OTE

Feb 22 2017

February CTC (10×90″/30″)

Well, that was painful.


Workout Summary - media/20170222-2000230o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|04931|20:00.0|02:01.7|244.4|26.8|170.3|181.0|09.2
W-|04129|15:00.0|01:49.0|274.0|27.9|169.9|181.0|09.9
R-|00813|05:00.0|03:04.6|110.8|22.5|172.9|181.0|02.4
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|00417|01:30.0|01:47.8|268.6|27.8|145.1|163.0|10.0
01|00408|01:30.0|01:50.2|270.8|27.1|162.0|169.0|10.0
02|00407|01:30.0|01:50.7|261.7|26.9|166.9|172.0|10.1
03|00414|01:30.0|01:48.6|268.6|26.9|169.5|173.0|10.3
04|00415|01:30.0|01:48.5|283.5|27.8|171.7|177.0|10.0
05|00414|01:30.0|01:48.6|272.2|27.3|175.2|179.0|10.1
06|00411|01:30.0|01:49.5|273.3|27.0|175.9|180.0|10.2
07|00415|01:30.0|01:48.5|278.9|28.7|176.7|180.0|09.6
08|00415|01:30.0|01:48.6|279.4|29.1|177.5|181.0|09.5
09|00413|01:30.0|01:48.9|282.8|30.2|178.4|181.0|09.1

The training plan called for a 50 minute gentle run. I came home very late and had 4 performance reviews today, one of which was a very tough one.

Also, I wanted to get the CTC out of the way, and with a 2km warming up and a 2km cooling down, it would be a short workout.

Short but painful. I aimed for 1:49 pace. The 30 second “rest” is just enough to make you go harder than if you would row this without breaks, and you pay for it after 3 or 4 intervals.

A bunch of stroke metric plots:

And here is the correlations table:

You can see the strong negative correlation of stroke rate and average/peak force ratio. I would also like to point out the strong positive correlation between Work per Stroke and stroke length. A fact we all know but forget as soon as we sit down on the erg.

Finally, a few cumulative statistics. I am building the map of New Zealand by plotting power vs stroke rate. Stroke Force Ratio is pretty constant across stroke rates. 

You can also see that in the past 10 days I have done a bit more speed work, compared to the past year.

I nearly fainted after completing the workout. This is a real hard one, especially on a day with a few performance reviews.

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myimage (63)

Feb 21 2017

Team workout

Armed with my iphone connection kit and a 30-pin to firelight (or firewire or wirefire, whatever), I took to the rowing club. I want to get into the habit of doing one or two sessions per week with the other Masters rowers. It is good to train with others.

It is also unusual. The erg room is hot and sweaty, not like my gloomy but nicely cool rowing cave. There is other music. But mostly, you are rowing next to other guys and there is the peaking on each other’s PM’s factor.

Today’s training was 3x15min/4min with the 15min at 20spm, but every fifth minute at 24spm. We rowed in sync.


Workout Summary - media/20170221-1825230o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|13178|57:05.0|02:10.0|172.1|17.6|0.0|000.0|13.1
W-|11320|45:00.0|01:59.3|206.8|21.2|000.0|000.0|11.9
R-|01861|12:05.0|03:15.0|001.0|00.1|000.0|000.0|382.8
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|03814|15:00.0|01:58.0|212.5|21.0|000.0|0.0|12.1
01|03759|15:00.0|01:59.7|204.9|21.2|000.0|0.0|11.8
02|03747|15:00.0|02:00.1|203.0|21.3|000.0|0.0|11.7

The plots are a bit weird. I was hesitating if I would add a fourth interval or not. In the end I couldn’t convince Martin (gasping for air) and Tomas to do it, but I did a few strokes into a fourth interval. Painsled didn’t like that really.

I also discovered that the PM3 doesn’t send the cool metrics like drive force and drive length over the USB connection. Messes up the stats.

As I don’t have a Polar heart rate connector, I recorded my heart rate separately on the Garmin Forerunner. Quite high heart rates. I didn’t much like this workout. Too low stroke rate for me.

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empower

Feb 19 2017

Under 7 minutes again – ErgoShow Race Report

What a relief. I prolonged my membership of the sub-7 minutes group yesterday, at the “ErgoShow”.

The ErgoShow was an indoor rowing event. The main part of the event was the Czech Indoor Rowing Championships, but they had fun events around it. For Masters, there was a 1k race in the morning (to which I didn’t participate) and they had University Fours. Four ergs slides connected together, racing over 4 minutes. The sum of the four distance scores is the score of the four. Teams of different universities rowed against each other in this format.

They also had live broadcasting over YouTube and a very good commenter. In the morning, I followed the races from my living room. I ended up cheering to the computer monitor when my daughter Lenka rowed her race.

Just after lunch, one of the other Masters at our club, picked me up in his minivan. A quick round through Brno to pick up the others and we were on our way to Hodonin, a 1 hour drive south of Brno.

The venue was really nice. There was a warming up room with lots of ergs, a separate cooling down room with lots of ergs and bikes, and the main hall with two stages full of ergs. Another nice detail was lots of places where you could refill your water bottle with a sports drink for free.

