Fartlek

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Jul 1 2018

Saturday – Fartlek in the single

On Tuesday, I did a weights workout.

On Wednesday morning, I got a couple of vaccinations for my August business trip to India. The vaccine came with the instruction to refrain from exercise and alcohol for three days.

I was planning to disobey and do a light workout on Friday, but got stuck at work.

On Saturday morning I headed to the rowing club to do a 4x2km workout, but I changed the plan. It was pretty windy, so I had to get to the gorge for some flat water. There it is pretty twisty. I decided to do fartlek.

In the low battery electronics section, my oarlock was fine this time, but my heart rate sensor was low.

For the fartlek pieces, I chose a power level and stroke rate that I wanted to hold and then rowed until I did three strokes in sequence under the target level. Three strikes and you’re out, basically.

I rowed with the GoPro camera this time. On the row out, I had the camera pointing sternwards. I wanted to show how beautiful the rowing is in Brno, without disturbing the scenery with my ugly face.

Half way, I found a little pontoon where I could land and turn around the GoPro:

My plan B was to find a shallow part of the river, hop out of the boat, and do a “wet” GoPro change. The dry version was better, although the pontoon was pretty gross (duck poo and other dirty stuff):

Here are some of the Fartlek pieces on the way back:

No romantic video soundtrack this time. I want my readers to hear the wind and my grunts. As you can see, I am still digging deep and that causes general slowness and exhaustion.

I have mixed feelings about this workout. I knew I was tired after a long week, the vaccinations, as well as a short night sleep from Friday to Saturday. I also know that I still have to get used to the new power values (after the Empower bug fix), but I am disappointed by how long I could hold certain power values.

In the afternoon, I took my youngest son Dominik to a couple of exhibitions on the Brno Exhibition Center. First, we visited an ensemble of historic trains used by Czechoslovak Presidents. The Czechoslovak republic was established in 1918, so there are many exhibitions celebrating 100 years of Czechoslovakia.

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Then we visited an exhibition on Space exploration, with nice exhibits from both NASA and Russian space missions. This was a very nice exhibit, starting at the missiles from WW II and before, and ending with the Mars Rover.

Finally, we went to the exhibit of Alfons Mucha’s ‘The Slav Epic‘. The paintings are big and impressive. But I somehow like Mucha’s posters for Nestle products or Sarah Bernhardt plays better

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bokeh_plot (39)

Apr 30 2018

Saturday – Fartlek, Video & Stroke Analysis

Friday

I did body weight and core exercise during a 4 hour conference call marathon. There were enough low information density moments that I could listen and “work out” at the same time. It gives a new dimension to “Plank” when at the same time you are following the conversation.

Saturday

I am entering a low volume training cycle, and I didn’t find time to completely plan out each session for this cycle, so I had to improvise a bit. Fartlek, “speed play”, is, for example “sprint all out from one light pole to the next, jog to the corner, give a medium effort for a couple of blocks, jog between four light poles and sprint to a stop sign, and so on, for a set total time or distance” (quote from breakingmuscle.com). I basically allowed myself to play with the boat speed as I felt fit.

Romana was training the girls, but had to jump in a double with a less experienced girl, so she asked me to row with Iva, who was doing 500m intervals. So I rowed with her and coached her by rowing my single next to her and shouting instructions.

And, I recorded all that with my GoPro Hero Session 5 camera.

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Here is the result:

In the video, I am showing my (long) standard warming up drill starting with arms only. Then a (not so well executed) technique drill, then some snippets from 500m intervals, and finally a very short race pace piece.

All in all I am pretty happy with the row. By the way, this was the first real video taken with my new camera.

It’s now a bit over a month since I have started to row on the water again, so time for some analysis.

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I made these charts using the Box Chart functionality on rowsandall.com. Click here to read the tutorial on how to use the Box Charts.

I am not going to make any conclusions based on these box charts now, apart from the things I mention in the image captions. But it show that this is a good tool to monitor progress.

