lake

temp

Sep 2 2019

Another week of Preparation

Monday, August 26

A rest day.

Tuesday, August 27

A steady state row in the double. I actually had to record it on the Garmin watch. In the morning, I had left for work feeling tired and with an upcoming cold. Some afternoon/evening meetings magically got canceled, so I decided to go to the rowing club, asking Romana to bring my uni. We hopped in the double but just did a short steady state row.

You can ignore the heart rate measurements. The VivoActive is very bad with rowing, as I guess is the case for any wrist worn optical heart rate sensor. The other charts show a cool feature of Rowsandall.com. Our “math and physics engine” (sorry Best Bike Split) is able to take the weather data and create an estimated power chart. The downside is that if the weather stations aren’t accurate, like in this example where they reported a stronger wind than there actually was, the data may be off.

Wednesday, August 28

A weights workout. My weights trainer was back from vacation, so this was the first supervised session in a while. Everything hurt a lot more after it. The watchful eye of a coach helps me going a bit deeper in these sessions.

Thursday, August 29

On this day, I did the session that was originally planned for Tuesday: 2x(7x1min/1min)/5min. I did this session in the single and was happy to receive an automatic notification from rowsandall.com telling me that this had been a session where I was performing close to my current measured performance limits.


Workout Summary - media/20190829-1931030o.csv
--|Total|-Total----|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time-----|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|10607|00:58:12.7|02:44.6|156.9|22.0|151.6|184.0|08.3
W-|03668|00:14:17.4|01:56.9|320.0|32.2|167.0|183.0|08.0
R-|06954|00:43:56.7|03:09.6|103.9|18.7|146.6|183.0|08.5
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
03|00276|01:02.4|01:52.8|333.4|32.1|151.5|166.0|08.3
04|00270|01:02.5|01:55.6|315.9|32.4|165.7|176.0|08.0
05|00262|00:59.0|01:52.8|341.2|32.4|169.1|179.0|08.2
06|00283|01:04.6|01:54.0|339.9|32.4|172.5|181.0|08.1
07|00270|01:01.5|01:53.9|340.4|33.1|173.0|182.0|08.0
08|00265|01:01.6|01:56.4|324.9|32.2|173.4|181.0|08.0
09|00238|00:56.6|01:58.9|319.1|31.7|169.2|178.0|08.0
10|00235|00:57.6|02:02.6|299.5|31.2|156.8|171.0|07.8
11|00240|00:57.4|01:59.6|310.4|31.2|168.4|176.0|08.0
12|00235|00:54.8|01:56.6|314.7|32.8|171.0|178.0|07.8
13|00247|00:57.2|01:55.7|298.1|32.4|172.3|179.0|08.0
14|00230|00:53.4|01:56.0|319.3|32.4|168.6|179.0|08.0
15|00218|00:53.4|02:02.7|282.2|31.4|168.3|176.0|07.8
16|00254|00:59.1|01:56.2|337.8|33.6|174.5|183.0|07.7

You may notice that the durations are not exactly one minute long. That is because I rowed this as a “Just Row” on my SpeedCoach and just monitored the workout time myself. Then I used the automatic interval detection on rowsandall.com to detect the intervals.

Note that the wind messed with my splits.

Friday, August 30

Romana and I rowed the double again. It was an extremely hot Friday afternoon, hot and humid. We decided to reduce the 3x2km session to 2x2km. Simply because it was too hot. And the lake was full of various floating vessels, from paddle boards to inflatable things, wind surfers, sailing boats, and others.

Saturday

Another row in the double with Romana. A nice technique session.

After that, it was time for me to prepare the rental singles for the upcoming rowing camp. It was another very hot day. Here is what I started with:

Here is the result after three hours of work:

All boats were rigged and thoroughly measured. Empower oarlocks installed and calibrated. Three Wintechs and a Fluidesign. After that I walked over to the nearest beer stall (never far away in the Czech Republic) and had this nice refreshment:

Sunday, September 1

Kazi came, my partner in the double on the WRMR. We did two short sessions.

The first session was warming up, followed by 750m/4min + 500m/4min + 250m in 32, 34 and 36spm. That went pretty well.


Workout Summary - media/mailbox_attachments/2019/09/01/9943497142174d7b9721746f0e25d0a9.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|-Avg--|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|-SPM--|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|02603|13:57.7|02:50.1|000.0| 27.5 |151.0|178.0|08.2
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|-SPM--|AvgHR|DPS-
02|00750|02:45.8|01:50.6| --- | 31.5 | 163.0 |08.5 - headwind
04|00500|01:42.6|01:42.7| --- | 34.0 | 164.0 |08.5 - tailwind
06|00250|00:51.0|01:42.0| --- | 37.0 | 149.0 |07.8 - headwind

The after lunch (and a beer) session was steady state and technique.

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mapka

Jul 14 2019

Sprint preparation

Saturday

The plan prescribed a 60 minute steady state session. It was a very rainy day, and Romana and I decided to do go indoor swimming. I swam 2000 meters and needed nearly an hour to complete it.

