lake

20tempos

May 4 2015

Low visibility and race pace training

The week started quite interestingly. At least it made me produce some nice paces in today’s workout:
racepace

But back to the story. On Sunday evening, after we had finished watching a film on DVD, I made the mistake to check my email. I shouldn’t have done that. Why do I make the same mistake over and over?

There was an email about next week, telling me the club had signed me up for
– Masters Single
– Open category quad
– Open category eight

Damn! Looking at the program the open quad is less than 2 hours before my single race. I cannot do a full out 2k, then a full out 1k in the single a few hours later. Also, my idea of the weekend was to enjoy watching the races. Do the masters quad on Saturday, the master single on Sunday, but mainly watch my children race. Now I would be zipping up and down the race course trying to be in time for the start and I would miss all the youth action.

I did send out a few quite bitchy emails.

Things got worse.

I am usually a bit grumpy getting up at 5:30 to row at 6, but this time I was really in a foul mood. Seeing the mist on the lake didn’t really help, but at least the water would be perfectly flat.

It was even to be worse.

Arriving at the rowing club, I noticed a text message from my double partner that he was sick. The message was sent at 5:30, but my phone is on night mode so I didn’t register the message.

With my single already prepared for transport (because I will be out on business travel for the rest of the week), I had nothing to row on and would be stuck to the erg.

Eda arrived and I started discussing how he could have put me in a Men’s quad and eight without even consulting me.

Turns out it was supposed to be a Masters quad and a Masters eight, both rowed on Saturday, while my single race is on Sunday. Today they will correct the registration.

He also allowed me to row in his single Liduška, so all was good. This single is built for 95kg, so a little big, but with the flat water it wouldn’t be too much of a problem.

It was really low visibility today. Rowing on the Albano, I could see 5 buoys behind me, so that is 50m, not more. In the middle of the lake I couldn’t see any of the banks. Just rowing in white milk. There was no other traffic on the lake at this early hour, and the double and I decided to row the same workout next to each other to avoid any collisions.

The workout was 20 strokes “on”, 20 strokes “off”.

In the first half, from Rokle to Sirka, I kept the stroke rate “low” (30-31spm) and tried to work on sending the boat. I think that worked out pretty well. The double was slightly faster than I but in the 20 strokes they never gained more than 1 boat length. I used the 20 stroke breaks to get back next to them.

Turning, and some rest. Now, I thought, they will let the dogs out.

And they did. But I had positioned myself half a boat length ahead of them and was able to counter their 36-37spm bursts, first doing my own 34spm, but as the end of the workout was nearing I had to go up.

I did see 40spm on CrewNerd. And I did see a consistent 10 stroke interval of 1:44s. Happy with that. I think I had to work harder than the double but I was able to match their speed. A good training to rate up.

20tempos
20tempotempos

No detailed statistics today. We were rowing this on stroke count rather than on time and I don’t know how to get that from CrewNerd.

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IMG_0222

May 3 2015

Race Preparation

We are rowing the Slovak Championships, next week in Piestany, Slovakia. It may turn out to be an interesting regatta, with participants from the Czech Republic, Austria, Hungary and of course Slovakia.

It has all categories in one weekend, from 12 year olds rowing a 500m to Elite, to Masters rowing a 1km.

This lovely Spa town will be the site of my son Dominik’s first rowing race. He is taking the preparation very seriously. He is just a beginner in the single, but now he refuses to take a single light stroke during his trainings.

Let’s hope the weather will allow him to row at all.

Here are some pictures from yesterday’s training.

IMG_0223

IMG_0222

As you can see it needs a few more kilometers, but the most important thing now is that he is thoroughly enjoying it.

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antiracistaction

May 1 2015

18km on a day when the police used tear gas in our town

We had a holiday today, so we all did two trainings.

In the morning, Romana had to coach the girls, but because one of the launches still isn’t repaired, we went on the double rowing next to them. The girls were on singles, and they did 4x6min at 24spm. Romana and I just did technique and rowed next to them.

Then we had a few hours break. I used it to do an online training that I was due, in the club house, drinking hot tea and eating sandwiches.