I made a quick stop at the Concept2/NK booth to pick up some goodies:

Yes – my own Empower Oarlock. Too bad there is still 40cm of ice on our lake.

I also got an iphone connection kit. Unfortunately, I was already too focused on my race, and didn’t check it. At home, I found out that they had given me a connection kit for the iphone 4, which has a different connector than my iphone 5. Well, trainings at the club will remain unconnected for a while.

Concept2 did ask me if I could come around for a chat after the races.

Now it was less than an hour to my scheduled racing time. Time to change clothes and hop on one of the warming up ergs, a model D with a PM3.

After about 6km of Fletcher-like warming up (I can never remember the exact durations and paces, but I think I get it sort of right) it was time to visit the bathroom and some other confused running around. By the time I was done with that, it was 10 minutes to the scheduled time for my race.

A few minutes to get the footstretcher and drag factor set to my favorite settings and do a few strokes to test the erg, and then it was Ready – Attention – ROW! (Actually we did get to do that twice, because someone – not me – caused a false start.)

Again an unconnected row. I just have the Strava heart rate record from my Garmin watch:

On the monitor next to the erg I could see that my little boat was in the back of the pack. I knew this was going to happen and I actually rowed my own race. After the first few starting strokes I found myself at 1:39, with an average of 1:46. I continued conservatively, pulling 1:45/1:46 1:46 with the occasional 1:44 in the first 800m (I was mentally doing 1:46, but there were enough strokes at 1:45). At 1200m to go I switched to “1:45” (i.e. I banned 1:46 strokes). Rowed down to 900 to go, then to 600 to go, at which point I started pulling 1:44. With 300m to go I went all out. There was a guy who was 8m ahead of me. I nearly got him, but in the end he finished 2 seconds earlier.

No drama, really. Even though I wondered whether there was more in the tank, I was glad I paced conservatively. After my 7:09 debacle I wasn’t sure if I was in sub-7 shape. Actually when my competitors asked what I was aiming for, I jokingly answered that I would go for 6 minutes and 60 seconds.

The “quick chat” at the Concept2 booth started with “Why haven’t you told us about your project?” and it turned into a slightly longer, friendly chat. At one point my team mates threatened to leave without me, so I had to stop chatting and jump in the car back to Brno.

Here are the full results in the Masters category. Our Jiri Pfeifer rowed a nice row for a 51 year old (6:23.9). My race was won by Karel Nevrala. He moved to live with his Mix 2x partner, who now also is his girlfriend, and both of them have taken to train very hard. Romana and I beat them in the Mix 2x a couple of time, but she rowed a 6:57.6 yesterday, so she nearly chicked me.

My end time was 6:57.5 (just 1.9 seconds above my Masters PB of 6:55.6). Here are the splits according to the PM:

1st 500 – 1:45.4 – 31SPM

2nd 500 – 1:45.0 – 31 SPM

3rd 500 – 1:44.0 – 31 SPM

4th 500 – 1:43.2 – 33 SPM

Unfortunately, I cannot look at my race on YouTube any more because the Warner Music Group has blocked it for copyright reasons. Yes, there was background music played at the venue!

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bokeh_plot (96)

Feb 17 2017

Sharpening

8km in total. A few 15 stroke bursts and 350m at 2k pace. Pace came easy today. I went slightly faster than my anticipated pace.

Tomorrow: Race day. A 2k erg race in the Masters category.

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myimage (55)

Feb 16 2017

Taper

We have a 2k erg race in two days, so today’s workout was a light one.

3km warming up, 

2x500m / 5min rest at 2k race pace

250m full out

10 km in total 

I changed the 5 minutes rest to 1000m rest to make it easier to row as a “Just Row”.


Workout Summary - media/20170216-1940200o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|10014|42:45.0|02:08.1|188.8|23.4|149.8|179.0|10.0
W-|07204|29:23.0|02:02.4|199.9|23.7|148.4|179.0|10.4
R-|02810|13:22.0|02:22.8|142.7|21.0|149.9|179.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|02950|12:28.1|02:06.8|182.0|22.2|134.0|165.0|10.7
01|00500|01:45.0|01:45.0|303.0|29.3|161.8|175.0|09.7
02|00500|01:44.2|01:44.2|307.4|29.9|169.1|179.0|09.6
03|00250|00:47.0|01:34.0|424.0|36.8|167.3|176.0|08.7
04|03004|12:39.1|02:06.3|174.6|22.8|156.6|163.0|10.4

My pace and stroke rate was all over the place in the first 200m of the first 500m. The entire second 500m was much more regular and consistent. A nice light stroke at 30spm. That’s how I like it. I am not sure about the significance of the 250m, but I think that it is a way to tell the body that serious work is coming soon.

The flex charts. In the final 3km I was rowing a bit shorter than normal. I was very focused on technique, still having the recommendations from my video analysis in mind.

I didn’t train yesterday. I had to travel to Prague to visit the Dutch Embassy to arrange my urgent passport renewal for an upcoming trip to the USA.