Sunday

Planned session:

20 minutes warming up

750m @ 32spm / 4min

500m @ 34spm / 4min

250m @ 36spm

20 minutes cooling down

It seemed the rainy weather was gone, so after lunch I rode the scooter to the rowing club. Unfortunately, the single rain shower of the day occurred exactly during my scooter ride, so I had to ride slowly and arrived completely wet. The lake was entirely calm after the rain shower, so I was looking forward to an awesome row.

Unfortunately, the wind grew stronger during the row. There was also two motor boats playing catch-up on the lake, creating some irritating wakes, and a few sailing boats to avoid. So I ended up having to do all intervals in quite a heavy chop / wake.


Workout Summary - media/mailbox_attachments/2019/07/14/f147438091254dc0a6a7732d15537f15.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|-Avg--|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|-SPM--|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|02558|14:20.7|02:55.0|204.0| 27.0 |155.0|184.0|09.1
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|-SPM--|AvgHR|DPS-
02|00750|02:51.1|01:54.2| 316.0 | 31.5 | 154.0 |08.3
04|00500|01:54.8|01:54.9| 301.0 | 33.0 | 169.0 |07.8
06|00250|00:54.9|01:49.9| 337.0 | 35.0 | 158.0 |07.8

The map shows the issues. The first 750m, I was able to row pretty straight inside the buoyed lanes. I wanted to continue down the course, but then I noticed the two motor boats chasing each other, so I turned and rowed back, then noticed the motor boats were going up the lake, so I turned again, and even had to take a direction outside the buoyed course to avoid a collision, then returned to the course in a heavy wake. The final 250 was rowed in the buoyed course but with pretty heavy chop.

The peak in power coinciding with a dip in pace is me turning into the buoyed course during the 500 and hitting the motor boats wake.

After the intervals, I did a 4km cooling down. It was a short but intensive row.

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60391079_817659991953912_5831985681483694080_n

May 18 2019

The working week (Monday to Friday)

Monday

A busy day at work and no training. I decided that recovery from an intensive weekend of racing was a good idea.

Tuesday

Weights! My personal trainer decided that I am ready for the “big exercises”. So we did only three of them:

  1. Bench press
  2. Dead lift
  3. Squat

The protocol is to start with light weights (or only the bar) as a warming up, then gradually increase the weights until I can do about 10 repeats, with stretching between each series of 10. Then weights are increased one more time to get to failure somewhere between 5 and 10 repeats. After that weights are reduced again to do a few series at 15 repeats.

For the deadlift and squat the protocol was a bit more gentle. We didn’t push to failure but stopped at the point where I was starting to fail on technique, i.e. I was starting to use the wrong muscles to just get the weights lifted.

After that we did some 10 minutes of exercising the core.

Boy, I did feel this training the next three days.

Wednesday 

I have started calling our Masters eights crew together, and this time it was a success. We had 11 candidates show up, so we hit the lake with a double, a single, and an eight. The water was slightly rough and the coxswain slightly inexperienced, as the map clearly shows:

I had some data challenges. Forgot to charge my heart rate belt.

Well, it was just steady state. A pretty short workout as well, as some of our crew members were time pressed.

Thursday

More data issues. I still haven’t managed to sort my regatta bag and move some essential equipment from the regatta bag to the training bag. I have a pretty good system. A separate “rowing electronics” bag that goes into my small training bag or my big regatta bag. The problem with regattas is that they are so hectic that I become messy with where I put my gear. So rowing electronics ends up in the wrong part of my regatta bag, and then I show up on a training day to discover I have left the SpeedCoach holder at home. Sigh.

At least the OH1 heart rate arm band was charged. However, it didn’t seem to respond very well in the first 20 minutes of the workout.

The session was 4 series of 6×45″/75″ at race pace. These series are tuned to our lake length, and after doing one, I wondered if I would be able to complete the workout. In the end I manned up and just did it. It was so beautiful rowing weather that it would have been a sin to shorten the time on the water:

I gave myself some technique targets, focusing on finishing the stroke strong. I am not sure if I am fooling myself, but it looked like I was faster when I focused on that. Here are the data to prove it:

I am charting “Wash” vs “Boat Speed” for each “on” stroke. The line is my totally unscientific interpretation of the data. So a 5% pace improvement? That would be encouraging!

Friday

Another weights session. Bench press. Squats. Deadlift. And cable rows. Seventy five minutes of heavy work. I am due for a light steady state session today.

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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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20190331_103918

Mar 31 2019

A sunny weekend / 4x1500m OTW

Saturday

A quick run because I didn’t have time for a longer one, and also because there was a 30 minute run on this week’s training plan that I hadn’t done yet.

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It was nice and sunny weather and the birds in the forest were giving a brilliant concert.

After this, Romana and I headed to a cooking studio for a workshop on meat preparation. It was great fun and here are some of the results:

We spent 6 hours cooking, eating, and tasting local wines. It was great.

