hours of my travel was in a car through a snow storm.

I was tired form the trip.

I had a lot of things to do.

I didn’t feel 100%. The feeling that a cold is sneaking upon you.

I knew Thursday would be my only opportunity to finish implementing the Empower Oarlock  data visualization on rowsandall.com.

So I decided to skip the training and spent the evening implementing, testing and debugging Empower Oarlock data. All of you who already own this great oarlock, I invite you to register, upload the CSV file that you can export from the LiNK software and start playing.

I cannot show you any pictures, as I don’t have my own data yet. Also, you may find a few undiscovered bugs. In that case, drop me a line please. Apart from bringing power based training to OTW rowing, the oarlock records a bunch of other useful data, and I am really excited about visualizing these data for you.

Friday

Managed to get all my work work done by 4pm and drove home quickly for a Steady State workout. This time, I chose a 2000/1750/1500/1250/1000/1000/1250/1500/1750/2000 format which is exactly 15km and a bit over an hour in my version:


Workout Summary - media/20161202-1630100o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|15000|61:46.0|02:03.5|189.6|20.1|159.1|176.0|12.1
W-|15000|61:46.0|02:03.6|188.6|20.0|158.3|176.0|12.2
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|176.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|02000|08:53.4|02:13.4|163.9|18.2|116.5|140.0|12.3
02|01750|07:12.3|02:03.5|185.7|19.4|147.7|157.0|12.5
03|01500|06:04.6|02:01.5|195.0|20.2|157.3|162.0|12.2
04|01250|05:01.8|02:00.7|198.8|21.2|162.2|164.0|11.7
05|01000|03:55.8|01:57.9|213.8|22.2|169.0|172.0|11.4
06|01000|03:58.3|01:59.1|206.8|22.2|170.0|171.0|11.3
07|01250|05:01.2|02:00.5|200.2|21.2|171.8|173.0|11.7
08|01500|06:07.0|02:02.3|191.3|20.4|170.4|174.0|12.0
09|01750|07:10.2|02:02.9|188.6|19.5|172.5|175.0|12.5
10|02000|08:22.3|02:05.6|177.0|18.8|170.3|176.0|12.7

I rowed this as a “Just Row” on the erg, using Painsled to record the data and send it to workouts @ rowsandall.com, and rowsandall.com to split this up in the right segments after the row.

And here are the plots:

myimage-15

I ended at a slightly higher Work Per Stroke (“SPI”) than I started. All in all I am happy with the workout, even though I found the heart rates a bit on the high side.

bokeh_plot-36
Interesting how drive length makes a visible jump after 2000m, when I switched from 18spm to 19spm
I wonder why the average/peak force ratio always starts a bit higher
I wonder why the average/peak force ratio always starts a bit higher
bokeh_plot-35
Here is drive length as a function of stroke rate. 18spm feels unnaturally low to me. 19-21 spm feels comfortable.
bokeh_plot-34
Work per stroke. The first 2km at 18spm where a bit slower (warming up effect). For the rest of the row, it was pretty consistent, albeit slightly lower above 21spm
bokeh_plot-38
Another look at heart rate. Now vs power. Is it true that in a good sub-threshold row the heart rate should drop when you drop the power? In that case I failed

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yazd7l

Nov 27 2016

Hour of Power / fail

This has been a terrible week for training. My boss and my former boss are in town.

I had a business dinner on Wednesday. On Thursday, I had a collision of a jazz concert that Romana and I planned to go to (my birthday present to her) and a surprise party where I was one of the peoples to be surprised, because we are celebrating the closure of a 8 year $60 Million project that I helped win back in 2008, and managed until recently. Then a big “Town Hall” meeting on Friday morning, where we said good bye to my former boss who is retiring, and presented our organization’s strategy for the coming few years.

At least I rode to work on the bike on Wednesday.

On Thursday, I did nothing. I went to the start of the surprise party. I had a little thank you speech there, grabbed something to eat, admired the photos from various team building activities, talked to many (too few) people, and then I left for the concert. The concert was great, it was the Slovak-American trumpetist Laco Deczi and his Jazz Celula New York. We arrived home very late.

I also heard that the surprise party was great and didn’t finish until the early hours on Friday. It was probably wise that I didn’t go back to that party after the jazz concert. :-/

On Friday, I didn’t manage to do much more than a bike ride home from work.

On Saturday, there was a big day of works at the rowing club. We cleaned up the launches, drove my trailer into the hangar, and removed the summer dock. The original plan was that the dock would stay there and rest on special supports that we had built. (Because the water level of the lake is lowered drastically in winter, we had to build supports to carry the dock.) However, it turns out that people walking along the lake banks think it is fun to climb on our dock and jump up and down on it. The problem is that with the low water level, people can walk onto our premises without passing a gate. The supports do carry the dock itself, but of course the jumping could damage it, so we were forced to remove the pontoons for the winter. Anyway, better safe than sorry.