At 1pm, Romana took the launch and did a technique workout with the girls.

At 2:30, I stroked a quad. We did 20x30sec/30sec rest. It was the first time we were out in a quad, this season, so it was quite a challenge to do this workout. We did it anyway, because we are thinking about registering for the Slovak Open of next weekend.


| Dist_ | Time_ | _Pace__ | _SPM___ | avg HR | max HR | DPS | Remarks
| 02270 | 19:56 | 04:23.5 | 22.7 | 103 | 167 | 05.0 | warming up
| 00150 | 00:31 | 01:43.1 | 33.4 | 155 | 167 | 08.7 | #1
| 00144 | 00:29 | 01:40.5 | 32.9 | 169 | 173 | 09.1 | #2
| 00149 | 00:31 | 01:44.1 | 33.8 | 171 | 176 | 08.5 | #3
| 00148 | 00:30 | 01:41.4 | 33.5 | 171 | 176 | 08.8 | #4
| 00145 | 00:29 | 01:40.1 | 34.9 | 174 | 177 | 08.6 | #5
| 00152 | 00:31 | 01:41.8 | 33.1 | 173 | 178 | 08.9 | #6
| 00139 | 00:29 | 01:44.3 | 33.8 | 172 | 177 | 08.5 | #7
| 00145 | 00:30 | 01:43.4 | 33.7 | 172 | 177 | 08.6 | #8
| 00154 | 00:31 | 01:40.8 | 33.2 | 173 | 177 | 09.0 | #9
| 00142 | 00:29 | 01:41.9 | 34.1 | 173 | 178 | 08.6 | #10
| 00151 | 00:31 | 01:42.3 | 33.1 | 173 | 177 | 08.9 | #11
| 00153 | 00:31 | 01:41.6 | 31.9 | 169 | 174 | 09.3 | #12
| 00147 | 00:30 | 01:42.3 | 32.1 | 171 | 175 | 09.1 | #13
| 00142 | 00:29 | 01:42.0 | 32.6 | 173 | 177 | 09.0 | #14
| 00152 | 00:31 | 01:41.6 | 32.4 | 175 | 178 | 09.1 | #15
| 00138 | 00:29 | 01:44.9 | 32.9 | 176 | 179 | 08.7 | #16
| 00145 | 00:30 | 01:43.7 | 32.7 | 176 | 179 | 08.9 | #17
| 00152 | 00:31 | 01:41.7 | 32.9 | 177 | 180 | 09.0 | #18
| 02406 | 14:05 | 02:55.6 | 19.1 | 148 | 158 | 08.9 | cooling down

Short summary:

dist_____|time_____|_pace___|_HR__|_SPM__|_DPS|comment
2270_____|_19:56____|_4:23.5|103|22.7|5.0|warmup
2649_____|_09:02____|_1:42.3|172|33.1|8.9|Main set
2406_____|_14:05____|_2:55.6|148|19.1|8.9|Cool down
2499_____|_15:59____|_3:11.9|168|24.3|6.4|rest meters
9825____|_59:02____|_3:00.3|143|19.6|8.5|_Total

parovka1

On CrewNerd, I saw 1:31 to 1:35 pace towards the end of the 30 seconds.

While we were steaming up and down the lake in our quad, our daugher Lenka was in the center of the town. We later heard there was a demonstration of Neo Nazis. About 2000 citizens organized an anti demonstration and blocked the Nazi marching into a part of town inhabited by many Roma minority people.

The police used tear gas on the citizens and arrested more than 50 of them.

arrestatie

antiracistaction

Luckily, Lenka was in the shopping area, a few hundred meters away from the tear gas. We called her that the trams weren’t running from the train station, so she had to take another route home.

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radek1

Apr 29 2015

Steady state in the double

A first row with Radek. We launched at 6, took my double “Orca” on a lake that was relatively quiet, but not entirely without chop.

Pick Drills to warm up.