During that trip, I received a phone call from our club’s head coach. Our elite rowers have spent a week in Italy. The club borrowed my trailer to get their boats to Prague, from where they traveled to Italy on the National Team’s trailer.

I had instructed the driver to take my trailer back to Brno, and then take it to Prague again to pick up the returned boats. Against my instructions, they had decided it was more efficient to leave my trailer parked in a hangar on the Dukla club, where the national team trains.

During the training camp, Dukla underwent a reconstruction, and they had to move my trailer, which was locked. Instead of pushing it to another place by hand, the Dukla guys decided to break the lock and tow it.

So I have my trailer back with a broken lock. I told our head coach that he has to get it repaired by the original manufacturer of my trailer, and that it is his problem how he gets it paid by the Dukla guys.

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myimage (52)

Feb 14 2017

Short and uninteresting

Training plan says: 2x3500m.

I now have official approval from the coach to make trainings longer/harder as I feel fit. He commented that “one shouldn’t be dogmatic about a training plan, and if you feel you can handle a higher volume or shorter rests, I should go ahead and do it, as long as you stay in the prescribed intensity bands”. But today I didn’t feel like it. The only change I made was shorten the 4 minute rest to a 2 minute one.

The air quality in Brno is really bad today and I felt it. There is an official recommendation to not do any sports and public transport is free today. The issue is related to the winter weather, dusty roads and an inverted air temperature gradient. I believe.

Anyway, it was going to be 2x3500m (after a 2km warming up, and with a 1402m cooling down which would also be a slow Valentine Concept2 Cross Team Challenge entry).


Workout Summary - media/20170214-1956130o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|07377|32:22.0|02:11.6|190.7|21.0|155.9|171.0|10.9
W-|07000|28:20.0|02:01.5|196.0|21.0|157.3|171.0|11.7
R-|00378|04:01.0|05:19.3|132.9|21.3|147.5|171.0|00.1
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|03500|14:11.5|02:01.6|194.0|20.5|151.7|161.0|12.0
01|03500|14:09.4|02:01.3|198.1|21.6|162.9|171.0|11.5

And here are a few other charts:

Heart rate was slightly on the high side. Perhaps because of yesterday’s almost 2k row?

Tomorrow: No training. I have to get to Prague urgently to get my passport renewed for an upcoming trip to the US.

If the Netherlands Embassy stuff goes fast, I may be tempted to pay a visit to this place:

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myimage (49)

Feb 13 2017

Mixed Vegetables – only healthy stuff

A new week, a new email with a training plan. I guess that in the lead-up to the National Indoor Rowing Championships (coming Saturday) this is another light week, because the training plan called for 30 minutes or running.

When I am done with work, it is dark. Too dark to run, especially on snow and ice. So I did it on the erg.

Also, I wanted a confidence builder for Saturday’s race, so I figured that if 30 minutes of steady state is healthy, adding a nice and spicy 1500m at race pace wouldn’t hurt.

Also, I wanted to test a Variable Intervals workout on Painsled. I am working through some Painsled bugs with the developer.

Anyway, here is the summary:


Workout Summary - media/20170213-200557-sled_2017-02-13T19-39-36ZGMT+1.strokes.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|11485|50:41.0|02:12.4|190.4|22.6|153.0|181.0|10.0
W-|11182|46:39.0|02:05.2|187.6|22.2|152.2|181.0|10.9
R-|00304|04:02.0|06:37.9|082.8|20.7|142.2|181.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
00|07182|30:00.0|02:05.3|183.6|20.9|149.6|169.0|11.5
01|00250|00:53.1|01:46.3|292.3|30.5|148.0|168.0|09.3 - 2k test
02|00250|00:52.9|01:45.8|291.3|29.8|172.6|175.0|09.5
03|00250|00:52.5|01:45.1|293.4|29.7|177.7|179.0|09.6
04|00250|00:53.4|01:46.7|301.2|30.3|179.8|181.0|09.3
05|00250|00:52.2|01:44.5|300.3|30.9|180.7|181.0|09.3
06|00250|00:53.0|01:46.1|302.5|30.9|180.8|181.0|09.2 - 2k test 1500 done
07|00250|01:30.4|03:00.9|064.3|19.0|164.5|180.0|08.7 - rest
08|00250|00:50.3|01:40.5|332.1|33.6|165.4|172.0|08.9 - final 250m
09|02000|09:01.9|02:15.5|143.9|21.1|145.2|151.0|10.5

Here are the plots:

Pie charts:

And the flex charts:

I did the first 30 minutes as a Fletcher style warming up, but lightened up on the 18spm bits in anticipation for the 2k.

I paced the 2k in Caviston style: 800m @ 1:46, 600m @ 1:45, and then on to 1:44. Here’s a close up on pace for the 2k:

I stopped with 500m to go. Paddled 250m. Then changed my mind and blasted out a final 250m.

Good enough to build confidence that I should go around 7:00 on Saturday. For the rest of the week I will be a nice boy and stick to the training plan.

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