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Jul 8 2017

Saturday – Fartlek

The wind forecsst urged me to go to the lake as early as possible, but I didn’t skip sleeping in properly and a decent weekend breakfast, so I arrived at 9:30. To my surprise the lake was mirror flat. Also, it was already hot.

When I was about to launch, a Masters ladies eight just came back from their training. This is s group of older ladies from all over the Czech Republic and they are having a training camp at our club to prepare for Bled. I rowed a 3km warming uding some 10 stroke bursts and a practice start. Then I lined up at the start of the 2k course for the first interval. I was going to do a 300 W effort and try to hold on as long as possible. 

With the SpeedCoach set to show SPM and instantaneous power on the top row and elapsed time and average power on the bottom row, this is a nice thing to do. You set out at a certain wattage and then try to hold it as long as possible. My cutoff criterium is that the average has dropped 5W below the target. At 300 W, I managed 5 minutes and I could have continued longer. 


Workout Summary - media/20170708-102438-Sanders SpeedCoach 20170708 0945amo.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|04061|22:00.0|02:42.5|176.0|22.9|157.5|185.0|08.0
W-|01239|05:00.0|02:01.1|300.8|29.8|176.6|185.0|08.3
R-|02826|17:00.0|03:00.5|113.0|19.5|147.9|185.0|08.5
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|00248|01:00.0|02:01.0|317.6|30.5|155.1|174.0|08.1
01|00246|01:00.0|02:01.9|297.6|29.2|178.3|181.0|08.4
02|00248|01:00.0|02:01.0|305.2|29.4|181.9|184.0|08.4
03|00251|01:00.0|01:59.5|302.6|30.1|183.6|185.0|08.3
04|00245|01:00.0|02:02.2|280.8|29.9|184.2|185.0|08.2

 

After 5 minutes, I slowly continued all the way to the 2k finish, then turned around to row back to the start, doing some square blade rowing in the mean time. The next test was 350W. That didn’t last much longer than 2 minutes, a fact I am not happy about. 


Workout Summary - media/20170708-102509-Sanders SpeedCoach 20170708 1007amo.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|04029|22:00.0|02:43.8|162.7|22.1|157.1|186.0|08.3
W-|00520|02:00.0|01:55.3|347.9|33.4|173.7|186.0|07.8
R-|03510|20:00.0|02:50.9|129.1|20.0|154.2|186.0|08.8
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|00261|01:00.0|01:55.0|356.6|34.0|164.0|181.0|07.7
01|00259|01:00.0|01:55.6|339.2|32.8|183.4|186.0|07.9

When I lined up for the third time at the 2k start, it was to do a 325W effort. Around 1:30 in, it looked like I would not hold this much longer than 2 minutes, but passing the 2 minute mark gave me inspiration to go all the way to three minutes:


Workout Summary - media/20170708-102534-Sanders SpeedCoach 20170708 1030amo.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|01336|07:00.0|02:37.2|226.9|26.9|165.6|187.0|07.1
W-|00769|03:00.0|01:57.0|315.2|32.3|175.5|187.0|07.9
R-|00568|04:00.0|03:31.1|083.5|18.0|149.5|187.0|07.9
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|00258|01:00.0|01:56.4|337.5|32.8|160.4|177.0|07.9
01|00255|01:00.0|01:57.8|313.3|31.6|180.8|184.0|08.1
02|00257|01:00.0|01:56.7|294.8|32.6|185.2|187.0|07.9

A few minutes after that, I found energy for another start and a one minute effort:


Workout Summary - media/20170708-102559-Sanders SpeedCoach 20170708 1037amo.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|01608|09:37.0|02:59.6|154.3|21.9|145.9|182.0|07.6
W-|00283|01:00.0|01:45.9|411.9|37.6|164.5|182.0|07.5
R-|01325|08:37.0|03:15.3|093.0|18.2|141.8|182.0|08.4
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|00146|00:30.0|01:42.7|449.0|38.3|151.2|172.0|07.6
01|00137|00:30.0|01:49.3|374.9|36.9|177.8|182.0|07.4

 

Uploading to rowsandall.com, I was hoping for a ‘breakthrough’ notification. I thought that the 300 W for 5 minutes would qualify. Alas. Here is my CP chart before the row:

And here is the after picture:

A breakthrough workout is defined as having a red dot above the red line. I did manage to move the green line slightly closer to the red one, though. Perhaps it would be more motivating if I made the criterium easier?