There was another double on the lake, who launched together with us. As they have been training together forever, and this was the first time in ages that Radek and I sit together, we turned a little earlier to avoid rowing next to them. Rowing next to them would probably have woken up our competitive spirits and would ruin what was supposed to be a good technique / steady state workout.

Did 2x12min, which is one lake length down, one lake length up. As we had turned early and the first leg was with tailwind, I ran out of lake with 15 seconds to go. Tant pis.


| Dist_ | Time_ | _Pace__ | _SPM___ | avg HR | max HR | DPS | Remarks
| 01993 | 13:37 | 03:25.0 | 19.5 | 124 | 152 | 07.5 | warming up
| 00448 | 02:00 | 02:14.0 | 17.9 | 130 | 141 | 12.5 | tailwind, 18spm
| 00477 | 02:01 | 02:06.9 | 19.6 | 146 | 153 | 12.1 | 20spm
| 00483 | 01:59 | 02:03.3 | 20.9 | 154 | 157 | 11.6 | 22spm
| 00667 | 03:01 | 02:15.8 | 18.1 | 146 | 154 | 12.2 | 18spm
| 00470 | 01:59 | 02:06.6 | 20.2 | 154 | 159 | 11.7 | 20spm
| 00203 | 01:01 | 02:30.3 | 22.3 | 160 | 162 | 09.0 | 22spm, ran out of lake
| 00145 | 01:10 | 04:00.6 | 19.9 | 131 | 160 | 06.3 | rest
| 00440 | 01:59 | 02:15.3 | 18.2 | 137 | 148 | 12.2 | headwind, 18spm
| 00447 | 02:00 | 02:14.2 | 19.7 | 154 | 157 | 11.4 | 20spm
| 00448 | 02:00 | 02:14.0 | 21.3 | 162 | 166 | 10.5 | 22spm
| 00631 | 03:00 | 02:22.7 | 18.7 | 160 | 166 | 11.2 | 18spm
| 00446 | 02:00 | 02:14.4 | 20.2 | 164 | 166 | 11.0 | 20spm
| 00234 | 01:00 | 02:08.0 | 22.5 | 168 | 170 | 10.4 | 22spm
| 04063 | 24:29 | 03:00.8 | 18.3 | 137 | 170 | 09.1 | technique & Cooldown

Summary:

dist_____|time_____|_pace___|_HR__|_SPM__|_DPS|comment
1993_____|_13:37____|_3:25.0|124|19.5|7.5|warmup
5393_____|_24:00____|_2:13.5|152|19.6|11.5|Main set
4063_____|_24:29____|_3:00.8|137|18.3|9.1|Cool down
0145_____|_01:10____|_4:00.6|131|19.9|6.3|rest meters
11594____|_03:16____|_2:43.7|141|18.3|10.0|_Total

On the tailwind leg, the other double seemed to be slightly faster than we, rowing about 500m behind us. On the headwind leg, even though they were doing 26spm and we did 18spm, we had the same speed. Nice!

Then we did 4km of cooling down with technique drills.

“King of the mountain” followed by “Pimanov” (aka Top Quarter)

Pause after tap-down

Square blade rowing

I asked them how it went. They were happy that they had done a “steady state” 6km at 26spm. Interesting. When I do a 6km I count it as “hard distance”. May be just a nomenclature confusion.

radek1

radek2

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minutovky

Apr 27 2015

Finding Length in a Black Hole

This morning’s workout was scheduled for 6:15 AM (defined as time we push off the dock). Lately it is no problem for me to get up this early. I find that after about 7 hours of sleep I wake up with upper back pain. I have no problems whatsoever during the day or during workouts. Only in bed. Perhaps time to buy new mattresses.

This morning had a 20x1min/R1min on the menu. Last week, Boris suggested a 30″/30″ which I mistakenly remembered as “30 strokes on / 30 strokes off”, which is awfully close to 20x1min/1min which is a popular workout at my rowing club.

Tried to talk the Masters double into doing it with me but they had 4x5min or something like that.

The warming up was a bit shorter than normal because I didn’t want to row into a field of debris that was floating around the nude beach area.

I was a bit scared by this workout, and was afraid I would bail out early. Didn’t happen, actually.

