OTE

Mar 12 2019

To the radio tower

Friday

Weights training. I had to go for my last shot related to the India travel in the morning. So I did the weights a little lighter than normal.

Went to a concert with my son. In bed after midnight.

Saturday

No training? It depends how you see it. I spent four hours cleaning out the rowing club workshop, where we had stored lots of stuff during the reconstruction of the club house. It was a combination of physical work (lifting boxes, cupboards, boats, and other stuff), with that of an historian (deciding what to keep and what not). We have boxes full of trophies from the 1920s, 1930s, 1950s, and younger. Old coaching related literature, 1930s club house restaurant menus, etc …

Sunday

Erg workout at the club, with some other masters. I went with their workout, which was sort of steady state but with lots of rest and alternating 20 and 24 SPM. Here is the main bit:

There was also a warming up and cooling down and a long stretching session.

Tuesday

On Monday, I had a long day at work with a few performance review with my subordinates. Exhausting. I decided to take a rest day and work on the Rowsandall.com site. Fixed a few bugs. Improved a few things.

The training plan prescribed otw rowing but the weather wouldn’t have allowed that. Windy and wet snow.

Today, the work day was nice and relaxed. It involved a one hour drive to the engine factory in Olomouc for a meeting with the Olomouc site leader. Had a coffee break on the highway on the way back, it felt nice to not be in an office. I returned in time to get some work done in the Brno office as well, so all in all a nice and varied day.

However, since my illness I have difficulty getting back into the rhythm. Had to force myself to go down to the erg basement and row. The erg seems boring and one dimensional after having tasted the OTW feeling again. I decided to dial up the “Mountain Loop” in Zwift (connected to the erg via the PainSled app) and force myself to Row/ride the full loop.

There were lots of people on Zwift, so I ended up riding the way up in a huge group, and stuck with a few guys who were about as fast as I. Riding up to the radio tower I got my heart rate up a bit too high, but it was fun, even though the splits weren’t were I would have liked them to be.

In the screenshots, I am the guy with the black/red striped shirt. In the end the workout was where I wanted it to be in terms of rScore.

By sanderroosendaal • rowing • 0 • Tags: Comcept2, erg, OTE, rowing, steady state, training

Jan 16 2019

Hard Work

Monday

The training plan called for an hour of steady state but I gave up after 6 kilometers.

Tuesday

The same weights session as a week ago. I am starting to like it. That probably means that we will get a new session next week.

Wednesday

Romana has already done the session earlier and told me it is short and not hard.

She was wrong. The session is probably really short and light, but not when you are tired from a hard weights session on the previous day, and when you are a bit short of sleep and have a lot going on at work.

2x(3min/3min) with 3min = 1min+1min+1min @ 24/26/28spm

Those were the instructions. Sounds easy.

I counted to twelve. I counted to thirteen. I counted to seven.

I huffed and I puffed.

I moaned, and then it was done. Another workout. I am going to bed early today!

By sanderroosendaal • rowing • 0 • Tags: concept2, ergometer, OTE, rowing, training, workout

Jan 13 2019

Sprints getting longer at shorter rest

Sunday session with the Masters group. We were a smaller core of the bigger group today. Romana was in Prague at the second round of the Czech Indoor Rowing Cup, with Lenka and Dominik, and some of the other Masters also couldn’t come. So it was Martin, Lubka and myself.

The session was one invented by our coach and it is tough.

8x40"/20", 8x30"/30", 8x40"/20"; 5 min rest between series. Stroke rate 35-38

First a 15 minute warming up:

Then on to the main thing:

Rowsandall.com’s interval editor came in very handy here. It allowed me to simply program the monitor as 8 minute work, 5 minute rest, and then edit the intervals on the site after the workout is uploaded. The alternative is either to use a lengthy process to program varying intervals, or to row it as three short interval sessions and reprogram the monitor in between.

In Rowsandall.com’s interval shorthand, the session is:

(8x(20sec/40sec))/5min+(8x(30sec/30sec))/5min+(8x(40sec/20sec))/5min

This is the resulting breakdown in intervals:

I am always impressed when it works. After all, I know who hacked it together. The resulting workout summary is as follows:

Workout Summary - media/20190113-1435360o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|08349|39:00.0|02:20.1|159.5|24.9|152.2|181.0|08.6
W-|03610|12:00.0|01:39.7|345.3|33.3|161.1|178.0|09.0
R-|04763|25:30.0|02:40.6|077.6|21.2|148.8|178.0|08.1
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|00109|00:20.0|01:31.5|389.6|36.5|092.4|106.0|09.0
01|00103|00:20.0|01:36.8|380.7|34.8|149.4|157.0|08.9
02|00103|00:20.0|01:37.3|376.8|33.7|155.0|158.0|09.1
03|00103|00:20.0|01:37.4|378.8|34.6|147.8|149.0|08.9
04|00103|00:20.0|01:36.7|366.9|33.4|151.6|157.0|09.3
05|00101|00:20.0|01:39.1|369.3|34.1|153.6|158.0|08.9
06|00103|00:20.0|01:37.2|381.6|34.1|148.5|160.0|09.1
07|00103|00:20.0|01:37.4|370.8|34.4|154.1|159.0|09.0
08|00152|00:30.0|01:38.8|349.8|33.5|146.7|163.0|09.1
09|00155|00:30.0|01:36.9|380.6|35.0|158.6|168.0|08.9
10|00154|00:30.0|01:37.4|373.5|34.2|168.7|171.0|09.0
11|00151|00:30.0|01:39.3|361.2|33.4|171.1|175.0|09.1
12|00154|00:30.0|01:37.7|362.4|33.5|164.2|170.0|09.2
13|00151|00:30.0|01:39.2|356.0|34.5|164.4|170.0|08.8
14|00154|00:30.0|01:37.4|365.1|33.6|168.6|174.0|09.2
15|00152|00:30.0|01:38.9|353.4|33.7|166.2|172.0|09.0
16|00198|00:40.0|01:41.0|340.0|32.3|138.3|161.0|09.2
17|00195|00:40.0|01:42.5|310.9|31.6|164.7|170.0|09.3
18|00194|00:40.0|01:43.0|311.1|31.7|170.6|174.0|09.2
19|00195|00:40.0|01:42.7|308.3|31.9|172.1|174.0|09.2
20|00193|00:40.0|01:43.6|307.4|32.1|172.9|175.0|09.0
21|00193|00:40.0|01:43.9|310.4|32.2|173.0|176.0|09.0
22|00194|00:40.0|01:43.3|312.6|32.6|174.7|177.0|08.9
23|00198|00:40.0|01:40.9|331.8|33.8|176.6|178.0|08.8

The first series was eight nice twelve stroke sprints at a luxuriously long 40 seconds rest. The second series was somewhere between 16 and 17 strokes and the end of the rest period started to come a bit too early to my taste. The last series was a never ending list of 22 to 23 stroke sprinting with a few strokes in between to catch your breath. Martin was going through the same pain on the erg next to me. I found it interesting how Martin rowed a few seconds of split faster in the first two series, but in the last one he had trouble following my splits. At least, that is what I think from a few quick glances in the heat of the training.

We ended with 20 minutes of chatting while riding the spinning bikes.

By sanderroosendaal • rowing • 0 • Tags: concept2, ergometer, OTE, rowing, sprintervals, training

Jan 12 2019

Nearly Ten Henleys

Friday

After the underwhelming performance of Thursday (I was lucky the schedule called for such a short and relatively light session), Friday was cross training / recovery training day. The schedule talked about 40 minutes of cross training followed by some body weight exercises for twenty minutes.

I just swam for an hour straight. No breaks. Did my 2k of swimming and felt happy about it. I even managed to make it on time for the 9am meeting, but that was mainly the result of knowing some back roads that avoid traffic jams. Or maybe the traffic was lighter than usual.

Saturday: Nearly Ten Henleys

Nearly Ten Henleys is an online event on Rowsandall. It’s not on the schedule that our head coach writes, but I have already decided to add one session per week if possible. What session is better than 21097 meters of erging?

Saturday morning was spent doing some Rowsandall.com related chores. Answering overdue emails, paying the bills, and so forth. I was also not looking forward to the half marathon and basically hung out on the couch until I couldn’t postpone it any more without compromising my plans for the afternoon.

I did a 5 minute warming up and then I dialed up the 21097m and got going. The plans was to hold 200W initially, then start increasing power, aiming for a nice 203W or better average, as was predicted by Rowsandall.com.

Somehow around the 9 km to go point, the increase the power plan didn’t seem so smart any more. Between that point and the final 2k, I was really struggling. I had to remind myself to row with good posture and to rate up a bit if necessary to keep the splits in the right range. I was sad to see the average power drop back from 203W to 202W and then even, briefly, to 201W. In the final 800 meters I managed to find some energy and rate up to empty the tank.

The cool water tasted deliciously after the row.

I browsed to the workout on Rowsandall.com and did a few quick comparisons with a similar effort a year ago. That effort from December 2017 was the one that caused me to go out so conservatively, because it was a slowing down drama. Turns out 2017 was a few Watts more and under 1:24. I didn’t like that. I liked how easy it was to make these comparison charts:

The final chart shows how I traded Work for Rate when I got tired.

By sanderroosendaal • rowing • 0 • Tags: concept2, ergometer, Half Marathon, OTE, rowing, training

Jan 10 2019

Better than nothing

Wednesday

The weights training was only an hour long but it was intense. Four rounds of a circuit

Bench pull 60x at 50%
Bench press 15x
Leg press 30x
back swing 15x
sit ups 30x
Pull Down 40kg 15x
lunges 25kg 20x each leg
dumbbell pull over 20kg
rope skipping 100x

And that four times. The next day I mostly felt the effect of the lunges, bench pull and pull downs.

Thursday

A long day in the office, followed by having to go to my son’s school with my son to talk to the history teacher about bad marks. I won’t further comment it but it was tiring.