As I saved today’s session in multiple workouts, because I reset the SpeedCoach at the beginning of each interval, I couldn’t use the normal flex chart to look at all the strokes. Of course I could use the Stroke Analysis, setting the date rwnge to cover only today:

However, selecting all of today’s workouts with the new Trend Flex chart, I had fun producing different charts and thinking about them.

First, I looked at pace. Looks like in today”s weather rowing 1:50 would mean holding 35 spm at 350W. In terms of power, below 40 spm there are no diminishing returns. Or, in other words, I can go up to 40spm without losing form, and the question is only how long I can hold it. Looking at pace, there were no surprises either. Increasing the stroke rate inicreases boat speed. The drive length charts confirm that there is nothing wrong with my form. The outliers are really the start strokes, which of course are shorter. 

Judge for yourself, but I do believe that this new chart is useful.

After the row, I did a swim in the lake. After the thunderstorms of Friday evening, the water was a lot colder than last week, so I didn’t swim longer than 10 minutes. I hung up my wet uni in my locker, not realizing that the water was dripping all over my other clothes, so I ended up wearing wet shorts, which looked a bit weird when I went shopping afterwards. 

I also mounted a new bow ball on our double. The old one had suffered from a collision when my daughter rowed it at the Hodonin regatta. It was still a fully functioning bow ball, but I don’t want to risk not passing the checks at the Masters Nationals.

Tomorrow: a trip to Mordor.

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Jun 30 2017

Wash no more!

Yesterday evening I read the book “How bad do you want it?”, which caused me to think about mental toughness and my rowing. I have always been more of a training animal than a racing animal, meaning that I regularly beat guys in training, who were able to beat me in races. The theory laid out in the book is that the conscious mind decides at what percentage of your true potential you work. In contrast to the “central governor” theory (which is about the unconscious), the theory promises that you can influence this. From my observations, there is a lot of truth in that. I improve by getting more fit, so my “comfort zone” shifts to higher power, but I don’t get as far out of my comfort zone as some other rowers.

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In 1k sprint racing, “comfort zone” being a relative thing. If you would climb the stairs at home and suddenly feel the pain you feel 600m in to a full out 1k, you would drop to the floor, start crying and think you are dying. (I am only exaggerating a bit, here.) In a 1k race, you don’t, because you anticipate the pain, which helps you coping with it. I think yesterday’s failure was a combination of being tired and expecting everything to go easy.

The book focuses on “flow”, a state where you are just doing what you do, instead of constantly judging what you are doing. Logically, but unfortunately, there isn’t a simple 5 step plan that will guarantee to improve your mental toughness if you follow it.

Now, let’s apply it to my training. I have two weeks to go to the Masters Nationals. I haven’t fully finished reading the book, so my recommendations may be premature, but what I took away from it for now is the following:

  • Mental toughness is a large factor in endurance performance
  • Mental toughness can be trained, mainly by doing a lot of the taxing endurance performances
  • The best way to cope with the perception of hard exercise is to find a state of flow, where the attention is focused outward, as opposed to judging and inward

Today, I was able to leave work early and get to the lake for an afternoon session in the single. So how to apply the lessons from the book?

I was scheduled for a steady state session, but I was also unhappy with yesterday’s 1k effort. At the same time, I want to avoid falling in a trap of focusing too much on 1k trials. Here is what I came up with:

  • Replace steady state with fartlek. Do race pace pieces as I feel
  • Enjoy the strong, gusty crosswinds. Build mental toughness by ignoring the weather and trying to put out a good effort despite it
  • Focus on “feeling” the boat, try to work in such a way that the boat moves forward in the most efficient way. Focus on the rhythm.

