Aug 26 2015
Suffering by Lactate
Today was going to be “death by lactate” day. Six am, just 10 hours after the 2x750m session, this was going to be a tough one.
In the double with Radek, after more than two weeks. Unfortunately, Radek had to get used to rowing the double again, so we were “off” technique wise. The stroke was not a compact thing. There were balance issues, and power curve disconnects between bow and stroke.
The temperatures were below 10C and there was fog. We did a long warming up with a few bursts at higher stroke rate and some technique drills. Then we got ready for the main thing.
First 250m from standing start. Difficulty to get the rate up and stuck at 30/31 because of the technique disconnect. But 250m is easy to survive.
Hard stop at the end of the 250m, getting ready for another 250m from standing start, 30 seconds after finishing the first one. Heart rate got up a bit more. Breathing got heavier. Managed to get the stroke rate slightly higher.
After completion of the second 250m, bring the boat to a full stop and sit still. Watch the sun above the mist, the forest in a beautiful green color. After 2 minutes, start to get ready for a full out race pace 1km from a standing start.
Ready – attention – row
Legs started to burn after 10 strokes, the kind of burn you feel in the final 250m of a hard fought 1km race. Technique started to fall apart after perhaps 20 strokes. Difficult again to keep the stroke rate above 30, let alone to bring it up to the desired 34spm. Somehow survived the first 500m, then started counting strokes. If I were in a single, I would be at serious risk of HD-ing at this point. The double is better. Nobody wants to be the first to stop rowing. So two rowers who desperately want the pain to stop, still keep rowing. Pace was going the wrong way slowly but surely. Steering was pathetic. Technique was very far from our (quite low) standard.
This was one of those “difficult sessions”.
We finished in a 3:35 time. Not good. Here are the details:
|Dist_|Time_|_Pace__|avg HR|max HR|Remarks
|03550|23:08|03:15.5| 121 | 160 |WU
|00248|00:53|01:46.7| 141 | 163 |250m
|00044|00:31|05:54.2| 165 | 165 |stop-get ready
|00250|00:52|01:43.9| 163 | 172 |250m
|00091|02:31|13:51.7| 170 | 172 |rest
|00997|03:35|01:47.9| 167 | 176 |1000m
|02906|19:42|03:23.4| 131 | 175 |cooling down
Interestingly, in contrast to yesterday’s 2x750m my heart rate didn’t go up into the red zone:
Perhaps the struggle with the leg and arm pain was keeping me at a lower effort and prevented me from pushing HR into red. Perhaps it was just a difference between morning and evening rowing. Yesterday’s max HR was 182, vs 176 today.
A 3km cooling down to complete this short session of 8km in total. Had to be at work early so there was no time for a long lactate flushing cooling down.
Walking up the hill from the rowing club to the car parking brought back the leg pain.
It was not a pleasant session and not a good one technique wise, so I guess it was a very useful session to have completed.
Races coming weekend. I am curious to see if I will be able to get the stroke rate up to sprint values in the single. If not, I may have to work harder on this to get ready for Belgium, or decide to change back to my old gearing?
Aug 28 2015
Looking forward to fun races
Coming weekend I am competing in a fun race in Breclav, an hour drive from Brno. The picture above is the event poster. The text is fun:
“BE THERE! The SLovacko rowing club organizes traditional rowing races:
Slovacko regatta 2015
29 and 30 August 2015 * BRECLAV *
Area above the weir
The best rowers from Bohemia, Moravia and Slovakia
* Dramatic races for traditional prizes
* Saturday heats starting 11:00, Sunday finals starting 9:00″
The entire happening is also a fundraising event for a few good causes.
Here are some pictures from last year:
The race is held on a river. The 2km course is more like 1700m long and is a big S curve. The 1km course is also a bit shorter than 1km and is one big curve. With the drought, there will be low water levels and not much current. Still, lane 2, the middle one of the three lanes is the fastest, especially when they forget to cut the branches of the trees on the bank (lane 3). Sometimes they put four boats on the three lanes, and usually the “random” draw puts the local crews in lane 2. It’s just a fun race, where everything works in a very friendly atmosphere and nobody makes a big problem out of these small irregularities.
On Saturday, I am competing (in order of start time):
Also I intend to sign up for the “single open” which is an interesting format. The race is over 300m and it’s a knock-out format, one single against one single. In previous years, if you won your heat, you would immediately row back to the start for the next round. This year they seem to have planned heats on Sunday morning and semifinals and finals on Sunday afternoon. To enter you pay a whopping 100 Kc (5 USD) and the winner gets 10,000 Kc (500 USD) prize money. I have never rowed for prize money, so this is pretty exciting. Not that I stand a chance to win, but I would at least like to advance by one or two rounds.
Also on Sunday is the mix 8+ where our club has an entry (again, put there by the organizing club without informing us), so I will probably spend a big part of the weekend addressing random women at the race venue and try to convince them to join a mix 8+. 🙂
Above, I wrote that we beat the Breclav Masters 2x twice, but this is not entirely true. I did beat them twice, but this weekend I am not racing with Radek, my regular 2x partner. He has to be in Prague for a (personal development) training, so I row with Martin, one of the guys from our masters quad.
Yesterday we took the double out for a quick training. I put him on stroke seat. I always row stroke, so I really wanted to row bow for this occasion. Also, I think I have a little more ability to adjust to Martin’s stroke than the other way round (even though I stroke the quad). He’s a converted sweep rower. In the first part of the outing, the double was bouncing around quite a lot when we tried some race pace stuff, but we managed to adjust quite a bit and I am looking forward to a fun race on Saturday. Tree branches, here we come!
By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 2 • Tags: double, lake, OTW, race prep, rowing, training