Add to that the above-mentioned DOMS and you can imagine how I did today’s session purely on willpower and mostly to avoid embarrassment.

4x(3min+/1min+/1min)/3min at 22/24/26spm surely couldn’t be too hard, right? Let’s say I took it one stroke at a time and had to work very hard to keep Work per Stroke in the acceptable range. According to below plot I succeeded.

By sanderroosendaal • rowing • 0 • Tags: concept2, ergometer, intervals, OTE, rowing, training

Jan 9 2019

After the Marathon

After the Marathon

I took two days off. A planned rest day on January 1, and an unplanned one on January 2. Too busy.

Thursday – Steady State

First a 56 minute steady state row:

After that I rowed a (pretty slow) 100m for the virtual race The Dash, followed by a 5 minute cooling down. The session goals were met.

Friday – Swim

Nothing special, except for the fact that the pool was full. There were a lot of New Year Resolution swimmers. I guess it will be back to normal by Mid January.

It also seemed a bit like a whale convention in the sense that the body size of the “new” swimmers was quite a bit larger than that of the regular swimmers. Also the usual automatic sorting of lanes by swimming speed didn’t seem to work. A lot of overtaking, and my usual 2k took ten minutes longer than usual.

Saturday – Weights

I used the weights room at the club and including a 10 minute warm up and a 5 minute cool down I did 80 minutes of thorough weights and body weight exercises. Pretty happy with that. Proper bench pull, something my local gym doesn’t offer.

Sunday – 5x1500m on tandem erg

Workout Summary - media/20190106-1506330o.csv --|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg --|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS --|10642|52:30.0|02:28.0|206.6|24.0|158.4|181.0|08.4 W-|07281|27:30.0|01:53.3|242.3|29.4|167.4|181.0|09.0 R-|03366|25:00.0|03:42.8|167.4|18.1|148.6|181.0|04.5 Workout Details #-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS- 00|01492|05:30.0|01:50.6|256.1|28.7|161.8|176.0|09.5 01|01485|05:30.0|01:51.1|256.4|29.9|169.6|178.0|09.0 02|01432|05:30.0|01:55.3|232.3|28.9|167.1|178.0|09.0 03|01435|05:30.0|01:55.0|232.5|29.5|170.1|178.0|08.8 04|01436|05:30.0|01:54.9|234.2|29.9|168.4|181.0|08.7

A weird session. I did this at the club with a group of other Masters rowers. Romana and I had set up two ergs on slides in a tandem configuration, me on stroke seat. I thought I would be able to go faster on the slides than on the static erg, and that’s how I rowed the first two intervals. Then, I paid for that.

Technique wise I think it was a great session. We rowed in front of a mirror and I could watch Romana’s shoulder completely in sync with mine.

Also, rowing on slides is so much more like on the water rowing, and much more gentle on the back than the static erg.

One of our Masters made a quick video of Romana and me on the erg. Technique critique is welcome. This was not part of the intervals session but filmed during the cooling down (although I rated up a bit for the video).

Here’s two of our lady Masters trying out the tandem:

The lady in stroke seat is Lubica who participated in the Barcelona Olympics. Bow lady rowed at the Moscow Olympics, I believe, but I am not 100% sure. I will have to ask her next time.

Monday – Steady UT1/AT session

This is a rowing machine session that gets you working on the border between UT1 and AT power zones. It’s a bit harder than the usual steady state and a good workout that requires focus.

Row 4×10 minutes with 3 minutes rest. The 10 minute intervals are 9 minutes at 22 spm, 1 minute at 24 spm.

Note that I had some difficulties in the fourth interval.

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 0 • Tags: concept2, cross training, erg, intervals, OTE, rowing, steady state, training

Dec 29 2018

More Steady State

Friday

Luckily my calf injury allowed me to row on the erg, so I spent 75 minutes at steady state pace. To make it a bit more exciting, I did rate ladders, starting at 18spm and up by 2 SPM until 22, then down again. I did the first series at 4 minute intervals, then at 3, and finally at 1. That brings you to 75 minutes (including a short warming up before starting the ladders). It makes the time go by faster.

After the row we drove to Pardubice to visit my mother in law.

Saturday

Romana, my brother in law and I went to a gym in Pardubice to row another low stroke rate session. This one was a bit shorter and lighter than the Friday one.

I’m showing only the middle 2x17min minute part, but there was a long warming up and a decent cooling down as well.

In the second 17 minute interval I set the monitor to show the stroke profile and focused on making nice strokes. That was a good focused effort. Happy with the workout.

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 0 • Tags: concept2, erg, ergometer, OTE, rowing, steady state, training

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OTE

To the radio tower

Friday

Saturday

Sunday

Tuesday

Hard Work

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Sprints getting longer at shorter rest

Nearly Ten Henleys

Friday

Saturday: Nearly Ten Henleys

Better than nothing

Wednesday

Thursday

After the Marathon

More Steady State

Calendar

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