Sunday

Two of our mixed eight canceled at the last moment. We did rig the eight, but went out in a quad, pair and single instead. I opted for the single, Ivan and Martin went out in the pair, and the girls took a quad. I did the following workout:

4x(500m@24spm + 500m@26spm + 500m@24spm)/500m.

We decided to make the rest 100m longer to allow for turning. I did outrow the pair, so at the end of the third interval I had some time to take a picture:

The lake was mirror flat. It was sunny. It was great.

I forgot that the NK SpeedCoach doesn’t record rest strokes, so the chart below only shows the work bits:

The hardest bit was to hold the 24spm in the third 500m.


Workout Summary - media/mailbox_attachments/2019/03/31/208a4fc14c744b9fbbfee5ecd1e323b7.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|-Avg--|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|-SPM--|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|06001|27:05.1|02:15.7|223.0| 23.5 |164.0|175.0|09.4
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|-SPM--|AvgHR|DPS-
02|01500|06:40.7|02:13.7| 241.0 | 24.0 | 162.0 |09.4
03|01500|06:47.8|02:16.2| 215.0 | 23.5 | 164.0 |09.4
04|01500|06:46.6|02:15.9| 220.0 | 23.5 | 165.0 |09.4
05|01500|06:50.0|02:17.0| 216.0 | 23.5 | 164.0 |09.3

And as you can see from the chart, I didn’t hold 24spm in the third 500m. One of the excuses I had was that I was trying to work on being relaxed around the catch and avoiding a short catch angle.

Looking for slip, catch angle, drive length and effective drive length trends in the OTW workouts I recorded with the Empower Oarlock this year, I don’t see any change between today (focusing on the catch) and the other days.

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Here are strokes from the third and fourth 1500m measured using the Quiske system:

I report virtually no change from how I rowed on Friday morning. Need side video.

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Sep 11 2018

Steady State & Another Hard Distance Row – Fail

Monday

A nice steady state row in the single. I am still having a head cold, but this was a nice sustainable effort. Pulled a bit harder in the second half of the workout as I was passing two guys from the Lodni Sporty rowing club in a double, then was not too much slower than our Men’s pair, and finally passing a Lodni Sporty guy in a single. I felt fast.

I also had to be at home on time to join my evening conference calls. 
Tuesday

While Monday’s training was in the evening, Tuesday’s had to be first thing in the morning, because of travel. Not ideal when you are scheduled for a hard 7k.

I skipped the hard 8k, so I thought it would be a good compromise to row this one as a hard 7500m. Target power 211W.

In contrast with Monday’s row, this time I remembered to take the Quiske oar pod, but I forgot to put on the heart rate belt. Too much gear!

The first part of the 7.5k went pretty well although it surprised me that I had to work hard to get the stroke power above 211W. Normally, the power comes almost for free in the first half of the hard distances and I am focusing on not going off too hard. This time I had to watch and make sure I was at the target power. Perhaps because the target power was 10W higher? Or perhaps because I was still fighting a head cold?

The first turn was after about 3km. I set off fiercely, happy that I had bitten the first part off of this long hard row. Now I was rowing into a head wind and after about 1.5km I just stopped. I had been watching the total stroke angle on the RowP screen and saw my stroke shortening, which usually leads to shortening. I worked pretty hard to bring the number up again but the long strokes also seemed to sap the energy out of me pretty fast.

Demotivated by the large number of meters left. Unhappy because not being able to keep the stroke angle up? I don’t know. I paddled for the rest of the stretch, during which I formulated the plan to “save” this workout. I would row the final 2km at the original power, and argued to myself that it would still count as a decent threshold workout. At least RowP told me that my stroke was pretty consistent:

The three lines are the average over the entire session, a short number of strokes at the beginning (light tailwind) and a short number of strokes at the end (light headwind), just before handing down.

During the recovery you can see a little acceleration bump which is typical for stroke rates 25spm and higher. Basically, the boat is floating the fastest during the middle part of the recovery. Here’s a comparison (of whole session averages) between head race pace and Monday’s steady state:

The x axis is a bit deceiving as it is a percentage of the stroke duration. A 25spm stroke is of course shorter in duration than a 20spm stroke. What I can see during the row is that on “good” strokes the deceleration troughs on both ends of the chart are relatively short in duration, while on “bad” strokes they are wide. Those are pretty good clues to watch technique during a row.

Here’s a comparison of my head race pieces so far:

The averages are calculated over the “on” strokes only (discarding the middle 1.5km of today’s fail). So I am slightly longer, faster and slightly higher power. At least that’s comforting. Not happy about today’s handing down, but I have another opportunity coming Sunday, when I will row a 6k, which is my race distance.

Now I am heading to the airport and will spend the rest of the week in Sofia, Bulgaria, without an opportunity to go to Plovdiv to watch the worlds, unfortunately. My training plan has anticipated this trip, so I have running and weights scheduled.

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