It was 6 intervals from the nude beach to Sirka. Then 6 intervals headwind back to the nude beach. After these 12 intervals I was determined to finish the set. Six more intervals with tailwind, then two times one minute into headwind and I would be ready for the day. Somehow I got motivated by trying to better the number of meters for each interval.

It took me 16 intervals to figure out that I could lengthen the stroke a bit at the catch, row 29.5spm instead of 30spm and find quite a lot of boat speed in this way. Of course you have to have the fitness to sustain these long strokes. It doesn’t really show from the numbers but interval 17 was going to the wrong side of 2:00 pace until I slightly lengthened the stroke, which in 3 strokes brought the pace to 1:56. It may of course have been the GPS inaccuracy fooling me.

The weather was OK but the lake was again playing tricks, adding some breeze that created some waves when we started our workout. When we finished, the lake went to calm and flat again.

Here’s the “rollercoaster” picture (HR, speed and position in one Google Maps):
minutovky

I had to change my spreadsheet to allow for so many intervals. Numbers 7, 13 and 19 were problematic because there I had literally one minute to drink a bit, turn the boat and row out of (or into) the 2k course:

| Dist_ | Time_ | _Pace__ | _SPM___ | avg HR | max HR | DPS | Remarks
| 01934 | 11:44 | 03:02.0 | 18.6 | 123 | 150 | 08.9 | warming up
| 00250 | 00:59 | 01:57.9 | 29.2 | 140 | 155 | 08.7 | #1 tailwind
| 00256 | 01:00 | 01:57.3 | 30.1 | 148 | 151 | 08.5 | #2
| 00264 | 01:01 | 01:55.6 | 29.3 | 150 | 153 | 08.8 | #3
| 00256 | 01:00 | 01:57.0 | 29.0 | 150 | 163 | 08.8 | #4
| 00249 | 00:59 | 01:58.7 | 30.1 | 153 | 154 | 08.4 | #5
| 00247 | 01:00 | 02:01.6 | 28.3 | 156 | 164 | 08.7 | #6
| 00241 | 01:01 | 02:06.4 | 29.2 | 152 | 164 | 08.1 | #7 headwind
| 00241 | 01:00 | 02:04.7 | 29.2 | 158 | 168 | 08.2 | #8
| 00234 | 00:59 | 02:05.9 | 28.7 | 160 | 168 | 08.3 | #9
| 00238 | 01:00 | 02:05.9 | 28.7 | 163 | 171 | 08.3 | #10
| 00238 | 01:01 | 02:08.4 | 28.9 | 161 | 169 | 08.1 | #11
| 00234 | 01:01 | 02:10.4 | 27.7 | 160 | 167 | 08.3 | #12
| 00249 | 00:59 | 01:58.4 | 29.2 | 157 | 166 | 08.7 | #13 tailwind
| 00250 | 01:00 | 01:59.8 | 29.1 | 160 | 168 | 08.6 | #14
| 00255 | 01:00 | 01:57.6 | 29.2 | 163 | 171 | 08.7 | #15
| 00260 | 01:01 | 01:57.5 | 29.3 | 158 | 169 | 08.7 | #16
| 00251 | 00:59 | 01:57.6 | 28.9 | 162 | 171 | 08.8 | #17 found stroke length
| 00255 | 01:00 | 01:57.6 | 29.4 | 163 | 173 | 08.7 | #18
| 00232 | 01:00 | 02:09.1 | 28.5 | 159 | 167 | 08.2 | #19 headwind & turn
| 00250 | 01:01 | 02:02.2 | 30.7 | 168 | 176 | 08.0 | #20
| 02143 | 12:35 | 02:56.2 | 18.8 | 142 | 176 | 09.1 | cooldown

Short summary:

dist_____|time_____|_pace___|_HR__|_SPM__|_DPS|comment
1934_____|_11:44____|_3:02.0|123|18.6|8.9|warmup
4950_____|_20:01____|_2:01.3|157|29.1|8.5|Main set
2143_____|_12:35____|_2:56.2|142|18.8|9.1|Cool down
3046_____|_18:59____|_3:07.0|159|19.1|8.4|rest meters
12073____|_03:19____|_2:37.3|149|21.1|9.0|_Total

According to Greg’s equation this is a Black Hole workout. I disagree. My legs strongly disagree, and my stroke length is very happy I did this workout.