I also decided that in these final two weeks before the Masters Nationals, I would not focus on Wash and Effective Length any more during the row. I reprogrammed the SpeedCoach to show Stroke Rate, Power, Time, and Average Power.

No more wash! No more effective length! Over with technique metrics. Just feel the boat!

Being the quantitative guy, I was still obsessed with trying to improve my CP curve, though. I had to find a way to combine that with all of the above.

After a bit of thinking, I had it. I would just row on time (as opposed to distance), trying to hold an average power. So, I would for example row at 300W, and try to hold the average above 300W as long as possible. Note the time when I stop. Then, next time, try to add at least 10 seconds. And all of that in the worst possible conditions. Cross winds. Chop. Wind gusts. Trying to get the best out of the boat in all these conditions.

So here is how it went:

myimage (12)

 

The first 18 minutes I rowed a warming up with three pace/spm bursts. Then I turned around and rowed back to the start of the 2k.

myimage (13)

From the 2k start, in a nasty crosswind, I did a 300W effort from a standing start. After 4 minutes of rowing at 300W, seeing 307W on the SpeedCoach Average Power window, I bailed out. I rowed to the 2k finish, turned around, and rowed back to the start. Half way, I did a 30 stroke burst with 10 strokes at 300W, 10 strokes increase power by increasing length (at same stroke rate), then 10 strokes increase power by increasing stroke rate. I was imagining passing an opponent. First, I would creep on him by increasing only power (by increasing length), then I would increase the stroke rate and quickly pass him.

myimage (14)

From the 2k start, I did a piece at 400W from a standing start, again in heavy crosswind and a lot of chop. After 1 minute, seeing an average power close to 400W, I decided to stop. I rowed to the finish of the 2k again, then turned and rowed another 1k.

myimage (15)

 

There, I reset the SpeedCoach and did a standing start and then tried to hold 350W. I managed 2 minutes in the head/crosswind.

myimage (16)

Then, it was time for a cooling down, but I was excited, and started from a standing start for a 325W effort. After 2 minutes, I had enough of it.

I am not sure how this training affects my physical fitness, but I liked it. It was fun to do, and funny enough rowing against time had a liberating effect. That may change now that I have some benchmarks.

Here is my CP chart before:

bokeh plot (35)

 

And here it is after the row:
bokeh plot (36)

I didn’t get any of the “Wow! A breakthrough workout!” message that I programmed into rowsandall.com, but I did manage to move the green curve. You get the “Wow” message when you row an effort above (or to the right) of the red curve. All I managed was to bring the red dots and the green curve closer to the red one.

Perhaps I should change the algorithm that determines if the workout is “WoW!”?

oh, here is the summary of today’s fartlek row in terms of power vs time:

Anyway, it was a great workout, and I think it helps me being this guy:

farside-larson-work-ethic

And I am looking forward to two weeks of sharpening and enjoying it, Sophia style:

Well … Sophia style but the Daddy’s Army Masters Rowing version of it. I happened to listen to the Dean Martin version of this song on the radio and I loved the careless, silly happiness that it radiated. So I searched for it on YouTube and found the version with Sophia. It made me very happy.

Tomorrow: Cycling with the boys.

Sunday: To Ostrava for a session in the double with Vojta. It’s gonna be fun!

The collective analysis plots from rowsandall.com for today’s session are fun too:

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Jun 30 2016

Wednesday: Fartlek in the single

I went out in the afternoon, because I didn’t have time in the morning.

As it was over thirty degrees, and the school year is nearly finished, there was a lot of recreation on our lake.

It’s rowing on a swimming pool. Swimmers risking their lives by swimming 500m away from the shore and not checking for rowing boats. Paddle boats and electric boats that go very slow and are clueless about rules on the water.

Mothers holding babies and young infants without safety vests …

I try to remain friendly. Don’t want the rowing sport to be associated with grumpy old men. We need to get new members as well.

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