I also was part of a group who had to clean the banks of the Svratka river just below the Brno Dam.

yazd7l

On the picture, taken from the dam, you can see the stone banks on the left side, which are clean, and the same ones on the right side, where plants are growing between the stones. The work was quite hard, because you are balancing on a >30 degree slope close to a freezing cold river and trying to tear plants. Together with sprinting up and down the stairs to the top of the dam, that was quite a hard workout on the hamstrings, so I decided to leave it at that.

Sunday

So this morning I had to start doing something again. I decided to do an hour of power. Did a 2km warming up, then dialed up a 1:00:00 workout on the PM5 and started rowing. The idea was to do my usual 1000/750/500/250m sets but at 24/25/26/27spm and see where the ship would strand. If I would manage to complete the full hour, I would have a good chance at setting a PB.

myimage-10

I almost made it. Going into the second 30 minutes I had good hopes that I would be tough enough to finish at the planned paces, but with 40 minutes to go, switching back to 24spm, I had difficulty holding a pace below 2:00 per 500m. And somewhere in that 5th interval I just stopped rowing.

I paddled until 12.5km was done, then wanted to do a final interval at the planned paces, but even that one didn’t go entirely to plan.

Workout Summary - media/20161127-104306-sled_2016-11-27T10-07-13ZGMT+1.strokes.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|15036|59:58.0|01:59.7|209.2|24.7|174.2|183.0|10.2
W-|15036|59:59.0|01:59.7|208.4|24.6|174.1|183.0|10.2
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|183.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|02500|09:38.1|01:55.6|225.3|25.1|168.7|178.0|10.3
02|02500|09:40.2|01:56.0|224.3|25.0|176.7|180.0|10.3
03|02500|09:42.8|01:56.6|221.4|25.2|179.0|183.0|10.2
04|02500|09:46.6|01:57.3|217.2|25.2|179.9|182.0|10.2
05|02500|11:00.2|02:12.0|165.5|23.0|168.5|182.0|09.9
06|02500|10:03.3|02:00.7|202.1|24.6|172.5|178.0|10.1
07|00036|00:08.0|01:51.3|256.6|27.0|178.0|178.0|10.0

I guess I was too close to PB and I am not in shape to do a PB. You could also say that I sacrificed this week’s training to work and party hard. Sometimes that is necessary as well. It doesn’t make you faster, but in a job like mine you just can’t optimize only for the rowing.

A few stats plots:

 

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bokeh_plot-18

Nov 22 2016

Tuesday – Steady State

This is going to be a hard week to row according to my training plan. Both my boss and my former boss are in town. Yesterday, a full day with my boss and his team, followed by a dinner.

Today was a normal day. But tomorrow, I will have dinner with my former boss and his wife, and a few other colleagues, to celebrate is retirement. And on Thursday I will go to a concert.

As usual after a later dinner, I didn’t sleep well. So when it was time to do my steady state workout this evening, I was tired and not motivated. Still managed to row 12.5km.

myimage-7

bokeh_plot-19

I have also worked a bit on the performance of the rowsandall.com site. I can now make a plot of all my strokes over the past year, without crashing the site:

bokeh_plot-18

Yes, that’s all strokes rowed on the erg in the past 365 days.

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myimage-3

Nov 20 2016

More Steady State & Bad Technique

Just a 15km Steady State row, partitioned as 6x2500m, with the first 3 intervals rowed as 1000/750/500/250, and the final three intervals as 250/500/750/1000. In the first interval, I rowed at 18/19/20/21spm, in the second one 19/20/21/22spm, and in the third one 20/21/22/23spm. In the second half of the row I climbed down those same ladders in reverse order.

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Bad Technique

On Friday, I introduced a new parameter, the ratio of the average and peak drive force, and I found a study by Kleshnev that links this parameter to rowing style. Going one step further, I wanted to know if the value could be used to fingerprint bad technique. I set up a 250m intervals with 20 seconds rest and rowed. In the first and final intervals, I rowed my “normal” stroke, which I believe is decent, technique-wise.

In the other intervals I rowed exaggerated versions of common examples of bad technique. Here is the resulting table. I don’t see a correlation.

Fratio Ldrive
Good 0.58 1.40
Bad 1 0.56 1.38
Bad 2 0.59 1.38
Bad 3 0.57 1.45
Bad 4 0.59 1.41
Good 0.56 1.38

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