Pretty graphs:

Pretty graph with pace
Pretty graph with pace

Pretty graph with SPM
Pretty graph with SPM

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IMG_0221

Apr 26 2015

Barefoot 2000m erg season’s best & OTW 2km row

I chickened out of the 2km attempt yesterday. I wanted to do it at home, but hay fever and other excuses got in the way.

So I had to do it today. I chose to row it on an erg at the rowing club, before my row with Romana. I asked her to cheer.

I was lucky. There were a few other Masters rowers in the weights room.

Too bad I forgot to bring my training shoes. I should permanently store an old pair in my locker at the rowing club. Why not?

Well, I would row this one barefoot, then. I did a 2km warming up with a few bursts, then dialed up a 2km, took a deep breath and I was off.

Romana was chatting with the 2 guys in the weights room. What, she was supposed to cheer!

The plan was to go at 1:44-1:45 pace and see where it ends up. First 500m was without any problems, in 1:44.
Second 500m went by and I was still seeing the 6:55 predicted end time on the monitor.

The problems started in the third one. Luckily, that was about the time when Romana finally came over to stand behind me and cheer. I even saw a few 1:43s when she started to cheer me.

But it was very painful. After 750 to go I had to close my eyes.

At 500m to go I had three people cheering me. Luckily. I was very close to handing down.

Come on, 350 to go!

I was rowing with eyes closed and listening to the instructions, which were telling me to quit the 1:47s and bring back the 1:45s.

Come on, the last minute!

I started counting strokes. Lost count.

250m to go! I started counting again.

Lost count.

Last ten strokes!

Five strokes!

Collapse.

I was delighted to see a sub 7 time, but a bit disappointed after the hope giving 6:56 that I saw during the first km.

Well, as a Season’s Best I will take it! Also just above 900 nonathlon points, which was my target. Still have to do a 500m and a 1km before the end of the month.

Then we had a delightful 8km steady state in the double.

I took the picture from my home erg, transferring the result to it using the log card.

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part2

Apr 24 2015

A wider span

Romana was on the single today and she complained it is rigged too heavy. Also, my daughter Lenka will row on it.

So when I arrived at the rowing club I took a rigging hour. Increased the span from 158.5cm to 160cm, leaving scull length and inboard the same. Lowered the oarlocks by 5mm.

Did 16km of steady state today. 6km with an inboard of 89cm (using the Concept2 orange clams), the rest with an inboard of 88.5cm. The 89cm inboard corresponds to the overlap I used to row with. The 88.5cm inboard is the gearing I used to row with.

The idea is that the 89cm setting is for the girls and for me in headwind.

I did most of it at 20spm, except for 2 sets of 20 strokes >30spm, one of each with each setting. On feel, I liked the heavier gearing more.

"

"

20spm
20spm
20 spm metrics
20 spm metrics

Here are the heart rate and spm graphs for the two parts of the row:

Lin=89cm
Lin=89cm
Lin=89cm, spm
Lin=89cm, spm
Lin=88.5spm
Lin=88.5spm
Lin=88.5spm
Lin=88.5spm

The differences are really small. Still I will keep rowing at an inboard of 88.5cm, unless there is heavy headwind.

On the last 2km, rowing back to the club, I noticed an armada of 3 singles, 1 double and a coxed quad coming from our club. Our 13/14 year old training had begun.

I decided to hug the shore and avoid a collision course, but suddenly the coxed quad began to drift towards the shore.

I corrected my course and rowed between the boats. Then I noticed my son Robin (8 years) was coxing the coxed quad of 14 year old girls. He was lying in the front, coxing, waving at me and generally offsetting the balance of the boat.

A fun moment. Not sure if the girls appreciated it. But Robin is hooked on coxing now.

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